The Bourne ultimatum (5 page)

Conklin slowly sank back in his chair, a smile gradually emerging on his lips. “I told you I had no sweat with your appointment,
sir
. It was just intuition, but now I know why. You were a field man. ... I’ll work with you.”

“Good,
fine
,” said the director. “We’ll work up a controlled surveillance and hope to Christ your theory that they want you alive is correct because there’s no way we can cover every window or every rooftop. You’d better understand the risk.”

“I do. And since two chunks of bait are better than one in a tank of piranhas, I want to talk to Mo Panov.”

“You can’t ask him to be a part of this,” countered Casset. “He’s not one of us, Alex. Why should he?”

“Because he
is
one of us and I’d
better
ask him. If I didn’t, he’d give me a flu shot filled with strychnine. You see, he was in Hong Kong, too—for reasons not much different from mine. Years ago I tried to kill my closest friend in Paris because I’d made a terrible mistake believing my friend had turned when the truth was that he had lost his memory. Only days later, Morris Panov, one of the leading psychiatrists in the country, a doctor who can’t stand the chicken-shit psychobabble so popular these days, was presented with a ‘hypothetical’ psychiatric profile that required his immediate reaction. It described a rogue deep-cover agent, a walking time bomb with a thousand secrets in his head, who had gone over the edge. ... On the basis of Mo’s on-the-spot evaluation of that hypothetical profile—which he hours later suspected was no more hypothetical than Campbell’s soup—an innocent amnesiac was nearly blown away in a government ambush on New York’s Seventy-first Street. When what was left of that man survived, Panov demanded to be assigned as his
only
head doctor. He’s never forgiven himself. If any of you were he, what would you do if I didn’t talk to you about what we’re talking about right now?”

“Tell you it’s a flu shot and pump you full of strychnine, old boy,” concluded DeSole, nodding.

“Where is Panov now?” asked Casset.

“At the Brookshire Hotel in Baltimore under the name of Morris, Phillip Morris. He called off his appointments today—he has the flu.”

“Then let’s go to work,” said the DCI, pulling a yellow legal pad in front of him. “Incidentally,
Alex
, a competent field man doesn’t concern himself with rank and won’t trust a man who can’t convincingly call him by his first name. As you well know, my name is Holland and my first name is Peter. From here on we’re Alex and Peter, got it?”

“I’ve got it—Peter. You must have been one son of a bitch in the SEALs.”

“Insofar as I’m here—geographically, not in this chair—it can be assumed I was competent.”

“A field man,” mumbled Conklin in approval.

“Also, since we’ve dropped the diplomatic drivel expected of someone in this job, you should understand that I was a hardnosed son of a bitch. I want pro input here, Alex, not emotional output. Is that clear?”

“I don’t operate any other way, Peter. A commitment may be based on emotions and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the execution of a strategy is ice-cold. ... I was never in the SEALs, you hard-nosed son of a bitch, but I’m also geographically here, limp and all, and that presumes I’m also competent.”

Holland grinned; it was a smile of youth belied by streaked gray hair, the grin of a professional momentarily freed of executive concerns so as to return to the world he knew best. “We may even get along,” said the DCI. And then, as if to drop the last vestige of his directorial image, he placed his pipe on the table, reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, popped one up to his mouth and snapped his lighter as he began to write on the legal pad. “To hell with the Bureau,” he continued. “We’ll use only our men and we’ll check every one out under a fast microscope.”

Charles Casset, the lean, bright heir apparent of the CIA’s directorship, sat back in his chair and sighed. “Why do I have the idea that I’m going to have to ride herd on both you gentlemen?”

“Because you’re an analyst at heart, Charlie,” answered Holland.

The object of controlled surveillance is to expose those who shadow others so as to establish their identities or take them into custody, whichever suits the strategy. The aim in the present case was to trap the agents of the Jackal who had lured Conklin and Panov to the amusement park in Baltimore. Working through the night and most of the following day, the men of the Central Intelligence Agency formed a detail of eight experienced field personnel, defined and redefined the specific routes that Conklin and Panov were to take both individually and together for the next twenty-four hours—these routes covered by the armed professionals in swift progressive relays—and finally to design an irresistible rendezvous, unique in terms of time and location. The early morning hours at the Smithsonian Institution. It was the
Dionaea muscipula
, the Venus flytrap.

Conklin stood in the narrow, dimly lit lobby of his apartment house and looked at his watch, squinting to read the dial. It was precisely 2:35 in the morning; he opened the heavy door and limped out into the dark street, which was devoid of any signs of life. According to their plan he turned left, maintaining the pace agreed upon; he was to arrive at the comer as close to 2:38 as possible. Suddenly, he was alarmed; in a shadowed doorway on his right was the figure of a man. Unobtrusively Alex reached under his jacket for his Beretta automatic. There was nothing in the strategy that called for someone to be in a doorway on this section of the street! Then, as suddenly as he had been alarmed, he relaxed, feeling equal parts of guilt and relief at what he understood. The figure in shadows was an indigent, an old man in worn-out clothes, one of the homeless in a land of so much plenty. Alex kept going; he reached the corner and heard the low, single click of two fingers snapped apart. He crossed the avenue and proceeded down the pavement, passing an alleyway. The
alleyway
. Another
figure
... another old man in disheveled clothing moving slowly out into the street and then back into the alley. Another derelict protecting his concrete cave. At any other time Conklin might have approached the unfortunate and given him a few dollars, but not now. He had a long way to go and a schedule to keep.

Morris Panov approached the intersection still bothered by the curious telephone conversation he had had ten minutes ago, still trying to recall each segment of the plan he was to follow, afraid to look at his watch to see if he had reached a specific place within a specific time span—he had been told
not
to look at his watch in the street ... and why couldn’t they say “at approximately such and such” rather than the somewhat unnerving term “time span,” as if a military invasion of Washington were imminent. Regardless, he kept walking, crossing the streets he was told to cross, hoping some unseen clock kept him relatively in tune with the goddamned “time spans” that had been determined by his striding back and forth between two pegs on some lawn behind a garden apartment in Vienna, Virginia. ... He would do anything for David Webb—good Christ,
anything
!—but this was insane. ... Yet, of course, it wasn’t. They would not ask him to do what he was doing if it were.

What was
that
? A face in shadows peering at him, just like the other
two
! This one hunched over on a curb, raising wine-soaked eyes up at him. Old men—weather-beaten, old,
old
men who could barely move—
staring
at him! Now he was allowing his imagination to run away with him-the cities were filled with the homeless, with perfectly harmless people whose psychoses or poverty drove them into the streets. As much as he would like to help them, there was nothing he could do but professionally badger an unresponsive Washington. ... There was
another
! In an indented space between two storefronts barricaded by iron gates-he, too, was
watching
him.
Stop
it! You’re being irrational. ... Or was he? Of
course
, he was. Go
on
, keep to the schedule, that’s what you’re supposed to do. ... Good
God
! There’s
another
. Across the street. ... Keep
going
!

The vast moonlit grounds of the Smithsonian dwarfed the two figures as they converged from intersecting paths, joining each other and proceeding to a bench. Conklin lowered himself with the aid of his cane while Mo Panov looked around nervously, listening, as if he expected the unexpected. It was 3:28 in the predawn morning, the only noises the subdued rattle of crickets and mild summer breezes through the trees. Guardedly Panov sat down.

“Anything happen on the way here?” asked Conklin.

“I’m not sure,” replied the psychiatrist. “I’m as lost as I was in Hong Kong, except that over there we knew where we were going, whom we expected to meet. You people
are
crazy.”

“You’re contradicting yourself, Mo,” said Alex, smiling. “You told me I was cured.”

“Oh, that? That was merely obsessive manic-depression bordering on dementia praecox. This is
nuts
! It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning. People who aren’t nuts do not play games at four o’clock in the morning.”

Alex watched Panov in the dim wash of a distant Smithsonian floodlight that illuminated the massive stone structure. “You said you weren’t sure. What does that mean?”

“I’m almost embarrassed to say—I’ve told too many patients that they invent uncomfortable images to rationalize their panic, justify their fears.”

“What the hell does
that
mean?”

“It’s a form of transference—”

“Come on, Mo!” interrupted Conklin. “What bothered you? What did you see?”

“Figures ... some bent over, walking slowly, awkwardly—not like you, Alex, incapacitated not by injuries but by age. Worn out and old and staying in the darkness of storefronts and side streets. It happened four or five times between my apartment house and here. Twice I almost stopped and called out for one of your men, and then I thought to myself, My God,
Doctor
, you’re overreacting, mistaking a few pathetic homeless people for what they’re not, seeing things that aren’t there.”

“
Right
on!” Conklin whispered emphatically. “You saw exactly what
was
there, Mo. Because I saw the same, the same kind of old people
you
saw, and they
were
pathetic, mostly in beat up clothes and who moved slower than I move. ... What does it mean? What do
they
mean? Who are they?”

Footsteps. Slow, hesitant, and through the shadows of the deserted path walked two short men—old men. At first glance they, indeed, appeared to be part of the swelling army of indigent homeless, yet there was something different about them, a sense of purpose, perhaps. They stopped nearly twenty feet away from the bench, their faces in darkness. The old man on the left spoke, his voice thin, his accent strange. “It is an odd hour and an unusual place for two such well-dressed gentlemen to meet. Is it fair for you to occupy a place of rest that should be for others not so well off as you?”

“There are a number of unoccupied benches,” said Alex pleasantly. “Is this one reserved?”

“There are no reserved seats here,” replied the second old man, his English clear but not native to him. “But why are
you
here?”

“What’s it to you?” asked Conklin. “This is a private meeting and none of your business.”

“Business at this hour and in this place?” The first aged intruder spoke while looking around.

“I repeat,” repeated Alex. “It’s none of your business and I really think you should leave us alone.”

“Business is business,” intoned the second old man.

“What in God’s name is he
talking
about?” whispered the bewildered Panov to Conklin.

“Ground zero,” said Alex under his breath. “Be quiet.” The retired field agent turned his head up to the two old men. “Okay, fellas, why don’t you go on your way?”

“Business is business,” again said the second tattered ancient, glancing at his colleague, both their faces still in shadows.

“You don’t have any business with us—”

“You can’t be sure of that,” interrupted the first old man, shaking his head back and, forth. “Suppose I were to tell you that we bring you a message from Macao?”

“
What
?” exclaimed Panov.

“Shut
up
!” whispered Conklin, addressing the psychiatrist but his eyes on the messenger. “What does Macao mean to us?” he asked flatly.

“A great taipan wishes to meet with you. The greatest taipan in Hong Kong.”

“Why?”

“He will pay you great sums. For your services.”

“I’ll say it again.
Why
?”

“We are to tell you that a killer has returned. He wants you to find him.”

“I’ve heard that story before; it doesn’t wash. It’s also repetitious.”

“That is between the great taipan and yourselves, sir. Not with us. He is waiting for you.”

“Where is he?”

“At a great hotel, sir.”

“Which one?”

“We are again to tell you that it has a great-sized lobby with always many people, and its name refers to this country’s past.”

“There’s only one like that. The Mayflower.” Conklin directed his words toward his left lapel, into a microphone sewn into the buttonhole.

“As you wish.”

“Under what name is he registered?”

“Registered?”

“Like in reserved benches, only rooms. Who do we ask for?”

“No one, sir. The taipan’s secretary will approach you in the lobby.”

“Did that same secretary approach you also?”

“Sir?”

“Who hired you to follow us?”

“We are not at liberty to discuss such matters and we will not do so.”

“
That’s it
!” shouted Alexander Conklin, yelling over his shoulder as floodlights suddenly lit up the Smithsonian grounds around the deserted path, revealing the two startled old men to be Orientals. Nine personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency walked rapidly into the glare of light from all directions, their hands under their jackets. Since there was no apparent need for them, their weapons remained hidden.