Not long after, he returned to the stolen car, switched on the radio, spun the dial until he came to a news announcer talking about the terrorism summit, followed by a brief rundown first of the national news, then the local items. First on the list were the murders of Alex Conklin and Mo Panov but, strangely, no new information was forthcoming.
"More news upcoming," the announcer said, "but first this important message...."
"... this important message'' At that moment, the office in Paris with its view down the Champs-Elyse'es to the Arc de Triomphe came roaring back to him, the memory sweeping away the diner and those who surrounded him. There was a chocolate-colored chair at his side from which he had just risen. In his right hand a glass of cut-crystal half full of the amber liquid. A voice, deep and rich, full of melody, was speaking, something about the time it would take to get everything Bourne needed. "Not to worry, my friend," the voice said, the English blurred by the heavy cast of its French accent, "I'm meant to give you this important message."
In the theater of his mind, he turned, straining to see the face of the man who had spoken, but all he saw was a blank wall. The memory had evaporated like the scent of the Scotch, leaving Bourne back, staring bleakly out the grimy windows of the broken-down diner.
A spasm of fury drove Khan to pick up his cell phone and call Spalko. It took some time, and a bit of doing on his part, but at length he was put through.
"To what do I owe this honor, Khan?" Spalko said in his ear. Listening hard, Khan heard the slight slur in his voice and determined that he had been drinking. His knowledge of the habits of his sometime employer went deeper than Spalko himself might have realized, if he'd wanted to consider it at all. He knew, for instance, that Spalko liked drink, cigarettes and women, though not necessarily in that order. His capacity for all three was immense. He thought now that if Spalko was even half as drunk as he suspected, he would have an advantage. Where Spalko was concerned, that was rare.
"The dossier you gave me appears incorrect, or at the very least incomplete."
"And what leads you to that sorry conclusion?" The voice had instantaneously hardened, like water into ice. Too late Khan knew the language he had used had been too aggressive. Spalko might be a great thinker—a visionary even, as he doubtless considered himself—but in the bedrock of his being he operated on instinct. So he had risen from his semi-stupor to fight aggression with more of the same. He was possessed of a furious temper quite at odds with his carefully cultivated public image. But then so much of him thrived beneath the saccharine surface of his day-to-day life.
"Webb's behavior has been curious," Khan said softly.
"Oh? In what way?" Spalko's voice had returned to its slurring, lazy diction.
"He hasn't been acting like a college professor."
"I'm wondering why it matters. Haven't you killed him?"
"Not yet." Khan, sitting in his parked car, watched through the window glass as a bus pulled into a stop across the street. The door opened with a sigh and people emerged: an old man, two teenage boys, a mother and her toddler son.
"Well, that's a change of plan, isn't it?"
"You knew I meant to toy with him first."
"Certainly, but the question is for how long?"
There was a verbal chess match of sorts in progress, as delicate as it was fevered, and Khan could only guess at its nature. What was it about Webb? Why had Spalko decided to use him as a pawn for the double murder of the government men, Conklin and Panov?
Why, for that matter, had Spalko ordered them killed? Khan had no doubt this is what had happened.
"Until I'm ready. Until he understands who's coming for him." Khan's eyes followed the mother as she put her child down on the sidewalk. The boy tottered a little as he walked and she laughed. His head tilted as he looked up at her and he laughed, too, mimicking her pleasure. She took his small hand in hers.
"You're not having second thoughts, are you?"
Khan thought he detected a slight tautness, a tremor of intent, and all at once he wondered whether Spalko was drunk at all. Khan considered asking him why it mattered to him whether or not he killed David Webb but, after some consideration, rejected the idea, fearing it might reveal his own concerns. "No, no second thoughts," Khan said.
"Because we're the same under the skin, you and I. Our nostrils dilate at the scent of death."
Lost in thought and unsure how to respond, Khan closed his cell phone. He put his hand up to the window, watched between his fingers as the woman walked her son down the street. She took tiny steps, trying as best she could to match her gait to his wobbly one. Spalko was lying to him, Khan knew that much. Just as he had been lying to Spalko. For a moment, his eyes lost their focus and he was back in the jungles of Cambodia. He had been with the Vietnamese gunrunner for over a year, tied up in a shack like a mad dog, half-starved and beaten. The third time he had attempted to escape he had learned his lesson, beating the unconscious gunrunner's head to a pulp with the spade-shaped head of a shovel he used to dig latrine pits. He had spent ten days living off what he could before he had been taken in by an American missionary by the name of Richard Wick. He had been given food, clothing, a hot bath and a clean bed. In exchange, he responded to the missionary's English lessons. As soon as he was able to read, he was given a Bible, which he was required to memorize. In this way, he began to understand that in Wick's view he was on the road to not salvation but to civilization. Once or twice, he tried to explain to Wick the nature of Buddhism, but he was very young and the concepts he'd been taught at an early age didn't seem so well formed when they emerged from his mouth. Not that Wick would've been interested in any case. He held no truck with any religion^ that didn't believe in God, didn't believe in Jesus the Savior. Khan's eyes snapped back into focus. The mother was leading her toddler past the chrome facade of the diner with the huge coffee cup on its roof. Just beyond and across the street, Khan could see the man he knew as David Webb through the reflectionstreaked glass of a car window. He had to give Webb credit; he had led Khan on a tortured path from the edge of the Conklin estate. Khan had seen the figure on the ridge road, observing them. By the time he had scrambled up there after escaping from Webb's clever trap, he had been too late to accost the man, but with his IR field glasses, he had been able to follow Webb's progress onto the highway. He had been ready to follow when Webb had been picked up. He watched Webb now, knowing what Spalko already knew: that Webb was a very dangerous man. A man like that surely had no concern about being the only Caucasian in the diner. He looked lonely, although Khan could not be sure, loneliness being entirely alien to him.
His gaze turned again to the mother and child. Their laughter drifted back to him, insubstantial as a dream.
Bourne arrived at Lincoln Fine Tailors in Alexandria at five minutes past nine. The shop looked like all the other independently owned businesses in Old Town; that is to say, it had a vaguely Colonial facade. He crossed the red-brick sidewalk, pushed open the door, and went inside. The public area of the shop was divided in half by a waist-high barrier made up of a counter on the left and cutting tables on the right. The sewing machines were midway back behind the counter, manned by three Latinas who did not even glance up when he entered. A thin man in shirtsleeves and open striped vest stood behind the counter frowning down at something. He had a high, domed forehead, a fringe of light brown hair, a face with sagging cheeks and muddy eyes. His glasses were pushed up onto the crown of his scalp. He had a habit of pinching his hawklike nose. He paid no attention to the door opening but looked up as Bourne approached the counter.
"Yes?" he said with an expectant air. "How can I help you?"
"You're Leonard Fine? I saw your name on the window outside."
"That's me," Fine said.
"Alex sent me."
The tailor blinked. "Who?"
"Alex Conklin," Bourne repeated. "My name is Jason Bourne." He looked around. No one was paying them the slightest attention. The sound of the sewing ma
chines made the air sparkle and hum.
Very deliberately, Fine pulled his glasses down onto the narrow bridge of his nose. He peered at Bourne with a decided intensity.
"I'm a friend of his," Bourne said, feeling the need to prompt the fellow.
"There are no articles of clothing here for a Mr. Conklin."
"I don't think he left any," Bourne said.
Fine pinched his nose, as if he were in pain. "A friend, you say?"
"For many years."
Without another word, Fine reached over, opened a door in the counter for Bourne to step through. "Perhaps we should discuss this in my office." He led Bourne through a door, down a dusty corridor reeking of sizing and spray starch.
The office wasn't much, a small cubicle with scuffed and pitted linoleum on the floor, bare pipes running from floor to ceiling, a battered green metal desk with a swivel chair, two stacks of cheap metal filing cabinets, piles of cardboard boxes. The smell of mold and mildew rose like steam from the contents of the office. Behind the chair was a small square window, so grimed it was impossible to see the alley beyond. Fine went behind the desk, pulled out a drawer. "Drink?"
"It's a little early," Bourne said, "don't you think?"
"Yeah," Fine muttered. "Now that you mention it." He removed a gun from a drawer and aimed it at Bourne's stomach. "The bullet won't kill you right away, but while you're bleeding to death, you'll wish it had."
"There's no reason to get excited," Bourne said easily.
"But there's every reason." the tailor said. His eyes were set close together, making him appear somewhat cross-eyed. "Conklin's dead and I heard you did it."
"I didn't," Bourne said.
"That's what you all say. Deny, deny, deny. It's the government's way, isn't it?" A crafty smile crossed the other's face. "Sit down, Mr. Webb—or Bourne—whatever you're calling yourself today."
Bourne looked up. "You're Agency."
"Not at all. I'm an independent operator. Unless Alex told them, I doubt if anyone inside the Agency knows I even exist." The tailor's smile grew wider. "That's why Alex came to me in the first place."
Bourne nodded. "I'd like to know about that."
"Oh, I have no doubt." Fine reached for the phone on his desk. "On the other hand, when your own people get hold of you, you'll be too busy answering their questions to care about anything else."
"Don't do that," Bourne said sharply.
Fine halted with the receiver in midair. "Give me a reason."
"I didn't kill Alex. I'm trying to find out who did."
"But you did kill him. According to the bulletin I read, you were at his house at the time he was shot to death. Did you see anyone else there?"
"No, but Alex and Mo Panov were dead when I arrived."
"Bullshit. Why did you kill him, I wonder." Fine's eyes narrowed. "I imagine it was because of Dr. Schiffer."
"I never heard of Dr. Schiffer."
The tailor emitted a harsh laugh. "More bullshit. And I suppose you never heard of DARPA."
"Of course I have," Bourne said. "It stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Is that where Dr. Schiffer works?"
With a sound of disgust, Fine said, "I've had enough of this." When he momentarily took his eyes off Bourne to dial a number, Bourne lunged at him.
The DCI was in his capacious corner office, on the phone with Jamie Hull. Brilliant sunlight spilled in the window, firing the jewel tones of the carpet. Not that the magnificent play of colors had any effect on the DCI. He was still in one of his black moods. Bleakly, he looked at the photos of himself with presidents in the Oval Office, foreign leaders in Paris, Bonn and Dakar, entertainers in L.A. and Vegas, evangelical preachers in Atlanta and Salt Lake City, even, absurdly, the Dalai Lama in his perpetual smile and saffron robes, on a visit to New York City. These pictures not only failed to rouse him from his gloom but made him feel the years of his life, as if they were layers of chain-mail weighing him down.
"It's a fucking nightmare, sir," Hull was saying from far-off Reykjavik. "First off, setting up security in conjunction with the Russians and Arabs is like chasing your tail. I mean, half the time I don't know what the hell they're saying and the other half I don't trust the interpreters—ours or theirs—are telling me exactly what they're saying."
"You should have taken foreign language courses in grad school, Jamie. Just get on with it. I'll send you other interpreters, if you like."
"Really? And where would be we getting them? We've excised all the Arabists, haven't we?"
The DCI sighed. That was a problem, of course. Almost all the Arab-speaking intelligence officers they'd had on their payroll had been deemed sympathetic to the Islamic cause, always shouting down the hawks, trying to explain how peace-loving most Islamics really were. Tell that to the Israelis. "We've got a whole crop of new ones due here day after tomorrow from the Center for the Study of Intelligence. I'll have a couple sourced out to you ASAP."
"That's not all, sir."
The DCI scowled, vexed that he heard no hint of gratitude in the other's voice. "What now?" he snapped. What if he removed all the photos? he wondered. Would that improve the lugubrious atmosphere in here?
"Not to complain, sir, but I'm trying my damnedest to establish proper security measures in a foreign country with no particular allegiance to the United States. We don't give them aid, so they aren't beholden to us. I invoke the president's name and what do I get? Blank stares. That makes my job triply difficult. I'm a member of the most powerful nation on the planet. I know more about security than everyone in Iceland put together. Where's the respect I'm supposed to—"
The intercom buzzed, and with a certain amount of satisfaction, the Old Man put Hull on hold. "What is it?" he barked into the intercom.
"Sorry to bother you, sir," the duty officer said, "but a call's just come in on Mr. Conklin's emergency line."
"What? Alex is dead. Are you sure?"
"Absolutely, sir. That line has not been reassigned yet."
"All right. Continue."
"I heard the sound of a brief scuffle and someone said a name—Bourne, I think." The DCI sat ramrod straight, his black mood dissolving as quickly as it had come on.
"Bourne. That's the name you heard, son?"
"It sure sounded like it. And the same voice said something like 'kill you.'"
"Where did the call come from?" the Old Man demanded.
"It was cut off, but I did a reverse trace. The number belongs to a shop in Alexandria. Lincoln Fine Tailors."
"Good man!" The DCI was standing now. The hand that held the phone was trembling slightly. "Dispatch two teams of agents immediately. Tell them Bourne has surfaced! Tell them to terminate him on sight."
Bourne, having wrested the gun away from Leonard Fine without a shot being fired, now shoved him so hard against the smudgy wall that a calendar was dislodged from its nail, fell to the floor. The phone was in Bourne's hand; he had just severed the connection. He listened for any commotion out front, any hint that the women had heard the sounds of the brief but violent struggle.
"They're on their way," Fine said. "It's over for you."
"I don't think so." Bourne was thinking furiously. "The call went to the main switchboard. No one would know what to do with it."
Fine shook his head, a smirk on his face. "The call bypassed the normal Agency switchboard; it rang directly through to the DCI's duty officer. Conklin insisted I memorize the number, to be used only in event of an emergency." Bourne shook Fine until his teeth rattled. "You idiot! What have you done?"
"Paid my final debt to Alex Conklin."
"But I told you. I didn't kill him." And then something occurred to Bourne, one last desperate try to win Fine over to his side, to get him to open up about what Conklin had been up to, a clue to why he might have been killed. "I'll prove to you Alex sent me."
"More bullshit," Fine said. "It's too late—"
"I know about NX 20."
Fine stood immobile. Th
ere was a slackness to his face; his eyes were open wide in shock. "No," he said. "No, no, no!"
"He told me," Bourne said. "Alex told me. That's why he sent me, you see."
"Alex could never have been coerced to tell about NX 20. Never!" The shock was fading from Fine's face, to be replaced by a slow dawning of the grievous error he had made.
Bourne nodded. "I'm a friend. Alex and I go all the way back to Vietnam. This is what I have been trying to tell you."
"God in heaven, I was on the phone with him when ... when it happened." Fine put a hand to his forehead. "I heard the shot!"
Bourne grabbed the tailor by his vest. "Leonard, get hold of yourself. We don't have time for a replay."
Fine stared into Bourne's face. He had responded, as people most often do, to his given name. "Yes." He nodded, licked his lips. He was a man coming out of a dream. "Yes, I understand."
"The Agency will be here within minutes. I need to be gone by then."
"Yes, yes. Of course." Fine shook his head in sorrow. "Now let go of me. Please." Freed from Bourne's grip, he knelt beneath the back window, pulled out the radiator grille, behind which was a modern safe built into the plaster and lathe wall. He spun the dial, unlocked it, swung the heavy door open, pulled out a small manila envelope. Closing the safe, he replaced the grille and rose, handing the envelope to Bourne.
"This arrived for Alex late the other night. He called me yesterday morning to check on it. He said he was coming to pick it up."
"Who sent it?"
At that moment, they heard voices raised in sharp command emanating from the shop out front.
"They're here," Bourne said.
"Oh God!" Fine's features were pinched, bloodless.
"You must have another way out."
The tailor nodded. He gave Bourne quick instructions. "Go on now," he said urgently.
"I'll keep them occupied."
"Wipe your face," Bourne said, and when Fine took the sheen of sweat off his face, he nodded.
Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy Page 9