“I’ll give you what I got if you let me get out of here. I don’t want nothin’ more to do with this place! I figured it was comin’ someday, I told Barbie Jo, you ask her! I told her someday people’d be comin’ around asking questions. But not this way, not your way! Not with guns aimed at our heads.”
“I assume Barbie Jo is your wife.”
“Sort of.”
“Then let’s start with why ‘people’ would come out here asking questions. My superiors want to know. Don’t worry, you won’t be involved, nobody’s interested in you. You’re just a security guard.”
“That’s all I am, mister!” interrupted the frightened man. “Then why did you tell Barbie Jo what you did? That people would someday come out here asking questions.”
“Hell, I’m not sure…. Jest so many crazy things, y’know?”
“No, I don’t know. Like what?”
“Well, like the brass-plated screamer, the general. He’s a big wheel, right? He’s got Pentagon cars and drivers and even helicopters whenever he wants ’em, right? He owns this place, right?”
“So?”
“So that big mick of a sergeant—a lousy master sergeant—orders him around like he wasn’t toilet-trained, y’know what I mean? And that big-titty wife of his he’s got a thing goin’ with the hulk and she don’t give a damn who knows it. It’s all crazy, y’see what I mean?”
“I see a domestic mess, but I’m not sure it’s anybody’s business. Why would people come out here and ask questions?”
“Why are you out here, man? You figured there was a meetin’ tonight, didn’t you?”
“A meeting?”
“Them fancy limousines with the chauffeurs and the big shots, right? Well, you picked the wrong night. The dogs are out and they’re never let out when there’s a meetin’.”
Bourne paused, then spoke as he approached the guard. “We’ll continue this in the cart,” he said with authority. “I’ll crouch down and you’ll do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“You promised me I could get out of here!”
“You can, you will. Both you and the other fellow making the rounds. The gates over there, are they on an alarm?”
“Not when the dogs are loose. If those hounds see something out on the road and get excited, they’d jump up and set it off.”
“Where’s the alarm panel?”
“There are two of ’em. One’s in the sergeant’s place, the other’s in the front hall of the house. As long as the gates are closed, you can turn it on.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Where are we goin’?”
“I want to see every dog on the premises.”
Twenty-one minutes later, the remaining five attack dogs drugged and carried to their kennels, Bourne unlatched the entrance gate and let the two guards outside. He had given each three hundred dollars. “This will make up for any pay you lose,” he said.
“Hey, what about my car?” asked the second guard. “It ain’t much but it gets me around. Me and Willie come out here in it.”
“Do you have the keys?”
“Yeah, in my pocket. It’s parked in the back by the kennels.”
“Get it tomorrow.”
“Why don’t I get it now?”
“You’d make too much noise driving out, and my superiors will be arriving any moment. It’s best that they don’t see you. Take my word for it.”
“Holy shit! What’d I tell you, Jim-Bob? Jest like I tole Barbie Jo. This place is weird, man!”
“Three hundred bucks ain’t weird, Willie. C’mon, we’ll hitch. T’ain’t late and some of the boys’ll be on the road. … Hey, mister, who’s gonna take care of the hounds when they wake up? They got to be walked and fed before the morning shift, and they’ll tear apart any stranger who gets near ’em.”
“What about Swayne’s master sergeant? He can handle them, can’t he?”
“They don’t like him much,” offered the guard named Willie, “but they obey him. They’re better with the general’s wife, the horny bastards.”
“What about the general?” asked Bourne.
“He pisses bright yeller at the sight of ’em,” replied Jim-Bob.
“Thanks for the information. Go on now, get down the road a piece before you start hitchhiking. My superiors are coming from the other direction.”
“You know,” said the second guard, squinting in the moonlight at Jason, “this is the craziest fuckin’ night I ever expect to see. You get in here dressed like some gawddamn terrorist, but you talk and act like a shit-kickin’ army officer. You keep mentioning these ‘soopeeriors’ of yours; you drug the pups and pay us three hundred bucks to get out. I don’t understand nothin’!”
“You’re not supposed to. On the other hand, if I was really a terrorist, you’d probably be dead, wouldn’t you?”
“He’s right, Jim-Bob. Let’s get outta here!”
“What the hell are we supposed to say?”
“Tell anyone who asks you the truth. Describe what happened tonight. Also, you can add that the code name is Cobra.”
“My Gawd!” yelled Willie as both men fled into the road. Bourne secured the gate and walked back to the patrol cart certain in the knowledge that whatever happened during the next hours, an appendage of Medusa had been thrown into a state of further anxiety. Questions would be asked feverishly—questions for which there were no answers. Nothing. Enigma.
He climbed into the cart, shifted gears and started for the cabin at the end of the graveled road that branched off from the immaculate circular drive.
f f f
He stood by the window peering inside, his face at the edge of the glass. The huge, overweight master sergeant was sitting in a large leather armchair, his feet on an ottoman, watching television. From the sounds penetrating the window, specifically the rapid, high-pitched speech of an announcer, the general’s aide was engrossed in a baseball game. Jason scanned the room as best he could; it was typically rustic, a profusion of browns and reds, from dark furniture to checkered curtains, comfortable and masculine, a man’s cabin in the country. However, there were no weapons in sight, not even the accepted antique rifle over the fireplace, and no general-issue .45 automatic either on the sergeant’s person or on the table beside the chair. The aide had no concerns for his immediate safety and why should he? The estate of General Norman Swayne was totally secure—fence, gates, patrols and disciplined roving attack dogs at all points of entry. Bourne stared through the glass at the strong jowled face of the master sergeant. What secrets did that large head hold? He would find out. Medusa’s Delta One would find out if he had to carve that skull apart. Jason pushed himself away from the window and walked around the cabin to the front door. He knocked twice with the knuckles of his left hand; in his right was the untraceable automatic supplied by Alexander Conklin, the crown prince of dark operations.
“It’s open, Rachel!” yelled the rasping voice from within.
Bourne twisted the knob and shoved the door back; it swung slowly on its hinges and made contact with the wall. He walked inside.
“Jesus Christ!” roared the master sergeant, his heavy legs plunging off the ottoman as he wriggled his massive body out of the chair. “You! … You’re a goddamned ghost! You’re dead!”
“Try again,” said Delta of Medusa. “The name’s Flannagan, isn’t it? That’s what comes to mind.”
“You’re dead!” repeated the general’s aide, screaming, his eyes bulging in panic. “You bought it in Hong Kong! You were killed in Hong Kong … four, five years ago!”
“You kept tabs—”
“We know … I know!”
“You’ve got connections in the right places, then.”
“You’re Bourne!”
“Obviously born again, you might say.”
“I don’t believe this!”
“Believe, Flannagan. It’s the ‘we’ we’re going to talk about. Snake Lady, to be precise.”
“You’re the one—the one Swayne called ‘Cobra’!”
“It’s a snake.”
“I don’t get it—”
“It’s confusing.”
“You’re one of us!”
“I was. I was also cut out. I snaked back in, as it were.”
The sergeant frantically looked at the door, then the windows. “How’d you get in here? Where are the guards, the dogs? Jesus! Where are they?”
“The dogs are asleep in the kennels, so I gave the guards the night off.”
“You gave … ? The dogs are on the grounds!”
“Not any longer. They were persuaded to rest.”
“The guards—the goddamned guards!”
“They were persuaded to leave. What they think is happening here tonight is even more confusing.”
“What’ve you done—what are you doing?”
“I thought I just mentioned it. We’re going to talk, Sergeant Flannagan. I want to get caught up with some old comrades.”
The frightened man backed awkwardly away from the chair. “You’re the maniac they called Delta before you turned and went in business for yourself!” he cried in a guttural whisper. “There was a picture, a photograph—you were laid out on a slab, bloodstains all over the sheet from the bullet wounds; your face was uncovered, your eyes wide open, holes still bleeding on your forehead and your throat. … They asked me who you were and I said, ‘He’s Delta. Delta One from the illegals,’ and they said, ‘No, he’s not, he’s Jason Bourne, the killer, the assassin,’ so I said, ‘Then they’re one and the same because that man is Delta—I knew him.’ They thanked me and told me to go back and join the others.”