Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

"He certainly was, but that was limited to Bourne and the Jackal. There was no mention of Armbruster or Swayne, no Teagarten or Atkinson-the new Medusa wasn't even in the picture. Hell, Peter, you didn't know about it until seventy-two hours ago."

"Yes, but DeSole did because he'd sold out; he was part of it. He had to have been alerted. '... Watch it. We've been penetrated. Some maniac says he's going to expose us, blow us apart.' ... You told me yourself that panic buttons were punched from the Trade Commission to Pentagon Procurements to the embassy in London."

"They were punched," agreed Conklin. "So hard that two of them had to be taken out along with Teagarten and our disgruntled Mole. Snake Lady's elders quickly decided who their vulnerable people were. But where does Carlos or Bourne fit in? There's no attribution."

"I thought we agreed that there was."

"DeSole?" Conklin shook his head. "It's a provocative thought, but it doesn't wash. He couldn't have presumed that I knew about Medusa's penetration because we hadn't even started it."

"But when you did, the sequence had to bother him if only in the sense that although they were poles apart, one crisis followed too quickly upon another. What was it? A matter of hours?"

"Less than twenty-four ... Still, they were poles apart."

"Not for an analyst's analyst," countered Holland. "If it walks like an odd duck and sounds like an odd duck, look for an odd duck. I submit that somewhere along the line DeSole made the connection between Jason Bourne and the madman who had infiltrated Medusa-the new Medusa."

"For Christ's sake, how?"

"I don't know. Maybe because you told us Bourne came out of the old Saigon Medusa-that's one hell of a connection to begin with."

"My God, you may be right," said Alex, falling back on the couch. "The driving force we gave our unnamed madman was that he'd been cut off from, the new Medusa. I used the words myself with every phone call. 'He's spent years putting it together. ...' 'He's got names and ranks and banks in Zurich. ...'Jesus, I'm blind! I said those things to total strangers on a telephone fishing expedition and never even thought about having mentioned Bourne's origins in Medusa at that meeting when DeSole was here."

"Why should you have thought about it? You and your man decided to play a separate game all by yourselves."

"The reasons were goddamned valid," broke in Conklin. "For all I knew, you were a Medusan."

"Thanks a bunch."

"Come on, don't give me that shit. 'We've got a top max out at Langley' ... those were the words I heard from London. What would you have thought, what would you have done?"

"Exactly what you did," answered Holland, a tight grin on his lips. "But you're supposed to be so bright, so much smarter than I'm supposed to be."

"Thanks a bunch."

"Don't be hard on yourself; you did what any of us would have done in your place."

"For that I do thank you. And you're right, of course. It had to be DeSole; how he did it, I don't know, but it had to be him. It probably went back years inside his head-he never really forgot anything, you know. His mind was a sponge that absorbed everything and never let a recollection drip away. He could remember words and phrases, even spontaneous grunts of approval or disapproval the rest of us forgot. ... And I gave him the whole Bourne-Jackal history-and then someone from Medusa used it in Brussels."

"They did more than that, Alex," said Holland, leaning forward in his chair and picking up several papers from his desk. "They stole your scenario, usurped your strategy. They've pitted Jason Bourne against Carlos the Jackal, but instead of the controls being in your hands, Medusa has them. Bourne's back where he was in Europe thirteen years ago, maybe with his wife, maybe not, the only difference being that in addition to Carlos and Interpol and every other police authority on the continent ready to waste him on sight, he's got another lethal monkey on his back."

"That's what's in those pages you're holding, isn't it? The information from New York?"

"I can't guarantee it, but I think so. It's the cross-pollinator I spoke about before, the bee that went from one rotten flower to another carrying poison."

"Deliver, please."

"Nicolo Dellacroce and the higher-ups above him."

"Mafia?"

"It's consistent, if not socially acceptable. Medusa grew out of Saigon's officer corps and it still relegates its dirty work to the hungry grunts and corrupt NCOs. Check out Nicky D. and men like Sergeant Flannagan. When it comes to killing or kidnapping or using drugs on prisoners, the starched-shirt boys stay far in the background; they're nowhere to be found."

"But I gather you found them," said the impatient Conklin.

"Again, we think so-we being our people in quiet consultation with New York's anticrime division, especially a unit called the U.S. platoon."

"Never heard of it."

"They're mostly Italian Americans; they gave themselves the name Untouchable Sicilians. Thus the U.S. initials with a dual connotation."

"Nice touch."

"Unnice work. ... According to the Reco-Metropolitan's billing files-"

"The who?"

"The company that installed the answering machine on One Hundred Thirty-eighth Street in Manhattan."

"Sorry. Go on."

"According to the files, the machine was leased to a small importing firm on Eleventh Avenue several blocks from the piers. An hour ago we got the telephone records for the past two months for the company, and guess what we found?"

"I'd rather not wait," said Alex emphatically.

"Nine calls to a reasonably acceptable number in Brooklyn Heights, and three in the space of an hour to an extremely unlikely telephone on Wall Street."

"Someone was excited-"

"That's what we thought-we in this case being our own unit. We asked the Sicilians to give us what they had on Brooklyn Heights."

"DeFazio?"

"Let's put it this way. He lives there, but the phone is registered to the Atlas Coin Vending Machine Company in Long Island City."

"It fits. Dumb, but it fits. What about DeFazio?"

"He's a middle-level but ambitious capo in the Giancavallo family. He's very close, very underground, very vicious ... and very gay."

"Holy Christ ... !"

"The Untouchables swore us to secrecy. They intend to spring it themselves."

"Bullshit," said Conklin softly. "One of the first things we learn in this business is to lie to anyone and everyone, especially anyone who's foolish enough to trust us. We'll use it anytime it gets us a square forward. ... What's the other telephone number, the unlikely one?"

"Just about the most powerful law firm on Wall Street."

"Medusa," concluded Alex firmly.

"That's the way I read it. They've got seventy-six lawyers on two floors of the building. Which one is it-or who among them are they?"

"I don't give a goddamn! We go after DeFazio and whatever controls he's sending over to Paris. To Europe to feed the Jackal. They're the guns after Jason and that's all I care about. Go to work on DeFazio. He's the one under contract!"

Peter Holland leaned back in his chair, rigid, intense. "It had to come to this, didn't it, Alex?" he asked quietly. "We both have our priorities. ... I'd do anything within my sworn capacity to save the lives of Jason Bourne and his wife, but I will not violate my oath to defend this country first. I can't do it and I suspect you know that. My priority is Medusa, in your words a global cartel that intends to become a government within our government over here. That's whom I have to go after. First and immediately and without regard to casualties. To put it plainly, my friend-and I hope you're my friend-the Bournes, or whoever they are, are expendable. I'm sorry, Alex."

"That's really why you asked me to come over here this morning, isn't it?" said Conklin, planting his cane on the floor and awkwardly getting to his feet.