A spit, a crack. The man had reloaded while running! Jason fired; the man fell in the road. And as he did so, the intermittent silence of the night was ripped open by the sound of a powerful, racing engine, the vehicle in question speeding up the outside road, its flashing red and blue lights signifying the police. The police! The alarm must have been wired into the Manassas headquarters, a fact that had never occurred to Bourne; he had assumed that such a measure was impossible where Medusa was concerned. It wasn’t logical; the security was internal; no external force could be permitted for Snake Lady. There was too much to learn, too much that had to be kept secret—a cemetery!
The killer writhed in the road, rolling over and over toward the bordering pine trees. There was something clutched in his hand. Jason approached him as two police officers got out of the patrol car beyond the gate. He lashed his foot out, kicking the man’s body, releasing whatever it was in his grip and reaching down to pick it up. It was a leather-bound book, one of a set, like a volume of Dickens or Thackeray, the embossed letters in gold, more for display than for reading. It was crazy! Then he flipped open a page and understood it was not crazy at all. There was no print inside, only the scrawl of handwritten notes on blank pages. It was a diary, a ledger!
There could be no police! Especially not now. He could not allow them to be aware of his and Conklin’s penetration into Medusa. The leather-bound book in his hand could not see the official light of day! The Jackal was everything. He had to get rid of them!
“We got a call, mister,” intoned a middle-aged patrolman walking toward the grilled gate, a younger associate joining him. “HQ said he was uptight as hell. We’re responding, but like I told dispatch, there’ve been some pretty wild parties out here, no criticism intended, sir. We all like a good time now and then, right?”
“Absolutely right, Officer,” replied Jason, trying his utmost to control the painful heaving in his chest, his eyes straying to the wounded killer—he had disappeared! “There was a momentary shortage in electricity that somehow interfered with the telephone lines.”
“Happens a lot,” confirmed the younger patrolman. “Sudden showers and summer heat lightnin’. Someday they’ll put all them cables underground. My folks got a place—”
“The point is,” interrupted Bourne, “everything’s getting back to normal. As you can see, some of the lights in the house are back on.”
“I can’t see nothin’ through them flares,” said the young police officer.
“The general always takes the ultimate precautions,” explained Jason. “I guess he feels he has to,” added Bourne, somewhat lamely. “Regardless, everything’s—as I said—getting back to normal. Okay?”
“Okay by me,” answered the older patrolman, “but I got a message for someone named Webb. He in there?”
“I’m Webb,” said Jason Bourne, alarmed.
“That makes things easier. You’re supposed to call a ‘Mister Conk’ right away. It’s urgent.”
“Urgent?”
“An emergency, we were told. It was just radioed to us.”
Jason could hear the rattling of the fence on the perimeter of Swayne’s property. The killer was getting away! “Well, Officer, the phones are still out here. … Do you have one in your car?”
“Not for personal use, sir. Sorry.”
“But you just said it was an emergency.”
“Well, I suppose since you’re a guest of the general’s I could permit it. If it’s long distance, though, you’d better have a credit card number.”
“Oh, my God.” Bourne unlocked the gate and rushed to the patrol car as the siren-alarm was activated back at the house—activated and then instantly shut off. The remaining brother had apparently found Cactus.
“What the hell was that?” yelled the young policeman.
“Forget it!” screamed Jason, jumping into the car and yanking an all too familiar patrol phone out of its cradle. He gave Alex’s number in Virginia to the police switchboard and kept repeating the phrase: “It’s an emergency, it’s an emergency!”
“Yes?” answered Conklin, acknowledging the police operator.
“It’s me!”
“What happened?”
“Too involved to go into. What’s the emergency?”
“I’ve got you a private jet out of the Reston airport.”
“Reston? That’s north of here—”
“The field in Manassas doesn’t have the equipment. I’m sending a car for you.”
“Why?”
“Tranquility. Marie and the kids are okay; they’re okay! She’s in charge.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Get to Reston and I’ll tell you.”
“I want more!”
“The Jackal’s flying in today.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Wrap things up there and wait for the car.”
“I’ll take this one!”
“No! Not unless you want to blow everything. We’ve got time. Wrap it up out there.”
“Cactus … he’s hurt—shot.”
“I’ll call Ivan. He’ll get back in a hurry.”
“There’s one brother left—only one, Alex. I killed the other two—I was responsible.”
“Cut that out. Stop it. Do what you have to do.”
“Goddamn you, I can’t. Someone’s got to be here and I won’t be!”
“You’re right. There’s too much to keep under wraps out there and you’ve got to be in Montserrat. I’ll drive out with the car and take your place.”
“Alex, tell me what happened on Tranquility!”
“The old men … your ‘old men of Paris,’ that’s what happened.”
“They’re dead,” said Jason Bourne quietly, simply.
“Don’t be hasty. They’ve turned—at least I gather the real one turned and the other’s a God-given mistake. They’re on our side now.”
“They’re never on anyone’s side but the Jackal’s, you don’t know them.”
“Neither do you. Listen to your wife. But now you go back to the house and write out everything I should know. … And Jason, I must tell you something. I hope to Christ you can find your solution—our solution—on Tranquility. Because all things considered, including my life, I can’t keep this Medusa on our level much longer. I think you know that.”
“You promised!”
“Thirty-six hours, Delta.”
In the woods beyond the fence a wounded man crouched, his frightened face against the green links. In the bright wash of the headlights, he observed the tall man who had gone into the patrol car and now came out, awkwardly, nervously thanking the policemen. He did not, however, permit them inside.
Webb. The killer had heard the name “Webb.”
It was all they had to know. All Snake Lady had to know.
15
“God, I love you!” said David Webb, leaning into the pay phone in the preboarding room at the private airfield in Reston, Virginia. “The waiting was the worst part, waiting to talk to you, to hear from you that you were all all right.”
“How do you think I felt, darling? Alex said the telephone lines had been cut and he was sending the police when I wanted him to send the whole damned army.”
“We can’t even allow the police, nothing official anywhere at the moment. Conklin’s promised me at least another thirty-six hours. … We may not need that now. Not with the Jackal in Montserrat.”
“David, what happened? Alex mentioned Medusa—”
“It’s a mess and he’s right, he has to go higher up with it. Him, not us. We stay out. Far away out.”
“What happened?” repeated Marie. “What’s the old Medusa got to do with anything?”
“There’s a new Medusa—an extension of the old one, actually—and it’s big and ugly and it kills, they kill. I saw that tonight; one of their guns tried to kill me after thinking he’d killed Cactus and murdering two innocent men.”
“Good God! Alex told me about Cactus when he called me back, but nothing else. How is your Uncle Remus?”
“He’ll make it. The Agency doctor came out and took him and the last brother away.”
“ ‘Brother’?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. … Conklin’s out there now. He’ll take care of everything and have the telephone fixed. I’ll call him from Tranquility.”
“You’re exhausted—”
“I’m tired, but I’m not sure why. Cactus insisted I get some sleep and I must have had all of twelve minutes.”
“My poor darling.”
“I like the tone of your voice,” said David. “The words even better, except I’m not poor. You took care of that in Paris thirteen years ago.” Suddenly his wife was silent and Webb was alarmed. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“I’m not sure,” answered Marie softly, but with a strength that was the result of thought, not feeling. “You say this new Medusa is big and ugly and it tried to kill you—they tried to kill you.”
“They didn’t.”
“Yet they, or it, wanted you dead. Why?”
“Because I was there.”
“You don’t kill a man because he was at someone’s house—”
“A lot happened at that house tonight. Alex and I penetrated its circle of secrets and I was seen. The idea was to bait the Jackal with a few rich and all too famous bandits from the old Saigon who would hire him to come after me. It was a hell of a strategy but it spiraled out of control.”