The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

Misfire Three.

f f f

Phillip Atkinson, ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, picked up his phone in London, assuming that the unnamed caller, code “courier D.C.” was bearing an exceptionally confidential instruction from the State Department and automatically; as was the order, Atkinson snapped the switch on his rarely used scrambler. It would create an eruption of static on British intelligence’s intercepts and later he would smile benignly at good friends in the Connaught bar who asked him if there was anything new out of Washington, knowing that this one or that one had “relatives” in MI-Five.

“Yes, Courier District?”

“Mr. Ambassador, I assume we can’t be picked up,” said the low, strained voice from Washington.

“Your assumption’s correct unless they’ve come up with a new type of Enigma, which is unlikely.”

“Good. … I want to take you back to Saigon, to a certain operation no one talks about—”

“Who is this?” broke in Atkinson, bolting forward in his chair.

“The men in that outfit never used names, Mr. Ambassador, and we didn’t exactly advertise our commitments, did we?”

“Goddamn you, who are you? I know you?”

“No way, Phil, although I’m surprised you don’t recognize my voice.”

Atkinson’s eyes widened as they roamed rapidly about his office, seeing nothing, only trying to remember, trying desperately to put a voice with a face. “Is that you, Jack—believe me, we’re on a scrambler!”

“Close, Phil—”

“The Sixth Fleet, Jack. A simple reverse Morse. Then bigger things, much bigger. It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Let’s say it’s a possible, but it’s also irrelevant. The point is we’re in heavy weather, very heavy—”

“It is you!”

“Shut up. Just listen. A bastard frigate got loose from its moorings and is crashing around, hitting too many shoals.”

“Jack, I was ground, not sea. I can’t understand you.”

“Some swab jockey must have been cut out of the action back in Saigon, and from what I’ve learned he was put in protection for something or other and now he’s got it all put together. He’s got it all, Phil. Everything.”

“Holy Christ!”

“He’s ready to launch—”

“Stop him!”

“That’s the problem. We’re not sure who he is. The whole thing’s being kept very close over in Langley.”

“Good God, man, in your position you can give them the order to back off! Say it’s a DOD dead file that was never completed—that it was designed to spread disinformation! It’s all false!”

“That could be walking into a salvo—”

“Have you called Jimmy T over in Brussels?” interrupted the ambassador. “He’s tight with the top max at Langley.”

“At the moment I don’t want anything to go any further. Not until I do some missionary work.”

“Whatever you say, Jack. You’re running the show.”

“Keep your halyards taut, Phil.”

“If that means keep my mouth shut, don’t you worry about it!” said Atkinson, crooking his elbow, wondering who in London could remove an ugly tattoo on his forearm.

Across the Atlantic in Vienna, Virginia, Alex Conklin hung up the telephone and leaned back in his chair a frightened man. He had been following his instincts as he had done in the field for over twenty years, words leading to other words, phrases to phrases, innuendos snatched out of the air to support suppositions, even conclusions. It was a chess game of instant invention and he knew he was a skilled professional—sometimes too skilled. There were things that should remain in their black holes, undetected cancers buried in history, and what he had just learned might well fit that category.

Marks Three, Four and Five.

Phillip Atkinson, ambassador to Great Britain. James Teagarten, supreme commander of NATO. Jonathan “Jack” Burton, former admiral of the Sixth Fleet, currently chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Snake Lady. Medusa.

A network.

5

It was as if nothing had changed, thought Jason Bourne, knowing that his other self, the self called David Webb, was receding. The taxi had brought him out to the once elegant, now run-down neighborhood in northeast Washington, and, as happened five years ago, the driver refused to wait. He walked up the overgrown flagstone path to the old house, thinking as he did the first time that it was too old and too fragile and too much in need of repair; he rang the bell, wondering if Cactus was even alive. He was; the thin old black man with the gentle face and warm eyes stood in the doorframe exactly as he had stood five years before, squinting beneath a green eyeshade. Even Cactus’s first words were a minor variation of those he had used five years ago.

“You got hubcaps on your car, Jason?”

“No car and no cab; it wouldn’t stay.”

“Musta heard all those scurrilous rumors circulated by the fascist press. Me, I got howitzers in the windows just to impress this neighborly turf of my friendly persuasion. Come on in, I think of you a lot. Why didn’t you phone this old boy?”

“Your number’s not listed, Cactus.”

“Musta been an oversight.” Bourne walked into the hallway as the old man closed the door. “You got a few streaks of gray in your hair, Br’er Rabbit,” added Cactus, studying his friend. “Other than that you ain’t changed much. Maybe a line or six in your face, but it adds character.”

“I’ve also got a wife and two kids, Uncle Remus. A boy and a girl.”

“I know that. Mo Panov keeps me up on things even though he can’t tell me where you are—which I don’t care to know, Jason.”

Bourne blinked while slowly shaking his head. “I still forget things, Cactus. I’m sorry. I forgot you and Mo are friends.”

“Oh, the good doctor calls me at least once a month and says, ‘Cactus, you rascal, put on your Pierre Cardin suit and your Gucci shoes and let’s have lunch.’ So I say to him, ‘Where’s this old nigger gonna get such threads?’ and he says to me, ‘You probably own a shopping center in the best part of town.’ … Now that’s an exaggeration, s’ help me. I do have bits and pieces of decent white real estate but I never go near them.”

As both men laughed, Jason stared at the dark face and warm black eyes in front of him. “Something else I just remembered. Thirteen years ago in that hospital in Virginia … you came to see me. Outside of Marie and those government bastards you were the only one.”

“Panov understood, Br’er Rabbit. When in my very unofficial status I worked on you for Europe, I told Morris that you don’t study a man’s face in a lens without learning things about that face, that man. I wanted you to talk about the things I found missing in that lens and Morris thought it might not be a bad idea. … And now that confessional hour is over, I gotta say that it’s really good to see you, Jason, but to tell you the truth I’m not happy to see you, if you catch my meaning.”

“I need your help, Cactus.”

“That’s the root of my unhappiness. You’ve been through enough and you wouldn’t be here unless you were itching for more, and in my professional, lens-peering opinion, that ain’t healthy for the face I’m lookin’ at.”

“You’ve got to help me.”

“Then you’d better have a damn good reason that passes muster for the good doctor. ’Cause I ain’t gonna mess around with anything that could mess you up further. … I met your lovely lady with the dark red hair a few times in the hospital—she’s somethin’ special, Br’er, and your kids have got to be outstanding, so you see I can’t mess around with anything that might hurt them. Forgive me, but you’re all like kinfolk from a distance, from a time we don’t talk about, but it’s on my mind.”

“They’re why I need your help.”

“Be clearer, Jason.”

“The Jackal’s closing in. He found us in Hong Kong and he’s zeroing in on me and my family, on my wife and my children. Please, help me.”

The old man’s eyes grew wide under the green shade, a moral fury in his expanded pupils. “Does the good doctor know about this?”

“He’s part of it. He may not approve of what I’m doing, but if he’s honest with himself, he knows that the bottom line is the Jackal and me. Help me, Cactus.”

The aged black studied his pleading client in the hallway, in the afternoon shadows. “You in good shape, Br’er Rabbit?” he asked. “You still got juices?”

“I run six miles every morning and I press weights at least twice a week in the university gym—”

“I didn’t hear that. I don’t want to know anything about colleges or universities.”

“Then you didn’t hear it.”

“ ’Course I didn’t. You look in pretty fair condition, I’ll say that.”

“It’s deliberate, Cactus,” said Jason quietly. “Sometimes it’s just a telephone suddenly ringing, or Marie’s late or out with the kids and I can’t reach her … or someone I don’t know stops me in the street to ask directions, and it comes back—he comes back. The Jackal. As long as there’s a possibility that he’s alive, I have to be ready for him because he won’t stop looking for me. The awful irony is that his hunt is based on a supposition that may not be true. He thinks I can identify him, but I’m not sure I could. Nothing’s really in focus yet.”