Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy

by The Bourne Supremacy [lit]

  Morris Panov was the only person besides Marie who could reach him. It was ironic, in a way, for initially Mo had not been one of the government doctors; the psychiatrist had neither sought nor been offered security clearance to hear the classified details of David Webb's background where the lie of Jason Bourne was buried. Nevertheless, Panov had forcefully inserted himself, threatening all manner of embarrassing disclosures if he was not given clearance and a voice in the subsequent therapy. His reasoning was simple, for when David had come within moments of being blown off the face of the earth by misinformed men who were convinced he had to die, that misinformation had been unwittingly furnished by Panov and the way it had happened infuriated him. He had been approached in panic by someone not given to panic, and asked 'hypothetical' questions pertaining to a possibly deranged deep-cover agent in a potentially explosive situation. His answers were restrained and equivocal; he could not and would not give a diagnosis on a patient he had never seen - but yes, this was possible and that not unheard of, but of course, nothing could be considered remotely material without physical and psychiatric examination. The key word was nothing; he should have said nothing! he later claimed. For his words in the ears of amateurs had sealed the order for Webb's execution - 'Jason Bourne's' death sentence - an act that was aborted only at the last instant through David's own doing, while the squad of executioners were still in their unseen positions.

  Not only had Morris Panov come on board at the Walter Reed Hospital and later at the Virginia medical complex, but he literally ran the show - Webb's show. The son of a bitch has amnesia, you goddamned fools! He's been trying to tell you that for weeks in perfectly lucid English - I suspect too lucid for your convoluted mentality.

  They had worked together for months, as patient and doctor - and finally as friends. It helped that Marie adored Mo - good Lord, she needed an ally! The burden David had been to his wife was beyond telling, from those first days in Switzerland when she began to understand the pain within the man who had taken her captive to the moment when she made the commitment - violently against his wishes - to help him, never believing what he himself believed, telling him over and over again that he was not the killer he thought he was, not the assassin others called him. Her belief became an anchor in his own crashing seas, her love the core of his emerging sanity. Without Marie he was a loveless, discarded dead man, and without Mo Panov he was little more than a functioning vegetable. But with both of them behind him, he was brushing away the swirling clouds and finding the sun again.

  Which was why he had opted for an hour of running around the deserted, cold track, rather than heading home after his late afternoon seminar. His weekly seminars often continued far beyond the hour when they were scheduled to end, so Marie never planned dinner, knowing they would go out to eat, their two unobtrusive guards somewhere in the darkness behind them - as one was walking across the barely-visible field behind him now, the other no doubt inside the gym. Insanity] Or was it?

  He had been driven to Panov's 'strenuous exercise' by an image that had suddenly appeared in his mind while grading papers in his office. It was a face - a face he knew and remembered, and loved very much. A boy's face that aged in front of his inner screen, coming to full portrait in uniform, blurred, imperfect, but a part of him. As silent tears rolled down his cheeks, he knew it was the dead brother they had told him about, the prisoner of war he had rescued in the jungles of Tarn Quan years ago amid shattering explosions and a traitor he had executed by the name of Jason Bourne. He could not handle the violent, fragmented pictures; he had barely got through the shortened seminar, pleading a severe headache. He had to relieve the pressures, accept or reject the peeling layers of memory with the help of reason, which told him to go to the gym and run against the wind, any strong wind. He could not burden Marie every time a floodgate burst; he loved her too much for that. When he could handle it himself, he had to. It was his contract with himself.

  He opened the heavy door, briefly wondering why every gymnasium entrance was designed with the weight of a portcullis. He went inside and walked across the stone floor through an archway and down a white-walled corridor until he reached the door of the faculty locker room. He was thankful that the room was empty; he was in no frame of mind to respond to small talk, and if required to do so, he would undoubtedly appear sullen, if not strange. He could also do without the stares he would probably provoke. He was too close to the edge; 'he had to pull back gradually, slowly, first within himself, then with Marie. Christ, when would it all stop"! How much could he ask of her? But then he never had to ask - she gave without being asked.

  Webb reached the row of lockers. His own was towards the end. He was walking between the long wooden bench and the connecting metal cabinets when his eyes were suddenly riveted on an object up ahead. He rushed forward; a folded note had been taped to his locker. He ripped it off and opened it: Your wife phoned. She wants you to call her as soon as you can. Says it's urgent. Ralph.

  The gym custodian might have had the brains to go outside and shout to him! thought David angrily as he spun the combination and opened the locker. After rummaging through his limp trousers for change, he ran to a pay telephone on the wall, inserted a coin, disturbed that his hand trembled. Then he knew why. Marie never used the word 'urgent'. She avoided such words.

  'Hello?'

  'What is it?

  'I thought you might be there,' said his wife. 'Mo's panacea, the one he guarantees will cure you if it doesn't give you cardiac arrest. '

  'What is it?

  'David, come home. There's someone here you must see. Quickly, darling. '

  Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister kept his own introduction to a minimum, but by including certain facts let Webb know he was not from the lower ranks of the Department. On the other hand, he did not embellish his importance; he was the secure bureaucrat, confident that whatever expertise he possessed could weather changes in administrations.

  'If you'd like, Mr Webb, our business can wait until you get into something more comfortable. '

  David was still in his sweat-stained shorts and T-shirt, having grabbed his clothes from the locker and raced to his car from the gym. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'I don't think your business can wait - not where you come from, Mr McAllister. '

  'Sit down, David.' Marie St Jacques Webb walked into the living room, two towels in her hands. 'You, too, Mr McAllister.' She handed Webb a towel as both men sat down

  facing each other in front of an unlit fireplace, then moved behind her husband and began blotting his neck and shoulders with the second towel, the light of a table lamp heightening the reddish tint of her auburn hair, her lovely features in shadows, her eyes on the man from the State Department. 'Please, go ahead,' she continued. 'As we've agreed, I'm cleared by the Government for anything you might say. '

  'Was there a question? asked David, glancing up at her and then at the visitor, making no attempt to disguise his hostility.

  'None whatsoever,' replied McAllister, smiling wanly yet sincerely. 'No one who's read of your wife's contribution would dare exclude her. Where others failed she succeeded. '

  'That says it,' agreed Webb. 'Without saying anything, of course. '

  'Hey, come on, David, loosen up. '

  'Sorry. She's right.' Webb tried to smile; the attempt was not successful. 'I'm prejudging and I shouldn't do that, should I?'

  'I'd say you have every right to,' said the undersecretary. 'I know I would, if I were you. In spite of the fact that our backgrounds are very much alike - I was posted in the Far East for a number of years - no one would have considered me for the assignment you undertook. What you went through is light years beyond me. '

  'Beyond me, too. Obviously. '

  'Not from where I stand. The failure wasn't yours, God knows. '

  'Now you're being kind. No offence, but too much kindness - from where you stand - makes me nervous. '

  Then let's get to the business at hand, all right?
<
br />   'Please. '

  'And I hope you haven't prejudged me too harshly. I'm not your enemy, Mr Webb. I want to be your friend. I can press buttons that can help you, protect you. '

  'From what?

  'From something nobody ever expected. '

  'Let's hear it. '

  'As of thirty minutes from now your security will be doubled,' said McAllister, his eyes locked with David's. 'That's my decision, and I'll quadruple it if I think it's necessary. Every arrival on this campus will be scrutinized, the grounds checked hourly. The rotating guards will no longer be part of the scenery, keeping you merely in sight, but in effect will be very much in sight themselves. Very obvious, and I hope threatening. '

  'Jesus!' Webb sprang forward in the chair. 'It's Carlos?

  'We don't think so,' said the man from State, shaking his head. 'We can't rule Carlos out, but it's too remote, too unlikely. '

  'Oh?' David nodded. 'It must be. If it was the Jackal, your men would be all over the place and out of sight. You'd let him come after me and take him, and if I'm killed the cost is acceptable. '

  'Not to me. You don't have to believe that, but I mean it. '

  Thank you, but then what are we talking about?5

  'Your file was broken - that is, the Treadstone file was invaded. '

  'Invaded? Unauthorized disclosure?'

  'Not at first. There was authorization, all right, because there was a crisis - and in a sense we had no choice. Then everything went off the wire and now we're concerned. For you. '

  'Back up, please. Who got the file?'

  'A man on the inside, high inside. His credentials were the best, no one could question them. '

  'Who was he?'

  'A British MI6 operating out of Hong Kong, a man the CIA has relied on for years. He flew into Washington and went directly to his primary liaison at the Agency, asking to be given everything there was on Jason Bourne. He claimed there was a crisis in the territory that was a direct result of the Treadstone project. He also made it clear that if sensitive information was to be exchanged between British and American intelligence - continue to be exchanged - he thought it best that his request be granted forthwith. '

  'He had to give a damn good reason. '

  'He did.' McAllister paused nervously, blinking his eyes

  and rubbing his forehead with extended fingers.

  'Well?

  'Jason Bourne is back,' said McAllister quietly. 'He's killed again. In Kowloon. '

  Marie gasped; she clutched her husband's right shoulder, her large brown eyes angry, frightened. She stared in silence at the man from State. Webb did not move. Instead he studied McAllister, as a man might watch a cobra.

  'What the hell are you talking about? he whispered, then raised his voice. 'Jason Bourne - that Jason Bourne - doesn't exist anymore. He never did!'

  'You know that and we know that, but in Asia his legend is very much alive. You created it, Mr Webb - brilliantly, in my judgement. '

  'I'm not interested in your judgement, Mr McAllister,' said David, removing his wife's hand and getting out of the chair. 'What's this MI6 agent working on? How old is he? What's his stability factor, his record? You must have run an up-to-date trace on him. '

  'Of course we did and there was nothing irregular. London confirmed his outstanding service record, his current status, as well as the information he brought us. As chief of post for MI6, he was called in by the Kowloon-Hong Kong police because of the potentially explosive nature of events. The Foreign Office itself stood behind him. '

  ' Wrong!' shouted Webb, shaking his head, then lowered his voice. 'He was turned, Mr McAllister! Someone offered him a small fortune to get that file. He used the only lie that would work and all of you swallowed it!'

  'I'm afraid it's not a lie - not as he knew it. He believed the evidence, and London believes it. A Jason Bourne is back in Asia. '

  'And what if I told you it wouldn't be the first time central control was fed a lie so an overworked, over risked, underpaid man can turn! All the years, all the dangers, and nothing to show for it. He decides on one opportunity that gives him an annuity for life. In this case that file!'

  'If that is the case, it won't do him much good. He's dead. '

  'He's what... ?

  'He was shot to death two nights ago in Kowloon, in his office, an hour after he'd flown into Hong Kong. '

  'Goddamn it, it doesn't happen!' cried David, bewildered. 'A man who turns backs himself up. He builds a case against his benefactor before the act, letting him know it'll get to the right people if anything ugly happens. It's his insurance, his only insurance. '

  'He was clean,' insisted the, State Department man.

  'Or stupid,' rejoined Webb.

  'No one thinks that. '

  'What do they think?

  'That he was pursuing an extraordinary development, one that could erupt into widespread violence throughout the underworlds of Hong Kong and Macao. Organized crime becomes suddenly very disorganized, not unlike the tong wars of the twenties and thirties. The killings pile up. Rival gangs instigate riots; waterfronts become battlegrounds; warehouses, even cargo ships are blown up for revenge, or to wipe out competitors. Sometimes all it takes is several powerful warring factions - and a Jason Bourne in the background. '

  'But since there is no Jason Bourne, it's police work! Not MI6. '

  'Mr McAllister just said the man was called in by the Hong Kong police,' broke in Marie looking hard at the undersecretary of state. 'MI6 obviously agreed with the decision. Why was that?

  'It's the wrong ballpark!' David was adamant, his breath short.

  'Jason Bourne wasn't the creation of the police authorities,' said Marie, going to her husband's side. 'He was created by US Intelligence by way of the State Department. But I suspect MI6 inserted itself for a far more pressing reason than to find a killer posing as Jason Bourne. Am I right, Mr McAllister?

  'You're right, Mrs Webb. Far more. In our discussions these last two days, several members of our section thought you'd understand more clearly than we did. Let's call it an economic problem that could lead to serious political

  turmoil, not only in Hong Kong but throughout the world. You were a highly regarded economist for the Canadian Government. You advised Canadian ambassadors and delegations all over the world. '

  'Would you both mind explaining to the man who balances the chequebook around here?

  'These aren't the times to permit disruptions in Hong Kong's marketplace, Mr Webb, even - perhaps especially its illegal marketplace. Disruptions accompanied by violence give the impression of government instability, if not far deeper instability. This isn't the time to give the expansionists in Red China any more ammunition than they have already. '

  'Come again, please?"

  'The treaty of 1997,' answered Marie quietly. 'The lease runs out in barely a decade, which is why the new accords were negotiated with Peking. Still, everybody's nervous, everything's shaky and no one had better rock the boat. Calm stability is the name of the game. '

  David looked at her, then back at McAllister. He nodded his head. 'I see. I've read the papers and the magazines... but it's just not a subject that I know a hell of a lot about. '

  'My husband's interests lie elsewhere,' explained Marie to McAllister. 'In the study of people, their civilizations. '

  'All right,' Webb agreed. 'So?'

  ' Mine are with money and the constant exchange of money - the expansion of it, the markets and their fluctuations - the stability, or lack of it. And if Hong Kong is nothing else, it's money. That's more or less its only commodity; it has little other reason for being. Its industries would die without it; without priming, the pump runs dry. '

  'And if you take away the stability you have chaos,' added McAllister. 'It's the excuse for the old warlords in China. The People's Republic marches in to contain the chaos, suppress the agitators, and suddenly there's nothing left but an awkward giant fumbling with the entire colony as well as the New Te
rritories. The cooler heads in Beijing are ignored in favour of more aggressive elements who want to save face through military control. Banks collapse, Far East trade is stymied. Chaos. '

  'The PRC would do that?'

  'Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao and all the territories are part of their so-called "great nation under heaven", even the China Accords make that clear. It's one entity, and the Oriental won't tolerate a disobedient child, you know that. '

  'Are you telling me that one man pretending to be Jason Bourne can do this - can bring about this kind of crisis? I don't believe you!'

  'It's an extreme scenario, but yes, it could happen. You see, the myth rides with him, that's the hypnotic factor. Multiple killings are ascribed to him, if Only to distance the real killers from the scenes - conspirators from the politically fanatic right and left using Bourne's lethal image as their own. When you think about it, it's precisely the way the myth itself was created. Whenever anyone of importance anywhere in the South China area was assassinated, you, as Jason Bourne, made sure the kill was credited to you. At the end of two years you were notorious, yet in fact you killed only one man, a drunken informer in Macao who tried to garrotte you. '