Marie watched her husband as he walked back and forth, the pacing deliberate, energized. He tramped angrily between the writing table and the sunlit curtains of the two windows over-looking the front lawn of the Auberge des Artistes in Barbizon. The country inn was the one Marie remembered, but it was not part of David Webb’s memory; and when he said as much, his wife briefly closed her eyes, hearing another voice from years ago.
“Above everything, he’s got to avoid extreme stress, the kind of tension that goes with survival under life-threatening circumstances. If you see him regressing into that state of mind—and you’ll know it when you see it—stop him. Seduce him, slap him, cry, get angry … anything, just stop him.” Morris Panov, dear friend, doctor and the guiding force behind her husband’s therapy.
She had tried seduction within minutes after they were alone together. It was a mistake, even a touch farcical, awkward for both of them. Neither was remotely aroused. Yet there was no embarrassment; they held each other on the bed, both understanding.
“We’re a couple of real sexpots, aren’t we?” said Marie.
“We’ve been there before,” replied David Webb gently, “and I’ve no doubt we’ll be there again.” Then Jason Bourne rolled away and stood up. “I have to make a list,” he said urgently, heading for the quaint country table against the wall that served as a desk and a place for the telephone. “We have to know where we are and where we’re going.”
“And I have to call Johnny on the island,” added Marie, rising to her feet and smoothing her skirt. “After I talk to him I’ll speak to Jamie. I’ll reassure him and tell him we’ll be back soon.” The wife crossed to the table; she stopped, blocked by her husband—her husband yet not her husband.
“No,” said Bourne quietly, shaking his head.
“Don’t say that to me,” protested the mother, anger flashing in her eyes.
“Three hours ago in the Rivoli changed everything. Nothing’s the same now. Don’t you understand that?”
“I understand that my children are several thousand miles away from me and I intend to reach them. Don’t you understand that?”
“Of course I do, I just can’t allow it,” answered Jason.
“Goddamn you, Mr. Bourne!”
“Will you listen to me?… You’ll talk to Johnny and to Jamie—we’ll both talk to them—but not from here and not while they’re on the island.”
“What …?”
“I’m calling Alex in a few minutes and telling him to get all of them out of there, including Mrs. Cooper, of course.”
Marie had stared at her husband, suddenly understanding. “Oh, my God, Carlos!”
“Yes. As of this noon he’s got only one place to zero in on—Tranquility. If he doesn’t know now, he’ll learn soon enough that Jamie and Alison are with Johnny. I trust your brother and his personal Tonton Macoute, but I still want them away from there before it’s night in the islands. I also don’t know if Carlos has sources in the island’s trunk lines that could trace a call between there and here, but I do know that Alex’s phone is sterile. That’s why you can’t call now. From here to there.”
“Then, for God’s sake, call Alex! What the hell are you waiting for?”
“I’m not sure.” For a moment there was a blank, panicked look in her husband’s eyes—they were the eyes of David Webb, not Jason Bourne. “I have to decide—where do I send the kids?”
“Alex will know, Jason,” said Marie, her own eyes leveled steadily on his. “Now.”
“Yes … yes, of course. Now.” The veiled, vacuous look passed and Bourne reached for the phone.
Alexander Conklin was not in Vienna, Virginia, U.S. A. Instead, there was the monotonic voice of a recorded operator that had the effect of crashing thunder. “The telephone number you have called is no longer in service.”
He had placed the call twice again, believing in desperate hope that an error had been made by the French telephone service. Then bolts of lightning followed: “The telephone number you have called is no longer in service.” For a third time.
The pacing had begun; from the table to the windows and back again. Over and over, the curtains were pulled aside, anxious eyes nervously peering out, then seconds later poring over a growing list of names and places. Marie suggested lunch; he did not hear her, so she watched him in silence from across the room.
The quick, abrupt movements of her husband were like those of a large disquieted cat, smooth, fluid, alert for the unexpected. They were the movements of Jason Bourne and, before him, Medusa’s Delta, not David Webb. She remembered the medical records compiled by Mo Panov in the early days of David’s therapy. Many were filled with wildly divergent descriptions from people who claimed to have seen the man known as the Chameleon, but among the most reliable was a common reference to the catlike mobility of the “assassin.” Panov had been looking for clues to Jason Bourne’s identity then, for all they had at the time were a first name and fragmented images of painful death in Cambodia. Mo often wondered aloud if there was more to his patient’s physical dexterity than mere athleticism; oddly enough, there was not.
As Marie looked back the subtle physical differences between the two men who were her husband both fascinated and repelled her. Each was muscular and graceful, each capable of performing difficult tasks requiring physical coordination; but where David’s strength and mobility came from an easy sense of accomplishment, Jason’s was filled with an inner malice, no pleasure in the accomplishment, only a hostile purpose. When she had mentioned this to Panov, his reply was succinct: “David couldn’t kill. Bourne can; he was trained to.”
Still, Mo was pleased that she had spotted the different “physical manifestations,” as he called her observation. “It’s another signpost for you. When you see Bourne, bring David back as fast as you can. If you can’t, call me.”
She could not bring David back now, she thought. For the sake of the children and herself and David, she dared not try.
“I’m going out for a while,” announced Jason by the window.
“You can’t!” cried Marie. “For God’s sake, don’t leave me alone.”
Bourne frowned, lowering his voice, somewhere an undefined conflict within him. “I’m just driving out on the highway to find a phone, that’s all.”
“Take me with you. Please. I can’t stay by myself any longer.”
“All right.… As a matter of fact, we’ll need a few things. We’ll find one of those malls and buy some clothes—toothbrushes, a razor … whatever else we can think of.”
“You mean we can’t go back to Paris.”
“We can and probably will go back to Paris, but not to our hotels. Do you have your passport?”
“Passport, money, credit cards, everything. They were all in my purse, which I didn’t know I had until you gave it to me in the car.”
“I didn’t think it was such a good idea to leave it at the Meurice. Come on. A phone first.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Alex.”
“You just tried him.”
“At his apartment; he was thrown out of his security tent in Virginia. Then I’ll reach Mo Panov. Let’s go.”
They drove south again to the small city of Corbeil-Essonnes, where there was a relatively new shopping center several miles west of the highway. The crowded merchandising complex was a blight on the French countryside but a welcome sight for the fugitives. Jason parked the car, and like any husband and wife out for late-afternoon shopping, they strolled down the central mall, all the while frantically looking for a public telephone.
“Not a goddamned one on the highway!” said Bourne through clenched teeth. “What do they think people are supposed to do if they have an accident or a flat tire?”
“Wait for the police,” answered Marie, “and there was a phone, only it was broken into. Maybe that’s why there aren’t more—There’s one.”
Once again Jason went through the irritating process of placing an overseas call with local operators who found it irritating to ring through to the international branch of the system. And then the thunder returned, distant but implacable.
“This is Alex,” said the recorded voice over the line. “I’ll be away for a while, visiting a place where a grave error was made. Call me in five or six hours. It’s now nine-thirty in the morning, Eastern Standard Time. Out, Juneau.”
Stunned, his mind spinning, Bourne hung up the phone and stared at Marie. “Something’s happened and I have to make sense out of it. His last words were—‘Out, Juneau.’ ”
“Juneau?” Marie squinted, her eyes blocking out the light, then she opened them and looked at her husband. “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie,” she began softly, adding, “Alternating military alphabets?” Then she spoke rapidly. “Foxtrot, Gold … India, Juneau! Juneau’s for J and J is for Jason!… What was the rest?”
“He’s visiting someplace—”
“Come on, let’s walk,” she broke in, noticing the curious faces of two men waiting to use the phone; she grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the booth. “He couldn’t be clearer?” she asked as they entered the flow of the crowds.
“It was a recording. ‘… where a grave error was made.’ ”
“The what?”
“He said to call him in five or six hours—he was visiting a place where a grave error—grave?—my God, it’s Rambouillet!”
“The cemetery …?”
“Where he tried to kill me thirteen years ago. That’s it! Rambouillet!”
“Not in five or six hours,” objected Marie. “No matter when he left the message he couldn’t fly to Paris and then drive to Rambouillet in five hours. He was in Washington.”
“Of course he could; we’ve both done it before. An army jet out of Andrews Air Force Base under diplomatic cover to Paris. Peter Holland threw him out, but he gave him a going-away present. Immediate separation, but a bonus for bringing him Medusa.” Bourne suddenly whipped his wrist up and looked at his watch. “It’s still only around noon in the islands. Let’s find another phone.”
“Johnny? Tranquility? You really think—”
“I can’t stop thinking!” interrupted Jason, rushing ahead, holding Marie’s hand as she stumblingly kept up with him. “Glace,” he said, looking up to his right.
“Ice cream?”
“There’s a phone inside, over there,” he answered, slowing them both down and approaching the huge windows of a pâtisserie that had a red banner over its door announcing an ice cream counter with several dozen flavors. “Get me a vanilla,” he said, ushering them both into the crowded store.
“Whatever.”
“You won’t be able to hear—”
“He’ll hear me, that’s all that matters. Take your time, give me time.” Bourne crossed to the phone, instantly understanding why it was not used; the noise of the store was nearly unbearable. “Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît, c’est urgent!” Three minutes later, holding his palm against his left ear, Jason had the unexpected comfort of hearing Tranquility Inn’s most irritating employee over the phone.
“This is Mr. Pritchard, Tranquility Inn’s associate manager. My switchboard informs me that you have an emergency, sir. May I inquire as to the nature of your—”
“You can shut up!” shouted Jason from the cacophonous ice cream parlor in Corbeil-Essonnes in France. “Get Jay St. Jay on the phone, now. This is his brother-in-law.”
“Oh, it is such a pleasure to hear from you, sir! Much has happened since you left. Your lovely children are with us and the handsome young boy plays on the beach—with me, sir—and all is—”
“Mr. St. Jacques, please. Now!”
“Of course, sir. He is upstairs.…”
“Johnny?”
“David, where are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. Get out of there. Take the kids and Mrs. Cooper and get out!”
“We know all about it, Dave. Alex Conklin called several hours ago and said somebody named Holland would reach us.… I gather he’s the chief honcho of your intelligence service.”
“He is. Did he?”
“Yeah, about twenty minutes after I talked to Alex. He told us we were being choppered out around two o’clock this afternoon. He needed the time to clear a military aircraft in here. Mrs. Cooper was my idea; your backward son says he doesn’t know how to change diapers, sport.… David, what the hell is going on? Where’s Marie?”
“She’s all right—I’ll explain everything later. Just do as Holland says. Did he say where you were being taken?”
“He didn’t want to, I’ll tell you that. But no fucking American’s going to order me and your kids around—my Canadian sister’s kids—and I told him that in a seven spade flush.”
“That’s nice, Johnny. Make friends with the director of the CIA.”
“I don’t give a shit on that score. In my country we figure those initials mean Caught In the Act, and I told him so!”
“That’s even nicer.… What did he say?”
“He said we were going to a safe house in Virginia, and I said mine’s pretty goddamned safe right here and we had a restaurant and room service and a beach and ten guards who could shoot his balls off at two hundred yards.”
“You’re full of tact. And what did he say to that?”
“Actually, he laughed. Then he explained that his place had twenty guards who could take out one of my balls at four hundred yards, along with a kitchen and room service and television for the kids that I couldn’t match.”
“That’s pretty persuasive.”
“Well, he said something else that was even more persuasive that I really couldn’t match. He told me there was no public access to the place, that it was an old estate in Fairfax turned over to the government by a rich ambassador who had more money than Ottawa, with its own airfield and an entrance road four miles from the highway.”
“I know the place,” said Bourne, wincing at the noise of the pâtisserie. “It’s the Tannenbaum estate. He’s right; it’s the best of the sterile houses. He likes us.”
“I asked you before—where’s Marie?”
“She’s with me.”
“She found you!”
“Later, Johnny. I’ll reach you in Fairfax.” Jason hung up the phone as his wife awkwardly made her way through the crowd and handed him a pink plastic cup with a blue plastic spoon plunged into a mound of dark brown.
“The children?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard, her eyes on fire.
“Everything’s fine, better than we might have expected. Alex reached the same conclusion about the Jackal as I did. Peter Holland’s flying them all up to a safe house in Virginia, Mrs. Cooper included.”
“Thank God!”
“Thank Alex.” Bourne looked at the pink plastic cup with the thin blue spoon. “What the hell is this? They didn’t have vanilla?”
“It’s a hot fudge sundae. It was meant for the man beside me but he was yelling at his wife, so I took it.”
“So yell at your wife. Come on, we’ve got to buy clothes.”
The early afternoon Caribbean sun burned down on Tranquility Inn as John St. Jacques descended the staircase into the lobby carrying a LeSport duffel bag in his right hand. He nodded to Mr. Pritchard, whom he had spoken to over the phone only moments ago, explaining that he was leaving for several days and would be in touch within hours after he reached Toronto. What remained of the staff had been apprised of his sudden, quite necessary departure, and he had full confidence in the executive manager and his valuable assistant, Mr. Pritchard. He assumed that no problems would arise beyond their combined expertise. Tranquility Inn, for all intents and purposes, was virtually shut down. However, Sir Henry Sykes at Government House on the big island should be contacted in the event of difficulties.
“There shall be none beyond my expertise!” Pritchard had replied. “The repair and maintenance crews will work every bit as hard in your absence.”
St. Jacques walked out the glass doors of the circular building toward the first villa on the right, the one nearest the stone steps to the pier and the two beaches. Mrs. Cooper and the two children waited inside for the arrival of the United States Navy long-range seagoing helicopter that would take them to Puerto Rico, where they would board a military jet to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.
Through the huge glass windows, Mr. Pritchard watched his employer disappear through the doors of Villa One. At that same moment he heard the growing sounds of a large helicopter’s rotors thumping in the air above the inn. In minutes it would circle the water beyond the pier and descend, awaiting its passengers. Apparently, those passengers heard what he had heard, thought Mr. Pritchard as he saw St. Jacques, gripping his young nephew’s hand, and the insufferably arrogant Mrs. Cooper, who was holding a blanketed infant in her arms, come out of the villa, followed by the two favorite guards carrying their luggage. Pritchard reached below the counter for the telephone that bypassed the switchboard. He dialed.
“This is the office of the deputy director of immigration, himself speaking.”
“Esteemed Uncle—”
“It is you?” broke in the official from Blackburne Airport, abruptly lowering his voice. “What have you learned?”
“Everything is of immense value, I assure you. I heard it all on the telephone!”
“We shall both be greatly rewarded, I have that on the highest authority. They may all be undercover terrorists, you know, St. Jacques himself the leader. It is said they may even fool Washington. What can I pass on, brilliant Nephew?”
“They are being taken to what is called a ‘safe’ house in Virginia. It is known as the Tannenbaum estate and has its own airport, can you believe such a thing?”
“I can believe anything where these animals are concerned.”
“Be sure to include my name and position, esteemed Uncle.”
“Would I do otherwise, could I do otherwise? We shall be the heroes of Montserrat!… But remember, my intelligent Nephew, everything must be kept in utmost secrecy. We are both sworn to silence, never forget that. Just think! We’ve been selected to render service to a great international organization. Leaders the world over will know of our contributions.”
“My heart bursts with pride.… May I know what this august organization is called?”
“Shhh! It has no name; that is part of the secrecy. The money was wired through a bank computer transfer directly from Switzerland; that is the proof.”
“A sacred trust,” added Mr. Pritchard.
“Also well paid, trusted Nephew, and it is only the beginning. I myself am monitoring all aircraft arriving here and sending the manifests on to Martinique, to a famous surgeon, no less! Of course, at the moment all flights are on hold, orders from Government House.”
“The American military helicopter?” asked the awed Pritchard.
“Shhh! It, too, is a secret, everything is secret.”
“Then it is a very loud and apparent secret, my esteemed Uncle. People are on the beach watching it now.”
“What?”
“It’s here. Mr. Saint Jay and the children are boarding as we speak. Also that dreadful Mrs. Cooper—”
“I must call Paris at once,” interrupted the immigration officer, disconnecting the line.
“Paris?” repeated Mr. Pritchard. “How inspiring! How privileged we are!”
“I didn’t tell him everything,” said Peter Holland quietly, shaking his head as he spoke. “I wanted to—I intended to—but it was in his eyes, in his own words actually. He said that he’d louse us up in a minute if it would help Bourne and his wife.”
“He would, too.” Charles Casset nodded; he sat in the chair in front of the director’s desk, a computer printout of a long-buried classified file in his hand. “When you read this you’ll understand. Alex really did try to kill Bourne in Paris years ago—his closest friend and he tried to put a bullet in his head for all the wrong reasons.”
“Conklin’s on his way to Paris now. He and Morris Panov.”
“That’s on your head, Peter. I wouldn’t have done it, not without strings.”
“I couldn’t refuse him.”
“Of course you could. You didn’t want to.”
“We owed him. He brought us Medusa—and from here on, Charlie, that’s all that concerns us.”
“I understand, Director Holland,” said Casset coldly. “And I assume that due to foreign entanglements you’re working backwards into a domestic conspiracy that should be incontestably established before you alert the guardians of domestic accord, namely, the Federal Bureau.”
“Are you threatening me, you lowlife?”
“I certainly am, Peter.” Casset dropped the ice from his expression, replacing it with a calm, thin smile. “You’re breaking the law, Mr. Director.… That’s regrettable, old boy, as my predecessors might have said.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” cried Holland.
“Cover one of our own, one of the best we ever had. I not only want it, I insist upon it.”
“If you think I’m going to give him everything, including the name of Medusa’s law firm on Wall Street, you’re out of your fucking mind. It’s our keystone!”
“For God’s sake, go back into the navy, Admiral,” said the deputy director, his voice level, again cold, without emphasis. “If you think that’s what I’m suggesting, you haven’t learned very much in that chair.”
“Hey, come on, smart ass, that’s pretty close to insubordination.”
“Of course it is, because I’m insubordinate—but this isn’t the navy. You can’t keelhaul me, or hang me from the yardarm, or withhold my ration of rum. All you can do is fire me, and if you do, a lot of people will wonder why, which wouldn’t do the Agency any good. But that’s not necessary.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Charlie?”
“Well, to begin with, I’m not talking about that law firm in New York because you’re right, it is our keystone, and Alex with his infinite imagination would probe and threaten to the point where the shredding begins and our paper trail here and abroad ends.”
“I had something like that in mind—”
“Then again you were right,” interrupted Casset, nodding. “So we keep Alex away from our keystone, as far away from us as possible, but we give him our marker. Something tangible he can plug into, knowing its value.”
Silence. Then Holland spoke. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“You would if you knew Conklin better. He knows now that there’s a connection between Medusa and the Jackal. What did you call it? A self-fulfilling prophecy?”
“I said the strategy was so perfect it was inevitable and therefore self-fulfilling. DeSole was the unexpected catalyst who moved everything ahead of schedule—him and whatever the hell happened down in Montserrat.… What’s this marker of yours, this tangible item of value?”
“The string, Peter. Knowing what he knows, you can’t let Alex bounce around Europe like a loose cannon any more than you could give him the name of that law firm in New York. We need a pipeline to him so we have some idea what he’s up to—more than an idea, if we can manage it. Someone like his friend Bernardine, only someone who can also be our friend.”
“Where do we find such a person?”
“I have a candidate—and I hope we’re not being taped.”
“Count on it,” said Holland with a trace of anger. “I don’t believe in that crap and this office is swept every morning. Who’s the candidate?”
“A man at the Soviet embassy in Paris,” replied Casset calmly. “I think we can deal.”
“A mole?”
“Not for a minute. A KGB officer whose first priority never changes. Find Carlos. Kill Carlos. Protect Novgorod.”
“Novgorod …? The Americanized village or town where the Jackal was initially trained in Russia?”
“Half trained and escaped from before he could be shot as a maniac. Only, it’s not just an American compound—that’s a mistake we make so often. There are British and French compounds, too, also Israeli, Dutch, Spanish, West German and God knows how many others. Dozens of square miles cut out of the forests along the Volkhov River, dotted with settlements so that you’d swear you were in a different country with each one you entered—if you could get inside, which you couldn’t. Like the Aryan breeding farms, the Lebensborn of Nazi Germany, Novgorod is one of Moscow’s most closely guarded secrets. They want the Jackal as badly as Jason Bourne does.”
“And you think this KGB fellow will cooperate, keep us informed about Conklin if they make contact?”
“I can try. After all, we have a common objective, and I know Alex would accept him because he knows how much the Soviets want Carlos on the dead list.”
Holland leaned forward in his chair. “I told Conklin I’d help him any way I could as long as it didn’t compromise our going after Medusa.… He’ll be landing in Paris within the hour. Shall I leave instructions at the diplomatic counter for him to reach you?”
“Tell him to call Charlie Bravo Plus One,” said Casset, getting up and dropping the computer printout on the desk. “I don’t know how much I can give him in an hour, but I’ll go to work. I’ve got a secure channel to our Russian, thanks to an outstanding ‘consultant’ of ours in Paris.”
“Give him a bonus.”
“She’s already asked for one—harassed me is more appropriate. She runs the cleanest escort service in the city; the girls are checked weekly.”
“Why not hire them all?” asked the director, smiling.
“I believe seven are already on the payroll, sir,” answered the deputy director, his demeanor serious, in contrast to his arched eyebrows.
Dr. Morris Panov, his legs unsteady, was helped down the metal steps of the diplomatically cleared jet by a strapping marine corporal in starched summer khakis carrying his suitcase. “How do you people manage to look so presentable after such a perfectly horrendous trip?” asked the psychiatrist.
“None of us will look this presentable after a couple of hours of liberty in Paris, sir.”
“Some things never change, Corporal. Thank God.… Where’s that crippled delinquent who was with me?”
“He was vehicled off for a diplograph, sir.”
“Come again? A noun’s a verb leading to the incomprehensible?”
“It’s not so hard, Doctor,” laughed the marine, leading Panov to a motorized cart complete with a uniformed driver and a stenciled American flag on the side. “During our descent, the tower radioed the pilot that there was an urgent message for him.”
“I thought he went to the bathroom.”
“That, too, I believe, sir.” The corporal put the suitcase on a rear rack and helped Mo into the cart. “Easy now, Doctor, lift your leg up a little higher.”
“That’s the other one, not me,” protested the psychiatrist. “He’s the one without a foot.”
“We were told you’d been ill, sir.”
“Not in my goddamned legs.… Sorry, young man, no offense. I just don’t like flying in small tubes a hundred and ten miles up in the sky. Not too many astronauts come from Tremont Avenue in the Bronx.”
“Hey, you’re kidding, Doc!”
“What?”
“I’m from Garden Street, you know, across from the zoo! The name’s Fleishman, Morris Fleishman. Nice to meet a fellow Bronxite.”
“Morris?” said Panov, shaking hands. “Morris the Marine? I should have had a talk with your parents.… Stay well, Mo. And thank you for your concern.”
“You get better, Doc, and when you see Tremont Avenue again, give it my best, okay?”
“I will, indeed, Morris,” replied Morris, raising his hand as the diplomatic cart shot forward.
Four minutes later, escorted by the driver, Panov entered the long gray corridor that was the immigration-free access to France for government functionaries of nations accredited by the Quai d’Orsay. They walked into the large holding lounge where men and women were gathered in small groups, conversing quietly, the sounds of different languages filling the room. Alarmed, Mo saw that Conklin was nowhere in sight; he turned to the driver-escort as a young woman dressed in the neutral uniform of a hostess approached.
“Docteur?” she asked, addressing Panov.
“Yes,” replied Mo, surprised. “But I’m afraid my French is pretty rusty if not nonexistent.”
“It’s of no matter, sir. Your companion requested that you remain here until he returns. It will be no more than a few minutes, he was quite sure.… Please, sit down. May I bring you a drink?”
“Bourbon with ice, if you’d be so kind,” answered Panov, lowering himself into the armchair.
“Certainly, sir.” The hostess retreated as the driver placed Mo’s suitcase beside him.
“I have to get back to my vehicle,” said the diplomatic escort. “You’ll be fine here.”
“I wonder where my friend went,” mused Panov, glancing at his watch.
“Probably to an outside phone, Doctor. They come in here, get messages at the counters, then go like hell into the terminal to find public pay phones; they don’t like the ones in here. The Russkies always walk the fastest; the Arabs, the slowest.”
“Must be their respective climates,” offered the psychiatrist, smiling.
“Don’t bet your stethoscope on it.” The driver laughed and brought his hand up for an informal salute. “Take care, sir, and get some rest. You look tired.”
“Thank you, young man. Good-bye.” I am tired, thought Panov as the escort disappeared into the gray corridor. So tired, but Alex was right. If he’d flown here alone, I would never have forgiven him.… David! We’ve got to find him! The damage to him could be incalculable—none of them understands. With a single act his fragile, damaged mind could regress years—thirteen years—to where he was a functioning killer, and for him nothing else!… A voice. The figure above was talking to him. “I’m sorry, forgive me.… Your drink, Doctor,” said the hostess pleasantly. “I debated whether to wake you, but then you moved and sounded as though you were in pain—”
“No, not at all, my dear. Just tired.”
“I understand, sir. Sudden flights can be so exhausting, and if they are long and uncomfortable, even worse.”
“You touched on all three points, miss,” agreed Panov, taking his drink. “Thank you.”
“You are American, of course.”
“How could you tell? I’m not wearing cowboy boots or a Hawaiian shirt.”
The woman laughed charmingly. “I know the driver who brought you in here. He’s American security, and quite nice, very attractive.”
“Security? You mean like in ‘police’?”
“Oh, very much so, but we never use the word.… Oh, here’s your companion coming back inside.” The hostess lowered her voice. “May I ask quickly, Doctor? Does he require a wheelchair?”
“Good heavens, no. He’s walked like that for years.”
“Very well. Enjoy your stay in Paris, sir.” The woman left as Alex, limping, weaved around several groups of chattering Europeans to the chair next to Panov. He sat down and leaned forward awkwardly in the soft leather. He was obviously disturbed.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mo.
“I just talked to Charlie Casset in Washington.”
“He’s the one you like, the one you trust, isn’t he?”
“He’s the best there is when he has personal access, or, at least, human intelligence. When he can see and hear and look for himself, and not simply read words on paper or a computer screen without asking questions.”
“Are you, perchance, moving into my territory again, Doctor Conklin?”
“I accused David of that last week and I’ll tell you what he told me. It’s a free country, and your training notwithstanding, you don’t have a franchise on common sense.”
“Mea culpa,” agreed Panov, nodding. “I gather your friend did something you don’t approve of.”
“He did something he wouldn’t approve of if he had more information on whom he did it with.”
“That sounds positively Freudian, even medically imprudent.”
“Both are part of it, I guess. He made an outside unsanctioned deal with a man named Dimitri Krupkin at the Russian embassy here in Paris. We’ll be working with the local KGB—you, me, Bourne and Marie—if and when we find them. Hopefully, in Rambouillet in an hour or so.”
“What are you saying?” asked Mo, astonished and barely audible.
“Long story, short time. Moscow wants the Jackal’s head, the rest of him separated from it. Washington can’t feed us or protect us, so the Soviets will act as our temporary paterfamilias if we find ourselves in a bind.”
Panov frowned, then shook his head as though absorbing very strange information, then spoke. “I suppose it’s not your run-of-the-mill development, but there’s a certain logic, even comfort, to it.”
“On paper, Mo,” said Conklin. “Not with Dimitri Krupkin. I know him. Charlie doesn’t.”
“Oh? He’s one of the evil people?”
“Kruppie evil? No, not really—”
“Kruppie?”
“We go way back as young hustlers to Istanbul in the late sixties and Athens after that, then Amsterdam later.… Krupkin’s not malevolent, and he works like a son of a bitch for Moscow with a damn good second-rate mind, better than eighty percent of the clowns in our business, but he’s got a problem. He’s fundamentally on the wrong side, in the wrong society. His parents should have come over with mine when the Bolsheviks took the throne.”
“I forget. Your family was Russian.”
“Speaking the language helps with Kruppie. I can nail his nuances. He’s the quintessential capitalist. Like the economic ministers in Beijing, he doesn’t just like money, he’s obsessed with it—and everything that goes with it. Out of sight and out of sanction, he could be bought.”
“You mean by the Jackal?”
“I saw him bought in Athens by Greek developers selling additional airstrips to Washington when they knew the Communists were going to throw us out. They paid him to shut up. Then I watched him broker diamonds in Amsterdam between the merchants on the Nieuwmarkt and the dacha-elite in Moscow. We had drinks one night in the Kattengat and I asked him, ‘Kruppie, what the fuck are you doing?’ You know what he said? He said in clothes I couldn’t afford, ‘Aleksei, I’ll do everything I can to outsmart you, to help the supreme Soviet to gain world dominance, but in the meantime, if you’d like a holiday, I have a lovely house on the lake in Geneva.’ That’s what he said, Mo.”
“He’s remarkable. Of course, you told your friend Casset all this—”
“Of course I didn’t,” broke in Conklin.
“Good God, why not?”
“Because Krupkin obviously never told Charlie that he knew me. Casset may have the deal, but I’m dealing.”
“David—Jason—has over five million in the Caymans. With only a spit of that amount I’ll turn Kruppie so he’ll be working only for us, if we need him or want him to.”
“Which means you don’t trust Casset.”
“Not so,” said Alex. “I trust Charlie with my life. It’s just that I’m not sure I want it in his hands. He and Peter Holland have their priorities and we have ours. Theirs is Medusa; ours are David and Marie.”
“Messieurs?” The hostess returned and addressed Conklin. “Your car has arrived, sir. It is on the south platform.”
“You’re sure it’s for me?” asked Alex.
“Forgive me, monsieur, but the attendant said a Mr. Smith had a difficult leg.”
“He’s certainly right about that.”
“I’ve called a porter to carry your luggage, messieurs. It’s a rather long walk. He’ll meet you on the platform.”
“Thanks very much.” Conklin got to his feet and reached into his pocket, pulling out money.
“Pardon, monsieur,” interrupted the hostess. “We are not permitted to accept gratuities.”
“That’s right. I forgot.… My suitcase is behind your counter, isn’t it?”
“Where your escort left it, sir. Along with the doctor’s, it will be at the platform within minutes.”
“Thanks again,” said Alex. “Sorry about the tip.”
“We are well paid, sir, but thank you for the thought.”
As they walked to the door that led into the main terminal of Orly Airport, Conklin turned to Panov. “How did she know you were a doctor?” he asked. “You soliciting couch business?”
“Hardly. The commuting would be a bit strenuous.”
“Then how? I never said anything about your being a doctor.”
“She knows the security escort who brought me into the lounge. In fact, I think she knows him quite well. She said in that delectable French accent of hers that he was ‘verry attractiefe.’ ”
Looking up at the signs in the crowded terminal, they started toward the south platform.
What neither of them saw was a distinguished-looking olive-skinned man with wavy black hair and large dark eyes walk quickly out of the diplomatic lounge, his steady gaze directed at the two Americans. He crossed to the wall, rushing past the crowds until he was diagonally in front of Conklin and Panov near the taxi platform. Then, squinting, as if unsure, he removed a small photograph from his pocket and kept glancing at it as he raised his eyes and looked up at the departing passengers from the United States. The photograph was of Dr. Morris Panov, dressed in a white hospital gown, a glazed, unearthly expression on his face.
The Americans went out on the platform; the dark-haired man did the same. The Americans looked around for a taxi; the dark-haired man signaled a private car. A driver got out of a cab; he approached Conklin and Panov, speaking quietly, as a porter arrived with their luggage; the two Americans climbed into the taxi. The stranger who followed them slipped into the private car two vehicles behind the cab.
“Pazzo!” said the dark-haired man in Italian to the fashionably dressed middle-aged woman behind the wheel. “I tell you it’s crazy! For three days we wait, all incoming American planes watched, and we are about to give up when that fool in New York turns out to be right. It’s them!.… Here, I’ll drive. You get out and reach our people over there. Tell them to call DeFazio; instruct him to go to his other favorite restaurant and await my call to him. He is not to leave until we speak.”
“Is this you, old man?” asked the hostess in the diplomatic lounge, speaking softly into the telephone at her counter.
“It is I,” replied the quavering voice at the other end of the line. “And the Angelus rings for eternity in my ears.”
“It is you, then.”
“I told you that, so get on with it.”
“The list we were given last week included a slender middle-aged American with a limp, possibly accompanied by a doctor. Is this correct?”
“Correct! And?”
“They have passed through. I used the title ‘Doctor’ with the cripple’s companion and he responded to it.”
“Where have they gone? It’s vital that I know!”
“It was not disclosed, but I will soon learn enough for you to find out, old man. The porter who took their luggage to the south platform will get the description and the license of the car that meets them.”
“In the name of God, call me back with the information!”
* * *
Three thousand miles from Paris, Louis DeFazio sat alone at a rear table in Trafficante’s Clam House on Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. He finished his late afternoon lunch of vitello tonnato and dabbed his lips with the bright red napkin, trying to look his usual jovial, if patronizing, self. However, if the truth were known, it was all he could do to stop from gnawing on the napkin rather than caressing his mouth with it. Maledetto! He had been at Trafficante’s for nearly two hours—two hours! And it had taken him forty-five minutes to get there after the call from Garafola’s Pasta Palace in Manhattan, so that meant it was actually over two hours, almost three, since the gumball in Paris, France, spotted two of the targets. How long could it take for two bersaglios to get to a hotel in the city from the airport? Like three hours? Not unless the Palermo gumball drove to London, England, which was not out of the question, not if one knew Palermo.
Still, DeFazio knew he had been right! The way the Jew shrink talked under the needle there was no other route he and the ex-spook could take but to Paris and their good buddy, the fake hit man.… So Nicolo and the shrink disappeared, went poof-zam, so what the fuck? The Jew got away and Nicky would do time. But Nicolo wouldn’t talk; he understood that bad trouble, like a knife in the kidney, was waiting for him wherever he went if he did. Besides, Nicky didn’t know anything so specific the lawyers couldn’t wipe away as secondhand horseshit from a fifth-rate horse’s ass. And the shrink only knew he was in a room in some farmhouse, if he could even remember that. He never saw anybody but Nicolo when he was “compass mantis,” as they say.
But Louis DeFazio knew he was right. And because he was right, there were more than seven million big ones waiting for him in Paris. Seven million! Holy Christ! He could give the Palermo gumballs in Paris more than they ever expected and still walk away with a bundle.
An old waiter from the old country, an uncle of Trafficante, approached the table and Louis held his breath. “There’s a telephone call for you, Signor DeFazio.”
As was usual, the capo supremo went to a pay phone at the end of a narrow dark corridor outside the men’s room. “This is New York,” said DeFazio.
“This is Paris, Signor New York. This is also pazzo!”
“Where’ve you been? You pazzo enough to drive to London, England? I’ve been waitin’ three hours!”
“Where I’ve been is on a number of unlit country roads, which is important only to my nerves. Where I am now is crazy!”
“So where?”
“I’m using a gatekeeper’s telephone for which I’m paying roughly a hundred American dollars and the French buffone keeps looking through the window to see that I don’t steal anything—perhaps his lunch pail, who knows?”
“You don’t sound too stupid for a gumball. So what gatekeeper’s what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m at a cemetery about twenty-five miles from Paris. I tell you—”
“A cimitero?” interrupted Louis. “What the hell for?”
“Because your two acquaintances drove here from the airport, you ignorante! At the moment there is a burial in progress—a night burial with a candlelight procession which will soon be drowned out by rain—and if your two acquaintances flew over here to attend this barbaric ceremony, then the air in America is filled with brain-damaging pollutants! We did not bargain for this sciocchezze, New York. We have our own work to do.”
“They went there to meet the big cannoli,” said DeFazio quietly, as if to himself. “As to work, gumball, if you ever want to work with us, or Philadelphia, or Chicago, or Los Angeles again, you’ll do what I tell you. You’ll also be terrifically paid for it, capisce?”
“That makes more sense, I admit.”
“Stay out of sight, but stay with them. Find out where they go and who they see. I’ll get over there as soon as I can, but I gotta go by way of Canada or Mexico, just to make sure no one’s watching. I’ll be there late tomorrow or early the next day.”
“Ciao,” said Paris.
“Omerta,” said Louis DeFazio.