Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity

“He’s been underground like this for three years?” asked Stevens.

“Yes. He moved to Europe, the most accomplished white assassin in Asia, graduate of the infamous Medusa, challenging Carlos in his own yard. And in the process he saved four men marked by Carlos, took credit for others Carlos had killed, mocked him at every opportunity … always trying to force him out in the open. He spent nearly three years living the most dangerous sort of lie a man can live, the kind of existence few men ever know. Most would have broken under it; and that possibility can never be ruled out.”

“What kind of man is he?”

“A professional,” answered Gordon Webb. “Someone who had the training and the capability, who understood that Carlos had to be found, stopped.”

“But three years …?”

“If that seems incredible,” said Abbott, “you should know that he submitted to surgery. It was like a final break with the past, with the man he was in order to become a man he wasn’t. I don’t think there’s any way a nation can repay a man like Bourne for what he’s done. Perhaps the only way is to give him the chance to succeed—and by God I intend to do that.” The Monk stopped for precisely two seconds, then added, “If it is Bourne.”

It was as if Elliot Stevens had been struck by an unseen hammer. “What did you say?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve held this to the end. I wanted you to understand the whole picture before I described the gap. It may not be a gap—we just don’t know. Too many things have happened that make no sense to us, but we don’t know. It’s the reason why there can be absolutely no interference from other levels, no diplomatic sugar pills that might expose the strategy. We could condemn a man to death, a man who’s given more than any of us. If he succeeds, he can go back to his own life, but only anonymously, only without his identity ever being revealed.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that,” said the astonished presidential aide.

“Loyalty, Elliot. It’s not restricted to what’s commonly referred to as the ‘good guys.’ Carlos has built up an army of men and women who are devoted to him. They may not know him but they revere him. However, if he can take Carlos—or trap Carlos so we can take him—then vanish, he’s home free.”

“But you say he may not be Bourne!”

“I said we don’t know. It was Bourne at the bank, the signatures were authentic. But is it Bourne now? The next few days will tell us.”

“If he surfaces,” added Webb.

“It’s delicate,” continued the old man. “There are so many variables. If it isn’t Bourne—or if he’s turned—it could explain the call to Ottawa, the killing at the airport. From what we can gather, the woman’s expertise was used to withdraw the money in Paris. All Carlos had to do was make a few inquiries at the Canadian Treasury Board. The rest would be child’s play for him. Kill her contact, panic her, cut her off, and use her to contain Bourne.”

“Were you able to get word to her?” asked the major.

“I tried and failed. I had Mac Hawkins call a man who also worked closely with the St. Jacques woman, a man named Alan somebody-or-other. He instructed her to return to Canada immediately. She hung up on him.”

“Goddamn it!” exploded Webb.

“Precisely. If we could have gotten her back, we might have learned so much. She’s the key. Why is she with him? Why he with her? Nothing makes sense.”

“Less to me!” said Stevens, his bewilderment turning into anger. “If you want the president’s cooperation—and I promise nothing—you’d better be clearer.” Abbott turned to him. “Some six months ago Bourne disappeared,” he said. “Something happened; we’re not sure what, but we can piece together a probability. He got word into Zurich that he was on his way to Marseilles. Later—too late—we understood. He’d learned that Carlos had accepted a contract on Howard Leland, and Bourne tried to stop it. Then nothing; he vanished. Had he been killed? Had he broken under the strain? Had he … given up?”

“I can’t accept that,” interrupted Webb angrily. “I won’t accept it!”

“I know you won’t,” said the Monk. “It’s why I want you to go through that file. You know his codes; they’re all in there. See if you can spot any deviations in Zurich.”

“Please!” broke in Stevens. “What do you think? You must have found something concrete, something on which to base a judgment. I need that, Mr. Abbott. The president needs it.”

“I wish to heaven I had,” replied the Monk. “What have we found? Everything and nothing. Almost three years of the most carefully constructed deception in our records. Every false act documented, every move defined and justified; each man and woman—informants, contacts, sources—given faces, voices, stories to tell. And every month, every week just a little bit closer to Carlos. Then nothing. Silence. Six months of a vacuum.”

“Not now,” countered the president’s aide. “That silence was broken. By whom?”

“That’s the basic question, isn’t it?” said the old man, his voice tired. “Months of silence, then suddenly an explosion of unauthorized, incomprehensible activity. The account penetrated, the fiche altered, millions transferred—by all appearances, stolen. Above all, men killed and traps set for other men. But for whom, by whom?” The Monk shook his head wearily. “Who is the man out there?”

The limousine was parked between two streetlamps, diagonally across from the heavy ornamental doors of the brownstone. In the front seat sat a uniformed chauffeur, such a driver at the wheel of such a vehicle not an uncommon sight on the tree-lined street. What was unusual, however, was the fact that two other men remained in the shadows of the deep back seat, neither making any move to get out. Instead, they watched the entrance of the brownstone, confident that they could not be picked up by the infrared beam of a scanning camera.

One man adjusted his glasses, the eyes beyond his thick lenses owl-like, flatly suspicious of most of what they surveyed. Alfred Gillette, director of Personnel Screening and Evaluation for the National Security Council, spoke. “How gratifying to be there when arrogance collapses. How much more so to be the instrument.”

“You really dislike him, don’t you?” said Gillette’s companion, a heavy-shouldered man in a black raincoat whose accent was derived from a Slavic language somewhere in Europe.

“I loathe him. He stands for everything I hate in Washington. The right schools, houses in Georgetown, farms in Virginia, quiet meetings at their clubs. They’ve got their tight little world and you don’t break in—they run it all. The bastards. The superior, self-inflated gentry of Washington.

They use other men’s intellects, other men’s work, wrapping it all into decisions bearing their imprimaturs. And if you’re on the outside, you become part of that amorphous entity, a ‘damn fine staff.’”

“You exaggerate,” said the European, his eyes on the brownstone. “You haven’t done badly down there. We never would have contacted you otherwise.” Gillette scowled. “If I haven’t done badly, it’s because I’ve become indispensable to too many like David Abbott. I have in my head a thousand facts they couldn’t possibly recall. It’s simply easier for them to place me where the questions are, where problems need solutions. Director of Personnel Screening and Evaluation! They created that title, that post, for me. Do you know why?”

“No, Alfred,” replied the European, looking at his watch, “I don’t know why.”

“Because they don’t have the patience to spend hours poring over thousands of résumés and dossiers. They’d rather be dining at Sans Souci, or preening in front of Senate committees, reading from pages prepared by others—by those unseen, unnamed ‘damn fine staffs.’”