The Bourne ultimatum (96 page)

“Exactly. Just as he had done at the Kubinka, Carlos has someone inside here. Someone with enough authority to order an expendable officer of the guard to bring anyone penetrating the tunnel to him before sending out alarms and raising headquarters.”

“That’s possible,” agreed the young trainer rapidly, firmly. “Involving headquarters with false alarms can be embarrassing, and as you say, there must have been a lot of confusion.”

“In Paris,” said Bourne, glancing up from the compound map, “I was told that embarrassment was the KGB’s worst enemy. True?”

“On a scale of one to ten, at least eight,” replied Benjamin. “But who would he have in here, who
could
he have? He hasn’t been here in over thirty years!”

“If we had a couple of hours and a few computers programmed with the records of everyone in Novgorod, we might be able to feed in several hundred names and come up with possibilities, but we don’t have hours. We don’t even have minutes! Also, if I know the Jackal, it won’t matter.”

“I think it matters one whole hell of a lot!” cried the Americanized Soviet. “There’s a traitor here and we should know who it is.”

“My guess is that you’ll find out soon enough. ...
Details
, Ben. The point is, he’s
here
! Let’s go, and when we get outside we stop somewhere and you get me what I need.”

“Okay.”

“Everything I need.”

“I’m cleared for that.”

“And then you disappear. I know what I’m talking about.”

“No way, José!”

“California checking in again?”

“You heard me.”

“Then young Benjamin’s mother may find a corpse for a son when she gets back to Moscow.”

“So be it!”

“So
be
... ? Why did you have to say that?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed right.”

“Shut up! Let’s get out of here.”

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez snapped his fingers twice in the shadows as he climbed the short steps of the miniaturized entrance to a small church in “Madrid’s” Paseo del Prado, the duffel bag in his left hand. From behind a fluted mock pillar a figure emerged, a heavyset man in his early sixties who walked partially into the dim light of a distant streetlamp. He was dressed in the uniform of a Spanish army officer, a lieutenant general with three rows of ribbons affixed to his tunic. He was carrying a leather suitcase; he raised it slightly and spoke in the compound’s language.

“Come inside, to the vestry. You can change there. That ill-fitting guard’s jacket is an invitation for sharpshooters.”

“It’s good to speak our language again,” said Carlos, following the man inside the tiny church and turning stiffly to close the heavy door. “I’m in your debt, Enrique,” he added, glancing around at the empty rows of pews and the soft lights playing upon the altar, the gold crucifix gleaming.

“You’ve been in my debt for over thirty years, Ramirez, and a lot of good it does me,” laughed the soldier quietly as they proceeded across to the right aisle and down toward the sacristy.

“Then perhaps you’re out of touch with what remains of your family in Baracoa. Fidel’s own brothers and sisters don’t live half so well.”

“Neither does crazy Fidel, but he doesn’t care. They say he bathes more frequently now and I suppose that’s progress. However, you’re talking about my family in Baracoa; what about
me
, my fine international assassin? No yachts, no racing colors, shame on you! Were it not for my warning you, you would have been executed in this very compound thirty-three years ago. Come to think of it, it was right outside this idiotic dollhouse church on the Prado that you made your escape—dressed as a priest, a figure that perpetually bewilders the Russian, like most everyone else.”

“Once I was established, did you ever lack for anything?” They entered a small paneled room where supposed prelates prepared the sacraments. “Did I ever refuse you?” Carlos added, placing the heavy duffel bag on the floor.

“I’m joking with you, of course,” objected Enrique, smiling good-naturedly and looking at the Jackal. “Where is that lusty humor of yours, my infamous old friend?”

“I have other things on my mind.”

“I’m sure you do, and, in truth, you were never less than generous where my family in Cuba was concerned, and I thank you. My father and mother lived out their lives in peace and comfort, bewildered naturally, but so much better off than anyone they knew. ... It was all so insane. Revolutionaries thrown out by their own revolution’s leaders.”

“You were threats to Castro, as was Che. It’s past.”

“A great deal has passed,” agreed Enrique, studying Carlos. “You’ve aged poorly, Ramirez. Where’s that once full head of dark hair and the handsome strong face with the clear eyes?”

“We won’t talk about it.”

“Very well. I grow fat, you grow thin; that tells me something. How badly are you wounded?”

“I can function well enough for what I intend to do—what I must do.”

“Ramirez, what else
is
there?” asked the costumed soldier suddenly. “He’s
dead
! Moscow takes credit over the radio for his death, but when you reached me I knew the credit was yours, the kill yours. Jason Bourne is dead! Your enemy is gone from this world. You’re not well; go back to Paris and heal yourself. I’ll get you out the same way I got you in. We’ll head into ‘France’ and I’ll clear the way. You will be a courier from the commandant of ‘Spain’ and ‘Portugal’ who’s sending a confidential message to Dzerzhinsky Square. It’s done all the time; no one trusts anyone here, especially his own gates. You won’t even have to take the risk of killing a single guard.”

“No! A lesson must be
taught
.”

“Then let me phrase it another way. When you called with your emergency codes, I did what you demanded, for by and large you have fulfilled your obligations to me, obligations that go back thirty-three years. But now there is another risk involved—
risks
, to be precise—and I’m not sure I care to take them.”

“You speak this way to
me
?” cried the Jackal, removing the dead guard’s jacket, his clean white bandages taut, holding his right shoulder firm with no evidence of blood.

“Stop your theatrics,” said Enrique softly. “We go back long before that. I’m speaking to a young revolutionary I followed out of Cuba with a great athlete named Santos. ... How is he, by the way? He was the real threat to Fidel.”

“He’s well,” answered Carlos, his voice flat. “We’re moving Le Coeur du Soldat.”

“Does he still tend to his gardens—his English gardens?”

“Yes, he does.”

“He should have been a landscaper, or a florist, I think. And I should have been a fine agricultural engineer, an agronomist, as they say—that’s how Santos and I met, you know. ... Melodramatic politics changed our lives, didn’t they?”

“Political
commitments
changed them. Everywhere the fascists changed them.”

“And now we want to be like the fascists, and they want to take what’s not so terrible about us Communists and spread a little money around—which doesn’t really work, but it’s a nice thought.”

“What has this to do with me—your monseigneur?”

“Horse droppings, Ramirez. As you may or may not know, my Russian wife died a number of years ago and I have three children in the Moscow University. Without my position they would not be there and I want them there. They will be scientists, doctors. ... You see, those are the risks you ask of me. I’ve covered myself up until this moment—and you deserve this moment—but perhaps no more. In a few months I will retire, and in recognition of my years of service in southern Europe and the Mediterranean, I will share a fine dacha on the Black Sea where my children will come and visit me. I will not unduly risk what life I have before me. So be specific, Ramirez, and I’ll tell you whether you’re on your own or not. ... I repeat, your getting in here cannot be traced to me, and, as I say, you deserved that much, but this is where I may be forced to stop.”

“I see,” said Carlos, approaching the suitcase Enrique had placed on the sacristy table.

“I hope you do and, further, I hope you understand. Over the years you’ve been good to my family in ways that I could never be, but then I’ve served you well in ways that I could. I led you to Rodchenko, fed you names in ministries where rumors abounded, rumors Rodchenko himself investigated for you. So, my old revolutionary comrade, I’ve not been idle on your behalf either. However, things are different now; we’re not young firebrands in search of a cause any longer, for we’ve lost our appetites for causes—you long before me, of course.”

“My cause remains constant,” interrupted the Jackal sharply. “It is myself and all those who serve me.”

“
I’ve
served you—”

“You’ve made that clear, as well as my generosity to you and yours. And now that I’m here, you wonder if I deserve further assistance, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“I must protect myself. Why
are
you here?”

“I told you. To teach a lesson, to leave a message.”

“They are one and the same?”

“Yes.” Carlos opened the suitcase; it held a coarse shirt, a Portuguese fisherman’s cap with the appropriate rope-belted trousers, and a seaman’s shoulder-strapped canvas satchel. “Why these?” asked the Jackal.

“They’re loose-fitting and I haven’t seen you in years—not since Málaga in the early seventies, I think. I couldn’t very well have clothes tailored for you, and I’m glad I didn’t try—you are not as I remembered you, Ramirez.”

“You’re not much larger than I remember you,” countered the assassin. “A little thicker around the stomach, perhaps, but we’re still the same height, the same basic frame.”

“So? What does that mean?”

“In a moment. ... Have things changed a great deal since we were together here?”

“Constantly. Photographs arrive and construction crews follow a day later. The Prado here in ‘Madrid’ has new shops, new signs, even a few new sewers as they are changed in that city. Also ‘Lisbon’ and the piers along the ‘Bay’ and ‘Tagus River’ have been altered to conform to the changes that have taken place. We are nothing if not authentic. The candidates who complete the training are literally at home wherever they’re initially sent. Sometimes I really believe it’s all excessive, then I recall my first assignment at the naval base in Barcelona and realize how comfortable I was. I went right to work because the psychological orientation had already taken place; there were no major surprises.”

“You’re describing appearances,” broke in Carlos.

“Of course, what else is there?”

“More permanent structures that are not so apparent, not so much in evidence.”

“Such as?”

“Warehouses, fuel depots, fire stations, that are not part of the duplicated scenery. Are they still where they were?”

“By and large, yes. Certainly the major warehouses and the fuel depots with their underground tanks. Most are still west of the ‘San Roque’ district, the ‘Gibraltar’ access.”

“What about going from one compound to another?”

“Now that
has
changed.” Enrique withdrew a small flat object from the pocket of his tunic. “Each border crossing has a computerized registration release that permits entry when this is inserted.”

“No questions are asked?”

“Only at Novgorod’s Capital Headquarters, if there are any questions.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If one of these is lost or stolen, it’s reported instantly and the internal codes are nullified.”

“I see.”

“
I
don’t! Why these questions? Again, why are you
here
? What is this lesson, this message?”

“The ‘San Roque’ district ... ?” said Carlos, as if remembering. “That’s about three or four kilometers south of the tunnel, isn’t it? A small waterfront village, no?”

“The ‘Gibraltar’ access, yes.”

“And the next compound is ‘France,’ of course, and then ‘England’ and finally the largest, the ‘United States.’ Yes, it’s all clear to me; everything’s come back.” The Jackal turned away, his right hand awkwardly disappearing beneath his trousers.

“Yet nothing is clear to
me
,” said Enrique, his low voice threatening. “And it must be. Answer me, Ramirez. Why are you here?”

“How dare you question me like this?” continued Carlos, his back to his old associate. “How dare
any
of you question the monseigneur from Paris.”

“You listen to me, Priest Piss Ant. You answer me or I walk out of here and you’re a dead monseigneur in a matter of minutes!”

“Very well, Enrique,” answered Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, addressing the paneled wall of the sacristy. “My message will be triumphantly clear and will shake the very foundations of the Kremlin. Not only did Carlos the Jackal kill the weak pretender Jason Bourne on Soviet soil, he left a reminder to all Russia that the Komitet made a colossal error in not utilizing my extraordinary talents.”

“Really now,” said Enrique, laughing softly, as if humoring a far less than extraordinary man. “More melodramatics, Ramirez? And how will you convey this reminder, this
message
, this supreme statement of yours?”

“Quite simply,” replied the Jackal, turning, a gun in his hand, the silencer intact. “We have to change places.”

“
What
?”

“I’m going to burn Novgorod.” Carlos fired a single shot into the upper throat of Enrique. He wanted as little blood as possible on the tunic.

Dressed in combat fatigues with the insignias of an army major on the shoulders of his field jacket, Bourne blended in with the sporadic appearances of military personnel as they crisscrossed the American compound from one sector to another on their night patrols. There were not many, perhaps thirty men, covering the entire acreage of the eight square miles, according to Benjamin. In the “metropolitan” areas they were generally on foot, in pairs; in the “rural” districts they drove military vehicles. The young trainer had requisitioned a jeep.

From the Commissars Suite at U.S. headquarters they had been taken to a military warehouse west of the river where Benjamin’s papers gained them entrance and the jeep. Inside, the astonished interior guards watched as the silent Bourne was outfitted with a field uniform complete with a carbine bayonet, a standard .45 automatic and five clips of live ammunition, this last obtained only after an authorization call was placed to Krupkin’s unknowing subordinates at Capital HQ. Once again outside, Jason complained: “What about the flares I wanted and at least three or four grenades? You agreed to get me everything I needed, not half of it!”