The Bourne Ultimatum

by Robert Ludlum

  The information was at first … well, merely a name … a rather common name. His name is Webb, the caller had said. Thank you, he had replied. A sketchy description was given, one fitting several million men, so he had thanked the informer again and hung up the phone. But then, in the recesses of his analyst’s mind, by profession and training a warehouse for both essential and incidental data, an alarm went off. Webb, Webb … amnesia? A clinic in Virginia years ago. A man more dead than alive had been flown down from a hospital in New York, the medical file so maximum classified it could not even be shown to the Oval Office. Yet interrogation specialists talk in dark corners, as often to relieve frustration as to impress a listener, and he had heard about a recalcitrant, unmanageable patient, an amnesiac they called “Davey” and sometimes just a short, sharp, hostile “Webb,” formerly a member of Saigon’s infamous Medusa, and a man they suspected of feigning his loss of memory.… Loss of memory? Alex Conklin had told them that the Medusan they had trained to go out in deep cover for Carlos the Jackal, an agent provocateur they called Jason Bourne, had lost his memory. Lost his memory and nearly lost his life because his controls disbelieved the story of amnesia! That was the man they called “Davey” … David. David Webb was Conklin’s Jason Bourne! How could it be otherwise?

  David Webb! And he had been at Norman Swayne’s house the night the Agency was told that poor cuckolded Swayne had taken his own life, a suicide that had not been reported in the papers for reasons DeSole could not possibly understand! David Webb. The old Medusa. Jason Bourne. Conklin. Why?

  The headlights of an approaching limousine shot through the darkness at the far end of the parking lot, swerving in a semicircle toward the CIA analyst, causing him to shut his eyes—the refracted light through his thick lenses was painful. He had to make the sequence of his revelations clear to these men. They were his means to a life he and his wife had dreamed of—money. Not bureaucratic less-than-money, but real money. Education at the best universities for their grandchildren, not the state colleges and the begged-for scholarships that came with the government salary of a bureaucrat—a bureaucrat so much better than those around him it was pitiful. DeSole the Mute Mole, they called him, but would not pay him for his expertise, the very expertise that prohibited him from going into the private sector, surrounding him with so many legal restrictions that it was pointless to apply. Someday Washington would learn; that day would not come in his lifetime, so six grandchildren had made the decision for him. The empathetic new Medusa had beckoned with generosity, and in his bitterness he had come running.

  He rationalized that it was no more an unethical decision on his part than those made every year by scores of Pentagon personnel who walked out of Arlington and into the corporate arms of their old friends the defense contractors. As an army colonel once said to him, “It’s work now and get paid later,” and God knew that one Steven DeSole worked like hell for his country, but his country hardly reciprocated in kind. He hated the name Medusa, though, and rarely if ever used it because it was a symbol from another time, ominous and misleading. The great oil companies and railroads sprang from the chicanery and the venality of the robber barons, but they were not now what they were then. Medusa may have been born in the corruption of a war-ravaged Saigon, its early funding may have been a result of it, but that Medusa no longer existed; it had been replaced by a dozen different names and companies.

  “We’re not pure, Mr. DeSole, no American-controlled international conglomerate is,” said his recruiter, “and it’s true that we seek what some might call unfair economic advantage based on privileged information. Secrets, if you like. You see, we have to because our competitors throughout Europe and the Far East consistently have it. The difference between them and us is that their governments support their efforts—ours doesn’t.… Trade, Mr. DeSole, trade and profits. They’re the healthiest pursuits on earth. Chrysler may not like Toyota, but the astute Mr. Iacocca does not call for an air strike against Tokyo. At least not yet. He finds ways to join forces with the Japanese.”

  Yes, mused DeSole as the limousine came to a stop ten feet away from him. What he did for the “corporation,” which he preferred to call it, as opposed to what he did for the Company, might even be considered benevolent. Profits, after all, were more desirable than bombs … and his grandchildren would go to the finest schools and universities in the country. Two men got out of the limousine and approached him.

  “What’s this Webb look like?” asked Albert Armbruster, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, as they walked along the edge of the parking lot.

  “I only have a description from the gardener, who was hiding behind a fence thirty feet away.”

  “What did he tell you?” The unidentified associate of the chairman, a short stocky man with penetrating dark eyes and dark eyebrows beneath dark hair, looked at DeSole. “Be precise,” he added.

  “Now, just a minute,” protested the analyst defensively but firmly. “I’m precise in everything I say, and, frankly, whoever you are, I don’t like the tone of your voice one bit.”

  “He’s upset,” said Armbruster, as if his associate was dismissible. “He’s a spaghetti head from New York and doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “Who’s to trust in New Yawk?” asked the short, dark man, laughing and poking his elbow into the wide girth of Albert Armbruster. “You WASPs are the worst, you got the banks, amico!”

  “Let’s keep it that way and out of the courts.… The description, please?” The chairman looked at DeSole.

  “It’s incomplete, but there is a long-ago tie-in with Medusa that I’ll describe—precisely.”

  “Go ahead, pal,” said the man from New York.

  “He’s rather large—tall, that is—and in his late forties or early fifties and—”

  “Has he got some gray around his temples?” asked Armbruster, interrupting.

  “Well, yes, I think the gardener said something to that effect—graying, or gray in his hair, or something like that. It’s obviously why he judged him to be in his forties or fifties.”

  “It’s Simon,” said Armbruster, looking at the New Yorker.

  “Who?” DeSole stopped, as the other two stopped and looked at him.

  “He called himself Simon, and he knew all about you, Mr. CIA,” said the chairman. “About you and Brussels and our whole thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “For starters, your goddamn fax machine exclusively between you and that fruitcake in Brussels.”

  “It’s a buried, dedicated line! It’s locked up!”

  “Someone found the key, Mr. Precision,” said the New Yorker, not smiling.

  “Oh, my God, that’s terrible! What should I do?”

  “Make up a story between you and Teagarten, but do it from public phones,” continued the mafioso. “One of you will come up with something.”

  “You know about … Brussels?”

  “There’s very little I don’t know.”

  “That son of a bitch conned me into thinking he was one of us and he had me by the balls!” said Armbruster angrily, continuing to walk along the edge of the parking lot, the other two joining him, DeSole hesitantly, apprehensively. “He seemed to know everything, but when I think back, he only brought up bits and pieces—damned big bits and pieces like Burton and you and Brussels—and I, like a fucking idiot, filled in a hell of a lot more. Shit!”

  “Now, just wait a minute!” cried the CIA analyst, once again forcing the others to stop. “I don’t understand—I’m a strategist, and I don’t understand. What was David Webb—Jason Bourne, if he is Jason Bourne—doing at Swayne’s place the other night?”

  “Who the hell is Jason Bourne?” roared the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.

  “He’s the tie-in with Saigon’s Medusa that I just mentioned. Thirteen years ago the Agency gave him the name Jason Bourne, the original Bourne a dead man by then, and sent him out in deep cover on a Four Zero assignment—a termination with e
xtreme prejudice, if you like—”

  “A hit, if you want to speak English, paisan.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s what it was.… But things went wrong; he had a loss of memory and the operation collapsed. It collapsed, but he survived.”

  “Holy Christ, what a bunch of zucchinis!”

  “What can you tell us about this Webb … or Bourne—this Simon or the ‘Cobra’? Jesus, he’s a walking vaudeville act!”

  “Apparently that’s what he did before. He assumed different names, different appearances, different personalities. He was trained to do that when he was sent out to challenge the assassin called the Jackal—to draw him out and kill him.”

  “The Jackal?” asked the astonished capo supremo of the Cosa Nostra. “Like in the movie?”

  “No, not the movie or the book, you idiot—”

  “Hey, easy, amico.”

  “Oh, shut up.… Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, otherwise known as Carlos the Jackal, is a living person, a professional killer the international authorities have been hunting for over a quarter of a century. Outside of scores of confirmed hits, many think he was the puff of smoke on the grassy knoll in Dallas, the true killer of John Kennedy.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “I can assure you, I am not shitting you. The word we got at the Agency at the highest secure levels was that after all these years Carlos had tracked down the only man alive who could identify him, Jason Bourne—or, as I’m firmly convinced, David Webb.”

  “That word had to come from somebody!” exploded Albert Armbruster. “Who was it?”

  “Oh, yes. Everything’s so sudden, so bewildering.… He’s a retired field agent with a crippled leg, a man named Conklin, Alexander Conklin. He and a psychiatrist—Panov, Morris Panov—are close friends of Webb … or Jason Bourne.”

  “Where are they?” asked the capo supremo grimly.

  “Oh, you couldn’t reach either one, talk to either of them. They’re both under maximum security.”

  “I didn’t ask for the rules of engagement, paisan, I asked where they were.”

  “Well, Conklin’s at a condominium in Vienna, a proprietary of ours no one could penetrate, and Panov’s apartment and office are both under round-the-clock surveillance.”

  “You’ll give me the addresses, won’t you?”

  “Certainly, but I guarantee they won’t talk to you.”

  “Oh, that would be a pity. We’re just looking for a guy with a dozen names, asking questions, offering assistance.”

  “They won’t buy it.”

  “Maybe I can sell it.”

  “Goddamn it, why?” spouted Armbruster, then immediately lowered his voice. “Why was this Webb or Bourne or whoever the hell he is at Swayne’s?”

  “It’s a gap I can’t fill,” said DeSole.

  “A what?”

  “That’s an Agency term for no answer.”

  “No wonder the country’s up shit’s creek.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Now you shut up!” ordered the man from New York, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small notepad and a ballpoint pen. “Write out the addresses of this retired spook and the yid shrink. Now!”

  “It’s difficult to see,” said DeSole, writing, angling the small pad of paper toward the neon lights of the closed gas station. “There. The apartment number may be wrong but it’s close, and Panov’s name will be on the mailbox. But I tell you again, he won’t talk to you.”

  “Then we’ll just have to apologize for interrupting him.”

  “Yes, you probably will. I gather he’s very dedicated where his patients are concerned.”

  “Oh? Like that telephone line into your fax machine.”

  “No, no, that’s a technical term. Number Three wire, to be precise.”

  “And you’re always precise, aren’t you, paisan?”

  “And you’re very irritating—”

  “We’ve got to go,” broke in Armbruster, watching the New Yorker take back the pad and the ballpoint pen. “Stay calm, Steven,” he added, obviously suppressing his anger and heading back to the limousine. “Remember, there’s nothing we can’t handle. When you talk to Jimmy T in Brussels, see if you two can come up with a reasonable explanation, okay? If not, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out upstairs.”

  “Of course, Mr. Armbruster. But if I may ask? Is my account in Bern ready for immediate release—in case … well, you understand … in case—”

  “Of course it is, Steven. All you have to do is fly over and write out the numbers of your account in your own handwriting. That’s your signature, the one on file, remember?”

  “Yes, yes, I do.”

  “It must be over two million by now.”

  “Thank you. Thank you … sir.”

  “You’ve earned it, Steven. Good night.”

  The two men settled back in the rear seat of the limousine, but there was no lack of tension. Armbruster glanced at the mafioso as the chauffeur, beyond the glass partition, turned on the ignition. “Where’s the other car?”

  The Italian switched on the reading light and looked at his watch. “By now he’s parked less than a mile down the road from the gas station. He’ll pick up DeSole on his way back and stay with him until the circumstances are right.”

  “Your man knows exactly what to do?”

  “Come on, a virgin he’s not. He’s got a searchlight mounted on that car so powerful it can be seen in Miami. He comes alongside, switches it on high, and wiggles the handle. Your two-million-dollar flunky is blinded and out of business, and we’re only charging a quarter of that amount for the job. It’s your day, Alby.”

  The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission sat back in the shadows of the left rear seat and stared out the window at the dark, rushing images beyond the smoked glass. “You know,” he said quietly, “if anyone had ever told me twenty years ago that I’d be sitting in this car with someone like you, saying what I’m saying, I would’ve told him it was impossible.”

  “Oh, that’s what we like about you class-act characters. You look down your noses and drip your snot on us until you need us. Then all of a sudden we’re ‘associates.’ Live and be well, Alby, we’re eliminating another problem for you. Go back to your big federal commission and decide which companies are clean and which aren’t—decisions not necessarily based on soap, right?”

  “Shut up!” roared Armbruster, pounding his hand on the armrest. “This Simon—this Webb! Where’s he coming from? What’s he on our case for? What’s he want?”

  “Something to do with that Jackal character maybe.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. We don’t have anything to do with the Jackal.”

  “Why should you?” asked the mafioso, grinning. “You got us, right?”

  “It’s a very loose association and don’t you forget it.… Webb—Simon, goddamn it, whoever he is, we’ve got to find him! With what he already knew, plus what I told him, he’s a fucking menace!”

  “He’s a real major item, isn’t he?”

  “A major item,” agreed the chairman, again staring out the window, his right fist clenched, the fingers of his left hand drumming furiously on the armrest.

  “You want to negotiate?”

  “What?” snapped Armbruster, turning and looking at the calm Sicilian face of his companion.

  “You heard me, only I used the wrong word and I apologize for that. I’ll give you a nonnegotiable figure and you can either accept it or reject it.”

  “A … contract? On Simon—Webb?”

  “No,” replied the mafioso, slowly shaking his head. “On a character named Jason Bourne. It’s cleaner to kill someone who’s already dead, isn’t it?… Since we just saved you one and a half mill, the price of the contract is five.”

  “Five million?”

  “The cost of eliminating problems in the category of major items is high. Menaces are even higher. Five million, Alby, half on acceptance within the usual twenty-four hours.”
r />   “That’s outrageous!”

  “Then turn me down. You come back, it’s seven-fifty; and if you come back again, it’s double that. Fifteen million.”

  “What guarantee do we have that you can even find him? You heard DeSole. He’s Four Zero, which means he’s out of reach, buried.”

  “Oh, we’ll dig him up just so we can replant him.”

  “How? Two and a half million is a lot to pay on your word. How?”

  Again smiling, the Mafia supremo reached into his pocket and pulled out the small notebook Steven DeSole had returned to him. “Close friends are the best sources, Alby. Ask the sleazes who write all those gossip books. I got two addresses.”

  “You won’t get near them.”

  “Hey, come on. You think you’re dealing with old Chicago and the animals? With Mad Dog Capone and Nitti, the nervous finger. We got sophisticated people on the payroll these days. Geniuses. Scientists, electronics whiz kids—doctors. By the time we get finished with the spook and the yid, they won’t know what happened. But we’ll have Jason Bourne, the character who doesn’t exist because he’s already dead.”

  Albert Armbruster nodded once and turned to the window in silence.

  “I’ll close up for six months, change the name, then start a promotional campaign in the magazines before reopening,” said John St. Jacques, standing by the window as the doctor worked on his brother-in-law.

  “There’s no one left?” asked Bourne, wincing as he sat in a chair dressed in a bathrobe, the last suture on his neck being pincered.

  “Sure, there is. Seven crazy Canadian couples, including my old buddy, who’s needlepointing your throat at the moment. Would you believe they wanted to start up a brigade, Renfrews of the Mounties, after the evil people.”

  “That was Scotty’s idea,” interrupted the doctor softly, concentrating on the wound. “Count me out. I’m too old.”

  “So’s he but he doesn’t know it. Then he wanted to advertise a reward to the tune of a hundred thousand for information leading to the et cetera! I finally convinced him that the less said the better.”

  “Nothing said is the best,” added Jason. “That’s the way it’s got to be.”