The Bourne ultimatum (47 page)

“Closer, I think.”

“Thanks, I need that. ... The illustrious commander of NATO is assassinated with said ‘Jason Bourne’ taking credit for the kill, and we don’t say a goddamned thing to anybody!
Jesus
, I’ll be cleaning latrines on a tugboat!”

“But he didn’t kill him.”

“You know that and
I
know that, but speaking of his history, there’s a little matter of mental illness that’ll come out the minute our clinical records are subpoenaed.”

“It’s called amnesia; it has nothing to do with violence.”

“Hell, no, it’s worse. He can’t remember what he did.”

Conklin gripped his cane, his wandering eyes intense. “I don’t give a goddamn what everything appears to be, there’s a gap. Every instinct I have tells me Teagarten’s assassination is tied to
Medusa
. Somehow, somewhere, the wires crossed; a message was intercepted and a hell of a diversion was put in a game plan.”

“I believe I speak and understand English as well as you do,” said Holland, “but right now I can’t follow you.”

“There’s nothing to follow, no arithmetic, no line of progression. I simply don’t know. ... But Medusa’s there.”

“With your testimony, I can pull in Burton on the Joint Chiefs, and certainly Atkinson in London.”

“No, leave them alone. Watch them, but don’t sink their dinghies, Admiral. Like Swayne’s ‘retreat,’ the bees will flock to the honey sooner or later.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

“What I said when I came in here. Do nothing; it’s the waiting game.” Alex suddenly slammed his cane against the table. “Son of a bitch, it’s
Medusa
. It
has
to be!”

The hairless old man with a wrinkled face struggled to his feet in a pew of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Neuilly-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris. Step by difficult step he made his painful way to the second confessional booth on the left. He pulled back the black curtain and knelt in front of the black latticework covered with black cloth, his legs in agony.

“
Angelus domini
, child of God,” said the voice from behind the screen. “Are you well?”

“Far better for your generosity, monseigneur.”

“That pleases me, but I must be pleased more than that, as you know. ... What
happened
in Anderlecht? What does my beloved and well-endowed army
tell
me? Who has
presumed
?”

“We have dispersed and worked for the past eight hours, monseigneur. As near as we can determine, two men flew over from the United States—it is assumed so, for they spoke only American English—and took a room in a
pension de famille
across the street from the restaurant. They left the premises within minutes after the assault.”

“A frequency-detonated explosive!”

“Apparently, monseigneur. We have learned nothing else.”

“But why?
Why
?”

“We cannot see into men’s minds, monseigneur.”

Across the Atlantic Ocean, in an opulent apartment in Brooklyn Heights with the lights of the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge seductively pulsating beyond the windows, a capo supremo lounged in an overstuffed couch, a glass of Perrier in his hand. He spoke to his friend sitting across from him in an armchair, drinking a gin and tonic. The young man was slender, dark-haired and striking.

“You know, Frankie, I’m not just bright, I’m brilliant, you know what I mean? I pick up on nuances—that’s hints of what could be important and what couldn’t—and I got a hell of sense. I hear a spook
paisan
talk about things and I put four and four together and instead of eight, I get twelve.
Bingo
! It’s the answer. There’s this cat who calls himself ‘Bourne,’ a creep who makes like he’s a major hit man but who isn’t—he’s a lousy
esca
, bait to pull in someone else, but
he’s
the hot cannoli
we
want, see? Then the Jew shrink, being very under the weather, spits out everything I need. This cannoli’s got only half a head, a
testa balzana
, a lot of the time he don’t know who he is, or maybe what he does, right?”

“That’s right, Lou.”

“And there this Bourne is in Paris, France, a couple of blocks away from a real big impediment, a fancy general the quiet boys across the river want taken out, like the two fatsoes already planted.
Capisce
?”

“I
capisco
, Lou,” said the clean-cut young man from the chair. “You’re real intelligent.”

“You don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, you
zabaglione
. I could be talking to myself, so why not? ... So I get my twelve and I figure let’s slam the loaded dice right into the felt,
see
?”

“I see, Lou.”

“We got to eliminate this asshole general because he’s the impediment to the fancy crowd who needs us, right?”

“Right on, Lou. An imped—an im
ped
—”

“Don’t bother,
zabaglione
. So I say to myself, let’s blow him away and say the hot cannoli did it,
got
it?”

“Oh, yeah, Lou. You’re
real
intelligent.”

“So we get rid of the impediment and put the cannoli, this Jason Bourne, who’s not all there, in everybody’s gun sights, right? If we don’t get him, and this Jackal don’t get him, the federals will,
right
?”

“Hey, that’s terrific, Lou. I gotta say it, I really respect you.”

“Forget respect,
bello ragazzo
. The rules are different in this house. Come on over and make good love to me.”

The young man got up from the chair and walked over to the couch.

Marie sat in the back of the plane drinking coffee from a plastic cup, trying desperately to recall every place—every hiding and resting place—she and David had used thirteen years ago. There were the rock-bottom cafés in Montparnasse, the cheap hotels as well; and a motel—where was it?—ten miles outside of Paris, and an inn with a balcony in Argenteuil where David—
Jason
—first told her he loved her but could not stay with her because he loved her—the goddamned ass! And there was the Sacré-Coeur, far up on the steps where Jason—
David
—met the man in a dark alley who gave them the information they needed—what was it, who
was
he?

“
Mesdames et messieurs
,” came the voice over the flight deck’s loudspeaker. “
Jesuis votre capitaine. Bienvenu
. “The pilot continued first in French, then he and his crew repeated the in formation in English, German, Italian and, finally with a female interpreter, in Japanese. “We anticipate a very smooth flight to Marseilles. Our estimated flight time is seven hours and fourteen minutes, landing on or before schedule at six o’clock in the morning, Paris time. Enjoy.”

The moonlight outside bathed the ocean below as Marie St. Jacques Webb looked out the window. She had flown to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and taken the night flight to Marseilles, where French immigration was at best a mass of confusion and at worst intentionally lax. At least that was the way it was thirteen years ago, a time she was reentering. She would then take a domestic flight to Paris and she would find him. As she had done thirteen years ago, she
would find
him. She had to! As it had been thirteen years ago, if she did not, the man she loved was a dead man.

Morris Panov sat listlessly in a chair by a window looking out over the pasture of a farm somewhere, he assumed, in Maryland. He was in a small second-floor bedroom dressed in a hospital nightshirt, his bare right arm confirming the story he knew only too well. He had been drugged repeatedly, taken up to the moon, in the parlance of those who usually administered such narcotics. He had been mentally raped, his mind penetrated, violated, his innermost thoughts and secrets brought chemically to the surface and exposed.

The damage he had done was incalculable, he understood that; what he did not understand was why he was still alive. Even more perplexing was why he was being treated so deferentially. Why was his guard with the foolish black mask so courteous, the food plentiful and decent? It was as if the present imperative of his captivity was to restore his strength—profoundly sapped by the drugs—and make him as comfortable as possible under the extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Why
?

The door opened and his masked guard walked in, a short heavyset man with a rasping voice Panov placed somewhere in the northeastern United States or possibly Chicago. In another situation he might have appeared comic, his large head too massive for the asinine Lone Ranger eye-covering, which would certainly not impede instant identification. However, in the current state of affairs, he was not comic at all; his obsequiousness was in itself menacing. Over his left arm were the psychiatrist’s clothes.

“Okay, Doc, you gotta get dressed. I made sure everything was cleaned and pressed, even the undershorts. How about that?”

“You mean you have your own laundry and dry cleaners out here?”

“Fuck no, we take ’em over to—
Oh
, no, you don’t get me
that
way, Doc!” The guard grinned with slightly yellowed teeth. “Pretty smart, huh? You figure I’ll tell you where we are, huh?”

“I was simply curious.”

“Yeah, sure. Like I got a nephew, my sister’s kid, who’s always ‘simply curious,’ askin’ me questions I don’t wanna answer. Like, ‘Hey, Unc, how’d you put me through medical school, huh?’
Yeah
! He’s a
doctor
, like
you
, what do you think of
that
?”

“I’d say his mother’s brother is a very generous person.”

“Yeah, well, wadda you gonna do, huh? ... Come on, put on the threads, Doc, we’re going on a little trip.” The guard handed Mo his clothes.

“I suppose it would be foolish to ask where,” said Panov, getting out of the chair, removing his hospital nightshirt and putting on his shorts.

“Very foolish.”

“I hope not as foolish as your nephew not telling you about a symptom you have that I’d find somewhat alarming if I were you.” Mo casually pulled up his trousers.

“Wadda you talkin’?”

“Perhaps nothing,” replied Panov, putting on his shirt and sitting down to pull up his socks. “When did you last see your nephew?”

“A couple of weeks ago. I put in some bread to cover his insurance. Shit, those mothers are
bleeders
! ... Wadda you mean when did I last see the prick?”

“I just wondered if he said anything to you.”

“About
what
?”

“About your mouth.” Mo laced his shoes and gestured with his head. “There’s a mirror over the bureau, go take a look.”

“At what?” The capo subordinato walked quickly to the mirror.

“Smile.”

“At
what
?”

“Yourself. ... See the yellow on your teeth, the fading red of your gums and how the gums recede the higher they go?”

“So? They always been like that—”

“It might be. nothing, but he should have spotted it.”

“Spotted
what
, for Christ’s sake?”

“Oral ameloblastoma. Possibly.”

“What the hell is
that
? I don’t brush too good and I don’t like dentists. They’re butchers!”

“You mean you haven’t seen a dentist or an oral surgeon in quite a while?”

“So?” The capo bared his teeth again in front of the mirror.

“That could explain why your nephew didn’t say anything.”

“Why?”

“He probably figures you have regular dental checkups, so let those people explain it to you.” Shoes tied, Panov stood up.

“I don’t getcha.”

“Well, he’s grateful for everything you’ve done for him, appreciative of your generosity. I can understand why he’d hesitate telling you.”

“Telling me
what
?” The guard spun away from the mirror.

“I could be wrong but you really ought to see a periodontist.” Mo put on his jacket. “I’m ready,” he said. “What do we do now?”

The capo subordinato, his eyes squinting, his forehead creased in ignorance and suspicion, reached into his pocket and pulled out a large black kerchief. “Sorry, Doc, but I gotta blindfold you.”

“Is that so you can put a bullet in my head when, mercifully, I don’t know it’s going to happen?”

“No, Doctor. No bam-bam for you. You’re too valuable.”

“
Valuable
?” asked the capo supremo rhetorically in his opulent living room in Brooklyn Heights. “Like a gold mine just popped out of the ground and landed in your minestrone. This Jew has worked on the heads of some of the biggest lasagnas in Washington. His files have got to be worth the price of Detroit.”

“You’ll never get them, Louis,” said the attractive middle-aged man dressed in an expensive tropical worsted suit sitting across from his host. “They’ll be sealed and carted off out of your reach.”

“Well, we’re working on that, Mr. Park Avenue, Manhattan. Say—just for laughs—say we got ’em. What are they worth to you?”

The guest permitted himself a thin aristocratic smile. “Detroit?” he replied.

“
Va bene
! I like you, you got a sense of humor.” As abruptly as he had grinned, the mafioso became serious, even ugly. “The five mill still holds for this Bourne-Webb character, right?”

“With a proviso.”

“I don’t like provisos, Mr. Lawyer, I don’t like them at
all
.”

“We can go elsewhere. You’re not the only game in town.”

“Let me explain something to you, Signor Avvocato. In a lot of ways, we—all of
we
—
are
the only game in town. We don’t mess with other families’ hits, you know what I mean? Our councils have decided hits are too personal; it makes for bad blood.”

“Will you listen to the proviso? I don’t think you’ll be offended.”

“Shoot.”

“I wish you’d use another word—”

“Go ahead.”

“There’ll be a two-million-dollar bonus because we insist you include Webb’s wife and his government friend Conklin.”

“Done, Mr. Park Avenue, Manhattan.”

“Good. Now to the rest of our business.”

“I want to talk about the Jew.”

“We’ll get to him—”

“
Now
.”