“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.”
Rock music blared from the transistor radio with tin-like vibrations as the long-haired driver of the Yellow Cab slapped his hand against the rim of the steering wheel and jolted his jaw with the beat.
The taxi edged east on Seventy-first Street, locked into the line of cars that began at the exit on the East River Drive. Tempers flared as engines roared in place and cars lurched forward only to slam to sudden stops, inches away from bumpers in front. It was 8:45 in the morning, New York’s rush hour traffic as usual a contradiction in terms.
Bourne wedged himself into the corner of the back seat and stared at the tree-lined street beneath the rim of his hat and through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He had been there; it was all indelible. He had walked the pavements, seen the doorways and the storefronts and the walls covered with ivy--so out of place in the city, yet so right for this street. He had glanced up before and had noticed the roof gardens, relating them to a gracious garden several blocks away toward the park, beyond a pair of elegant French doors at the far end of a large ... complicated ... room. That room was inside a tall, narrow building of brown, jagged stone, with a column of wide, lead-paned windows rising four stories above the pavement. Windows made of thick glass that refracted light both inside and out in subtle flashes of purple and blue. Antique glass, perhaps, ornamental glass ...
bulletproof glass. A brownstone residence with a set of thick outside steps. They were odd steps, unusual steps, each level crisscrossed with black ridges that protruded above the surface, protecting the descender from the elements. Shoes going down would not slip on ice or snow ... and the weight of anyone climbing up would trigger electronic devices inside.
Jason knew that house, knew they were coming closer to it. The echo in his chest accelerated and became louder as they entered the block. He would see it any moment, and as he held his wrist, he knew why Parc Monceau had struck such chords in his mind’s eye. That small part of Paris was so much like this short stretch of the Upper East Side. Except for an isolated intrusion of an unkempt stoop or an ill-conceived whitewashed façade, they could be identical blocks.