The Bourne Identity (71 page)

"I know. But
why?
He could have used her in a hundred different ways! Against me! Why
this?"

"It's in his note. He's gone mad. He was pushed too far, Carlos. It happens; I've seen it happen. A man on a double-entry, his source-controls taken out; he has no one to confirm his initial assignment. Both sides want his corpse. He's stretched to the point where he may not even know who he is any longer."

"He knows ..." The whisper was drawn out in quiet fury. "By signing the name Delta, he's telling me he knows. We both know where it comes from, where
he
comes from."

The beggar paused. "If that's true, then he's still dangerous to you. He's right. Washington won't touch him. It may not want to acknowledge him, but it will call off its hangmen. It may even be forced to grant him a privilege or two in return for his silence."

"The papers he speaks of?" asked the assassin.

"Yes. In the old days--in Berlin, Prague, Vienna--they were called 'final payments.' Bourne uses 'final protection,' a minor variance. They were papers drawn up between a primary source-control and the infiltrator, to be used in the event the strategy collapsed, the primary killed, no other avenues open to the agent. It was not something you would have studied in Novgorod; the Soviets had no such accommodations. Soviet defectors, however, insisted upon them."

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"They were incriminating, then?"

"They had to be to some degree. Generally in the area of who was manipulated. Embarrassment is always to be avoided; careers are destroyed by embarrassment. But then, I don't have to tell you that. You've used the technique brilliantly."

" 'Seventy-one streets in the jungle ...' " said Carlos, reading from the paper in his hand, an icelike calm imposed on his whisper. " 'A jungle as dense as Tam Quan.' ... This time the execution will take place as scheduled. Jason Bourne will not leave
this
Tam Quan alive. By any other name, Cain will be dead, and Delta will die for what he's done. Angelique--you have my word." The incantation stopped, the assassin's mind racing to the practical. "Did Villiers have any idea when Bourne left his house?"

"He didn't know. I told you, he was barely lucid, in as much a state of shock as with his telephone call"

"It doesn't matter. The first flights to the United States began within the past hour. He'll be on one. I'll be in New York with him, and I won't miss this time. My knife will be waiting, its blade a razor. I'll peel his face away; the Americans will have their Cain without a face! Then they can give this Bourne, this Delta, whatever name they care to."

The blue-striped telephone rang on Alexander Conklin's desk. Its bell was quiet, the understated sound lending an eerie emphasis. The blue-striped telephone was Conklin's direct line to the computer rooms and data banks. There was no one in the office to take the call. The Central Intelligence executive suddenly rushed limping through the door, unused to the cane provided him by G-2, SHAPE, Brussels, last night when he had commandeered a military transport to Andrews Field, Maryland. He threw the cane angrily across the room as he lurched for the phone. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his breath short; the man responsible for the dissolution of Treadstone was exhausted. He had been in scrambler-communication with a dozen branches of clandestine operations--in Washington and overseas--trying to undo the insanity of the past twenty-four hours. He had spread every scrap of information he could cull from the files to every post in Europe, placed agents in the Paris-London-Amsterdam axis on alert. Bourne was alive and dangerous; he had tried to kill his D.C. control; he could be anywhere within ten hours of Paris. All airports and train stations were to be covered, all underground networks activated. Find him!
Kill him!

"Yes?" Conklin braced himself against the desk and picked up the phone.

"This is Computer Dock 12," said the male voice efficiently. "We may have something. At least, State doesn't have any listing on it."

"
What
, for Christ's sake?"

"The name you gave us four hours ago. Washburn."

"What about it?"

"A George P. Washburn was pre-cleared out of Paris and into New York on an Air France flight this morning. Washburn's a fairly common name; he could be just a businessman with connections, but it was flagged on the readout, and since the status was NATO-diplomatic, we checked with State. They never heard of him. There's no one named Washburn involved with any ongoing NATO negotiations with the
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French government from any member nation."

"Then how the hell was he pre-cleared? Who gave him the diplomatic?"

"We checked back through Paris; it wasn't easy. Apparently it was an accommodation of the Conseiller Militaire. They're a quiet bunch."

"The Conseiller? Where do they get off clearing our people?"

"It doesn't have to be 'our' people or 'their' people; it can be anybody. Just a courtesy from the host country, and that was a French carrier. It's one way to get a decent seat on an overbooked plane. Incidentally, Washburn's passport wasn't even U.S. It was British."

There's a doctor, an Englishman named Washburn
... It
was
him! It was Delta, and France's Conseiller had cooperated with him. But why New York? What was in New York for him? And who placed so high in Paris would accommodate Delta? What had he told them? Oh, Christ! How
much
had he told them?

"When did the flight get in?" asked Conklin.

"Ten thirty-seven this morning. A little over an hour ago."

"All right," said the man whose foot had been blown off in Medusa, as he slid painfully around the desk into his seat. "You've delivered, and now I want this scratched from the reels. Delete it. Everything you gave me. Is that clear?"

"Understood, sir. Deleted, sir."

Conklin hung up. New York.
New York?
Not Washington, but New York! There was nothing in New York any longer. Delta knew that. If he was after someone in Treadstone--if he was after
him
--he would have taken a flight directly to Dulles. What was in New York?

And why had Delta deliberately used the name Washburn? It was the same as telegraphing a strategy; he knew the name would be picked up sooner or later ... Later ...
After
he was inside the gates! Delta was telling whatever was left of Treadstone that he was dealing from strength. He was in a position to expose not only the Treadstone operation, but he could go God knows how much further. Whole networks he had used as Cain, listening posts and ersatz consulates that were no more than electronic espionage stations ... even the bloody specter of Medusa. His connection inside the Conseiller was his proof to Treadstone how high up he had traveled. His signal that if he could reach within so rarefied a group of strategists, nothing could stop him. Goddamn it, stop him from
what?
What was the point? He had the millions; he could have faded!

Conklin shook his head, remembering. There had been a time when he would have let Delta fade; he had told him so twelve hours ago in a cemetery outside of Paris. A man could take only so much, and no one knew that better than Alexander Conklin, once among the finest covert field officers in the intelligence community. Only so much; the sanctimonious bromides about still being alive grew stale and bitter with time. It depended on what you were before, what you became with your deformity. Only so much ... But Delta did
not
fade! He came back with insane statements, insane demands ... crazy tactics no experienced intelligence officer would even contemplate. For no matter how much explosive information he possessed, no matter how high he penetrated, no sane man walked back into a minefield surrounded by his enemies. And all the blackmail in the world could not bring you back. ...
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No sane man. No
sane
man. Conklin sat slowly forward in his chair.
I'm not Cain. He never was. I never was! I wasn't in New York. ... It was Carlos. Not me, Carlos!

If what you're saying took place on Seventy-first Street, it was him. He knows!

But Delta
had
been at the brownstone on Seventy-first Street. Prints--third and index fingers, right hand. And the method of transport was now explained: Air France, Conseiller cover ... Fact: Carlos could not have known.

Things come to me ... faces, streets, buildings. Images I can't place ... I know a thousand facts
about Carlos, but I don't know why!

Conklin closed his eyes. There was a phrase, a simple code phrase that had been used at the beginning of Treadstone. What was it? It came from Medusa ...
Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain
. That was it. Cain for
Carlos
. Delta-Bourne became the Cain that was the decoy for Carlos. Conklin opened his eyes. Jason Bourne was to replace Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. That was the entire strategy of Treadstone Seventy-One. It was the keystone to the whole structure of deception, the parallax that would draw Carlos out of position into their sights. Bourne. Jason Bourne. The totally unknown man, a name buried for over a decade, a piece of human debris left in a jungle. But he
had
existed; that, too, was part of the strategy. Conklin separated the folders on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. It had no title, only an initial and two numbers followed by a black X, signifying that it was the only folder containing the origins of Treadstone.

T-71 X
. The birth of Treadstone Seventy-One.

He opened it, almost afraid to see what he knew was there.

Date of execution. Tam Quan Sector. March 25 ...

Conklin's eyes moved to the calendar on his desk.

March 24.

"Oh, my God," he whispered, reaching for the telephone.

Dr. Morris Panov walked through the double doors of the psychiatric ward on the third floor of Bethesda's Naval Annex and approached the nurses' counter. He smiled at the uniformed aide shuffling index cards under the stem gaze of the head floor nurse standing beside her. Apparently the young trainee had misplaced a patient's file--if not a patient--and her superior was not about to let it happen again.

"Don't let Annie's whip fool you," said Panov to_ the flustered girl. "Underneath those cold, inhuman eyes is a heart of sheer granite. Actually, she escaped from the fifth floor two weeks ago but we're all afraid to tell anybody."

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The aide giggled, the nurse shook her head in exasperation. The phone rang on the desk behind the counter.

"Will you get that, please, dear," said Annie to the young girl. The aide nodded and retreated to the desk. The nurse turned to Panov. "Doctor Mo, how am I ever going to get anything through their heads with you around?"

"With love, dear Annie. With love. But don't lose your bicycle chains."

"You're incorrigible. Tell me, how's your patient in Five-A? I know you're worried about him."

"I'm still worried."

"I hear you stayed up all night."

"There was a three A.M. movie on television I wanted to see."

"Don't do it, Mo," said the matronly nurse. "You're too young to end up in there."

"And maybe too old to avoid it, Annie. But thanks."

Suddenly Panov and the nurse were aware that he was being paged, the wide-eyed trainee at the desk speaking into the microphone.

"Dr. Panov, please. Telephone for--"

"
I'm
Dr. Panov," said the psychiatrist in a
sotto voce
whisper to the girl. "We don't want anyone to know. Annie Donovan here's really my mother from Poland. Who is it?"

The trainee stared at Panov's ID card on his white coat, she blinked and replied. "A Mr. Alexander Conklin, sir."

"Oh?" Panov was startled. Alex Conklin had been a patient on and off for five years, until they both had agreed he'd adjusted as well as he was ever going to adjust--which was not a hell of a lot. There were so many, and so little they can do for them. Whatever Conklin wanted had to be relatively serious for him to call Bethesda and not the office. "Where can I take this, Annie?"

"Room One," said the nurse, pointing across the hall. "It's empty. I'll have the call transferred."

Panov walked toward the door, an uneasy feeling spreading through him.

"I need some very fast answers, Mo," said Conklin, his voice strained.

"I'm not very good at fast answers, Alex. Why not come in and see me this afternoon?"

"It's not me. It's someone else. Possibly."

"No games, please. I thought we'd gone beyond that."

"No games. This is a Four-Zero emergency, and I need help."

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"Four-Zero? Call in one of your staff men. I've never requested that kind of clearance."

"I can't. That's how tight it is."

"Then you'd better whisper to God."

"Mo,
please!
I only have to confirm possibilities, the rest I can put together myself. And I don't have five seconds to waste. A man may be running around ready to blow away ghosts, anyone he thinks is a ghost. He's already killed very real, very important people and I'm not sure he knows it. Help me, help
him!"

"If I can. Go ahead."

"A man is placed in a highly volatile, maximum stress situation for a long period of time, the entire period in deep cover. The cover itself is a decoy--very visible, very negative, constant pressure applied to maintain that visibility. The purpose is to draw out a target similar to the decoy by convincing the target that the decoy's a threat, forcing the target into the open. ... Are you with me so far?"