The Bourne ultimatum

35

Buckingham Pritchard sat next to his uniformed uncle, Cyril Sylvester Pritchard, deputy director of immigration, in the office of Sir Henry Sykes at Government House in Montserrat. Beside them, on the deputy’s right, was their attorney, the finest native solicitor Sykes could persuade to advise the Pritchards in the event that the Crown brought a case against them as accessories to terrorism. Sir Henry sat behind the desk and glanced in partial shock at the lawyer, one Jonathan Lemuel, who raised his head and eyes to the ceiling, not to have the benefit of the tropic fan that stirred the humid air but to show disbelief. Lemuel was a Cambridge-educated attorney, once a “scholarship boy” from the colonies, who years ago had made his money in London and returned in the autumn of his life to his native ’Serrat to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Actually, Sir Henry had persuaded his retired black friend to give assistance to a couple of idiots who might have involved themselves in a serious international matter.
The cause of Sir Henry’s shock and Jonathan Lemuel’s disbelief cum exasperation came about through the following exchange between Sykes and the deputy director of immigration.
“Mr. Pritchard, we’ve established that your nephew overheard a telephone conversation between John St. Jacques and his brother-in-law, the American Mr. David Webb. Further, your nephew Buckingham Pritchard here, freely, even enthusiastically, admits calling you with certain information contained in that conversation and that you in turn emphatically stated that you had to reach Paris immediately. Is this true?”
“It is all completely true, Sir Henry.”
“Whom did you reach in Paris? What’s the telephone number?”
“With respect, sir, I am sworn to secrecy.”
At that succinct and totally unexpected reply, Jonathan Lemuel had lifted his astonished eyes to the ceiling.
Sykes, regaining his composure, put an end to the brief pause of amazement. “What was that, Mr. Pritchard?”
“My nephew and I are part of an international organization involving the great leaders of the world, and we have been sworn to secrecy.”
“Good God, he believes it,” muttered Sir Henry.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Lemuel, lowering his head. “Our telephone service here is not the most sophisticated, especially where pay phones are concerned, which I presume you were instructed to use, but within a day or so that number can be traced. Why not simply give it to Sir Henry now. He obviously needs to know quickly, so where is the harm?”
“The harm, sir, is to our superiors in the organization—that was made explicitly clear to me personally.”
“What’s the name of this international organization?”
“I don’t know, Sir Henry. That is part of the confidensheeality, do you not see?”
“I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t see, Mr. Pritchard,” said Sykes, his voice clipped, his anger surfacing.
“Oh, but I do, Sir Henry, and I shall prove it to you!” interrupted the deputy, looking at each man as if to draw the skeptical Sykes and the astonished attorney, as well as his adoring nephew, into his confidence. “A large sum of money was wired from a private banking institution in Switzerland directly to my own account here in Montserrat. The instructions were clear, if flexible. The funds were to be used liberally in pursuit of the assignments delegated to me. ... Transportation, entertainment, lodgings—I was told I had complete discretion, but, of course, I keep a record of all expenditures, as I do as the second highest officer of immigration. ... Who but vastly superior people would put such trust in a man they knew only by an enviable reputation and position?”
Henry Sykes and Jonathan Lemuel again looked at each other, astonishment and disbelief now joined by total fascination. Sir Henry leaned forward over the desk. “Beyond this—shall we say—in-depth observation of John St. Jacques requiring the obvious services of your nephew, have you been given other assignments?”
“Actually not, sir, but I’m sure that as soon as the leaders see how expeditiously I have performed, others will follow.”
Lemuel raised his hand calmly a few inches off the arm of his chair to inhibit a red-faced Sykes. “Tell me,” he said quickly, gently. “This large sum of money sent from Switzerland, just how large was it? The amount doesn’t matter legally, and Sir Henry can always call your bank under the laws of the Crown, so please tell us.”
“Three hundred pounds!” replied the elder Pritchard, the pride of his value in his voice.
“Three hundred ... ?” The solicitor’s words trailed off.
“Not exactly staggering, eh?” mumbled Sir Henry, leaning back, speechless.
“Roughly,” continued Lemuel, “what’s been your expenses?”
“Not roughly, but precisely,” affirmed the deputy director of immigration, removing a small notebook from the breast pocket of his uniform.
“My brilliant uncle is always precise,” offered Buckingham Pritchard.
“Thank you, Nephew.”
“How much?” insisted the attorney.
“Precisely twenty-six pounds, five shillings, English, or the equivalent of one hundred thirty-two East Caribbean dollars, the EC’s rounded off to the nearest double zero at the latest rate of exchange—in this case I absorbed forty-seven cents, so entered.”
“Amazing,” intoned Sykes, numbed.
“I’ve scrupulously kept every receipt,” went on the deputy, gathering steam as he continued reading. “They’re locked in a strongbox at my flat on Old Road Bay, and include the following: a total of seven dollars and eighteen cents for local calls to Tranquility—I would not use my official phone; twenty-three dollars and sixty-five cents for the long-distance call to Paris; sixty-eight dollars and eighty cents ... dinner for myself and my nephew at Vue Point, a business conference, naturally—”
“That will do,” interrupted Jonathan Lemuel, wiping his perspiring black brow with a handkerchief, although the tropical fan was perfectly adequate for the room.
“I am prepared to submit everything at the proper time—”
“I said that will do, Cyril.”
“You should know that I refused a taxi driver when he offered to inflate the price of a receipt and soundly criticized him in my official position.”
“Enough!” thundered Sykes, the veins in his neck pronounced. “You both have been damn fools of the first magnitude! To have even considered John St. Jacques a criminal of any sort is preposterous!”
“Sir Henry,” broke in the younger Pritchard. “I myself saw what happened at Tranquility Inn! It was so horrible. Coffins on the dock, the chapel blown up, government boats around our peaceful isle—gunshots, sir! It will be months before we’re back in full operation.”
“Exactly!” roared Sykes. “And do you believe Johnny St. Jay would willingly destroy his own property, his own business?”
“Stranger things have happened in the outside criminal world, Sir Henry,” said Cyril Sylvester Pritchard knowingly. “In my official capacity I’ve heard many, many stories. The incidents my nephew described are called diversionary tactics employed to create the illusion that the scoundrels are victims. It was all thoroughly explained to me.”
“Oh, it was, was it?” cried the former brigadier of the British army. “Well, let me explain something else, shall I? You’ve been duped by an international terrorist wanted the world over! Do you know the universal penalty for aiding and abetting such a killer? I’ll make it plain, in case it’s escaped your attention—in your official capacity, of course. ... It is death by firing squad or, less charitably, a public hanging! Now, what’s that goddamned number in Paris?”
“Under the circumstances,” said the deputy, summoning what dignity he could despite the fact that his trembling nephew clutched his left arm and his hand shook as he reached for his notebook. “I’ll write it out for you. ... One asks for a blackbird. In French, Sir Henry. I speak a few words, Sir Henry. In French—Sir Henry.”

Summoned by an armed guard dressed casually as a weekend guest in white slacks and a loose, bulky white linen jacket, John St. Jacques walked into the library of their new safe house, an estate on Chesapeake Bay. The guard, a muscular, medium-sized man with clean-cut Hispanic features, stood inside the doorway; he pointed to the telephone on the large cherry-wood desk. “It’s for you, Mr. Jones. It’s the director.”
“Thanks, Hector,” said Johnny, pausing briefly. “Is that Mr. Jones stuff really necessary?”
“As necessary as ‘Hector.’ My real name’s Roger ... or Daniel. Whatever.”
“Gotcha.” St. Jacques crossed to the desk and picked up the phone. “Holland?”
“That number your friend Sykes got is a blind, but useful.”
“As my brother-in-law would say, please speak English.”
“It’s the number of a café on the Marais waterfront on the Seine. The routine is to ask for a blackbird—un oiseau noir—and somebody shouts out. If the blackbird’s there, contact is made. If he isn’t, you try again.”
“Why is it useful?”
“We’ll try again—and again and again—with a man inside.”
“What’s happening otherwise?”
“I can only give you a limited answer.”
“Goddamn you!”
“Marie can fill you in—”
“Marie?”
“She’s on her way home. She’s mad as hell, but she’s also one relieved wife and mother.”
“Why is she mad?”
“I’ve booked her low-key on several long flights back—”
“For Christ’s sake, why?” broke in the brother angrily. “You send a goddamned plane for her! She’s been more valuable to you than anyone in your dumb Congress or your corkscrew administration, and you send planes for them all over the place. I’m not joking, Holland!”
“I don’t send those planes,” replied the director firmly. “Others do. The ones I send involve too many questions and too much curiosity on foreign soil and that’s all I’ll say about it. Her safety is more important than her comfort.”
“We agree on that, honcho.”
The director paused, his irritation apparent. “You know something? You’re not really a very pleasant fellow, are you?”
“My sister puts up with me, which more than offsets your opinion. Why is she relieved—as a wife and mother, I think you said?”
Again Holland paused, not in irritation now, but searching for the words. “A disagreeable incident took place, one none of us could predict or even contemplate.”
“Oh, I hear those famous f*cking words from the American establishment!” roared St. Jacques. “What did you miss this time? A truckload of U.S. missiles to the Ayatollah’s agents in Paris? What happened?”
For a third time, Peter Holland employed a moment of silence, although his heavy breathing was audible. “You know, young man, I could easily hang up the phone and dismiss your existence, which would be quite beneficial for my blood pressure.”
“Look, honcho, that’s my sister out there, and a guy she’s married to who I think is pretty terrific. Five years ago, you bastards—I repeat, you bastards—damn near killed them both over in Hong Kong and points east. I don’t know all the facts because they’re too decent or too dumb to talk about them, but I know enough to know I wouldn’t trust you with a waiter’s payroll in the islands!”
“Fair enough,” said Holland, subdued. “Not that it matters, but I wasn’t here then.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s your subterranean system. You would have done the same thing.”
“Knowing the circumstances, I might have. So might you, if you knew them. But that doesn’t matter, either. It’s history.”
“And now is now,” broke in St. Jacques. “What happened in Paris, this ‘disagreeable incident’?”
“According to Conklin, there was an ambush at a private airfield in Pontcarré. It was aborted. Your brother-in-law wasn’t hurt and neither was Alex. That’s all I can tell you.”
“It’s all I want to hear.”
“I spoke to Marie a little while ago. She’s in Marseilles and will be here late tomorrow morning. I’ll meet her myself and we’ll be driven out to Chesapeake.”
“What about David?”
“Who?”
“My brother-in-law?”
“Oh ... yes, of course. He’s on his way to Moscow.”
“What?”

The Aeroflot jetliner reversed engines and swung off the runway at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The pilot taxied down the adjacent exit lane, then stopped a quarter of a mile from the terminal as an announcement was made in both Russian and French.
“There will be a five- to seven-minute delay before disembarkation. Please remain seated.”
No explanation accompanied the information, and those passengers on the flight from Paris who were not Soviet citizens returned to their reading material, assuming the delay was caused by a backup of departing aircraft. However, those who were citizens, as well as a few others familiar with Soviet arrival procedures, knew better. The curtained-off front section of the huge Ilyushin jet, a small seating area that was reserved for special unseen passengers, was in the process of being evacuated, if not totally, at least in part. The custom was for an elevated platform with a shielded metal staircase to be rolled up to the front exit door. Several hundred feet away there was always a government limousine, and while the backs of those disembarked special passengers were briefly in view on their way to the vehicles, flight attendants roamed through the aircraft making sure no cameras were in evidence. There never were. These travelers were the property of the KGB, and for reasons known only to the Komitet, they were not to be observed in Sheremetyevo’s international terminal. It was the case this late afternoon on the outskirts of Moscow.
Alex Conklin limped out of the shielded staircase followed by Bourne, who carried the two outsized flight bags that served as their minimum luggage. Dimitri Krupkin emerged from the limousine and hurried toward them as the steps were rolled away from the aircraft and the noise of the huge jet engines began growing in volume.
“How is your friend the doctor?” asked the Soviet intelligence officer, shouting to be heard over the roar.
“Holding his own!” yelled Alex. “He may not make it, but he’s fighting like hell!”
“It’s your own fault, Aleksei!” The jet rolled away and Krupkin lowered his voice accordingly, still loud but not shouting. “You should have called Sergei at the embassy. His unit was prepared to escort you wherever you wished to go.”
“Actually, we thought that if we did, we’d be sending out an alert.”
“Better a prohibiting alert than inviting an assault!” countered the Russian. “Carlos’s men would never have dared to attack you under our protection.”
“It wasn’t the Jackal—the Jackal,” said Conklin, abruptly resuming a conversational tone as the roar of the aircraft became a hum in the distance.
“Of course it wasn’t him—he’s here. It was his goons following orders.”
“Not his goons, not his orders.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’ll go into it later. Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait.” Krupkin arched his brows. “We’ll talk first—and first, welcome to Mother Russia. Second, it would be most appreciated if you would refrain from discussing certain aspects of my life-style while in the service of my government in the hostile, war-mongering West with anyone you might meet.”
“You know, Kruppie, one of these days they’ll catch up with you.”
“Never. They adore me, for I feed the Komitet more useful gossip about the upper ranks of the debauched, so-called free world than any other officer in a foreign post. I also entertain my superiors in that same debauched world far better than any other officer anywhere. Now, if we corner the Jackal here in Moscow, I’ll no doubt be made a member of the Politburo, hero status.”
“Then you can really steal.”
“Why not? They all do.”
“If you don’t mind,” interrupted Bourne curtly, lowering the two flight bags to the ground. “What’s happened? Have you made any progress in Dzerzhinsky Square?”
“It’s not inconsiderable for less than thirty hours. We’ve narrowed down Carlos’s mole to thirteen possibles, all of whom speak French fluently. They’re under total surveillance, human and electronic; we know exactly where they are every minute, also who they meet and who they talk to over the telephone. ... I’m working with two ranking commissars, neither of whom can remotely speak French—they can’t even speak literate Russian, but that’s the way it is sometimes. The point is they’re both failsafe and dedicated; they’d rather be instrumental in capturing the Jackal than re-fight the Nazi. They’ve been very cooperative in mounting surveillance.”
“Your surveillance is rotten and you know it,” said Alex. “They fall over toilet seats in the women’s room when they’re chasing a guy.”
“Not this time, for I chose them myself,” insisted Krupkin. “Outside of four of our own people, each trained in Novgorod, they’re defectors from the UK, America, France and South Africa—all with intelligence backgrounds who could lose their dachas if they screw up, as you Westerners say. I really would like to be appointed to the Presidium, perhaps even the Central Committee. I might be posted to Washington or New York.”
“Where you could really steal,” said Conklin.
“You’re wicked, Aleksei, very, very wicked. Still, after a vodka or six, remind me to tell you about some real estate our chargé d’affaires picked up in Virginia two years ago. For a song, and financed by his lover’s bank in Richmond. Now a developer wants the property at ten times the price! ... Come, the car.”
“I don’t believe this conversation,” said Bourne, picking up the flight bags.
“Welcome to the real world of high-tech intelligence,” explained Conklin, laughing quietly. “At least from one point of view.”
“From all points of view,” continued Krupkin as they started toward the limousine. “However, we will dispense with this conversation while riding in an official vehicle, won’t we, gentlemen? Incidentally, you have a two-bedroom suite at the Metropole on the Marx Prospekt. It’s convenient and I’ve personally shut down all listening devices.”
“I can understand why, but how did you manage it?”
“Embarrassment, as you well know, is the Komitet’s greatest enemy. I explained to internal security that what might be recorded could prove most embarrassing to the wrong people, who would undoubtedly transfer any who overheard the tapes to Kamchatka.” They reached the car, the left rear door opened by a driver in a dark brown business suit identical with the one worn by Sergei in Paris. “The fabric’s the same,” said Krupkin in French, noting his companions’ reaction to the similar apparel. “Unfortunately the tailoring is not. I insisted Sergei have his refitted in the Faubourg.”
The Hotel Metropole is a renovated, prerevolutionary structure built in the ornate style of architecture favored by the czar who had visited fin-de-siècle Vienna and Paris. The ceilings are high, the marble profuse, and the occasional tapestries priceless. Intrinsic to the elaborate lobby is a defiance aimed at a government that would permit so many shabby citizens to invade the premises. The majestic walls and the glittering, filigreed chandeliers seem to stare at the unworthy trespassers with disdain. These impressions, however, did not apply to Dimitri Krupkin, whose baronial figure was very much at ease and at home in the surroundings.
“Comrade!” cried the manager sotto voce as the KGB officer accompanied his guests to the elevators. “There is an urgent message for you,” he continued, walking rapidly up to Dimitri and thrusting a folded note into Krupkin’s hand. “I was told to deliver it to you personally.”
“You have done so and I thank you.” Dimitri watched the man walk away, then opened the paper as Bourne and Conklin stood behind him. “I must reach Dzerzhinsky immediately,” he said, turning. “It’s the extension of my second commissar. Come, let us hurry.”
The suite, like the lobby, belonged to another time, another era, indeed another country, marred only by the faded fabrics and the less than perfect restoration of the original moldings. These imperfections served to accentuate the distance between the past and the present. The doors of the two bedrooms were opposite each other, the space between a large sitting room complete with a copper dry bar and several bottles of spirits rarely seen on Moscow shelves.
“Help yourselves,” said Krupkin, heading for a telephone on an ersatz antique desk that appeared to be a cross between Queen Anne and a later Louis. “Oh, I forgot, Aleksei, I’ll order some tea or spring water—”
“Forget it,” said Conklin, taking his flight bag from Jason and heading into the left bedroom. “I’m going to wash up; that plane was filthy.”
“I trust you found the fare agreeable,” responded Krupkin, raising his voice and dialing. “Incidentally, you ingrate, you’ll find your weapons in your bedside table drawers. Each is a .38 caliber Graz Burya automatic. ... Come, Mr. Bourne,” he added. “You’re not abstemious and it was a long trip—this may be a long conversation. My commissar number two is a windy fellow.”
“I think I will,” said Jason, dropping his bag by the door to the other bedroom. He crossed to the bar and chose a familiar bottle, pouring himself a drink as Krupkin began talking in Russian. It was not a language he understood, so Bourne walked to a pair of tall cathedral windows overlooking the wide avenue known as the Marx Prospekt.
“Dobryi dyen. ... Da, da pochemu? ... Sadovaya togda. Dvadtsat minus.” Krupkin shook his head in weary irritation as he hung up the telephone. The movement caused Jason to turn toward the Soviet. “My second commissar was not talkative on this occasion, Mr. Bourne. Haste and orders took precedent.”
“What do you mean?”
“We must leave immediately.” Krupkin glanced at the bedroom to the left and raised his voice. “Aleksei, come out here! Quickly! ... I tried to tell him that you’d just this second arrived,” continued the KGB man, turning back to Jason, “but he was having none of it. Leven went so far as to say that one of you was already taking a shower, and his only comment was ‘Tell him to get out and get dressed.’ ” Conklin limped through the bedroom door, his shirt unbuttoned and blotting his wet face with a towel. “Sorry, Aleksei, we must go.”
“Go where? We just got here.”
“We’ve appropriated a flat on the Sadovaya—that’s Moscow’s ‘Grand Boulevard,’ Mr. Bourne. It’s not the Champs-Elysées, but neither is it inconsequential. The czars knew how to build.”
“What’s over there?” pressed Conklin.
“Commissar number one,” replied Krupkin. “We’ll be using it as our, shall we say, our headquarters. A smaller and rather delightful annex of Dzerzhinsky Square—only nobody knows about it but the five of us. Something’s come up and we’re to go there immediately.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Jason, putting his drink down on the copper dry bar.
“Finish it,” said Alex, rushing awkwardly back into the bedroom. “I’ve got to get the soap out of my eyes and restrap my lousy boot.”
Bourne picked up the glass, his eyes straying to the Soviet field officer who looked after Conklin, his brow lined, his expression curiously sad. “You knew him before he lost his foot, didn’t you?” asked Jason quietly.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Bourne. We go back twenty-five, twenty-six years. Istanbul, Athens, Rome ... Amsterdam. He was a remarkable adversary. Of course, we were young then, both slender and quick and so taken with ourselves, wanting so desperately to live up to the images we envisioned for ourselves. It was all so long ago. We were both terribly good, you know. He was actually better than me, but don’t you ever tell him I said so. He always saw the broader picture, the longer road than I saw. It was the Russian in him, of course.”
“Why do you use the word ‘adversary’?” asked Jason. “It’s so athletic, as if you’d been playing a game. Wasn’t he your enemy?”
Krupkin’s large head snapped toward Bourne, his eyes glass, not warm at all. “Of course he was my enemy, Mr. Bourne, and to clarify the picture for you, he still is my enemy. Don’t, I beg you, mistake my indulgences for what they are not. A man’s weaknesses may intrude on his faith but they do not diminish it. I may not have the convenience of the Roman confession to expiate my sins so as to go forth and sin again despite my belief, but I do believe. ... My grandfathers and grandmothers were hanged—hanged, sir—for stealing chickens from a Romanov prince’s estate. Few, if any, of my ancestors were ever given the privilege of the most rudimentary schooling, forget education. The Supreme Soviet revolution of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin made possible the beginning of all things. Thousands upon thousands of mistakes have been made—many inexcusable, many more brutal—but a beginning was made. I, myself, am both the proof and the error of it.”
“I’m not sure I understand that.”
“Because you and your feeble intellectuals have never understood what we have understood from the start. Das Kapital, Mr. Bourne, envisages stages toward a just society, economic and political, but it does not and never did state what specific form the nuts-and-bolts government will ultimately be. Only that it could not be as it was.”
“I’m not a scholar in that department.”
“One does not have to be. In a hundred years you may be the socialists, and with luck, we’ll be the capitalists, da?”
“Tell me something,” said Jason, hearing, as Krupkin also did, the water faucets in Conklin’s room being turned off. “Could you kill Alex—Aleksei?”
“As surely as he could kill me—with deep regrets—if the value of the information called for it. We are professionals. We understand that, often reluctantly.”
“I can’t understand either one of you.”
“Don’t even try, Mr. Bourne, you’re not there yet—you’re getting closer, but you’re not there.”
“Would you explain that, please?”
“You’re at the cusp, Jason—may I call you Jason?”
“Please do.”
“You’re fifty years of age or thereabouts, give or take a year or two, correct?”
“Correct. I’ll be fifty-one in a few months. So what?”
“Aleksei and I are in our sixties—have you any idea what a leap that is?”
“How could I?”
“Let me tell you. You still visualize yourself as the younger man, the postadolescent man who sees himself doing the things you did only moments ago in your mind, and in many ways you are right. The motor controls are there, the will is there; you are still the master of your body. Then suddenly, as strong as the will is and as strong as the body remains, the mind slowly, insidiously begins to reject the necessity to make an immediate decision—both intellectually and physically. Simply put, we care less. Are we to be condemned or congratulated on having survived?”
“I think you just said you couldn’t kill Alex.”
“Don’t count on it, Jason Bourne—or David whoever you are.”
Conklin came through the door, his limp pronounced, wincing in pain. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Did you strap it wrong again?” asked Jason. “Do you want me to—”
“Forget it,” broke in Alex irritably. “You have to be a contortionist to get the goddamned thing right all the time.”
Bourne understood; he forgot about any attempt on his part to adjust the prosthesis. Krupkin again looked at Alex with that strange admixture of sadness and curiosity, then spoke rapidly. “The car is parked up the street in the Sverdlov. It’s less obvious over there, I’ll have a lobby steward fetch it.”
“Thanks,” said Conklin, gratitude in his glance.
The opulent apartment on the busy Sadovaya was one among many in an aged stone building that, like the Metropole, reflected the grand architectural excesses of the old Russian Empire. The flats were primarily used—and bugged—for visiting dignitaries, and the chambermaids, doormen and concierges were all frequently questioned by the KGB when not directly employed by the Komitet. The walls were covered with red velour; the sturdy furniture was reminiscent of the ancien régime. However, to the right of the gargantuan ornate living-room fireplace was an item that stood out like a decorator’s nightmare: a large jet-black television console complete with an assortment of tape decks compatible with the various sizes of video cassettes.
The second contradiction to the decor, and undoubtedly an affront to the memory of the elegant Romanovs, was a heavyset man in a rumpled uniform, open at the neck and stained with vestiges of recent meals. His blunt face was full, his grayish hair cut close to his skull, and a missing tooth surrounded by discolored companions bespoke an aversion to dentistry. It was the face of a peasant, the narrow, perpetually squinting eyes conveying a peasant’s shrewd intelligence. He was Krupkin’s Commissar Number One.
“My English not good,” announced the uniformed man, nodding at his visitors, “but is understanding. Also, for you I have no name, no official position. Call me colonel, yes? It is below my rank, but all Americans think all Soviets in Komitet are ‘colonel,’ da? Okay?”
“I speak Russian,” replied Alex. “If it’s easier for you, use it, and I’ll translate for my colleague.”
“Hah!” roared the colonel, laughing. “So Krupkin cannot fool you, yes?”
“Yes, he can’t fool me, no.”
“Is good. He talks too fast, da? Even in Russian his words come like stray bullets.”
“In French, also, Colonel.”
“Speaking of which,” intruded Dimitri, “may we get to the issue at hand, comrade? Our associate in the Dzerzhinsky said we were to come over immediately.”
“Da! Immediate.” The KGB officer walked to the huge ebony console, picked up a remote control, and turned to the others. “I will speak English—is good practice. ... Come. Watch. Everything is on one cartridge. All material taken by men and women Krupkin select to follow our people who speak the French.”
“People who could not be compromised by the Jackal,” clarified Krupkin.
“Watch!” insisted the peasant-colonel, pressing a button on the remote control.
The screen came alive on the console, the opening shots crude and choppy. Most had been taken with hand-held video cameras from car windows. One scene after another showed specific men walking in the Moscow streets or getting into official vehicles, driving or being driven throughout the city and, in several cases, outside the city over country roads. In every case the subjects under surveillance met with other men and women, whereupon the zoom lenses enlarged the faces. A number of shots took place inside buildings, the scenes murky and dark, the result of insufficient light and awkwardly held concealed cameras.
“That one is expensive whore!” laughed the colonel as a man in his late sixties escorted a much younger woman into an elevator. “It is the Solnechy Hotel on the Varshavkoye. I will personally check the general’s vouchers and find a loyal ally, da?”
The choppy, cross-cutting tape continued as Krupkin and the two Americans grew weary of the seemingly endless and pointless visual record. Then, suddenly, there was an exterior shot of a huge cathedral, crowds on the pavement, the light indicating early evening.
“St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square,” said Krupkin. “It’s a museum now and a very fine one, but every now and then a zealot—usually foreign—holds a small service. No one interferes, which, of course, the zealots want us to do.”
The screen became murky again, the vibrating focus briefly and wildly swaying; the camcorder had moved inside the cathedral as the agent operating it was jostled by the crowds. Then it became steady, held perhaps against a pillar. The focus now was on an elderly man, his hair white in contrast to the lightweight black raincoat he was wearing. He was walking down a side aisle pensively glancing at the succession of icons and the higher majestic stained-glass windows.
“Rodchenko,” said the peasant—colonel, his voice guttural. “The great Rodchenko.”
The man on the screen proceeded into what appeared to be a large stone corner of the cathedral where two thick pedestaled candles threw moving shadows against the walls. The video camera jerkily moved upward, the agent, again perhaps, standing on a portable stool or a hastily obtained box. The picture grew suddenly more detailed, the figures larger as the zoom lens was activated, thrusting through the crowds of tourists. The white-haired subject approached another man, a priest in priestly garb—balding, thin, his complexion dark.
“It’s him!” cried Bourne. “It’s Carlos!”
Then a third man appeared on the screen, joining the other two, and Conklin shouted.
“Jesus! “he roared as all eyes were riveted on the television set. “Hold it there!” The KGB commissar instantly complied with his remote; the picture remained stationary, shaky but constant. “The other one! Do you recognize him, David?”
“I know him but I don’t know him,” replied Bourne in a low voice as images going back years began filling his inner screen. There were explosions, white blinding lights with blurred figures running in a jungle ... and then a man, an Oriental, being shot repeatedly, screaming as he was hammered into the trunk of a large tree by an automatic weapon. The mists of confusion swelled, dissolving into a barracks-like room with soldiers sitting behind a long table, a wooden chair on the right, a man sitting there, fidgeting, nervous. And without warning, Jason suddenly knew that man—it was himself! A younger, much younger self, and there was another figure, in uniform, pacing like a caged ferret back and forth in front of the chair, savagely berating the man then known as Delta One. ... Bourne gasped, his eyes frozen on the television screen as he realized he was staring at an older version of that angry, pacing figure in his mind’s eye. “A courtroom in a base camp north of Saigon,” he whispered.
“It’s Ogilvie,” said Conklin, his voice distant, hollow. “Bryce Ogilvie. ... My God, they did link up. Medusa found the Jackal!”