Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy

by The Bourne Supremacy [lit]

  The new Jason Bourne was Sheng's perfect solution,' continued the ambassador. The hired assassin with no political or national ties; for above all, the killings could never be traced back to China.'

  'But he went to Peking,' objected Webb. 'It's where I tracked him. Even if it started out as a trap for me, which it was-'

  'A trap for you?' exclaimed Havilland. They knew about you?'

  'I came face to face with my successor two nights ago at the airport. We each knew who the other was - it was impossible not to know. He wasn't going to keep it a secret and take the fall for a failed contract.'

  'It was you,' interrupted McAllister. 'I knew it!'

  'So did Sheng and his people. I was the new gun in town and had to be stopped, killed on a priority-one basis. They couldn't risk what I'd pieced together. The trap was conceived that night, set that night.'

  'Jesus' cried Conklin. 'I read about Kai Tak in Washington. The papers said it was assumed to be right-wing lunatics. Keep the commies out of capitalism. Instead, it was you?

  'Both governments had to come up with something for the world press,' added the undersecretary. 'Just as we have to say something about tonight-'

  'My point is,' said David, ignoring McAllister. 'This Sheng called for the commando, used him to mount a trap for me, and by doing so made him part of the inner circle. That's no way for a concealed client to keep his distance from a hired killer.'

  'It is as if he didn't expect him to walk out of that circle alive,' replied Havilland, glancing at the undersecretary of state. 'It's Edward's theory, and one to which I subscribe, that when the final contract was carried out or when it was deemed that he knew too much and was therefore a liability, the impostor was to be killed collecting a payment -believing, of course, that he was being given another assignment. Everything untraceable, the slate clean. The events at Kai Tak no doubt sealed his death warrant.'

  'He wasn't smart enough to see it,' said Jason Bourne. 'He couldn't think geometrically.'

  'I beg your pardon?' asked the ambassador.

  'Nothing,' answered Webb, again staring at the diplomat. 'So everything you told me was part truth, part lie. Hong

  Kong could blow apart, but not for the reasons you gave me.'

  'The truth was our credibility, you had to accept that, accept our deep, frightening concerns. The lies were to recruit you.' Havilland leaned back in his chair. 'And I can't be any more honest than that.'

  'Bastards,' said Webb, his voice low, ice-like.

  'I'll grant you that,' agreed Havilland. 'But as I mentioned before, there were extenuating circumstances, specifically two. The crisis and yourself.'

  'And?' said Marie.

  'Let me ask you, Mr Webb-... Mrs Webb. If we had come to you and stated our case, would you have joined forces with us? Would you willingly have become Jason Bourne again?5

  Silence. All eyes were on David as his own strayed blankly over the surface of the table, then rested on the file folder. 'No,' he said softly. 'I don't trust you.'

  'We knew that,' agreed Havilland, again nodding his head. 'But from our point of view we had to recruit you. You were able to do what no one else could do, and insofar as you did it, I submit that that judgement was correct. The cost was terrible, no one underestimates it, but we felt - I felt - that there was no other choice. Time and the consequences were against us - are against us.'

  'As much as before,' said Webb. 'The commando's dead.'

  The commando?' McAllister leaned forward.

  'Your assassin. The impostor. What you did to us was all for nothing.'

  'Not necessarily,' objected Havilland. 'It will depend on what you can tell us. News of a death up here will be in tomorrow's headlines, we can't stop it, but Sheng can't know whose death. No photographs were taken, no press was here at the time, and those who've arrived since have been cordoned off several hundred yards away by the police. We can control the information by simply providing it.'

  'What about the body? asked Panov. There are medical procedures-'

  'Overruled by MI6,' said the ambassador. This is still British territory and communications between London, Washington and Government House were swift. The impostor's face was too shattered for anyone who saw it to give a description and his remains are in custody, beyond scrutiny. It was Edward's thinking and he was damn quick about it.'

  'There's still David and Marie,' persisted the psychiatrist. Too many people saw them, heard them.'

  'Only several squads of marine guards were close enough to see and hear clearly,' said McAllister. The entire contingent is being flown back to Hawaii in an hour, including two dead and seven wounded. They've left the premises and are sequestered at the airport. There was a great deal of confusion and panic. The police and the firemen were occupied elsewhere; none were in the gardens. We can say anything we like.'

  That seems to be a habit with you,' commented Webb. 'You heard the ambassador,' said the undersecretary, avoiding David's gaze. 'We didn't feel we had a choice.'

  'Be fair to yourself, Edward.' Again Havilland looked at Webb while addressing the undersecretary. 7 didn't feel we had a choice. You strenuously objected.'

  'I was wrong,' said McAllister firmly, as the diplomat snapped his eyes over at him. 'But that's irrelevant,' continued the undersecretary quickly. 'We've got to decide what we're going to say. The consulate's been swamped by calls from the press-'

  The consulate?' broke in Conklin. 'Some sterile house!' There wasn't time for a proper leasing cover,' said the ambassador. 'It was kept as quiet as possible and we prepared a plausible story. So far as we know there were no questions, but the police report had to list the owner and the lessee. How's Garden Road handling it, Edward?'

  'Simply that the situation hasn't been clarified. They're waiting for us but they can't stall much longer. It's better that we prepare something than leave the circumstances to speculation.'

  'Infinitely,' agreed Havilland. 'I suspect that means you have something in mind.'

  'It's stop-gap but it could serve, if I heard Mr Webb correctly.'

  'About what?'

  'You've used the word commando several times, I assume not as a figure of speech. The assassin was a commando?

  'Former. An officer and a mental case. Homicidal, to be accurate.'

  'Did you get an identity, learn his name?'

  David looked hard at the analyst, recalling Allcott-Price's words, spoken in a warped sense of sick triumph... If Hose and the story blows, how many practising anti-socials will be fired up by it? How many other 'different' men are out there who'd be only too happy to take my place, as I took yours? This bloody world is crawling with Jason Bournes. Give them direction, an idea - and they'll be off and running... 'I never found out who he was,' said Webb, simply.

  'But nevertheless he was a commando.'

  That's right.'

  'Not a Ranger or a Green Beret or Special Forces-'

  'No.'

  T assume therefore that you mean he was British.'

  'Yes.'

  Then we'll put out a story that implicitly denies those specifics. Not an Englishman, no military record - go in the opposite direction.'

  'A white, male American,' said Conklin quietly, with even a measure of respect, as he looked at the undersecretary of state. 'Give him a name and a history from a dead file. Preferably fourth-rate garbage, a psychopath with a hang-up so heavy he goes after someone up here.'

  'Something like that, but perhaps not entirely,' said McAllister, awkwardly shifting his position in the chair, as if he did not care to disagree with the experienced CIA man. Or something else. 'White male, yes. American, yes. Certainly a man with an obsession so compelling that he's driven to wholesale slaughter, his fury directed at a target - as you say -up here.'

  'Who? asked David.

  'Me,' replied McAllister, his eyes locked with Webb's.

  'Which means me,' said David. 'I'm that man, that obsessed man.'

  'Your name would not be used,' continued
the undersecretary, calmly, coldly. 'We could invent an American expatriate who several years ago was hunted by the authorities throughout the Far East for crimes ranging from multiple murders to running narcotics. We'll say I cooperated with the police in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Sumatra and the Philippines. Through my efforts his operations were effectively shut down and he lost millions. He learns I've returned and am posted here on Victoria Peak. He conies after me, the man who ruined him.' McAllister paused, turning to David. 'Since I spent a number of years here in Hong Kong, I can't imagine that Peking overlooked me. I'm sure there's an extensive dossier on an analyst who made a number of enemies during his tour of duty here. I did make enemies, Mr Webb. It was my job. We were trying to increase our influence in this part of the world and wherever Americans were involved in criminal activities, I did my level best to help the authorities apprehend them or, at the least, force them out of Asia. It was the best way to show our good intentions, going after our own. It was also the reason State recalled me to Washington. And by using my name we lend a certain authenticity for Sheng Chou Yang. You see, we knew each other. He'll speculate on a dozen possibilities; I hope the right one, but none remotely connected to a British commando.'

  The right speculation,' interrupted Conklin, quietly, 'being the fact that no one over here has heard from the first Jason Bourne in a couple of years.'

  'Exactly.'

  'So I'm the corpse that's in custody,' said Webb, 'beyond scrutiny.'

  'You could be, yes,' said McAllister. 'You see, we don't know what Sheng knows, how deep his penetration went. The only thing we want to establish is that the dead man is not his assassin.'

  'Leaving the way open for another impostor to go back up and draw Sheng out for the kill,' added Conklin respectfully. 'You're something, Mr Analyst. A son of a bitch, but something.'

  'You'd be exposing yourself, Edward,' said Havilland, his gaze levelled at the undersecretary. 'I never asked that of you. You do have enemies.'

  'I want to do it this way, Mr Ambassador. You employ me to render the best judgements that I can, and in my judgement this is the most productive course. There's got to be a convincing smokescreen. My name can provide it - for Sheng. The rest can be couched in ambiguous language, language that everyone we want to reach will understand.'

  'So be it,' said Webb, suddenly closing his eyes, hearing the words Jason Bourne had spoken so often.

  'David-' Marie touched his face.

  'Sorry.' Webb fingered the file folder in front of him, then opened it. On the first page was a photograph with a name printed underneath. It was identified as the face of Sheng Chou Yang, but it was far more than that. It was the face. It was the face of the butcher] The madman who hacked women and men to death with his jewelled ceremonial sword, who forced brothers to fight with razor sharp knives until one killed the other, who took a brave, tortured Echo's life with a slash to the head. Bourne stopped breathing, enraged by the unimaginable cruelty, as bloody images overcame him. As he stared at the photograph, the sight of Echo, throwing his life away to save Delta, brought him back to that clearing in the forest. Delta knew that it was Echo's death that had made the assassin's capture possible. Echo had died defiantly, accepting his unbearably painful execution so that a fellow Medusan could make good not only his escape, but with a final gesture telling him that the madman with the sword must be killed!

  "This? whispered Jason Bourne, 'is the son of your unknown taipan?

  'Yes,' said Havilland.

  'Your revered philosopher-prince? The Chinese saint no one can expose?"

  'Again, yes.' (

  'You were wrong! He showed himself! Christ did he show himself!'

  Stunned, the ambassador shot forward. 'You're certain?'

  There's no way I couldn't be certain.'

  The circumstances must have been extraordinary,' said the astonished McAllister. 'And it certainly confirms that the impostor never would have got out of there alive. Still, the circumstances must have been earth-shaking for him!'

  'Considering the fact that no one outside China ever learned about them, they were. Mao's tomb became a shooting gallery. It was part of the trap and they lost. Echo lost.'

  'Who?' asked Marie, still gripping his hand.

  'A friend.'

  'Mao's tomb?' repeated Havilland. 'Extraordinary!'

  'Not at all,' said Bourne. 'How bright. The last place in China a target would expect an attack. He goes in thinking he's the pursuer following his quarry, expecting to pick him up outside, on the other side. The lights are dim, his guard down. And all the while he's the quarry, hunted, isolated, set up for the kill. Very bright.'

  'Very dangerous for the hunters,' said the ambassador. 'For Sheng's people. One mis-step and they could have been taken. Insanity'!'

  'No mis-steps were possible. They would have killed their own if I hadn't killed them. I understand that now. When everything went off the wire, they simply disappeared. With Echo.'

  'Back to Sheng, please, Mr Webb.' Havilland was himself obsessed, his eyes pleading. Tell us what you saw, what you know.'

  'He's a monster,' said Jason quietly, his eyes glazed, staring at the photograph. 'He comes from hell, a Savonarola who tortures and kills - men, women, kids - with a smile on his face. He gives sermons like a prophet talking to children, but underneath he's a maniac who rules his gang of misfits by sheer terror. Those shock troops you mentioned aren't troops, they're goons, sadistic thugs who've learned their craft from a master. He's Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen Belsen all rolled into one. God help us all if he runs anything over here.' 'He can, Mr Webb,' said Havilland quietly, his terrified gaze fixed on Jason Bourne. 'He will. You've just described a Sheng Chou Yang the world has never seen, and at this moment he is the most powerful man in China. As Adolf Hitler marched victoriously into the Reichstag, so Sheng will march into the Central Committee, making it his puppet. What you've told us is far more catastrophic than anything we've conceived of - China against China... Armageddon to follow. Oh, my God!

  'He's a brute animal,' whispered Jason, hoarsely. 'He has to kill like a predator, but his only hunger is killing - not for food but for the kill.'

  'You're talking in generalities.' McAllister's interruption was cold but intense. 'We have to know more - I have to know more!'

  'He called a conference.' Bourne spoke dreamily, his head swaying, his eyes again riveted on the photograph. 'It was the start of - the nights of the great blade, he said. There was a traitor, he said. The conference was something only a madman could create, torches everywhere, held in the countryside, an hour out of Peking, in a bird sanctuary - can you believe it? A bird sanctuary - and he really did what I say he did. He killed a man suspended by ropes, hacking his sword into the screaming body. Then a woman who tried to argue her innocence, cutting her head off- her head! In front of everyone! And then two brothers-'

  'A traitor! whispered McAllister, ever the analyst. 'Did he find one? Did anyone confess? Is there any kind of counter insurgency?'

  'Stop it!' cried Marie.

  Wo, Mrs Webb! He's going back. He's reliving it. Look at him. Can't you see? He's there.'

  'I'm afraid our irritating colleague is right, Marie,' said Panov softly, watching Webb. 'He's in and out, trying to find his own reality. It's okay. Let him ride it. It could save us all a lot of time.'

  'Bullshit!'

  'For ever accurate, my dear, and for ever debatable. Shut up.

  '... There was no traitor, no one who spoke, only the woman with doubts. He killed her and there was silence, an awful silence. He was warning everyone, telling everyone that they were everywhere and at the same time they were invisible. In the ministries, in the Security Police, everywhere... And then he killed Echo, but Echo knew he had to die. He wanted to die quickly because he couldn't live much longer anyway. After they tortured him he was in awful shape. Still, if he could give me time-'

  'Who is Echo, David? asked Morris Panov. Tell us, please.'

>   'Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo... Foxtrot-'

  'Medusa,' said the psychiatrist. 'It's Medusa, isn't it? Echo was in Medusa.'

  'He was in Paris. The Louvre. He tried to save my life but I saved his. That was okay, it was right. He saved mine before, years ago. "Rest is a weapon", he said. He put the others around me and made me sleep. And then we got out of the jungle.'