The Bourne ultimatum (84 page)

“That’s good enough for me,” said Jason, putting his drink down on the copper dry bar.

“Finish it,” said Alex, rushing awkwardly back into the bedroom. “I’ve got to get the soap out of my eyes and restrap my lousy boot.”

Bourne picked up the glass, his eyes straying to the Soviet field officer who looked after Conklin, his brow lined, his expression curiously sad. “You knew him before he lost his foot, didn’t you?” asked Jason quietly.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Bourne. We go back twenty-five, twenty-six years. Istanbul, Athens, Rome ... Amsterdam. He was a remarkable adversary. Of course, we were young then, both slender and quick and so taken with ourselves, wanting so desperately to live up to the images we envisioned for ourselves. It was all so long ago. We were both terribly good, you know. He was actually better than me, but don’t you ever tell him I said so. He always saw the broader picture, the longer road than I saw. It was the Russian in him, of course.”

“Why do you use the word ‘adversary’?” asked Jason. “It’s so athletic, as if you’d been playing a game. Wasn’t he your enemy?”

Krupkin’s large head snapped toward Bourne, his eyes glass, not warm at all. “Of course he was my enemy, Mr. Bourne, and to clarify the picture for you, he still
is
my enemy. Don’t, I beg you, mistake my indulgences for what they are not. A man’s weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it. I may not have the convenience of the Roman confession to expiate my sins so as to go forth and sin again despite my belief, but I
do
believe. ... My grandfathers
and
grandmothers were hanged—
hanged
, sir—for stealing chickens from a Romanov prince’s estate. Few, if any, of my ancestors were ever given the privilege of the most rudimentary schooling, forget
education
. The Supreme Soviet revolution of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin made possible the
beginning
of all things. Thousands upon thousands of mistakes have been made—many inexcusable, many more brutal—but a beginning
was
made. I, myself, am both the proof and the error of it.”

“I’m not sure I understand that.”

“Because you and your feeble intellectuals have never understood what we have understood from the start.
Das Kapital
, Mr. Bourne, envisages
stages
toward a just society, economic and political, but it does not and never
did
state what specific form the nuts-and-bolts government will ultimately be. Only that it could not be as it was.”

“I’m not a scholar in that department.”

“One does not have to be. In a hundred years you may be the socialists, and with luck, we’ll be the capitalists,
da
?”

“Tell me something,” said Jason, hearing, as Krupkin also did, the water faucets in Conklin’s room being turned off. “Could you kill Alex—Aleksei?”

“As surely as he could kill me—with deep regrets—if the value of the information called for it. We are professionals. We understand that, often reluctantly.”

“I can’t understand either one of you.”

“Don’t even try, Mr. Bourne, you’re not there yet—you’re getting closer, but you’re not there.”

“Would you explain that, please?”

“You’re at the cusp, Jason—may I call you Jason?”

“Please do.”

“You’re fifty years of age or thereabouts, give or take a year or two, correct?”

“Correct. I’ll be fifty-one in a few months. So what?”

“Aleksei and I are in our sixties—have you any idea what a leap that is?”

“How could I?”

“Let me tell you. You still visualize yourself as the younger man, the postadolescent man who sees himself doing the things you did only moments ago in your mind, and in many ways you are right. The motor controls are there, the will is there; you are still the master of your body. Then suddenly, as strong as the will is and as strong as the body remains, the mind slowly, insidiously begins to reject the necessity to make an immediate decision—both intellectually and physically. Simply put, we care less. Are we to be condemned or congratulated on having survived?”

“I think you just said you couldn’t kill Alex.”

“Don’t count on it, Jason Bourne—or David whoever you are.”

Conklin came through the door, his limp pronounced, wincing in pain. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Did you strap it wrong again?” asked Jason. “Do you want me to—”

“Forget it,” broke in Alex irritably. “You have to be a contortionist to get the goddamned thing right all the time.”

Bourne understood; he forgot about any attempt on his part to adjust the prosthesis. Krupkin again looked at Alex with that strange admixture of sadness and curiosity, then spoke rapidly. “The car is parked up the street in the Sverdlov. It’s less obvious over there, I’ll have a lobby steward fetch it.”

“Thanks,” said Conklin, gratitude in his glance.

The opulent apartment on the busy Sadovaya was one among many in an aged stone building that, like the Metropole, reflected the grand architectural excesses of the old Russian Empire. The flats were primarily used—and bugged—for visiting dignitaries, and the chambermaids, doormen and concierges were all frequently questioned by the KGB when not directly employed by the Komitet. The walls were covered with red velour; the sturdy furniture was reminiscent of the ancien régime. However, to the right of the gargantuan ornate living-room fireplace was an item that stood out like a decorator’s nightmare: a large jet-black television console complete with an assortment of tape decks compatible with the various sizes of video cassettes.

The second contradiction to the decor, and undoubtedly an affront to the memory of the elegant Romanovs, was a heavyset man in a rumpled uniform, open at the neck and stained with vestiges of recent meals. His blunt face was full, his grayish hair cut close to his skull, and a missing tooth surrounded by discolored companions bespoke an aversion to dentistry. It was the face of a peasant, the narrow, perpetually squinting eyes conveying a peasant’s shrewd intelligence. He was Krupkin’s Commissar Number One.

“My English not good,” announced the uniformed man, nodding at his visitors, “but is understanding. Also, for you I have no name, no official position. Call me colonel, yes? It is below my rank, but all Americans think all Soviets in Komitet are ‘colonel,’
da
? Okay?”

“I speak Russian,” replied Alex. “If it’s easier for you, use it, and I’ll translate for my colleague.”

“
Hah
!” roared the colonel, laughing. “So Krupkin cannot fool you, yes?”

“Yes, he can’t fool me, no.”

“Is good. He talks too fast,
da
? Even in Russian his words come like stray bullets.”

“In French, also, Colonel.”

“Speaking of which,” intruded Dimitri, “may we get to the issue at hand, comrade? Our associate in the Dzerzhinsky said we were to come over immediately.”

“
Da
! Immediate.” The KGB officer walked to the huge ebony console, picked up a remote control, and turned to the others. “I will speak English—is good practice. ... Come. Watch. Everything is on one cartridge. All material taken by men and women Krupkin select to follow our people who speak the French.”

“People who could not be compromised by the Jackal,” clarified Krupkin.

“
Watch
!” insisted the peasant-colonel, pressing a button on the remote control.

The screen came alive on the console, the opening shots crude and choppy. Most had been taken with hand-held video cameras from car windows. One scene after another showed specific men walking in the Moscow streets or getting into official vehicles, driving or being driven throughout the city and, in several cases, outside the city over country roads. In every case the subjects under surveillance met with other men and women, whereupon the zoom lenses enlarged the faces. A number of shots took place inside buildings, the scenes murky and dark, the result of insufficient light and awkwardly held concealed cameras.

“That one is expensive
whore
!” laughed the colonel as a man in his late sixties escorted a much younger woman into an elevator. “It is the Solnechy Hotel on the Varshavkoye. I will personally check the general’s vouchers and find a loyal ally,
da
?”

The choppy, cross-cutting tape continued as Krupkin and the two Americans grew weary of the seemingly endless and pointless visual record. Then, suddenly, there was an exterior shot of a huge cathedral, crowds on the pavement, the light indicating early evening.

“St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square,” said Krupkin. “It’s a museum now and a very fine one, but every now and then a zealot—usually foreign—holds a small service. No one interferes, which, of course, the zealots want us to do.”

The screen became murky again, the vibrating focus briefly and wildly swaying; the camcorder had moved inside the cathedral as the agent operating it was jostled by the crowds. Then it became steady, held perhaps against a pillar. The focus now was on an elderly man, his hair white in contrast to the lightweight black raincoat he was wearing. He was walking down a side aisle pensively glancing at the succession of icons and the higher majestic stained-glass windows.

“Rodchenko,” said the peasant—colonel, his voice guttural. “The
great
Rodchenko.”

The man on the screen proceeded into what appeared to be a large stone corner of the cathedral where two thick pedestaled candles threw moving shadows against the walls. The video camera jerkily moved upward, the agent, again perhaps, standing on a portable stool or a hastily obtained box. The picture grew suddenly more detailed, the figures larger as the zoom lens was activated, thrusting through the crowds of tourists. The white-haired subject approached another man, a priest in priestly garb—balding, thin, his complexion dark.

“It’s him!” cried Bourne. “It’s
Carlos
!”

Then a third man appeared on the screen, joining the other two, and Conklin shouted.

“
Jesus
! “he roared as all eyes were riveted on the television set. “Hold it there!” The KGB commissar instantly complied with his remote; the picture remained stationary, shaky but constant. “The
other
one! Do you recognize him, David?”

“I know him but I don’t know him,” replied Bourne in a low voice as images going back years began filling his inner screen. There were explosions, white blinding lights with blurred figures running in a jungle ... and then a man, an Oriental, being shot repeatedly, screaming as he was hammered into the trunk of a large tree by an automatic weapon. The mists of confusion swelled, dissolving into a barracks-like room with soldiers sitting behind a long table, a wooden chair on the right, a man sitting there, fidgeting, nervous. And without warning, Jason suddenly knew that man—it was himself! A younger, much younger self, and there was another figure, in uniform, pacing like a caged ferret back and forth in front of the chair, savagely berating the man then known as Delta One. ... Bourne gasped, his eyes frozen on the television screen as he realized he was staring at an older version of that angry, pacing figure in his mind’s eye. “A courtroom in a base camp north of Saigon,” he whispered.

“It’s
Ogilvie
,” said Conklin, his voice distant, hollow. “Bryce Ogilvie. ... My God, they
did
link up. Medusa found the Jackal!”

“It was a trial, wasn’t it, Alex?” said Bourne, bewildered, the words floating, hesitant. “A
military
trial.”

“Yes, it was,” agreed Conklin. “But it wasn’t
your
trial, you weren’t the accused.”

“I wasn’t?”

“No. You were the one who brought charges, a rare thing for any of your group to do then, in or out of the field. A number of the army people tried to stop you but they couldn’t. ... We’ll go into it later, discuss it later.”

“I want to discuss it now,” said Jason firmly. “That man is with the Jackal, right there in front of our eyes. I want to know who he is and what he is and why he’s here in Moscow—
with
the Jackal.”

“Later—”

“
Now
. Your friend Krupkin is helping us, which means he’s helping Marie and me and I’m grateful for his help. The colonel here is also on our side or we wouldn’t be seeing what’s on that screen at this moment. I want to know what happened between that man and me, and all of Langley’s security measures can go to hell. The more I know about him—now—the better I know what to ask for, what to expect.” Bourne suddenly turned to the Soviets. “For your information, there’s a period in my life I can’t completely remember, and that’s all you have to know. Go on, Alex.”

“I have trouble remembering last night,” said the colonel.

“Tell him what he wants to know, Aleksei. It can have no bearing on our interests. The Saigon chapter is closed, as is Kabul.”

“All right.” Conklin lowered himself into a chair and massaged his right calf; he tried to speak casually but the attempt was not wholly successful. “In December of 1970 one of your men was killed during a search-and-destroy patrol. It was called an accident of ‘friendly fire,’ but you knew better. You knew he was marked by some horseshit artists down south at headquarters; they had it in for him. He was a Cambodian and no saint by any means, but he knew all the contraband trails, so he was your point.”

“Just images,” interrupted Bourne. “All I get are fragments. I see but I can’t remember.”

“The facts aren’t important anymore; they’re buried along with several thousand other questionable events. Apparently a large narcotics deal went sour in the Triangle and your scout was held responsible, so a few hotshots in Saigon thought a lesson should be taught their gook runners. They flew up to your territory, went into the grass, and took him out like they were a VC advance unit. But you saw them from a piece of high ground and blew all your gaskets. You tracked them back to the helicopter pad and gave them a choice: Get in and you’d storm the chopper leaving no survivors, or they could come back with you to the base camp. They came back under your men’s guns and you forced Field Command to accept your multiple charges of murder. That’s when Ice-Cold Ogilvie showed up looking after his Saigon boys.”