“With this meeting perhaps?” suggested the director. “What prompted it?”
“All right, that’ll be quick.” Conklin stared pensively at the surface of the table, absently gripping his cane, then raised his eyes. “A woman was killed last night at an amusement park outside Baltimore—”
“I read about it in the Post this morning,” interrupted DeSole, nodding, his full cheeks jiggling. “Good Lord, were you—”
“So did I,” broke in Casset, his steady brown eyes on Alex. “It happened in front of a shooting gallery. They closed the guns down.”
“I saw the article and figured it was some kind of terrible accident.” Valentino shook his head slowly. “I didn’t actually read it.”
“I was given my usual thick sheaf of scissored newspaper stories, which is enough journalism for anyone in the morning,” said the director. “I don’t remember any such article.”
“Were you involved, old boy?”
“If I wasn’t, it was a horrible waste of life.… I should say if we weren’t involved.”
“We?” Casset frowned in alarm.
“Morris Panov and I received identical telegrams from Jason Bourne asking us to be at the amusement park at nine-thirty last night. It was urgent, and we were to meet him in front of the shooting gallery, but we were not, under any condition, to call his house or anyone else.… We both independently assumed that he didn’t want to alarm his wife, that he had something to tell us individually that he didn’t want her to know.… We arrived at the same time, but I saw Panov first and figured it was a bad scene. From any point of view, especially Bourne’s, we should have reached each other and talked before going up there; instead, we had been told not to. It smelled, so I did my best to get us out of there fast. The only way seemed to be a diversion.”
“You stampeded then,” said Casset, making a statement.
“It was the only thing I could think of, and one of the few things this goddamned cane is good for other than keeping me upright. I cracked every shin and kneecap I could see and lanced a few stomachs and tits. We got out of the circle, but that poor woman was killed.”
“How did you figure it—do you figure it?” asked Valentino.
“I just don’t know, Val. It was a trap, no question about that, but what kind of trap? If what I thought then and what I think now are correct, how could a hired marksman miss at that distance? The shot came from my upper left—not that I necessarily heard it—but the position of the woman and the blood all over her throat indicated that she had turned and caught the bullet in her body swing. It couldn’t have come from the gallery; those guns are chained and the massive hemorrhage in her neck was caused by a far larger caliber than any of the toys there. If the killer wanted to take out either Mo Panov or me, his telescopic cross hairs wouldn’t be that far off the mark. Not if my thinking is right.”
“ ‘Right,’ Mr. Conklin,” interjected the DCI, “meaning the assassin, Carlos the Jackal.”
“Carlos?” exclaimed DeSole. “What in heaven’s name has the Jackal to do with a killing in Baltimore?”
“Jason Bourne,” answered Casset.
“Yes, I gather that, but this is all terribly confusing! Bourne was a scum hit man out of Asia who moved to Europe to challenge Carlos and lost. As the director just said, he went back to the Far East and was killed four or five years ago, yet Alex talks as if he’s still alive, that he and someone named Panov got telegrams from him.… What in God’s name does a dead scumball and the world’s most elusive assassin have to do with last night?”
“You weren’t here a few minutes ago, Steve,” again Casset answered quietly. “Apparently they had a lot to do with last night.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I think you should start at the beginning, Mr. Conklin,” said the director. “Who is Jason Bourne?”
“As the world knew him, a man who never existed,” replied the former intelligence officer.
3
“The original Jason Bourne was garbage, a paranoid drifter from Tasmania who found his way into the Vietnam war as part of an operation no one wants to acknowledge even today. It was a collection of killers, misfits, smugglers and thieves, mostly escaped criminals, many under death sentences, but they knew every inch of Southeast Asia and operated behind enemy lines—funded by us.”
“Medusa,” whispered Steven DeSole. “It’s all buried. They were animals, killing wantonly without reason or authorization and stealing millions. Savages.”
“Most, not all,” said Conklin. “But the original Bourne fitted every rotten profile you could come up with, including the betrayal of his own men. The leader of a particularly hazardous mission—hazardous, hell, it was suicidal—found Bourne radioing their position to the North Vietnamese. He executed him on the spot, shoving the body into a swamp to rot in the jungles of Tam Quan. Jason Bourne disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“He obviously reappeared, Mr. Conklin,” observed the director, leaning forward on the table.
“In another body,” agreed Alex, nodding. “For another purpose. The man who executed Bourne in Tam Quan took his name and agreed to be trained for an operation that we called Treadstone Seventy-one, after a building on New York’s Seventy-first Street, where he went through a brutal indoctrination program. It was a brilliant strategy on paper, but ultimately failed because of something no one could predict, even consider. After nearly three years of living the role of the world’s second most lethal assassin and moving into Europe—as Steve accurately described—to challenge the Jackal in his own territory, our man was wounded and lost his memory. He was found half dead in the Mediterranean and brought by a fisherman to the island of Port Noir. He had no idea who he was or what he was—only that he was a master of various martial arts, spoke a couple of Oriental languages, and was obviously an extremely well-educated man. With the help of a British doctor, an alcoholic banished to Port Noir, our man started to piece his life—his identity—back together from fragments both mental and physical. It was a hell of a journey … and we who had mounted the operation, who invented the myth, were no help to him. Not knowing what had happened, we thought he had turned, had actually become the mythical assassin we’d created to trap Carlos. I, myself, tried to kill him in Paris, and when he might have blown my head off, he couldn’t do it. He finally made his way back to us only through the extraordinary talents of a Canadian woman he met in Zurich and who is now his wife. That lady had more guts and brains than any woman I’ve ever met. Now she and her husband and their two kids are back in the nightmare, running for their lives.”
Aristocratic mouth agape, his pipe in midair in front of his chest, the director spoke. “Do you mean to sit there and tell us that the assassin we knew as Jason Bourne was an invention? That he wasn’t the killer we all presumed he was?”
“He killed when he had to kill in order to survive, but he was no assassin. We created the myth as the ultimate challenge to Carlos, to draw the Jackal out.”
“Good Christ!” exclaimed Casset. “How?”
“Massive disinformation throughout the Far East. Whenever a killing of consequence took place, whether in Tokyo or Hong Kong, Macao or Korea—wherever—Bourne was flown there and took the credit, planting evidence, taunting the authorities, until he became a legend. For three years our man lived in a world of filth—drugs, warlords, crime, tunneling his way in with only one objective: Get to Europe and bait Carlos, threaten his contracts, force the Jackal out into the open if only for a moment, just long enough to put a bullet in his head.”
The silence around the table was electric. DeSole broke it, his voice barely above a whisper. “What kind of man would accept an assignment like that?”
Conklin looked at the analyst and answered in a monotone. “A man who felt there wasn’t much left to live for, someone who had a death wish, perhaps … a decent human being who was driven into an outfit like Medusa out of hatred and frustration.” The former intelligence officer stopped;
his anguish was apparent.
“Come on, Alex,” said Valentino softly. “You can’t leave us with that.”
“No, of course not.” Conklin blinked several times, adjusting to the present. “I was thinking how horrible it must be for him now—the memories, what he can remember. There’s a lousy parallel I hadn’t considered. The wife, the kids.”
“What’s the parallel?” asked Casset, hunched forward, staring at Alex.
“Years ago, during Vietnam, our man was a young foreign service officer stationed in Phnom Penh, a scholar married to a Thai woman he’d met here in graduate school. They had two children and lived on the banks of a river.… One morning while the wife and kids were swimming, a stray jet from Hanoi strafed the area killing the three of them. Our man went crazy; he chucked everything and made his way to Saigon and into Medusa. All he wanted to do was kill. He became Delta One—no names were ever used in Medusa—and he was considered the most effective guerrilla leader in the war, as often as not fighting Command Saigon over orders as he did the enemy with death squads.”
“Still, he obviously supported the war,” observed Valentino.
“Outside of having no use for Saigon and the ARVN, I don’t think he gave a damn one way or another. He had his own private war and it was way behind enemy lines, the nearer Hanoi the better. I think in his mind he kept looking for the pilot who had killed his family.… That’s the parallel. Years ago there was a wife and two kids and they were butchered in front of his eyes. Now there’s another wife and two children and the Jackal is closing in, hunting him down. That’s got to be driving him close to the edge. Goddamn it!”
The four men at the opposite end of the table looked briefly at one another and let Conklin’s sudden emotion pass. Again, the director spoke, again gently. “Considering the time span,” he began, “the operation mounted to trap Carlos had to have taken place well over a decade ago, yet the events in Hong Kong were much more recent. Were they related? Without giving us a name or names at this juncture, what do you feel you can tell us about Hong Kong?”
Alex gripped his cane and held it firmly, his knuckles white as he replied. “Hong Kong was both the filthiest black operation ever conceived in this town and without question the most extraordinary I’ve ever heard of. And to my profound relief we here at Langley had nothing to do with the initial strategy, the plaudits can go to hell. I came in late and what I found turned my stomach. It sickened McAllister, too, for he was in at the beginning. It was why he was willing to risk his life, why he damn near ended up a corpse across the Chinese border in Macao. His intellectualized morality couldn’t let a decent man be killed for the strategy.”
“That’s a hell of an indictment,” offered Casset. “What happened?”
“Our own people arranged to have Bourne’s wife kidnapped, the woman who had led that man without a memory back to us. They left a trail that forced him to go after her—to Hong Kong.”
“Jesus, why?” cried Valentino.
“The strategy; it was perfect, and it was also abominable.… I told you the ‘assassin’ called Jason Bourne had become a legend in Asia. He disappeared in Europe, but he was no less a legend for that in the Far East. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a new enterprising killer operating out of Macao revived that legend. He took the name of ‘Jason Bourne’ and the killings for hire started all over again. A week rarely went by, often only days, when another hit was made, the same evidence planted, the same taunting of the police. A false Bourne was back in business, and he had studied every trick of the original.”
“So who better to track him down than the one who invented those tricks—the original, your original,” interjected the director. “And what better way to force the original Bourne into the hunt than by taking his wife from him. But why? Why was Washington so consumed? There were no longer any ties to us.”
“There was something much worse. Among the new Jason Bourne’s clients was a madman in Beijing, a Kuomintang traitor in the government who was about to turn the Far East into a firestorm. He was determined to destroy the Sino-British Hong Kong Accords, shutting down the colony, leaving the whole territory in chaos.”
“War,” said Casset quietly. “Beijing would march into Hong Kong and take over. We’d all have to choose sides.… War.”
“In the nuclear age,” added the director. “How far had it all progressed, Mr. Conklin?”
“A vice premier of the People’s Republic was killed in a private massacre in Kowloon. The impostor left his calling card. ‘Jason Bourne.’ ”
“Good God, he had to be stopped!” exploded the DCI, gripping his pipe.
“He was,” said Alex, releasing his cane. “By the only man who could hunt him down. Our Jason Bourne.… That’s all I’ll tell you for now, except to repeat that that man is back here with his wife and children, and Carlos is closing in. The Jackal won’t rest until he knows the only person alive who can identify him is dead. So call in every debt that’s owed to us in Paris, London, Rome, Madrid—especially Paris. Someone’s got to know something. Where is Carlos now? Who are his points over here? He’s got eyes here in Washington, and whoever they are, they found Panov and me!” The former field officer again absently gripped his cane, staring at the window. “Don’t you see?” he added quietly, as if talking to himself. “We can’t let it happen. Oh, my God, we can’t let it happen!”
Once more the emotional moment passed in silence as the men of the Central Intelligence Agency exchanged glances. It was as though a consensus had been reached among them without a word being said; three pairs of eyes fell on Casset. He nodded, accepting his selection as the one closest to Conklin, and spoke.
“Alex, I agree that everything points to Carlos, but before we start spinning our wheels in Europe, we have to be sure. We can’t afford a false alarm because we’d be handing the Jackal a grail he’d have to go after, showing him how vulnerable we were where Jason Bourne is concerned. From what you’ve told us, Carlos would pick up on a long-dormant operation known as Treadstone Seventy-one if only because none of our agents or subagents has been in his personal neighborhood for over a decade.”
The retired Conklin studied Charles Casset’s pensive sharp-featured face. “What you’re saying is that if I’m wrong and it isn’t the Jackal, we’re ripping open a thirteen-year-old wound and presenting him with an irresistible kill.”
“I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
“And I guess that’s pretty good thinking, Charlie.… I’m operating on externals, aren’t I? They’re triggering instincts, but they’re still externals.”
“I’d trust those instincts of yours far more than I would any polygraph—”
“So would I,” interrupted Valentino. “You saved our personnel in five or six sector crises when all the indicators said you were wrong. However, Charlie’s got a legitimate query. Suppose it isn’t Carlos? We not only send the wrong message to Europe, but, more important, we’ve wasted time.”
“So stay out of Europe,” mused Alex softly, again as if to himself. “At least for now.… Go after the bastards here. Draw them out. Pull them in and break them. I’m the target, so let them come after me.”
“That would entail far looser protection than I envisage for you and Dr. Panov, Mr. Conklin,” said the director firmly.
“Then disenvisage, sir.” Alex looked back and forth at Casset and Valentino, suddenly raising his voice. “We can do it if you two will listen to me and let me mount it!”
“We’re in a gray area,” stated Casset. “This thing may be foreign-oriented, but it’s domestic turf. The Bureau should be brought in—”
“No way,” exclaimed Conklin. “Nobody’s brought in outside of this room!”
“Come on, Alex,” said Valentino kindly, slowly shaking his head. “You’re retired. You can’t give orders here.”
“Good, fine!” shouted Conklin, awkwardly getting out of the chair and supporting himself on his cane. “Next stop the White House, to a certain chairman
of the NSA named McAllister!”
“Sit down,” said the DCI firmly.
“I’m retired! You can’t give orders to me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, I’m simply concerned for your life. As I read the scenario, what you’re suggesting is based on the questionable supposition that whoever fired at you last night intended to miss, not caring whom he hit, only determined to take you alive during the subsequent chaos.”
“That’s a couple of leaps—”
“Based on a couple of dozen operations I’ve been involved with both here and at the Department of the Navy and in places you couldn’t pronounce or know anything about.” The director’s elbows were planted on the arms of his chair, his voice suddenly harsh, commanding. “For your information, Conklin, I didn’t suddenly bloom as a gold-braided admiral running naval intelligence. I was in the SEALs for a few years and made runs off submarines into Kaesong and later into Haiphong harbor. I knew a number of those Medusa pricks, and I can’t think of one that I didn’t want to put a bullet in his head! Now you tell me there was one, and he became your ‘Jason Bourne’ and you’ll break your balls or bust open your heart to see that he stays alive and well and out of the Jackal’s gun sights.… So let’s cut the crap, Alex. Do you want to work with me or not?”
Conklin slowly sank back in his chair, a smile gradually emerging on his lips. “I told you I had no sweat with your appointment, sir. It was just intuition, but now I know why. You were a field man.… I’ll work with you.”
“Good, fine,” said the director. “We’ll work up a controlled surveillance and hope to Christ your theory that they want you alive is correct because there’s no way we can cover every window or every rooftop. You’d better understand the risk.”