So his once close friend, David Webb, became the enemy, Jason Bourne. Not merely the enemy, but an obsession. He had helped create the myth; he would destroy it. His first attempt was with two hired killers on the outskirts of Paris.
David shuddered at the memory, still seeing a defeated Conklin limp away, his crippled figure in Webb’s gunsight.
The second try was blurred for David. Perhaps he would never recall it completely. It had taken place at the Treadstone sterile house on New York’s 71st Street, an ingenious trap mounted by Conklin, which was aborted by Webb’s hysterical efforts to survive and, oddly enough, the presence of Carlos the Jackal.
Later, when the truth was known, that the ‘traitor’ had no treason in him but instead a mental aberration called amnesia, Conklin fell apart. During David’s agonizing months of convalescence in Virginia, Alex tried repeatedly to see his former friend, to explain, to tell his part of the bloody story – to apologize with every fibre of his being.
David, however, had no forgiveness in his soul.
‘If he walks through that door I’ll kill him,’ had been his words.
That would change now, thought Webb as he quickened his pace down the street towards the house. Whatever Conklin’s faults and duplicities, few men in the intelligence community had the insights and the sources he had developed over a lifetime of commitment. David had not thought about Alex in months; he thought about him now, suddenly remembering the last time his name came up in conversation. Mo Panov had rendered his verdict.
‘I can’t help him because he doesn’t want to be helped. He’ll carry his last bottle of sour mash up to that great big black operations room in the sky bombed out of his mercifully dead skull. If he lasts to his retirement at the end of the year, I’ll be astonished. On the other hand, if he stays pickled they may
put him in a straitjacket and that’ll keep him out of traffic. I swear I don’t know how he gets to work every day. That pension is one hell of a survival-therapy – better than anything Freud ever left us. ‘
Panov had spoken those words no more than five months ago. Conklin was still in place.
I’m sorry, Mo. His survival one-way or the other doesn’t bother me. So far as I’m concerned, his status is dead.
It was not dead now, thought David, as he ran up the steps of the oversized Victorian porch. Alex Conklin was very much alive, whether drunk or not, and even if he was preserved in bourbon, he had his sources, those contacts he had cultivated during a lifetime of devotion to the shadow world that ultimately rejected him. Within that world debts were owed; and they were paid out of fear.
Alexander Conklin. Number I on Jason Bourne’s hit list.
He opened the door and once again stood in the hallway, but his eyes did not see the wreckage. Instead, the logician in him ordered him to go back into his study and begin the procedures; there was nothing but confusion without imposed order, and confusion led to questions – he could not afford them. Everything had to be precise within the reality he was creating so as to divert the curious from the reality that was.
He sat down at the desk and tried to focus his thoughts. There was the ever-present spiral notebook from the College Shop in front of him. He opened the thick cover to the first lined page and reached for a pencil… He could not pick it up! His hand shook so much that his whole body trembled. He held his breath and made a fist, clenching it until his fingernails cut into his flesh. He closed his eyes, then opened them, forcing his hand to return to the pencil, commanding it to do its job. Slowly, awkwardly, his fingers gripped the thin, yellow shaft and moved the pencil into position. The words were barely legible, but they were there.
The university phone president and dean of studies. Family crisis, not Canada can he traced. Invent a brother in Europe, perhaps. Yes, Europe. Leave of absence brief leave of absence. Right away. Will stay in touch.
House call rental agent, same story. Ask Jack to check periodically. He has key. Turn thermostat to 60°.
Mail – fill out form at Post Office. Hold all mail.
Newspapers – cancel.
The little things, the goddamned little things – the unimportant daily trivia became so terribly important and had to be taken care of so that there would be no sign whatsoever of an abrupt departure without a planned return. That was vital; he had to remember it with every word he spoke. Questions had to be kept to a minimum, the inevitable speculations reduced to manageable proportions, which meant he had to confront the obvious conclusion that his recent bodyguards somehow led to his leave of absence. To defuse the connection, the most plausible way was to emphasize the short duration of that absence and to face the issue with a straightforward dismissal such as ‘Incidentally, if you’re wondering whether this has anything to do with… well, don’t. That’s a closed book; it didn’t have much merit anyway.’ He would know better how to respond while talking to both the university’s president and the dean; their own reactions would guide him. If anything could guide him. If he was capable of thinking! Don’t slide back! Keep going. Move that pencil! Fill out the page with things to do – then another page, and another! Passports, initials on wallets or billfolds or shirts to correspond with the names being used; airline reservations – connecting flights, no direct routes – oh, God\ To where”] Marie! Where are you?
Stop it! Control yourself. You are capable, you must be capable. You have no choice, so be what you once were. Feel ice. Be ice.
Without warning, the shell he was building around himself was shattered by the ear-splitting sound of the telephone inches from his hand on the desk. He looked at it, swallowing, wondering if he were capable of sounding remotely normal. It rang again, a terrible insistence in its ring. You have no choice.
He picked it up, gripping the receiver with such force that his knuckles turned white. He managed to get out the single word. ‘Yes? ,
This is the mobile-air operator, satellite transmission-‘
‘Who? What did you say?”
‘I have a mid-flight radio call for a Mr Webb. Are you Mr Webb, sir?’
‘Yes. ‘
And then the world he knew blew up in a thousand jagged mirrors, each an image of screaming torment.
‘David!’
‘Marie?’
‘Don’t panic, darling! Do you hear me, don’t panic!’ Her voice came through the static; she was trying not to shout but could not help herself.
‘Are you all right? The note said you were hurt – wounded!’
‘I’m all right. A few scratches, that’s all. ‘
‘Where are you?
‘Over the ocean, I’m sure they’ll tell you that much. I don’t know; I was sedated. ‘
‘Oh, Jesus! I can’t stand it! They took you away!’
‘Pull yourself together, David. I know what this is doing to you, but they don’t. Do you understand what I’m saying? They don’t!’
She was sending him a coded message; it was not hard to decipher. He had to be the man he hated. He had to be Jason Bourne, and the assassin was alive and well and residing in the body of David Webb.
‘All right. Yes, all right. I’ve been going out of my mind!’
‘Your voice is being amplified-‘
‘Naturally. ‘
They’re letting me speak to you so you’ll know I’m alive. ‘
‘Have they hurt you?”
‘Not intentionally. ‘
‘What the hell are “scratches”?1
‘I struggled. I fought. And I was brought up on a ranch. ‘
‘Oh, my God-”
‘David, please! Don’t let them do this to you!’
To me? It’s you!’
‘I know, darling. I think they’re testing you, can you understand that?’
Again the message. Be Jason Bourne for both their sakes, for both their lives. ‘All right. Yes, all right.’ He lessened the intensity of his voice, trying to control himself. ‘When did it happen?’ he asked.
This morning, about an hour after you left. ‘
This morning”? Christ, all day\ How?’
They came to the door. Two men-‘
‘Who?’
‘I’m permitted to say they’re from the Far East. Actually, I don’t know any more than that. They asked me to accompany them and I refused. 1 ran into the kitchen and saw a knife. 1 stabbed one of them in the hand. ‘
The handprint on the door… ‘
‘I don’t understand. ‘
‘It doesn’t matter. ‘
“A man wants to talk to you, David. Listen to him, but not in anger not in a rage – can you understand that?
‘All right Yes, all right. I understand. ‘