The dark green KGB sedan rounded the final curve in the sloping road cut out of the countryside. The descent had been gradual. The ground below was flat and summer-green with fields of wild grass bordering the approach to the massive brown building that was the Kubinka Armory. It seemed to rise out of the earth, a huge boxlike intrusion on the pastoral scene, an ugly man-made interruption of heavy brown wood and miserly windows reaching three stories high and covering two acres of land. Like the structure itself, the front entrance was large, square and unadorned except for the dull bas-relief profiles above the door of three Soviet soldiers rushing into the deadly winds of battle, their rifles at port arms, about to blow one another’s heads off.
Armed with an authentic Russian AK-47 and five standard thirty-round magazine clips, Bourne jumped out the far side of the silent coasting government car, using the bulk of the rolling vehicle to conceal himself in the grass directly across the road from the entrance. The armory’s huge dirt parking area was to the right of the long building; a single row of unkempt shrubbery fronted the entrance lawn, in the center of which stood a tall white pole, the Soviet flag hanging limp in the breezeless morning air. Jason ran across the road, his body low, and crouched by the hedgerow; he had only moments to peer through the bushes and ascertain the existence or nonexistence of the armory’s security procedures. At best, they appeared lax to the point of being informal, if not irrelevant. There was a glass window in the right wall of the entrance similar to that of a theater’s box office; behind it sat a uniformed guard reading a magazine, and alongside him, less visible but seen clearly enough, was another, his head on the counter, asleep. Two other soldiers emerged from the immense armory door—double doors—both casual, unconcerned, as one glanced at his watch and the other lighted a cigarette.
So much for Kubinka’s security; no sudden assault was anticipated nor had one taken place, at least none that had set off alarms reaching the front patrols, usually the first to be alerted. It was eerie, unnatural, beyond the unexpected. The Jackal was inside this military installation, yet there was no sign that he had penetrated it, no indication that somewhere within the complex he was controlling a minimum of five personnel—a man impersonating him, three other men and a woman.
The parking area itself? He had not understood the exchanges between Alex, Krupkin and the voice over the radio, but now it was clear to him that when they had spoken of people coming outside and running to the stolen car, they were not referring to the front entrance! There had to be an exit on the parking area! Christ, he had only seconds before the driver of the Komitet car started up the engine and roared into the huge dirt lot, circling it and racing out, both actions announcing the government vehicle’s arrival and swift, calamitous departure. If Carlos was going to make his break, it would be then! After waiting for the standard radio backup, every moment of distance he put between himself and the armory would make it more difficult to pick up his trail. And he, the efficient killing machine from Medusa, was in the wrong place! Further, the sight of a civilian running across a lawn or down a road carrying an automatic weapon within a military compound was to invite disaster. It was a small, stupid omission! Three or four additional words translated and a less arrogant, more probing listener would have avoided the error. It was always the little things, the seemingly insignificant that crippled gray to black operations. Goddamn it!
Five hundred feet away the KGB sedan suddenly thundered as it swerved into the dirt parking area raising clouds of dry dust while crushing and spitting out pieces of rock from its spinning tires. There was no time to think, time only to act. Bourne held the AK-47 against his right leg, concealing it as much as possible as he rose to his feet, his left hand skimming the top of the low hedgerow—a gardener, perhaps, surveying an anticipated assignment, or an indolent stroller aimlessly touching the roadside shrubbery, nothing remotely threatening, just a sign of the commonplace; to the casual observer, he might have been walking down that road for several minutes without being noticed.
He glanced over at the armory’s entrance. The two soldiers were laughing quietly, the one without a cigarette again looking at his watch. Then the object of their minor conspiracy came out of the left front door, an attractive dark-haired girl, barely in her twenties. She humorously clapped both her hands over her ears, made a grotesque face and walked rapidly to the time-conscious man in uniform, kissing him on the lips. The threesome linked arms, the woman in the center, and started to their right, away from the entrance.
A crash! Metal colliding with metal, glass shattering glass, the loud harsh sound coming from the distant parking area. Something had happened to the Komitet car with Alex and Krupkin; the young driver from the assault squad had either smashed or skidded into another vehicle in the dry dirt of the lot. Using the sound as an excuse, Jason started down the road, the image of Conklin coming instantly to his mind, producing a limp in his own rapid strides the better to keep his weapon in minimum view. He turned his head, expecting to see the two soldiers and the woman running down the armory path toward the accident, only to realize that the three of them were running the other way, removing themselves from any involvement. Obviously, precious breaks in a military schedule were jealously protected.
Bourne abandoned the limp, crashed through the hedgerow and raced to the concrete path that stretched to the corner of the huge building, gathering speed and breathing heavily with increasing frequency. Jason’s weapon was now in plain sight, slashing the air as he gripped it in the hand of his swinging right arm. He reached the end of the path, his chest heaving, the veins in his neck seemingly prepared to burst as the sweat ran down his skin, drenching his face, his collar and his shirt. Gasping, he steadied the AK-47, his back pressed against the wall of the building, then spun around the corner into the parking area, stunned by what he saw. His pounding feet, coupled with the anxiety that caused his hair-soaked temples to throb, had blocked out all sound up ahead. What he observed now, what sickened him now, he knew had to be the result of multiple gunshots muted by a weapon equipped with a silencer. Dispassionately, Medusa’s Delta understood; he had been there many times many years before. There were circumstances under which kills had to be made quietly—utter silence was the unreachable goal, but at least minimal noise was crucial.
The young KGB driver from the assault squad was sprawled on the ground by the trunk of the dark green sedan, the wounds in his head certifying death. The car had swerved into the side of a government bus, the sort used to haul workers to and from their places of employment. How or why the accident had happened, Bourne could not know. Neither could he know whether Alex or Krupkin had survived; the car’s windows had been pierced repeatedly and there was no sign of movement inside, both facts suggesting the worst but nothing conclusive. Above all, at this moment, the Chameleon also understood that he could not be affected by what he saw—emotions were out! If the worst had happened, mourning the dead would come later, vengeance and taking the killer came now.
Think! How? Quickly!
Krupkin had said there were “several dozen men and women” working at the armory. If so, where the hell were they? The Jackal was not acting in a vacuum; it was impossible! Yet a collision had occurred, its violent crash heard over a hundred yards away—well over the distance of a football field—and a man had been shot dead at the site of that crash, his lifeless body bleeding in the dirt, yet no one—no one—had appeared, either accidentally or intentionally. With the exception of Carlos and five unknown people, was the entire armory operating in a vacuum? Nothing made sense!
And then he heard the muffled but emphatic strains of music from deep inside the building. Martial music, drums and trumpets predominating, swelling to crescendos that Bourne could only imagine were deafening within the echoing confines of the huge structure. The image of the young woman emerging from the front entrance returned; she had playfully clapped her hands over her ears and grimaced, and Jason had not understood. He did now. She had come from the armory’s inner staging area, where the decibel level of the music was overpowering. An event was taking place at the Kubinka, a decently attended affair, which accounted for the profusion of automobiles, small vans and buses in the vast parking area—profusion at any rate in the Soviet Union, where such vehicles were not in oversupply. Altogether there were perhaps twenty conveyances in the dirt lot, parked in a semicircle. The activity inside was both the Jackal’s diversion and his protection; he knew how to orchestrate both to his advantage. So did his enemy. Checkmate.
Why didn’t Carlos come out? Why hadn’t he come out? What was he waiting for? The circumstances were optimal; they couldn’t be better. Had his wounds slowed him to the point that he had lost the advantages he had created? It was possible, but not likely. The assassin had gotten this far, and if escape was in the offing, it was in him to go further, much further. Then why? Irreversible logic, a killer’s survival logic demanded that after taking out the backup the Jackal had to race away as fast as humanly possible. It was his only chance! Then why was he still inside? Why hadn’t his escape car fled from the area, speeding him to freedom?
His back once again pressed against the wall, Jason side-stepped to his left, closely observing everything he could see. Like most armories the world over, Kubinka had no windows on the first floor, at least not for the first fifteen feet from the ground; he presumed it was because the occasional wildly galloping horses and glass did not go together. He could see a window frame on what appeared to be the second floor but close enough to the slain driver to afford maximum accuracy for a silenced high-powered weapon. Another frame on ground level had a knob protruding; it was the rear exit no one had bothered to mention. The little things, the insignificant things! Goddamn!
The muted music inside swelled again, but now the swelling was different, the drums louder, the trumpets more sustained, more piercing. It was the unmistakable ending of a symphonic march, martial music at its most intense.… That was it! The end of the event inside was at hand and the Jackal would use the emerging crowds to cover his escape. He would mingle, and when panic spread through the parking area with the sight of the dead man and the shot-up sedan, he would disappear—with whom and with what vehicle would take hours to determine.
Bourne had to get inside; he had to stop him, take him! Krupkin had worried about the lives of “several dozen men and women”—he had no idea that in reality there were several hundred! Carlos would use whatever firepower he had stolen, including grenades, to create mass hysteria so that he could escape. Lives meant nothing; if further killing was required to save his own, nothing. Abandoning caution, Delta raced to the door, gripping his AK-47 laterally in his arm, the safety unlatched, his index finger on the trigger. He grabbed the knob and twisted it—it would not turn. He fired his weapon into the plated metal around the lock, then a second fusillade into the opposing frame, and as he reached for the smoking knob, his personal world went mad!
Out of the line of vehicles a heavy truck suddenly shot forward, coming straight toward him, wildly accelerating as it approached. Simultaneously, successive bursts of automatic gunfire erupted, the bullets thumping into the wood to his right. He lunged to his left, rolling on the ground, the dust and dirt filling his eyes as he kept rolling, his body a tube spinning away.
And then it happened! The massive explosion tore apart the door, blowing away a large section of the wall above, and through the black smoke and settling debris, he could see a figure lurching awkwardly toward the semicircle of vehicles. His killer was getting away after all. But he was alive! And the reason for it was obvious—the Jackal had made a mistake. Not in the trap, that was extraordinary; Carlos knew his enemy was with Krupkin and the KGB and so he had gone outside and waited for him. Instead, his error was in the placement of the explosives. He had wired the bomb or bombs to the top of the truck’s engine, not underneath. Explosive compounds seek release through the least resistant barriers; the relatively thin hood of a vehicle is far less solid than the iron beneath it. The bomb actually blew up; it did not blow out on ground level, sending death-inducing metal fragments along the surface.
No time! Bourne struggled to his feet and staggered to the Komitet sedan, a horrible fear coming into focus. He looked through the shattered windows, his eyes suddenly drawn to the front seat as a heavily fleshed hand was raised. He yanked the door open and saw Krupkin, his large body squeezed below the seat under the dashboard, his right shoulder half torn away, bleeding flesh apparent through the fabric of his jacket.
“We are hurt,” said the KGB officer weakly but calmly. “Aleksei somewhat more seriously than I am, so attend to him first, if you please.”
“The crowd’s coming out of the armory—”
“Here!” interrupted Krupkin, painfully reaching into his pocket and pulling out his plastic identification case. “Get to the idiot in charge and bring him to me. We must get a doctor. For Aleksei, you damn fool. Hurry!”
The two wounded men lay alongside each other on examining tables in the armory’s infirmary as Bourne stood across the room, leaning against the wall, watching but not understanding what was being said. Three doctors had been dispatched by helicopter from the roof of the People’s Hospital on the Serova Prospekt—two surgeons and an anesthesiologist, the last, however, proving unnecessary. Severe invasive procedures were not called for; local anesthetics were sufficient for the cleansing and suturing, followed by generous injections of antibiotics. The foreign objects had passed through their bodies, explained the chief doctor.
“I presume you mean bullets when you speak so reverently of ‘foreign objects,’ ” said Krupkin in high dudgeon.
“He means bullets,” confirmed Alex hoarsely in Russian. The retired CIA station chief was unable to move his head because of his bandaged throat. Wide adhesive straps extended down across his collarbone and upper right shoulder.
“Thank you,” said the surgeon. “You were both fortunate, especially you, our American patient for whom we must compile confidential medical records. Incidentally, give our people the name and address of your physician in the United States. You’ll need attention for some weeks ahead.”
“Right now he’s in a hospital in Paris.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, whenever something’s wrong with me, I tell him and he sends me to the doctor he thinks I should see.”
“That’s not exactly socialized medicine.”
“For me it is. I’ll give his name and address to a nurse. With luck he’ll be back soon.”
“I repeat, you were very fortunate.”
“I was very fast, Doctor, and so was your comrade. We saw that son of a bitch running out toward us, so we locked the doors and kept moving in the seats and firing at him as he tried to get close enough to put us away, which he damn near did.… I’m sorry about the driver; he was a brave young man.”
“He was an angry young man as well, Aleksei,” broke in Krupkin from the other table. “Those first shots from the doorway sent him into that bus.”
The door of the infirmary burst open, which was to say it was not opened so much as it was invaded, submitting to the august presence of the KGB commissar from the flat in Slavyansky. The blunt-featured, blunt-spoken Komitet officer in the disheveled uniform lived up to his appearance. “You,” he said to the doctor, “I’ve spoken to your associates outside. You are finished here, they say.”
“Not entirely, comrade. There are minor items to attend to, such as therapeutical—”
“Later,” interrupted the commissar. “We talk privately. Alone.”
“The Komitet speaks?” asked the surgeon, his contempt minor but evident.
“It speaks.”
“Sometimes too often.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” replied the doctor, heading for the door. The KGB man shrugged and waited for the infirmary door to close. He then walked to the foot of both examining tables, his squinting flesh-encased eyes darting between the two wounded men, and spat out one word. “Novgorod!” he said.
“What?”
“What … ?”
The responses were simultaneous; even Bourne snapped himself away from the wall.
“You,” he added, switching to his limited English. “Understand I say?”
“If you said what I think you said, I think I do, but only the name.”
“I explain good enough. We question the nine men women he locked in weapons storage. He kill two guards who do not stop him, okay? He take automobile keys from four men but uses no automobiles, okay?”
“I saw him head for the cars!”
“Which? Three other people at Kubinka shot dead, automobile papers taken. Which?”
“For Christ’s sake, check with your vehicle bureau, or whatever you call it!”
“Take time. Also in Moskva, automobiles under different names, different tag plates—Leningrad, Smolensk, who knows—all to not look for automobile laws broken.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” shouted Jason.
“Automobile ownership is regulated by the state,” explained Krupkin weakly from the table. “Each major center has its own registration and is frequently reluctant to cooperate with another center.”
“Why?”
“Individual ownership under different family names—even nonfamily names. It’s forbidden. There are only so many vehicles available for purchase.”
“So?”
“Local bribery is a fact of life. No one in Leningrad wants a finger pointed at him from a bureaucrat in Moscow. He’s telling you that it could take several days to learn what automobile the Jackal’s driving.”
“That’s crazy!”
“You said it, Mr. Bourne, I didn’t. I’m an upstanding citizen of the Soviet Union, please remember that.”
“But what’s it all got to do with Novgorod—that is what he said, isn’t it?”
“Novgorod. Shto eto znachit?” said Krupkin to the KGB official. In rapid, clipped Russian, the peasant commissar gave the pertinent details to his colleague from Paris. Krupkin turned his head on the table and translated in English. “Try to follow this, Jason,” he said, his voice intermittently fading, his breathing becoming increasingly more labored. “Apparently there is a walk-around gallery above the armory’s arena. He used it and saw you through a window on the road by the hedges and came back to the weapons room screaming like the maniac he is. He shouted to his bound hostages that you were his and you were dead.… And there was only one last thing he had to accomplish.”
“Novgorod,” interrupted Conklin, whispering, his head rigid, staring at the ceiling.
“Precisely,” said Krupkin, his eyes focused on Alex’s profile beside him. “He’s going back to the place of his birth … where Ilich Ramirez Sanchez became Carlos the Jackal because he was disinherited, marked for execution as a madman. He held his gun against everyone’s throat, quietly demanding to know the best roads to Novgorod, threatening to kill whoever gave him the wrong answer. None did, of course, and all who knew told him it was five to six hundred kilometers away, a full day’s drive.”
“Drive?” interjected Bourne.
“He knows he cannot use any other means of transportation. The railroads, the airports—even the small airfields—all will be watched, he understands that.”
“What will he do in Novgorod?” asked Jason quickly.
“Dear God in heaven, which, of course, there is neither, who knows? He intends to leave his mark, a highly destructive memorial to himself, no doubt, in answer to those he believes betrayed him thirty-odd years ago, as well as the poor souls who fell under his gun this morning in the Vavilova.… He took the papers from our agent trained at Novgorod; he thinks they’ll get him inside. They won’t—we’ll stop him.”
“Don’t even try,” said Bourne. “He may or may not use them, depending upon what he sees, what he senses. He doesn’t need papers to get in there any more than I do, but if he senses something wrong, and he will, he’ll kill a number of good men and still get inside.”
“What are you driving at?” asked Krupkin warily, eyeing Bourne, the American with alternate identities and apparently conflicting life-styles.
“Get me inside ahead of him with a detailed map of the whole complex and some kind of document that gives me free access to go wherever I want to go.”
“You’ve lost your senses!” cried Dimitri. “A nondefecting American, an assassin hunted by every NATO country in Europe, inside Novgorod?”
“Nyet, nyet, nyet!” roared the Komitet commissar. “I understand good, okay? You are lunatic, okay?”
“Do you want the Jackal?”
“Naturally, but there are limits to the cost.”
“I haven’t the slightest interest in Novgorod or in any of the compounds—you should know that by now. Your little infiltrating operations and our little infiltrating operations can go on and on and it doesn’t matter because none of it means a goddamned thing in the long run. It’s all adolescent game playing. We either live together on this planet or there is no planet.… My only concern is Carlos. I want him dead so I can go on living.”
“Of course, I personally agree with much of what you say, although the adolescent games do keep some of us rather gracefully employed. However, there’s no way I could convince my more rigid superiors, starting with the one standing above me.”
“All right,” said Conklin from his table, his eyes still on the ceiling. “Down and dirty—we deal. You get him into Novgorod and you keep Ogilvie.”
“We’ve already got him, Aleksei.”
“Not clean, you haven’t. Washington knows he’s here.”
“So?”
“So I can say you lost him and they’ll believe me. They’ll take my word for it that he flew out of your nest and you’re mad as hell, but you can’t get him back. He’s operating from points unknown or unreachable, but obviously under the sovereign protection of a United Nations country. As a matter of conjecture, I suspect that’s how you got him over here in the first place.”
“You’re cryptic, my fine old enemy. To what purpose should I entertain your suggestion?”
“No World Court embarrassments, no charges of harboring an American accused of international crimes.… You win the stakes in Europe. You take over the Medusa operation with no complications—in the person of one Dimitri Krupkin, a proven sophisticate from the cosmopolitan world of Paris. Who better to guide the enterprise?… The newest hero of the Soviet, a member of the inner economic council of the Presidium. Forget the lousy house in Geneva, Kruppie, how about a mansion on the Black Sea?”
“It is a most intelligent and attractive offer, I grant you,” said Krupkin. “I know two or three men on the Central Committee whom I can reach in a matter of minutes—everything confidential, of course.”
“Nyet, nyet!” shouted the KGB commissar, slamming his fist down on Dimitri’s table. “I understand some—you talk too fast—but all is lunatic!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up!” roared Krupkin. “We’re discussing things far beyond your grasp!”
“Shto?” Like a young child reprimanded by an adult, the Komitet officer, his puffed eyes widened, was both astonished and frightened by his subordinate’s incomprehensible rebuke.
“Give my friend his chance, Kruppie,” said Alex. “He’s the best there is and he may bring you the Jackal.”
“He may also bring about his own death, Aleksei.”
“He’s been there before. I believe in him.”
“Belief,” whispered Krupkin, his own eyes now on the ceiling. “Such a luxury it is.… Very well, the order will be issued secretly, its origins untraceable, of course. You’ll enter your own American compound. It’s the one least understood.”
“How fast can I get there?” asked Bourne. “There’s a lot I have to put together.”
“We have an airport in Vnokova under our control, no more than an hour away. First, I must make arrangements. Hand me a telephone.… You, my imbecilic commissar! I will hear no more from you! A telefone!” The once all-powerful, now subdued superior, who had really understood only such words as “Presidium” and “Central Committee,” moved with alacrity, bringing an extension phone to Krupkin’s table.
“One more thing,” said Bourne. “Have Tass put out an immediate bulletin with heavy coverage in the newspapers, radio and television that the assassin known as Jason Bourne died of wounds here in Moscow. Make the details sketchy but have them parallel what happened here this morning.”
“That’s not difficult. Tass is an obedient instrument of the state.”
“I haven’t finished,” continued Jason. “I want you to include in those sketchy details that among the personal effects found on Bourne’s body was a road map of Brussels and its environs. The town of Anderlecht was circled in red—that has to appear.”
“The assassination of the supreme commander of NATO—very good, very convincing. However, Mr. Bourne or Webb or whatever your name may be, you should know that this story will splash across the world like a giant tidal wave.”
“I understand that.”
“Are you prepared for it?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What about your wife? Don’t you think you should reach her first, before the civilized world learns that Jason Bourne is dead?”
“No. I don’t even want the slightest risk of a leak.”
“Jesus!” exploded Alex, coughing. “That’s Marie you’re talking about. She’ll fall apart!”
“It’s a risk I’ll accept,” said Delta coldly.
“You son of a bitch!”
“So be it,” agreed the Chameleon.
John St. Jacques, tears welling in his eyes, walked into the bright, sunlit room at the sterile house in the Maryland countryside; in his hand was a page of computer printout. His sister was on the floor in front of the couch playing with an exuberant Jamie, she having put the infant Alison back into the crib upstairs. She looked worn and haggard, her face pale with dark circles under her eyes; she was exhausted from the tension and the jet lag of the long, idiotically routed flights from Paris to Washington. In spite of arriving late last night, she had gotten up early to be with the children—no amount of friendly persuasion on the part of the motherly Mrs. Cooper could dissuade her from doing so. The brother would have given years of his life not to do what had to be done during the next few minutes, but he could not risk the alternatives. He had to be with her when she found out.
“Jamie,” said St. Jacques gently. “Go find Mrs. Cooper, will you please? I think she’s in the kitchen.”
“I want to talk to your mother for a few minutes.”
“Johnny, please,” objected Marie.
“I have to, Sis.”
“What …?”
The child left, and as children often do, he obviously sensed something serious that was beyond his understanding; he stared at his uncle before heading to the door. Marie got to her feet and looked hard at her brother, at the tears that began to roll down his cheeks. The terrible message was conveyed. “No …!” she whispered, her pallid face growing paler. “Dear God, no,” she cried, her hands and then her shoulders starting to tremble. “No … no!” she roared.
“He’s gone, Sis. I wanted you to hear it from me, not over a radio or a TV set. I want to be with you.”
“You’re wrong, wrong!” screamed Marie, rushing toward him, grabbing his shirt and clenching the fabric in her fists. “He’s protected!… He promised me he was protected!”
“This just came from Langley,” said the younger brother, holding up the page of computer printout. “Holland called me a few minutes ago and said it was on its way over. He knew you had to see it. It was picked up from Radio Moscow during the night and will be on all the broadcasts and in the morning papers.”
“Give it to me!” she shouted defiantly. He did so and gently held her shoulders, prepared to take her in his arms and give what comfort he could. She read the copy rapidly, then shook off his hands, frowning, and walked back to the couch and sat down. Her concentration was absolute; she placed the paper on the coffee table and studied it as though it were an archaeological find, a scroll perhaps.
“He’s gone, Marie. I don’t know what to say—you know how I felt about him.”
“Yes, I know, Johnny.” Then to St. Jacques’s astonishment, his sister looked up at him, a thin, wan smile appearing on her lips. “But it’s a little early for our tears, Bro. He’s alive. Jason Bourne’s alive and up to his tricks and that means David’s alive, too.”
My God, she can’t accept it, thought the brother, walking to the couch and kneeling beside the coffee table in front of Marie, taking her hands in his. “Sis, honey, I don’t think you understand. I’ll do everything possible to help you, but you’ve got to understand.”
“Bro, you’re very sweet but you haven’t read this closely—really closely. The impact of the message detracts from the subtext. In economics we call it obfuscation with a cloud of smoke and a couple of mirrors.”
“Huh?” St. Jacques released her hands and stood up. “What are you talking about?”
Marie picked up the Langley communiqué and scanned it. “After several confused, even contradictory, accounts of what happened,” she said, “described by people on the scene at this armory, or whatever it is, the following is buried in the last paragraph. ‘Among the personal effects found on the slain assassin’s body was a map of Brussels and the surrounding area with the town of Anderlecht circled in red.’ Then it goes on to make the obvious connection with Teagarten’s assassination. It’s a wash, Johnny, from two points of view.… First, David would never carry such a map. Second, and far more telling, the fact that the Soviet media would give such prominence to the story is unbelievable enough, but to include the assassination of General Teagarten is simply too much.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“Because the presumed assassin was in Russia, and Moscow wants no conceivable linkage to the killing of a NATO commander.… No, Bro, someone bent the rules and persuaded Tass to put out the story, and I suspect heads will roll. I don’t know where Jason Bourne is, but I know he’s not dead. David made sure I’d know that.”
Peter Holland picked up the phone and touched the buttons on his console for Charles Casset’s private line.
“Yes?”
“Charlie, it’s Peter.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
“Why?”
“Because all I’m getting on this phone is trouble and confusion. I just got off with our source in Dzerzhinsky Square and he told me the KGB’s after blood.”
“The Tass release on Bourne?”
“Right. Tass and Radio Moscow assumed the story was officially sanctioned because it was faxed by the Ministry of Information using the proper immediate-release codes. When the shit hit the fan, no one owned up, and whoever programmed the codes can’t be traced.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I’m not sure, but from what I’ve learned about Dimitri Krupkin, it could be his style. He’s now working with Alex and if this isn’t something out of the Conklin textbook, I don’t know Saint Alex. And I do.”
“That dovetails with what Marie thinks.”
“Marie?”
“Bourne’s wife. I just spoke to her and her argument’s pretty strong. She says Moscow’s report is a wash for all the right reasons. Her husband’s alive.”
“I agree. Is that what you called to tell me?”
“No,” answered the director, taking a deep breath. “I’m adding to your trouble and confusion.”
“I’m not relieved to hear that. What is it?”
“The Paris telephone number, the link to the Jackal we got from Henry Sykes in Montserrat that reached a café on the Marais waterfront in Paris.”
“Where someone would answer a call for a blackbird. I remember.”
“Someone did and we followed him. You’re not going to like this.”
“Alex Conklin is about to earn the prick-of-the-year award. He put us on to Sykes, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Do tell.”
“The message was delivered to the home of the director of the Deuxième Bureau.”
“My God! We’d better turn that over to the SED branch of French intelligence with a restricted chronology.”
“I’m not turning anything over to anybody until we hear from Conklin. We owe him that much—I think.”
“What the hell are they doing?” shouted a frustrated Casset over the phone. “Putting out false death notices—from Moscow, no less! What for?”
“Jason Bourne’s gone hunting,” said Peter Holland. “And when the hunt is over—if it’s over and if the kill is made—he’s going to have to get out of the woods before anyone turns on him.… I want every station and listening post on the borders of the Soviet Union on full alert. Code name: Assassin. Get him back.”