That left forty-seven possibles. Men and women—in eleven cases ostensibly husbands and wives—with extensive connections in Europe, in the main with technological firms and related nuclear and aerospace industries, all under intelligence microscopes for possibly selling classified information to brokers of the Eastern bloc and therefore to Moscow. Of these forty-seven possibles, including two of the eleven couples, an even dozen had made recent trips to the Soviet Union—scratch all of them. The Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, otherwise known as the KGB, had less use for the Jackal than the Pope. Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, later Carlos the assassin, had been trained in the American compound of Novgorod, where the streets were lined with American gas stations and grocery stores, boutiques and Burger Kings, and everyone spoke American English with diverse dialects—no Russian was allowed—and only those who passed the course were permitted to proceed to the next level of infiltrators. The Jackal had, indeed, passed, but when the Komitet discovered that the young Venezuelan revolutionary’s solution for all things disagreeable was to eliminate them violently, it was too much for even the inheritors of the brutal OGPU. Sanchez was expelled and Carlos the Jackal was born. Forget about the twelve people who had traveled to the Soviet Union. The assassin would not touch them, for there was a standing order in all branches of Russian intelligence that if Carlos was tracked he was to be shot. Novgorod was to be protected at all cost.
The possibles were thus narrowed to thirty-five, the hotel’s register listing them as nine couples, four single women and thirteen single men. The raw-file printouts from the data banks de scribed in detail the facts and speculations that resulted in the negative evaluation of each individual. In truth, the speculations far outnumbered the facts and were too often based on hostile appraisals given by enemies or competitors, but each had to be studied, many with distaste, for among the information might be a word or phrase, a location or an act, that was the link to Carlos.
The telephone rang, breaking Jason’s concentration. He blinked at the harsh, intrusive sound as if trying to locate the source, then he sprang from the couch and rushed to the desk, reaching the phone on the third ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s Alex. I’m calling from down the street.”
“Are you coming up?”
“Not through that lobby, I’m not. I’ve made arrangements for the service entrance, with a temporary guard hired this afternoon.”
“You’re covering all the bases, aren’t you?”
“Nowhere near as many as I’d like to,” replied Conklin. “This isn’t your normal ball game. See you in a few minutes. I’ll knock once.”
Bourne hung up the phone and returned to the couch and the printouts, separating three that had caught his attention, not that any of them contained anything that evoked the Jackal. In stead, it was seemingly offhand data that might conceivably link the three to each other when no apparent connection existed between them. According to their passports, these three Americans had flown in to Philadelphia’s International Airport within six days of one another eight months ago. Two women and a man, the women from Marrakesh and Lisbon, the man from West Berlin. The first woman was an interior decorator on a collecting trip to the old Moroccan city, the second an executive for the Chase Bank, Foreign Department; the man was an aerospace engineer on loan to the Air Force from McDonnell-Douglas. Why would three such obviously different people, with such dissimilar professions, converge on the same city within a week of one another? Coincidence? Entirely possible, but considering the number of international airports in the country, including the most frequented—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami—the coincidence of Philadelphia seemed unlikely. Stranger still, and even more unlikely, was the fact that these same three people were staying at the same hotel at the same time in Washington eight months later. Jason wondered what Alex Conklin would say when he told him.
“I’m getting the book on each of them,” said Alex, sinking into an armchair across from the couch and the printouts.
“You knew?”
“It wasn’t hard to put together. Of course, it was a hell of a lot easier with a computer doing the scanning.”
“You might have included a note! I’ve been poring over these things since eight o’clock.”
“I didn’t find it—them—until after nine and I didn’t want to call you from Virginia.”
“That’s another story, isn’t it?” said Bourne, sitting down on the couch, once again leaning forward anxiously.
“Yes, it is, and it’s God-awful.”
“Medusa?”
“It’s worse than I thought, and worse than that, I didn’t think it could be.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“It’s a bowelful,” countered the retired intelligence officer. “Where do I start? … Pentagon procurements? The Federal Trade Commission? Our ambassador in London, or would you like the supreme commander of NATO?”
“My God … !”
“Oh, I can go one better. For size, try on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”
“Christ, what is it? Some kind of cabal?”
“That’s so academic, Dr. Scholar. Now try collusion, down deep and elusive and after all these years still breathing, still alive. They’re in contact with each other in high places. Why?”
“What’s the purpose? The objective?”
“I just said that, asked that, really.”
“There has to be a reason!”
“Try motive. I just said that, too, and it may be as simple as hiding past sins. Isn’t that what we were looking for? A collection of former Medusans who’d run to the hills at the thought of the past coming to light?”
“Then that’s it.”
“No, it’s not, and this is Saint Alex’s instincts searching for words. Their reactions were too immediate, too visceral, too loaded with today, not twenty years ago.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“I’ve lost myself. Something’s different from what we expected, and I’m goddamned sick of making mistakes. … But this isn’t a mistake. You said this morning that it could be a net work, and I thought you were way the hell off base. I thought that maybe we’d find a few high profiles who didn’t want to be publicly drawn and quartered for things they did twenty years ago, or who legitimately didn’t want to embarrass the government, and we could use them, force them in their collective fear to do things and say things we told them to do. But this is different. It’s today, and I can’t figure it out. It’s more than fear, it’s panic; they’re frightened out of their minds. … We’ve bumbled and stumbled onto something, Mr. Bourne, and in your rich friend Cactus’s old-time minstrel-show language, ‘In the focus, it could be bigger than bo’fus.”
“In my considered opinion there’s, nothing bigger than the Jackal! Not for me. The rest can go to hell.”
“I’m on your side and I’ll go to the wall shouting it. I just wanted you to know my thoughts. … Except for a brief and pretty rotten interlude, we never kept anything from each other, David.”
“I prefer Jason these days.”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Conklin. “I hate it but I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” said Alex softly, nodding as he closed his eyes. “I’d do anything to change it but I can’t.”
“Then listen to me. In that serpentine mind of yours—Cactus’s description, incidentally—conjure up the worst scenario you can think of and shove those bastards against another wall, one they can’t get away from unscathed unless they follow your instructions down to the letter. Those orders will be to stay quiet and wait for you to call and tell them who to reach and what to say.”
Conklin looked over at his damaged friend with guilt and concern. “There may be a scenario in place that I can’t match,” said Alex quietly. “I won’t make another mistake, not in that area. I need more than what I’ve got.”
Bourne clasped his hands, flesh angrily grinding flesh in frustration. He stared at the scattered printouts in front of him, frowning, wincing, his jaw pulsating. In seconds a sudden passivity came over him; he sat back on the couch and spoke as quietly as Conklin. “All right, you’ll get it. Quickly.”
“How?”
“Me. I’ll get it for you. I’ll need names, residences, schedules and methods of security, favorite restaurants and bad habits, if any are known. Tell your boys to go to work. Tonight. All night, if necessary.”
“What the hell do you think you’re going to do?” shouted Conklin, his frail body lurching forward in the armchair. “Storm their houses? Stick needles in their asses between the appetizer and the entrée?”
“I hadn’t thought of the last option,” replied Jason, smiling grimly. “You’ve really got a terrific imagination.”
“And you’re a madman! … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that—”
“Why not?” broke in Bourne gently. “I’m not lecturing on the rise of the Manchu and the Ching dynasty. Considering the accepted state of my mind and memory, the allusion to mental health isn’t inappropriate.” Jason paused, then spoke as he leaned slowly forward. “But let me tell you something, Alex. The memories may not all be there, but the part of my mind that you and Treadstone formed is all there. I proved it in Hong Kong, in Beijing and Macao, and I’ll prove it again. I have to. There’s nothing left for me if I don’t. … Now, get me the information. You mentioned several people who have to be here in Washington. Pentagon supplies or provisions—”