The Bourne Identity

34

Early light broke over the spires of the church in Levallois Perret in northwest Paris, the March morning cold, the night rain replaced by mist. A few old women, returning to their flats from all-night cleaning shifts in the city proper, trudged in and out of the bronze doors, holding railings and prayer books, devotions about to begin or finished with, precious sleep to follow before the drudgery of surviving the daylight hours. Along with the old women were shabbily dressed men—most also old, others pathetically young—holding overcoats together, seeking the warmth of the church, these clutching bottles in their pockets, precious oblivion extended, another day to survive.
One old man, however, did not float in the trancelike movements of the others. He was an old man in a hurry. There was reluctance—even fear, perhaps—in his lined, sallow face, but no hesitation in his progress up the steps and through the doors, past the flickering candles and down the far left aisle of the church. It was an odd hour for a worshiper to seek confession; nevertheless this old beggar went directly to the first booth, parted the curtain and slipped inside.
“Angelus Domini.”
“Did you bring it?” the whisper demanded, the priestly silhouette behind the curtain trembling with rage.
“Yes. He thrust it in my hand like a man in a stupor, weeping, telling me to get out. He’s burned Cain’s note to him and says he’ll deny everything if a single word is ever mentioned.” The old man shoved the pages of writing paper under the curtain.
“He used her stationery—” The assassin’s whisper broke, a silhouetted hand brought to a silhouetted head, a muted cry of anguish now heard behind the curtain.
“I urge you to remember, Carlos,” pleaded the beggar. “The messenger is not responsible for the news he bears. I could have refused to hear it, refused to bring it to you.”
“How? Why? ...”
“Lavier. He followed her to Parc Monceau, then both of them to the church. I saw him in Neuilly-sur-Seine when I was your point. I told you that.”
“I know. But why? He could have used her in a hundred different ways! Against me! Why this?”
“It’s in his note. He’s gone mad. He was pushed too far, Carlos. It happens; I’ve seen it happen. A man on a double-entry, his source-controls taken out; he has no one to confirm his initial assignment. Both sides want his corpse. He’s stretched to the point where he may not even know who he is any longer.”
“He knows ...” The whisper was drawn out in quiet fury. “By signing the name Delta, he’s telling me he knows. We both know where it comes from, where he comes from.”
The beggar paused. “If that’s true, then he’s still dangerous to you. He’s right. Washington won’t touch him. It may not want to acknowledge him, but it will call off its hangmen. It may even be forced to grant him a privilege or two in return for his silence.”
“The papers he speaks of?” asked the assassin.
“Yes. In the old days—in Berlin, Prague, Vienna—they were called ‘final payments.’ Bourne uses ‘final protection,’ a minor variance. They were papers drawn up between a primary source-control and the infiltrator, to be used in the event the strategy collapsed, the primary killed, no other avenues open to the agent. It was not something you would have studied in Novgorod; the Soviets had no such accommodations. Soviet defectors, however, insisted upon them.”
“They were incriminating, then?”
“They had to be to some degree. Generally in the area of who was manipulated. Embarrassment is always to be avoided; careers are destroyed by embarrassment. But then, I don’t have to tell you that. You’ve used the technique brilliantly.”
“ ‘Seventy-one streets in the jungle …’ ” said Carlos, reading from the paper in his hand, an icelike calm imposed on his whisper. “ ‘A jungle as dense as Tam Quan.’ … This time the execution will take place as scheduled. Jason Bourne will not leave this Tam Quan alive. By any other name, Cain will be dead, and Delta will die for what he’s done. Angélique—you have my word.” The incantation stopped, the assassin’s mind racing to the practical. “Did Villiers have any idea when Bourne left his house?”
“He didn’t know. I told you, he was barely lucid, in as much a state of shock as with his telephone call”
“It doesn’t matter. The first flights to the United States began within the past hour. He’ll be on one. I’ll be in New York with him, and I won’t miss this time. My knife will be waiting, its blade a razor. I’ll peel his face away; the Americans will have their Cain without a face! Then they can give this Bourne, this Delta, whatever name they care to.”

The blue-striped telephone rang on Alexander Conklin’s desk. Its bell was quiet, the understated sound lending an eerie emphasis. The blue-striped telephone was Conklin’s direct line to the computer rooms and data banks. There was no one in the office to take the call.
The Central Intelligence executive suddenly rushed limping through the door, unused to the cane provided him by G-2, SHAPE, Brussels, last night when he had commandeered a military transport to Andrews Field, Maryland. He threw the cane angrily across the room as he lurched for the phone. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his breath short; the man responsible for the dissolution of Treadstone was exhausted. He had been in scrambler-communication with a dozen branches of clandestine operations—in Washington and overseas—trying to undo the insanity of the past twenty-four hours. He had spread every scrap of information he could cull from the files to every post in Europe, placed agents in the Paris-London-Amsterdam axis on alert. Bourne was alive and dangerous; he had tried to kill his D.C. control; he could be anywhere within ten hours of Paris. All airports and train stations were to be covered, all underground networks activated. Find him! Kill him!
“Yes?” Conklin braced himself against the desk and picked up the phone.
“This is Computer Dock 12,” said the male voice efficiently. “We may have something. At least, State doesn’t have any listing on it.”
“What, for Christ’s sake?”
“The name you gave us four hours ago. Washburn.”
“What about it?”
“A George P. Washburn was pre-cleared out of Paris and into New York on an Air France flight this morning. Washburn’s a fairly common name; he could be just a businessman with connections, but it was flagged on the readout, and since the status was NATO-diplomatic, we checked with State. They never heard of him. There’s no one named Washburn involved with any ongoing NATO negotiations with the French government from any member nation.”
“Then how the hell was he pre-cleared? Who gave him the diplomatic?”
“We checked back through Paris; it wasn’t easy. Apparently it was an accommodation of the Conseiller Militaire. They’re a quiet bunch.”
“The Conseiller? Where do they get off clearing our people?”
“It doesn’t have to be ‘our’ people or ‘their’ people; it can be anybody. Just a courtesy from the host country, and that was a French carrier. It’s one way to get a decent seat on an overbooked plane. Incidentally, Washburn’s passport wasn’t even U.S. It was British.”
There’s a doctor, an Englishman named Washburn ... It was him! It was Delta, and France’s Conseiller had cooperated with him. But why New York? What was in New York for him? And who placed so high in Paris would accommodate Delta? What had he told them? Oh, Christ! How much had he told them?
“When did the flight get in?” asked Conklin.
“Ten thirty-seven this morning. A little over an hour ago.”
“All right,” said the man whose foot had been blown off in Medusa, as he slid painfully around the desk into his seat. “You’ve delivered, and now I want this scratched from the reels. Delete it. Everything you gave me. Is that clear?”
“Understood, sir. Deleted, sir.”
Conklin hung up. New York. New York? Not Washington, but New York! There was nothing in New York any longer. Delta knew that. If he was after someone in Treadstone—if he was after him—he would have taken a flight directly to Dulles. What was in New York?
And why had Delta deliberately used the name Washburn? It was the same as telegraphing a strategy; he knew the name would be picked up sooner or later ... Later ... After he was inside the gates! Delta was telling whatever was left of Treadstone that he was dealing from strength. He was in a position to expose not only the Treadstone operation, but he could go God knows how much further. Whole networks he had used as Cain, listening posts and ersatz consulates that were no more than electronic espionage stations ... even the bloody specter of Medusa. His connection inside the Conseiller was his proof to Treadstone how high up he had traveled. His signal that if he could reach within so rarefied a group of strategists, nothing could stop him. Goddamn it, stop him from what? What was the point? He had the millions; he could have faded!
Conklin shook his head, remembering. There had been a time when he would have let Delta fade; he had told him so twelve hours ago in a cemetery outside of Paris. A man could take only so much, and no one knew that better than Alexander Conklin, once among the finest covert field officers in the intelligence community. Only so much; the sanctimonious bromides about still being alive grew stale and bitter with time. It depended on what you were before, what you became with your deformity. Only so much ... But Delta did not fade! He came back with insane statements, insane demands ... crazy tactics no experienced intelligence officer would even contemplate. For no matter how much explosive information he possessed, no matter how high he penetrated, no sane man walked back into a minefield surrounded by his enemies. And all the blackmail in the world could not bring you back. ...
No sane man. No sane man. Conklin sat slowly forward in his chair.
I’m not Cain. He never was. I never was! I wasn’t in New York. ... It was Carlos. Not me, Carlos! If what you’re saying took place on Seventy-first Street, it was him. He knows!
But Delta had been at the brownstone on Seventy-first Street. Prints—third and index fingers, right hand. And the method of transport was now explained: Air France, Conseiller cover ... Fact: Carlos could not have known.
Things come to me ... faces, streets, buildings. Images I can’t place ... I know a thousand facts about Carlos, but I don’t know why!
Conklin closed his eyes. There was a phrase, a simple code phrase that had been used at the beginning of Treadstone. What was it? It came from Medusa ... Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. That was it. Cain for Carlos. Delta-Bourne became the Cain that was the decoy for Carlos.
Conklin opened his eyes. Jason Bourne was to replace Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. That was the entire strategy of Treadstone Seventy-One. It was the keystone to the whole structure of deception, the parallax that would draw Carlos out of position into their sights.
Bourne. Jason Bourne. The totally unknown man, a name buried for over a decade, a piece of human debris left in a jungle. But he had existed; that, too, was part of the strategy.
Conklin separated the folders on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. It had no title, only an initial and two numbers followed by a black X, signifying that it was the only folder containing the origins of Treadstone.
T-71 X. The birth of Treadstone Seventy-One.
He opened it, almost afraid to see what he knew was there.
Date of execution. Tam Quan Sector. March 25 ...
Conklin’s eyes moved to the calendar on his desk.
March 24.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered, reaching for the telephone.

Dr. Morris Panov walked through the double doors of the psychiatric ward on the third floor of Bethesda’s Naval Annex and approached the nurses’ counter. He smiled at the uniformed aide shuffling index cards under the stem gaze of the head floor nurse standing beside her. Apparently the young trainee had misplaced a patient’s file—if not a patient—and her superior was not about to let it happen again.
“Don’t let Annie’s whip fool you,” said Panov to_ the flustered girl. “Underneath those cold, inhuman eyes is a heart of sheer granite. Actually, she escaped from the fifth floor two weeks ago but we’re all afraid to tell anybody.”
The aide giggled, the nurse shook her head in exasperation. The phone rang on the desk behind the counter.
“Will you get that, please, dear,” said Annie to the young girl. The aide nodded and retreated to the desk. The nurse turned to Panov. “Doctor Mo, how am I ever going to get anything through their heads with you around?”
“With love, dear Annie. With love. But don’t lose your bicycle chains.”
“You’re incorrigible. Tell me, how’s your patient in Five-A? I know you’re worried about him.”
“I’m still worried.”
“I hear you stayed up all night.”
“There was a three A.M. movie on television I wanted to see.”
“Don’t do it, Mo,” said the matronly nurse. “You’re too young to end up in there.”
“And maybe too old to avoid it, Annie. But thanks.”
Suddenly Panov and the nurse were aware that he was being paged, the wide-eyed trainee at the desk speaking into the microphone.
“Dr. Panov, please. Telephone for—”
“I’m Dr. Panov,” said the psychiatrist in a sotto voce whisper to the girl. “We don’t want anyone to know. Annie Donovan here’s really my mother from Poland. Who is it?”
The trainee stared at Panov’s ID card on his white coat, she blinked and replied. “A Mr. Alexander Conklin, sir.”
“Oh?” Panov was startled. Alex Conklin had been a patient on and off for five years, until they both had agreed he’d adjusted as well as he was ever going to adjust—which was not a hell of a lot. There were so many, and so little they can do for them. Whatever Conklin wanted had to be relatively serious for him to call Bethesda and not the office. “Where can I take this, Annie?”
“Room One,” said the nurse, pointing across the hall. “It’s empty. I’ll have the call transferred.”
Panov walked toward the door, an uneasy feeling spreading through him.
“I need some very fast answers, Mo,” said Conklin, his voice strained.
“I’m not very good at fast answers, Alex. Why not come in and see me this afternoon?”
“It’s not me. It’s someone else. Possibly.”
“No games, please. I thought we’d gone beyond that.”
“No games. This is a Four-Zero emergency, and I need help.”
“Four-Zero? Call in one of your staff men. I’ve never requested that kind of clearance.”
“I can’t. That’s how tight it is.”
“Then you’d better whisper to God.”
“Mo, please! I only have to confirm possibilities, the rest I can put together myself. And I don’t have five seconds to waste. A man may be running around ready to blow away ghosts, anyone he thinks is a ghost. He’s already killed very real, very important people and I’m not sure he knows it. Help me, help him!”
“If I can. Go ahead.”
“A man is placed in a highly volatile, maximum stress situation for a long period of time, the entire period in deep cover. The cover itself is a decoy—very visible, very negative, constant pressure applied to maintain that visibility. The purpose is to draw out a target similar to the decoy by convincing the target that the decoy’s a threat, forcing the target into the open. ... Are you with me so far?”
“So far,” said Panov. “You say there’s been constant pressure on the decoy to maintain a negative, highly visible profile. What’s been his environment?”
“As brutal as you can imagine.”
“For how long a period of time?”
“Three years,”
“Good God,” said the psychiatrist “No breaks?”
“None at all. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Three years. Someone not himself.”
“When will you damn fools learn? Even prisoners in the worst camps could be themselves, talk to others who were themselves—” Panov stopped, catching his own words and Conklin’s meaning. “That’s your point, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” answered the intelligence officer. “It’s hazy, confusing, even contradictory. What I want to ask is this. Could such a man under these circumstances begin to ... believe he’s the decoy, assume the characteristics, absorb the mocked dossier to the point where he believes it’s him?”
“The answer to that’s so obvious I’m surprised you ask it. Of course he could. Probably would. It’s an unendurably prolonged performance that can’t be sustained unless the belief becomes a part of his everyday reality. The actor never off the stage in a play that never ends. Day after day, night after night.” The doctor stopped again, then continued carefully. “But that’s not really your question, is it?”
“No,” replied Conklin. “I go one step further. Beyond the decoy. I have to; it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Panov sharply. “You’d better stop there, because I’m not confirming any blind diagnosis. Not for what you’re leading up to. No way, Charlie. That’s giving you a license I won’t be responsible for—with or without a consultation fee.”
“ ‘No way ... Charlie.’ Why did you say that, Mo?”
“What do you mean, why did I say it? It’s a phrase. I hear it all the time. Kids in dirty blue jeans on the corner; hookers in my favorite saloons.”
“How do you know what I’m leading up to?” said the CIA man.
“Because I had to read the books and you’re not very subtle. You’re about to describe a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia with multiple personalities. It’s not just your man assuming the role of the decoy, but the decoy himself transferring his identity to the one he’s after. The target. That’s what you’re driving at, Alex. You’re telling me your man is three people: himself, decoy and target. And I repeat. No way, Charlie. I’m not confirming anything remotely like that without an extensive examination. That’s giving you rights you can’t have: three reasons for dispatch. No way!”
“I’m not asking you to confirm anything! I just want to know if it’s possible. For Christ’s sake, Mo, there’s a lethally experienced man running around with a gun, killing people he claims he didn’t know, but whom he worked with for three years. He denies being at a specific place at a specific time when his own fingerprints prove he was there. He says images come to him—faces he can’t place, names he’s heard but doesn’t know from where. He claims he was never the decoy; it was never him! But it was! It is! Is it possible? That’s all I want to know. Could the stress and time and the everyday pressures break him like this? Into three?”
Panov held his breath for a moment. “It’s possible,” he said softly. “If your facts are accurate, it’s possible. That’s all I’ll say, because there are too many other possibilities.”
“Thank you.” Conklin paused. “A last question. Say there was a date—a month and a day—that was significant to the mocked dossier-the decoy’s dossier.”
“You’d have to be more specific.”
“I will. It was the date when the man whose identity was taken for decoy was killed.”
“Then obviously not part of the working dossier, but known to your man. Am I following you?”
“Yes, he knew it. Let’s say he was there. Would he remember it?”
“Not as the decoy.”
“But as one of the other two?”
“Assuming the target was also aware of it, or that he’d communicated it through his transference, yes.”
“There’s also a place where the strategy was, conceived, where the decoy was created. If our man was in the vicinity of that place, and the date of death was close at hand, would he be drawn to it? Would it surface and become important to him?”
“It would if it was associated with the original place of death. Because the decoy was born there; it’s possible. It would depend on who he was at the moment.”
“Suppose he was the target?”
“And knew the location?”
“Yes, because another part of him had to.”
“Then he’d be drawn to it. It would be a subconscious compulsion.”
“Why?”
“To kill the decoy. He’d kill everything in sight, but the main objective would be the decoy. Himself.”

Alexander Conklin replaced the phone, his nonexistent foot throbbing, his thoughts so convoluted he had to close his eyes again to find a consistent strain. He had been wrong in Paris ... in a cemetery outside of Paris. He had wanted to kill a man for the wrong reasons, the right ones beyond his comprehensions. He was dealing with a madman. Someone whose afflictions were not explained in twenty years of training, but were understandable if one thought about the pains and the losses, the unending waves of violence ... all ending in futility. No one knew anything really. Nothing made sense. A Carlos was trapped, killed today, and another would take his place. Why did we do it … David?
David. I say your name finally. We were friends once, David ... Delta. I knew your wife and your children. We drank together and had a few dinners together in far-off posts in Asia. You were the best foreign service officer in the Orient and everyone knew it. You were going to be the key to the new policy, the one that was around the corner. And then it happened. Death from the skies in the Mekong. You turned, David. We all lost, but only one of us became Delta. In Medusa. I did not know you that well—drinks and a dinner or two do not a close companion make—but few of us become animals. You did, Delta.
And now you must die. Nobody can afford you any longer. None of us.

“Leave us, please,” said General Villiers to his aide, as he sat down opposite Marie St. Jacques in the Montmartre café. The aide nodded and walked to a table ten feet away from the booth; he would leave but he was still on guard. The exhausted old sober looked at Marie. “Why did you insist on my coming here? He wanted you out of Paris. I gave him my word.”
“Out of Paris, out of the race,” said Marie, touched by the sight of the old man’s haggard face. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be another burden for you. I heard the reports on the radio.”
“Insanity,” said Villiers, picking up the brandy his aide had ordered for him. “Three hours with the police, living a terrible lie, condemning a man for a crime that was mine alone.”
“The description was accurate, uncannily accurate. No one could miss him.”
“He gave it to me himself. He sat in front of my wife’s mirror and told me what to say, looking at his own face in the strangest manner. He said it was the only way. Carlos could only be convinced by my going to the police, creating a manhunt. He was right, of course.”
“He was right,” agreed Marie, “but he’s not in Paris, or Brussels, or Amsterdam.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want you to tell me where he’s gone.”
“He told you himself.”
“He lied to me.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because I know when he tells me the truth. You see, we both listen for it.”
“You both ...? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t think you would; I was sure he hadn’t told you. When he lied to me on the phone, saying the things he said so hesitantly, knowing I knew they were lies, I couldn’t understand. I didn’t piece it together until I heard the radio reports. Yours and another. That description ... so complete, so total, even to the scar on his left temple. Then I knew. He wasn’t going to stay in Paris, or within five hundred miles of Paris. He was going far away—where that description wouldn’t mean very much—where Carlos could be led, delivered to the people Jason had his agreement with. Am I right?”
Villiers put down the glass. “I’ve given my word. You’re to be taken to safety in the country. I don’t understand the things you’re saying.”
“Then I’ll try to be clearer,” said Marie, leaning forward. “There was another report on the radio, one you obviously didn’t hear because you were with the police or in seclusion. Two men were found shot to death in a cemetery near Rambouillet this morning. One was a known killer from Saint-Gervais. The other was identified as a former American Intelligence officer living in Paris, a highly controversial man who killed a journalist in Vietnam and was given the choice of retiring from the army or facing a court-martial.”
“Are you saying the incidents are related?” asked the old man.
“Jason was instructed by the American Embassy to go to that cemetery last night to meet with a man flying over from Washington.”
“Washington?”
“Yes. His agreement was with a small group of men from American Intelligence. They tried to kill him last night; they think they have to kill him.”
“Good God, why?”
“Because they can’t trust him. They don’t know what he’s done or where he’s been for a long period of time and he can’t tell them.” Marie paused, closing her eyes briefly. “He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know who they are; and the man from Washington hired other men to kill him last night. That man wouldn’t listen; they think he’s betrayed them, stolen millions from them, killed men he’s never heard of. He hasn’t. But he doesn’t have any clear answers, either. He’s a man with only fragments of a memory, each fragment condemning him. He’s a near total amnesiac.”
Villiers’ lined face was locked in astonishment, his eyes pained in recollection. “ ‘For all the wrong reasons ...’ He said that to me. ‘They have men everywhere ... the orders are to execute me on sight. I’m hunted by men I don’t know and can’t see. For all the wrong reasons.’ ”
“For all the wrong reasons,” emphasized Marie, reaching across the narrow table and touching the old man’s arm. “And they do have men everywhere, men ordered to kill him on sight. Wherever he goes, they’ll be waiting.”
“How will they know where he’s gone?”
“He’ll tell them. It’s part of his strategy. And when he does, they’ll kill him. He’s walking into his own trap.”
For several moments Villiers was silent, his guilt overwhelming. Finally he spoke in a whisper. “Almighty God, what have I done?”
“What you thought was right. What he convinced you was right. You can’t blame yourself. Or him, really.”
“He said he was going to write out everything that had happened to him, everything that they remembered. … How painful that statement must have been for him! I can’t wait for that letter, mademoiselle. We can’t wait. I must know everything you can tell me. Now.”
“What can you do?”
“Go to the American Embassy. To the ambassador. Now. Everything.”
Marie St. Jacques withdrew her hand slowly as she leaned back in the booth, her dark red hair against the banquette. Her eyes were far away, clouded with the mist of tears. “He told me his life began for him on a small island in the Mediterranean called Ile de Port Noir. ...”

The secretary of state walked angrily into the office of the director of Consular Operations, the department’s section dealing with clandestine activities. He strode across the room to the desk of the astonished director, who rose at the sight of this powerful man, his expression a mixture of shock and bewilderment.
“Mr. Secretary? ... I didn’t receive any message from your office, sir. I would have come upstairs right away.”
The secretary of state slapped a yellow legal pad down on the director’s desk. On the top page was a column of six names written with the broad strokes of a felt-tipped pen.

BOURNE
DELTA
MEDUSA
CAIN
CARLOS
TREADSTONE

“What is this?” asked the secretary. “What the hell is this?”
The director of Cons-Op leaned over the desk. “I don’t know, sir. They’re names, of course. A code for the alphabet—the letter D—and a reference to Medusa; that’s still classified, but I’ve heard of it. And I suppose the ‘Carlos’ refers to the assassin; I wish we knew more about him. But I’ve never heard of ‘Bourne’ or ‘Cain’ or ‘Treadstone.’ ”
“Then come up to my office and listen to a tape of a telephone conversation that I’ve just had with Paris and you’ll learn all about them!” exploded the secretary of state. “There are extraordinary things on that tape, including killings in Ottawa and Paris, and some very strange dealings our First Secretary in the Montaigne had with a CIA man. There’s also outright lying to the authorities of foreign governments, to our own intelligence units, and to the European newspapers—with neither the knowledge nor the consent of the Department of State! There’s been a global deception that’s spread misinformation throughout more countries than I want to think about. Were flying over, under a deep-diplomatic, a Canadian woman—an economist for the government in Ottawa who’s wanted for murder in Zurich. We’re being forced to grant asylum to a fugitive, to subvert the laws—because if that woman’s telling the truth, we’ve got our ass in a sling! I want to know what’s been going on. Cancel everything on your calendar—and I mean everything. You’re spending the rest of the day and all night if you have to digging this damn thing out of the ground. There’s a man walking around who doesn’t know who he is, but with more classified information in his head than ten intelligence computers!”

It was past midnight when the exhausted director of Consular Operations made the connection; he had nearly missed it. The First Secretary at the embassy in Paris, under threat. of instant dismissal, had given him Alexander Conklin’s name. But Conklin was nowhere to be found. He had returned to Washington on a military jet out of Brussels in the morning, but had signed out of Langley at 1:22 in the afternoon, leaving no telephone number—not even an emergency number—where he could be reached. And from what the director had learned about Conklin, that omission was extraordinary. The CIA man was what was commonly referred to as a shark-killer; he directed individual strategies throughout the world where defection and treason were suspected. There were too many men in too many stations who might need his approval or disapproval at any given moment. It was not logical he would sever that cord for twelve hours. What was also unusual was the fact that his telephone logs had been scratched; there were none for the past two days—and the Central Intelligence Agency had very specific regulations concerning those logs. Traceable accountability was the new order of the new regime. However, the director of Cons-Op had learned one fact: Conklin had been attached to Medusa.
Using the threat of State Department retaliation, the director had requested a closed circuit readout of Conklin’s logs for the past five weeks. Reluctantly, the Agency beamed them over and the director had sat in front of a screen for two hours, instructing the operators at Langley to keep the tape repeating until he told them to stop.
Eighty-six logicals had been called, the word Treadstone mentioned; none had responded. Then the director went back to the possibles; there was an army man he had not considered because of his well-known antipathy to the CIA. But Conklin had telephoned him twice during the space of twelve minutes a week ago. The director called his sources at the Pentagon and found what he was looking for: Medusa.
Brigadier General Irwin Arthur Crawford, current ranking officer in charge of Army Intelligence data banks, former commander, Saigon, attached to covert operations—still classified. Medusa.
The director picked up the conference room phone, it bypassed the switchboard. He dialed the brigadier’s home in Fairfax, and on the fourth ring, Crawford answered. The State Department man identified himself and asked if the general cared to return a call to State and be put through for verification.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It concerns a matter that comes under the heading of Treadstone.”
“I’ll call you back.”
He did so in eighteen seconds, and within the next two minutes the director had delivered the outlines of State’s information.
“There’s nothing there we don’t know about,” said the brigadier. “There’s been a control committee on this from the beginning, the Oval Office given a preliminary summation within a week of the inauguration. Our objective warranted the procedures, you may be assured of that.”
“I’m willing to be convinced,” replied the man from State. “Is this related to that business in New York a week ago? Elliot Stevens—that Major Webb and David Abbott? Where the circumstances were, shall we say, considerably altered?”
“You were aware of the alterations?”
“I’m the head of Cons-Op, General.”
“Yes, you would be ... Stevens wasn’t married; the rest understood. Robbery and homicide were preferable. The answer is affirmative.”
“I see ... Your man Bourne flew into New York yesterday morning.”
“I know. We know—that is Conklin and myself. We’re the inheritors.”
“You’ve been in touch with Conklin?”
“I last spoke to him around one o’clock in the afternoon. Unlogged. He insisted on it, frankly.”
“He’s checked out of Langley. There’s no number where he can be reached.”
“I know that, too. Don’t try. With all due respect, tell the Secretary to back away. You back away. Don’t get involved.”
“We are involved, General. We’re flying over the Canadian woman by diplomatic.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“We were forced to; she forced us to.”
“Then keep her in isolation. You’ve got to! She’s our resolve, we’ll be responsible.”
“I think you’d better explain.”
“We’re dealing with an insane man. A multiple schizophrenic. He’s a walking firing squad; he could kill a dozen innocent people with one outburst, one explosion in his own head, and he wouldn’t know why.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s already killed. That massacre in New York—it was him. He killed Stevens, the Monk, Webb—above all, Webb—and two others you never heard of. We understand now. He wasn’t responsible, but that can’t change anything. Leave him to us. To Conklin.”
“Bourne?”
“Yes. We have proof. Prints. They were confirmed by the Bureau. It was him.”
“Your man would leave prints?”
“He did.”
“He couldn’t have,” said the man from State finally.
“What?”
‘Tell me, where did you come up with the conclusion of insanity? This multiple schizophrenia or whatever the hell you call it.”
“Conklin spoke to a psychiatrist-one of the best—an authority on stress-breakdowns. Alex described the history—and it was brutal. The doctor confirmed our suspicions, Conklin’s suspicions.”
“He confirmed them?” asked the director, stunned.
“Yes.”
“Based on what Conklin said? On what he thought he knew?”
“There’s no other explanation. Leave him to us. He’s our problem.”
“You’re a damn fool, General. You should have stuck to your data banks or maybe more primitive artillery.”
“I resent that.”
“Resent it all you like. If you’ve done what I think you’ve done, you may not have anything left but resentment.”
“Explain that,” said Crawford harshly.
“You’re not dealing with a madman, or with insanity, or with any goddamned multiple schizophrenia—which I doubt you know any more about than I do. You’re dealing with an amnesiac, a man who’s been trying for months to find out who he is and where he comes from. And from a telephone tape we’ve got over here, we gather he tried to tell you—tried to tell Conklin, but Conklin wouldn’t listen. None of you would listen ... You sent a man out in deep cover for three years—three years—to pull in Carlos, and when the strategy broke, you assumed the worst.”
“Amnesia? ... No, you’re wrong! I spoke to Conklin; he did listen. You don’t understand; we both knew—”
“I don’t want to hear his name!” broke in the director of Consular Operations.
The general paused. “We both knew ... Bourne ... years ago. I think you know from where; you read the name off to me. He was the strangest man I ever met, as close to being paranoid as anyone in that outfit. He undertook missions—risks—no sane man would accept. Yet he never asked for anything. He was filled with so much hate.”
“And that made him a candidate for a psychiatric ward ten years later?”
“Seven years,” corrected Crawford. “I tried to prevent his selection in Treadstone. But the Monk said he was the best. I couldn’t argue with that, not in terms of expertise. But I made my objections known. He was psychologically a borderline case; we knew why. I was proven right I stand on that.”
“You’re not going to stand on anything, General. You’re going to fall right on your iron ass. Because the Monk was right. Your man is the best, with or without a memory. He’s bringing in Carlos, delivering him right to your goddamn front door. That is, he’s bringing him in unless you kill Bourne first.” Crawford’s low, sharp intake of breath was precisely what the director was afraid he might hear. He continued. “You can’t reach Conklin, can you?” he asked.
“No.”
“He’s gone under, hasn’t he? Made his own arrangements, payments funneled through third and fourth parties unknown to each other, the source untraceable, all connections to the Agency and Treadstone obliterated. And by now there are photographs in the hands of men Conklin doesn’t know, wouldn’t recognize if they held him up. Don’t talk to me about firing squads. Yours is in place, but you can’t see it—you don’t know where it is. But it’s Prepared—a half a dozen rifles ready to fire when the condemned man comes into view. Am I reading the scenario?”
“You don’t expect me to answer that,” said Crawford.
“You don’t have to. This is Consular Operations; I’ve been there before. But you were right about one thing. This is your problem; its right back in your court. We’re not going to be touched by you. That’s my recommendation to the Secretary. The State Department can’t afford to know who you are. Consider this call unlogged.”
“Understood.”
“I’m sorry,” said the director, meaning it, hearing the futility in the general’s voice. “It all blows up sometimes.”
“Yes. We learned that in Medusa. What are you going to do with the girl?”
“We don’t even know what we’re going to do with you yet.”
“That’s easy. Eisenhower at the summit: ‘What U-Twos?’ We’ll go along; no preliminary summation. Nothing. We can get the girl off the Zurich books.”
“We’ll tell her. It may help. We’ll be making apologies all over the place; with her we’ll try for a very substantial settlement.”
“Are you sure?” interrupted Crawford
“About the settlement?”
“No. The amnesia. Are you positive?”
“I’ve listened to that tape at least twenty times, heard her voice. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Incidentally, she got in several hours ago. She’s at the Pierre Hotel under guard. We’ll bring her down to Washington in the morning after we figure out what were going to do.”
“Wait a minute!” The general’s voice rose. “Not tomorrow! She’s here ...? Can you get me clearance to see her?”
“Don’t dig that grave of yours any deeper, General. The fewer names she knows, the better. She was with Bourne when he was calling the embassy; she’s aware of the First Secretary, probably Conklin by now. He may have to take the fall himself. Stay out of it.”
“You just told me to play it out.”
“Not this way. You’re a decent man; so am I. We’re professionals.”
“You don’t understand! We have photographs, yes, but they may be useless. They’re three years old, and Bourne’s changed, changed drastically. It’s why Conklin’s on the scene—where I don’t know—but he’s there. He’s the only one who’s seen him, but it was night, raining. She may be our only chance. She’s been with him—living with him for weeks. She knows him. It’s possible that she’d recognize him before anyone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll spell it out. Among Bourne’s many, many talents is the ability to change his appearance, melt into a crowd or a field or a cluster of trees—be where you can’t see him. If what you say is so, he wouldn’t remember, but we used to have a word for him in Medusa. His men used to call him … a chameleon.”
“That’s your Cain, General.”
“It was our Delta. There was no one like him. And that’s why the girl can help. Now. Clear me! Let me see her, talk to her.”
“By clearing you, we acknowledge you. I don’t think we can do that.”
“For God’s sake, you just said we were decent men! Are we? We can save his life! Maybe. If she’s with me and we find him, we can get him out of there!”
“There? Are you telling me you know exactly where he’s going to be?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because he wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
“And the time span?” asked the incredulous director of Consular Operations. “You know when he’s going to be there?”
“Yes. Today. It’s the date of his own execution.”