“Wouldn’t you know it’d be a lousy soldier boy who puts us out on a limb? If it wasn’t for that jackass with his access code, we wouldn’t have a problem. Everything would be taken care of.”
“But he does exist, and the problem—the crisis—won’t go away,” said Bourne flatly. “I repeat, we have to cover ourselves. Some of us will have to leave—disappear at least for a while. For the good of all of us.”
The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission leaned back in the booth, his expression pensively disagreeable. “Yeah, well let me tell you something, Simon, or whatever your name is. You’re checking out the wrong people. We’re businessmen, some of us rich enough or egotistical enough or for other reasons willing to work for government pay, but first we’re businessmen with investments all over the place. We’re also appointed, not elected, and that means nobody expects full financial disclosures. Do you see what I’m driving at?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jason, instantly concerned that he was losing control, losing the threat. I’ve been away too long … and Albert Armbruster was not a fool. He was given to first-level panic, but the second level was colder, far more analytical. “What are you driving at?”
“Get rid of our soldier boys. Buy them villas or a couple of Caribbean islands and put them out of reach. Give ’em their own little courts and let ’em play kings; that’s what they’re all about anyway.”
“Operate without them?” asked Bourne, trying to conceal his astonishment.
“You said it and I agree. Any hint of big brass and we’re in big trouble. It goes under the heading of ‘military industrial complex,’ which freely translated means military-industrial collusion.” Again Armbruster leaned forward over the table. “We don’t need them anymore! Get rid of them.”
“There could be very loud objections—”
“No way. We’ve got ’em by their brass balls!”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. In six months we’ll have the controls we need in Europe.”
Jason Bourne stared at the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. What controls? he thought to himself. For what reason? Why?
“I’ll drive you home,” he said.
“I talked to Marie,” said Conklin from the Agency garden apartment in Virginia. “She’s at the inn, not at your house.”
“How come?” asked Jason at a gas-station pay phone on the outskirts of Manassas.
“She wasn’t too clear. … I think it was lunchtime or nap time—one of those times when mothers are never clear. I could hear your kids in the background. They were loud, pal.”
“What did she say, Alex?”
“It seems your brother-in-law wanted it that way. She didn’t elaborate, and other than sounding like one harried mommy, she was the perfectly normal Marie I know and love—which means she only wanted to hear about you.”
“Which means you told her I was perfectly fine, didn’t you?”
“Hell, yes. I said you were holed up under guard going over a lot of computer printouts, sort of a variation on the truth.”
“Johnny must have had his talk with her. She told him what’s happened, so he moved them all to his exclusive bunker.”
“His what?”
“You never saw Tranquility Inn, or did you? Frankly, I can’t remember whether you did or not.”
“Panov and I saw only the plans and the site; that was four years ago. We haven’t been back since, at least I haven’t. Nobody’s asked me.”
“I’ll let that pass because you’ve had a standing invitation since we got the place. … Anyway, you know it’s on the beach and the only way to get there except by water is up a dirt road so filled with rocks no normal car could make it twice. Everything is flown in by plane or brought over by boat. Almost nothing from the town.”
“And the beach is patrolled,” interrupted Conklin. “Johnny isn’t taking any chances.”
“It’s why I sent them down there. I’ll call her later.”
“What about now?” said Alex. “What about Armbruster?”
“Let’s put it this way,” replied Bourne, his eyes drifting up to the white plastic shell of the pay phone. “What does it mean when a man who has a hundred million dollars in Zurich tells me that Medusa—point of origin Command Saigon, emphasis on ‘command,’ which is hardly civilian—should get rid of the military because Snake Lady doesn’t need them any longer?”
“I don’t believe it,” said the retired intelligence officer in a quiet, doubting voice. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, yes, he did. He even called them soldier boys, and he wasn’t memorializing them in song. He verbally dismissed the admirals and the generals as gold-braided debutantes who wanted every new toy in town.”
“Certain senators on the Armed Services Committee would agree with that assessment,” concurred Alex.
“There’s more. When I reminded him that Snake Lady came out of Saigon—Command Saigon—he was very clear. He said it may have, but it sure as hell didn’t stay there because and this is a direct quote—‘The soldier boys couldn’t run with it.’ ”
“That’s a provocative statement. Did he tell you why they couldn’t run with it?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. I was supposed to know the answer.”
“I wish you did. I like less and less the sound of what I’m hearing; it’s big and it’s ugly. … How did the hundred million come up?”
“I told him Medusa might get him a villa someplace out of the country where he couldn’t be reached if we thought it was necessary. He wasn’t too interested and said if he wanted one, he’d buy it himself. He had a hundred million, American, in Zurich—a fact I think I was also expected to know.”
“That was all? Just a simple little one hundred million?”
“Not entirely. He told me that like everybody else he gets a monthly telex—in code—from the banks in Zurich listing his deposits. Obviously, they’ve been growing.”
“Big, ugly and growing,” added Conklin. “Anything else? Not that I particularly want to hear it, I’m frightened enough.”
“Two more items and you’d better have some fear in reserve. … Armbruster said that along with the deposit telexes he gets a listing of the companies they’re gaining control of.”
“What companies? What was he talking about? … Good God.”
“If I had asked, my wife and children might have to attend a private memorial service, no casket in evidence because I wouldn’t be there.”
“You’ve got more to tell me. Tell me.”
“Our illustrious chairman of the Federal Trade Commission said that the ubiquitous ‘we’ could get rid of the military because in six months ‘we’ would have all the controls we needed in Europe. … Alex, what controls? What are we dealing with?”
There was silence on the unbroken line, and Jason Bourne did not interrupt. David Webb wanted to shout in defiance and confusion, but there was no point; he was a non-person. Finally, Conklin spoke.
“I think we’re dealing with something we can’t handle,” he said softly, his words barely audible over the phone. “This has to go upstairs, David. We can’t keep it to ourselves.”
“Goddamn you, you’re not talking to David!” Bourne did not raise his voice in anger; he did not have to, its tone was enough. “This isn’t going anywhere unless or until I say it does and I may not ever say it. Understand me, field man, I don’t owe anyone anything, especially not the movers and the shakers in this city. They moved and shook my wife and me too much for any concessions where our lives or the lives of our children are concerned! I intend to use everything I can learn for one purpose and one purpose only. That’s to draw out the Jackal and kill him so we can climb out of our personal hell and go on living. … I know now that this is the way to do it. Armbruster talked tough and he probably is tough, but underneath he’s frightened. They’re all frightened—panicked, as you put it—and you were right. Present them with the Jackal and he’s a solution they can’t refuse. Present Carlos with a client as rich and as powerful as our current Medusa and it’s irresistible to him—he’s got the respect of the international big boys, not just the crud of the world, the fanatics of the left and right. … Don’t stand in my way, don’t, for God’s sake!”
“That’s a threat, isn’t it?”
“Stop it, Alex. I don’t want to talk like that.”
“But you just did. It’s the reverse of Paris thirteen years ago, isn’t it? Only now you’ll kill me because I’m the one who hasn’t a memory, the memory of what we did to you and Marie.”
“That’s my family out there!” cried David Webb, his voice tight, sweat forming on his hairline as his eyes filled with tears. “They’re a thousand miles away from me and in hiding. It can’t be any other way because I won’t risk letting them be harmed! … Killed, Alex, because that’s what the Jackal will do if he finds them. It’s an island this week; where is it next? How many thousands of miles more? And after that, where will they go—where will we go? Knowing what we know now, we can’t stop—he’s after me; that goddamned filthy psychopath is after me, and everything we’ve learned about him tells us he wants a maximum kill. His ego demands it, and that kill includes my family! … No, field man, don’t burden me with things I don’t care about—not where they interfere with Marie and the kids—I’m owed that much.”