The Bourne Identity (64 page)

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"The rest fits, though. He
did
say D.C.'s been looking for him for more than six months. That was when he used the name Treadstone. He was from Treadstone; that's supposed to be the explosive. He also told me to relay the code words Delta, Cain and Medusa. The first two are on the flag, I checked them off. I don't know what Medusa means."

"I don't know what
any
of this means," said the First Secretary. "Except that my orders are to hightail it down to communications, clear all scrambler traffic to Langley and get a sterile patch to a spook named Conklin. Him I've heard of: a mean son of a bitch who got his foot blown off ten or twelve years ago in Nam. He pushes very strange buttons over at the Company. Also he survived the purges, which leads me to think he's one man they don't want roaming the streets looking for a job. Or a publisher."

"Who do you think this Bourne is?" asked the attache. "I've never seen such a concentrated but formless hunt for a person in my whole eight years away from the States."

"Someone they want very badly." The First Secretary got up from the desk. "Thanks for this. I'll tell D.C. how well you handled it. What's the schedule? I don't suppose he gave you a telephone number."

"No way. He wanted to call back in fifteen minutes, but I played the harried bureaucrat. I told him to call me in an hour or so. That'd make it past five o'clock, so we could gain another hour or two by my being out to dinner."

"I don't know. We can't risk losing him. I'll let Conklin set up the game plan. He's the control on this. No one makes a move on Bourne unless it's authorized by him."

Alexander Conklin sat behind the desk in his white-walled office in Langley, Virginia, and listened to the embassy man in Paris. He was convinced; it
was
Delta. The reference to Medusa was the proof, for it was a name no one would know
but
Delta. The bastard! He was playing the stranded agent, his controls at the Treadstone telephone not responding to the proper code words--whatever they were--because the dead could not talk. He was using the omission to get himself off the meathook! The sheer nerve of the bastard was awesome. Bastard,
bastard!

Kill the controls and use the kills to call off the hunt. Any kind of hunt. How many men had done it before, thought Alexander Conklin. He had. There had been a source-control in the hills of Huong Khe, a maniac issuing maniacal orders, certain death for a dozen teams of Medusans on a maniacal hunt. A young intelligence officer named Conklin had crept back into Base Camp Kilo with a North Vietnamese rifle, Russian caliber, and had fired two bullets into the head of a maniac. There had been grieving and harsher security measures put in force, but the hunt was called off. There had been no fragments of glass found in the jungle paths of Base Camp Kilo, however. Fragments with fingerprints that irrefutably identified the sniper as an Occidental recruit from Medusa itself. There were such fragments found on Seventy-first Street, but the killer did not know it--Delta did not know it.

"At one point we seriously questioned whether he was genuine," said the embassy's First Secretary, rambling on as if to fill the abrupt silence from Washington. "An experienced field officer would have told the attache to check for a flag, but the subject didn't."

"An oversight," replied Conklin, pulling his mind back to the brutal enigma that was Delta-Cain. "What are the arrangements?"

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"Initially Bourne insisted on calling back in fifteen minutes, but I instructed lower-level to stall. For instance, we could use the dinner hour ..." The embassy man was making sure a Company executive in Washington realized the perspicacity of his contributions. It would go on for the better part of a minute; Conklin had heard too many variations before.

Delta
. Why had he turned? The madness must have eaten his head away, leaving only the instincts for survival. He had been around too long; he knew that sooner or later they would find him, kill him. There was never any alternative; he understood that from the moment he turned--or broke--or whatever it was. There was nowhere to hide any longer; he was a target all over the globe. He could never know who might step out of the shadows and bring his life to an end. It was something they all lived with, the single most persuasive argument against turning. So another solution had to be found: survival. The biblical Cain was the first to commit fratricide. Had the mythical name triggered the obscene decision, the strategy itself? Was it as simple as that? Clod knew it was the perfect solution. Kill them all, kill your brother.

Webb gone, the Monk gone, the Yachtsman and his wife ... who could deny the instructions Delta received, since these four alone relayed instructions to him? He had removed the millions and distributed them as ordered. Blind recipients he had assumed were intrinsic to the Monk's strategy. Who was Delta to question the Monk? The creator of Medusa, the genius who had recruited and created him. Cain. The perfect solution. To be utterly convincing, all that was required was the death of a brother, the proper grief to follow. The official judgment would be rendered. Carlos had infiltrated and broken Treadstone. The assassin had won, Treadstone abandoned. The
bastard!

"... so basically I felt the game plan would come from you." The First Secretary in Paris had finished. He was an ass, but Conklin needed him; one tune had to be heard while another was being played.

"You did the right thing," said a respectful executive in Langley. "I'll let our people over here know how well you handled it. You were absolutely right; we need time, but Bourne doesn't realize it. We can't tell him, either, which makes it tough. We're on sterile, so may I speak accordingly?,,

"Of course."

"Bourne's under pressure. He's been ... detained ... for a long period of time. Am I clear?"

"The Soviets?"

"Right up to the Lubyanka. His run was made by means of a double-entry. Are you familiar with the term?"

"Yes, I am. Moscow thinks he's working for them now."

"That's what they think." Conklin paused. "And we're not sure. Crazy things happen in the Lubyanka."

The First Secretary whistled softly. "That's a basket. How are you going to make a determination?"

"With your help. But the classification priority is so high it's above embassy, even ambassadorial level. You're on the scene; you were reached. You can accept the condition or not, that's up to you. If you do, I think a commendation might come right out of the Oval Office."

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Conklin could hear the slow intake of breath from Paris.

"I'll do whatever I can, of course. Name it."

"You already did. We want him stalled. When he calls back, talk to him yourself."

"Naturally," interrupted the embassy man.

"Tell him you relayed the codes. Tell him Washington is flying over an officer-of-record from Treadstone by military transport. Say D.C. wants him to keep out of sight and away from the embassy; every route is being watched. Then ask him if he wants protection, and if he does, find out where he wants to pick it up. But don't send anyone; when you talk to me again I'll have been in touch with someone over there. I'll give you a name then and an eye-spot you can give to him."

"Eye-spot?"

"Visual identification. Something or someone he can recognize."

"One of your men?"

"Yes, we think it's best that way. Beyond you, there's no point in involving the embassy. As a matter of fact, it's vital we don't, so whatever conversations you have shouldn't be logged."

"I can take care of that," said the First Secretary. "But how is the one conversation I'm going to have with him going to help you determine whether he's a double-entry?"

"Because it won't be one; it'll be closer to ten."

"Ten?"

"That's right. Your instructions to Bourne--from us through you--are that he's to check in on your phone every hour to confirm the fact that he's in safe territory. Until that last time, when you tell him the Treadstone officer has arrived in Paris and will meet with him."

"What will that accomplish?" asked the embassy man.

"He'll keep moving ... if he's not ours. There are a half a dozen known deep-cover Soviet agents in Paris, all with tripped phones. If he's working with Moscow, the chances are he'll use at least one of them. We'll be watching. And if that's the way it turns out, I think you'll remember the time you spent all night at the embassy for the rest of your life. Presidential commendations have a way of raising a career man's grade level. Of course, you don't have too much higher to go ..."

"There's higher, Mr. Conklin," interrupted the First Secretary. The conversation was over; the embassy man would call back after hearing from Bourne. Conklin got up from the chair and limped across the room to a gray filing cabinet against the wall. He unlocked the top panel. Inside was a stapled folder containing a sealed envelope bearing the names and locations of men who could be called upon in emergencies. They had once been good men, loyal men, who for one reason or another could no longer be on a Washington payroll. In all cases it had been necessary to remove them from the official scene, relocate them with new identities--those fluent in other languages frequently given citizenship by cooperating foreign governments. They had simply disappeared.
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They were the outcasts, men who had gone beyond the laws in the service of their country, who often killed in the interests of their country. But their country could not tolerate their official existence; their covers had been exposed, their actions made known. Still, they could be called upon. Monies were constantly funneled to accounts beyond official scrutiny, certain understandings intrinsic to the payments. Conklin carried the envelope back to his desk and tore the marked tape from the flap; it would be resealed, remarked. There was a man in Paris, a dedicated man who had come up through the officer corps of Army Intelligence, a lieutenant colonel by the time he was thirty-five. He could be counted on; he understood national priorities. He had killed a left-wing cameraman in a village near Hu a dozen years ago.

Three minutes later he had the man on the line, the call unlogged, unrecorded. The former officer was given a name and a brief sketch of defection, including a covert trip to the United States during which the defector in question on special assignment had eliminated those controlling the strategy.

"A double-entry?" asked the man in Paris. "Moscow?"

"No, not the Soviets," replied Conklin, aware that if Delta requested protection, there would be conversations between the two men.

"It was a long-range deep cover to snare Carlos."

"The assassin?"

"That's right."

"You may
say
it's not Moscow, but you won't convince
me
. Carlos was trained in Novgorod and as far as I'm concerned he's still a dirty gun for the KGB."

"Perhaps. The details aren't for briefing, but suffice it to say we're convinced our man was bought off; he's made a few million and wants an unencumbered passport."

"So he took out the controls and the finger's pointed at Carlos, which doesn't mean a damn thing but give him another kill."

"That's it. We want to play it out, let him think he's home free. Best, we'd like an admission, whatever information we can get, which is why I'm on my way over. But it's definitely secondary to taking him out. Too many people in too many places were compromised to put him where he is. Can you help? There'll be a bonus."

"My pleasure. And keep the bonus, I hate fuckers like him. They blow whole networks."

"It's got to be airtight; he's one of the best. I'd suggest support, at least one."

"I've got a man from the Saint-Gervais worth five. He's for hire."

"Hire him. Here are the particulars. The control in Paris is an embassy blind; he knows nothing but he's in communication with Bourne and may request protection for him."

"I'll play it," said the former intelligence officer. "Go ahead."

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"There's not much more for the moment. I'll take a jet out of Andrews. My ETA in Paris will be anywhere between eleven and twelve midnight your time. I want to see Bourne within an hour or so after that and be back here in Washington by tomorrow. It's tight, but that's the way it's got to be."

"That's the way it'll be, then."

"The blind at the embassy is the First Secretary. His name is ..."

Conklin gave the remaining specifics and the two men worked out basic ciphers for their initial contact in Paris. Code words that would tell the man from the Central Intelligence Agency whether or not any problems existed when they spoke. Conklin hung up. Everything was in motion exactly the way Delta would expect it to be in motion. The inheritors of Treadstone would go by the book, and the book was specific where collapsed strategies and strategists were concerned. They were to be dissolved, cut off, no official connection or acknowledgment permitted. Failed strategies and strategists were an embarrassment to Washington. And from its manipulative beginnings, Treadstone Seventy-One had used, abused and maneuvered every major unit in the United States Intelligence community and not a few foreign governments. Very long poles would be held when touching any survivors. Delta knew all this, and because he himself had destroyed Treadstone, he would appreciate the precautions, anticipate them, be alarmed if they were not there. And when confronted he would react in false fury and artificial anguish over the violence that had taken place in Seventy-first Street. Alexander Conklin would listen with all his concentration, trying to discern a genuine note, or even the outlines of a reasonable explanation, but he knew he would hear neither. Irregular fragments of glass could not beam themselves across the Atlantic, only to be concealed beneath a heavy drape in a Manhattan brownstone, and fingerprints were more accurate proof of a man having been at a scene than any photograph. There was no way they could be doctored.