The Bourne ultimatum (25 page)

“I’ve swept it clean, Doctor, if that’s what you mean.”

“It usually is. ... I want this room sealed. No one’s to enter it after we leave until our mutual friend gives the word.”

“I certainly can’t guarantee that,” said Bourne.

“Then he’ll have to.”

“Why?”

“Your general didn’t commit suicide, no-name. He was murdered.”

“The woman,” said Alex Conklin over the line. “From everything you told me it had to be Swayne’s wife.
Jesus
!”

“It doesn’t change anything, but it looks that way,” agreed Bourne halfheartedly. “She had reason enough to do it, God knows—still, if she did, she didn’t tell Flannagan, and
that
doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. ... Conklin paused, then spoke quickly. “Let me talk to Ivan.”

“Ivan? Your doctor? His name is Ivan?”

“So?”

“Nothing. He’s outside. ... ‘packing the merchandise’ was the way he put it.”

“In his wagon?”

“That’s right. We carried the body—”

“What makes him so sure it
wasn’t
suicide?” broke in Alex.

“Swayne was drugged. He said he’d call you later and explain. He wants to get out of here and no one’s to come into this room after we leave—after I leave—until you give the word for the police. He’ll tell you that, too.”

“Christ, it must be a mess in there.”

“It’s not pretty. What do you want me to do?”

“Pull the curtains, if there are any; check the windows and, if possible, lock the door. If there’s no way to lock it, look around for—”

“I found a set of keys in Swayne’s pocket,” interrupted Jason. “I checked; one of them fits.”

“Good. When you leave, wipe the door down clean. Find some furniture polish or a dusting spray.”

“That’s not going to keep out anyone who wants to get in.”

“No, but if someone does, we might pick up a print.”

“You’re reaching—”

“I certainly am,” concurred the former intelligence officer. “I’ve also got to figure out a way to seal up the whole place without using anybody from Langley,
and
, not incidentally, keep the Pentagon at bay just in case someone among those twenty-odd thousand people wants to reach Swayne, and that includes his office and probably a couple of hundred buyers and sellers
a day
in procurements.... Christ, it’s
impossible
!”

“It’s perfect,” contradicted Bourne as Dr. Ivan Jax suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Our little game of destabilization will start right here on the ‘farm.’ Do you have Cactus’s number?”

“Not with me. I think it’s probably in a shoebox at home.”

“Call Mo Panov, he’s got it. Then reach Cactus and tell him to get to a pay phone and call me here.”

“What the hell have you got in mind? I hear that old man’s name, I get nervous.”

“You told me I had to find someone else to trust besides you. I just did. Reach him, Alex.” Jason hung up the telephone. “I’m sorry, Doctor ... or maybe under the circumstances I can use your name. Hello, Ivan.”

“Hello,
no
-name, which is the way I’d like to keep it on my end. Especially when I just heard you say another name.”

“Alex? ... No, of course it wasn’t Alex, not our mutual friend.” Bourne laughed quietly, knowingly, as he walked away from the desk. “It was Cactus, wasn’t it?”

“I just came in to ask you if you wanted me to close the gates,” said Jax, bypassing the question.

“Would you be offended if I told you that I didn’t think of him until I saw you just now?”

“Certain associations are fairly obvious. The gates, please?”

“Do you owe Cactus as much as I do, Doctor?” Jason held his place, looking at the Jamaican.

“I owe him so much that I could never think of compromising him in a situation like tonight. For God’s sake, he’s an old man, and no matter what deviant conclusions Langley wants to come up with, tonight was
murder
, a particularly brutal killing. No, I wouldn’t involve him.”

“You’re not me. You see, I have to. He’d never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

“Please close the gates, Doctor. There’s an alarm panel in the hallway I can activate when they’re shut.”

Jax hesitated, as if unsure of what he wanted to say. “Listen,” he began haltingly, “most sane people have reasons for saying things—doing things. My guess is you’re sane. Call Alex if you need me—if old Cactus needs me.” The doctor left, rushing out the door.

Bourne turned and glanced around the room. Since Flannagan and Rachel Swayne had left nearly three hours ago, he had searched every foot of the general’s study, as well as the dead soldier’s separate bedroom on the second floor. He had placed the items he intended to take on the brass coffee table; he studied them now. There were three brown leather-bound covers, each equal in size, each holding inserted spiral-bound pages; they were a desk set. The first was an appointments calendar; the second, a personal telephone book in which the names and numbers were entered in ink; the last was an expense diary, barely touched. Along with these were eleven office messages of the telephone notepad variety, which Jason found in Swayne’s pockets, a golf-club scorecard and several memoranda written at the Pentagon. Finally, there was the general’s wallet containing a profusion of impressive credentials and very little money. Bourne would turn everything over to Alex and hope further leads would be found, but as far as he could determine, he had turned up nothing startling, nothing dramatically relevant to the modern Medusa. And that bothered him; there had to be
something
. This was the old soldier’s home, his sanctum sanctorum inside that home—something! He knew it, he felt it, but he could not find it. So he started again, not foot by foot now; instead, inch by inch.

Fourteen minutes later, as he was removing and turning over the photographs on the wall behind the desk, the wall to the right of the cushioned bay window that overlooked the lawn outside, he recalled Conklin’s words about checking the windows and the curtains so that no one could enter or observe the scene inside.

Christ, it must be a mess in there.

It’s not very pleasant.

It wasn’t. The panes of the central bay window frame were splattered with blood and membrane. And the ... the small brass
latch
? Not only was it free from its catch, the window itself was open—barely open, but nevertheless it
was open
. Bourne knelt on the cushioned seat and looked closely at the shiny brass fixture and the surrounding panes of glass. There were smudges among the rivulets of dried blood and tissue, coarse pressings on the stains that appeared to widen and thin them out into irregular shapes. Then below the sill he saw what kept the window from closing. The end of the left drape had been drawn out, a small piece of its tasseled fabric wedged beneath the lower window frame. Jason stepped back bewildered but not really surprised. This was what he had been looking for, the missing piece in the complex puzzle that was the death of Norman Swayne.

Someone had climbed out that window
after
the shot that blew the general’s skull apart. Someone who could not risk being seen going through the front hall or out, the front door. Someone who knew the house and the grounds ... and the dogs. A brutal killer from Medusa.
Goddamn
it!

Who
? Who had been here? Flannagan ... Swayne’s wife! They would know, they
had
to know! Bourne lurched for the telephone on the desk; it began ringing before his hand touched it.

“
Alex
?”

“No, Br’er Rabbit, it’s just an old friend, and I didn’t realize we were so free with names.”

“We’re not, we shouldn’t be,” said Jason rapidly, imposing a control on himself he could barely exercise. “Something happened a moment ago—I found something.”

“Calm down, boy. What can I do for you?”

“I need you—out here where I am. Are you free?”

“Well, let’s see.” Cactus chuckled as he spoke. “There are several board meetings I should rightfully attend, and the White House wants me for a power breakfast. ... When and where, Br’er Rabbit?”

“Not alone, old friend. I want three or four others with you. Is that possible?”

“I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”

“That fellow who drove me into town after I saw you. Are there any other like-minded citizens in the neighborhood?”

“Most are doin’ time, frankly, but I suppose I could dig around the refuse and pull up a few. What for?”

“Guard duty. It’s pretty simple really. You’ll be on the phone and they’ll be behind locked gates telling people that it’s private property, that visitors aren’t welcome. Especially a few honkies probably in limousines.”

“Now, that might appeal to the brothers.”

“Call me back and I’ll give you directions.” Bourne disconnected the line and immediately released the bar for a dial tone. He touched the numbers for Conklin’s phone in Vienna.

“Yes?” answered Alex.

“The doctor was right and I let our Snake Lady executioner get away!”

“Swayne’s wife, you mean?”

“No, but she and her fast-talking sergeant know who it was—they had to know who was
here
! Pick them up and hold them. They lied to me, so the deal’s off. Whoever staged this gruesome ‘suicide’ had orders from high up in Medusa. I want him. He’s our shortcut.”

“He’s also beyond our reach.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Because the sergeant and his paramour are beyond our reach. They’ve disappeared.”

“That’s crazy! If I know Saint Alex, and I do, you’ve had them covered since they left here.”

“Electronically, not physically. Remember, you insisted we keep Langley and Peter Holland away from Medusa.”

“What did you do?”

“I sent out a full-toned alert to the central reservations computers of all international airline carriers. As of eight-twenty this evening our subjects had seats on Pan Am’s ten o’clock flight to London—”

“
London
?” broke in Jason. “They were heading the other way, to the Pacific. To Hawaii!”

“That’s probably where they’re going because they never showed up at Pan Am. Who knows?”

“Damn it,
you
should!”

“How? Two United States citizens flying to Hawaii don’t have to present passports to enter our fiftieth state. A driver’s license or a voter’s registration card will do. You told me that they’ve been considering this move for quite a while. How difficult would it be for a master sergeant with over thirty years’ service to get a couple of driver’s licenses using different names?”

“But
why
?”

“To throw off people looking for them—like us, or maybe a few Medusans, very high up.”

“
Shit
!”

“Would you care to talk less in the vulgate, Professor? It was the ‘vulgate,’ wasn’t it?”

“Shut up, I’ve got to think.”

“Then think about the fact that we’re up to our asses in the Arctic without a heater. It’s time for Peter Holland. We need him. We need Langley.”

“No, not
yet
! You’re forgetting something. Holland took an oath, and everything we know about him says he took it seriously. He may bend a rule now and then, but if he’s faced with a Medusa, with hundreds of millions out of Geneva buying up whatever they’re buying up in Europe, he may say, ‘Halt, that’s enough!’ ”

“That’s a risk we have to take. We
need
him, David.”

“
Not
David,
goddamn
you! I’m Bourne, Jason Bourne,
your
creation, and I’m owed! My family is owed! I won’t have it any other way!”

“And you’ll kill me if I go against you.”

Silence. Neither spoke until Delta One of Saigon’s Medusa broke the pause. “Yes, Alex, I’ll kill you. Not because you tried to kill me in Paris, but for the same blind assumptions you made back then that led to your decision to come after me. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” replied Conklin, his voice so low it was barely audible. “The arrogance of ignorance, it’s your favorite Washington theme; you always make it sound so Oriental. But somewhere along the line you’re going to have to be a little less arrogant yourself. There’s only so much we can do alone.”

“On the other hand, there’s so much that can be loused up if we’re
not
alone. Look at the progress we’ve made. From zero to double digits in how long—forty-eight, seventy-two hours? Give me the two days, Alex,
please
. We’re closing in on what this whole thing’s about, what
Medusa’s
all about. One breakthrough, and we present them with the perfect solution to get rid of me. The Jackal.”

“I’ll do the best I can. Did Cactus reach you?”

“Yes. He’ll call me back and then come out here. I’ll explain later.”

“I should tell you. He and our doctor are friends.”

“I know. Ivan told me. ... Alex, I want to get some things over to you—Swayne’s telephone book, his wallet, appointments schedule, stuff like that. I’ll wrap it all up and have one of Cactus’s boys deliver the package to your place, to the security gate. Put everything into your high tech and see what you can find.”

“Cactus’s boys? What are you doing?”

“Taking an item off your agenda. I’m sealing this place up. Nobody’ll be able to get in, but we’ll see who tries.”

“That could be interesting. The kennel people are coming for the dogs around seven in the morning, incidentally, so don’t make the seals too tight.”

“Which reminds me,” interrupted Jason. “Be official again and call the guards on the other shifts. Their services are no longer required, but each will receive a month’s pay by mail in lieu of notice.”

“Who the hell’s going to pay it? There’s no Langley, remember? No Peter Holland and I’m not independently wealthy.”

“I am. I’ll phone my bank in Maine and have them Fed Ex you a cashier’s check. Ask your friend Casset to pick it up at your apartment in the morning.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” said Conklin slowly, pensively. “I forgot about your money. I never think about it, actually. I guess I’ve blocked it out of my mind.”

“That’s possible,” added Bourne, a trace of lightness in his voice. “The official part of you may have visions of some bureaucrat coming up to Marie and saying, ‘By the way, Mrs. Webb or Bourne or whoever you are, while you were in the employ of the Canadian government you made off with over five million dollars belonging to mine.’ ”