Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

"I'll work with you, Kruppie. My God, will I work with you! I ask only that Jason Bourne clarifies his offer to me. With Carlos I'm a caged animal, but without him I'm a near-destitute aging courtesan. I want him to pay for my sister's death and for everything he's done to me, but I don't care to sleep in the gutter."

"Name your price," said Jason.

"Write it down," clarified Conklin, glancing at Krupkin. "Let me see," said Lavier, walking around the sofa and crossing to the Leconte desk. "I'm within a few years of sixty-from one direction or another, it's immaterial-and without the Jackal, and the absence of some other fatal disease, I will have perhaps fifteen to twenty years." She bent down over the desk and wrote a figure on a notepad, tore it off, then stood up and looked at the tall American. "For you, Mr. Bourne, and I'd rather not argue. I believe it's fair."

Jason took the paper and read the amount: $1,000,000.00, American. "It's fair," said Bourne, handing the note back to Lavier. "Add how and where you want it paid and I'll make the arrangements when we leave here. The money will be there in the morning."

The aging courtesan looked into Bourne's eyes. "I believe you," she said, again bending over the desk and writing out her instructions. She rose and gave the paper back to Jason. "The deal is made, monsieur, and may God grant us the kill. If he does not, we are dead."

"You're speaking as a Magdalen sister?"

"I'm speaking as a sister who's terrified, no more and certainly no less."

Bourne nodded. "I've several questions," he said. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Oui. With a cigarette." Lavier crossed to the sofa and, sinking into the cushions, reached for her purse on the red table. She took out a pack of cigarettes, extracted one and picked up a gold lighter from the coffee table. "Such a filthy habit but at times so damned necessary," she said, snapping the flame and inhaling deeply. "Your questions, monsieur?"

"What happened at the Meurice? How did it happen?"

"The woman happened-I assume it was your woman-that was my understanding. As we agreed, you and your friend from Deuxième were positioned so that when Carlos arrived to trap you, you would kill him. For reasons no one can fathom, your woman screamed as you crossed the Rivoli-the rest you saw for yourself. ... How could you have told me to take a room at the Meurice knowing she was there?"

"That's easy to answer. I didn't know she was there. Where do we stand now?"

"Carlos still trusts me. He blames everything on the woman, your wife, I'm told, and has no reason to hold me responsible. After all, you were there, which proves my allegiance. Were it not for the Deuxième officer, you'd be dead."

Again Bourne nodded. "How can you reach him?"

"I cannot myself. I never have, nor have I cared to. He prefers it that way, and as I told you, the checks arrive on time, so I have no reason to."

"But you send him messages," pressed Jason. "I heard you."

"Yes, I do, but never directly. I call several old men at cheap cafés-the names and numbers vary weekly and quite a few have no idea what I'm talking about, but for those that do, they call others immediately, and they call others beyond themselves. Somehow the messages get through. Very quickly, I might add."

"What did I tell you?" said Krupkin emphatically. "All the relays end with false names and filthy cafés. Stone walls!"

"Still, the messages get through," said Alex Conklin, repeating Lavier's words.

"Yet Kruppie's correct." The aging but still striking woman dragged heavily, nervously on her cigarette. "The routings are convoluted to the point of being untraceable."

"I don't care about that," said Alex, squinting at nothing the others could see. "They also reach Carlos quickly, you made that clear."

"It's true."

Conklin widened his eyes and fixed them on Lavier. "I want you to send the most urgent message you've ever relayed to the Jackal. You must talk to him directly. It's an emergency that you can entrust to no one but Carlos himself."

"About what?" erupted Krupkin. "What could be so urgent that the Jackal will comply? Like our Mr. Bourne, he is obsessed with traps, and under the circumstances, any direct communication smells of one!"

Alex shook his head and limped to a side window, squinting again, deep in thought, his intense eyes reflecting his concentration. Then gradually, slowly, his eyes opened. He gazed at the street below. "My God, it could work," he whispered to himself.

"What could work?" asked Bourne.

"Dimitri, hurry! Call the embassy and have them send over the biggest, fanciest diplomatic limousine you proletarians own."

"What?"

"Just do as I say! Quickly!"

"Aleksei ... ?"

"Now!"

The force and urgency of Conklin's command had its effect. The Russian walked rapidly to the mother-of-pearl telephone and dialed, his questioning eyes on Alex, who kept staring down at the street. Lavier looked at Jason; he shook his head in bewilderment as Krupkin spoke into the phone, his Russian a short series of clipped phrases.

"It's done," said the KGB officer, hanging up. "And now I think you should give me an extremely convincing reason for doing it."

"Moscow," replied Conklin, still looking out the window.

"Alex, for Christ's sake-"

"What are you saying?" roared Krupkin.

"We've got to get Carlos out of Paris," said Conklin, turning. "Where better than Moscow?" Before the astonished men could respond, Alex looked at Lavier. "You say he still trusts you?"

"He has no reason not to."

"Then two words should do it. 'Moscow, emergency,' that's the basic message you're sending him. Put it any way you like, but add that the crisis is of such a nature that you must speak only with him."

"But I never have. I know men who have spoken with him, who in drunken moments have tried to describe him, but to me he is a complete stranger."

"All the stronger for it," broke in Conklin, turning to Bourne and Krupkin. "In this city he's got all the cards, all of them. He's got firepower, an untraceable network of gunslingers and couriers, and for every crevice he can crawl into and burst out from, there are dozens more available to him. Paris is his territory, his protection-we could run blindly all over the city for days, weeks, even months, getting nowhere until the moment comes when he's got you and Marie in his gun sights ... you can also add Mo and me to that scenario. London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome-they'd all be better for us than Paris, but the best is Moscow. Oddly enough, it's the one place in the world that has a hypnotic hold on him-and also the one that's the least hospitable."

"Aleksei, Aleksei," cried Dimitri Krupkin. "I really think you should reconsider alcohol, for it's obvious you've lost your senses! Say Domie actually reaches Carlos and tells him what you say. Do you really believe that on the basis of an 'emergency' in Moscow he'll up and take the next plane there? Insanity!"

"You can bet your last black-market ruble I do," replied Conklin. "That message is only to convince him to get in touch with her. Once he does, she explodes the bomb. ... She's just heard an extraordinary piece of information that she knew should only be conveyed to him, not sent through the message tunnels."

"And what in God's name might that be?" asked Lavier, extracting another cigarette and instantly lighting it.

"The KGB in Moscow is closing in on the Jackal's man in Dzerzhinsky Square. They've narrowed it down to, say, ten or fifteen officers in the highest ranks. Once they find him, Carlos is neutralized in the Komitet-worse, he's about to lose an informer who knows far too much about him to the Lubyanka interrogators."

"But how would she know that?" said Jason.

"Who would tell her?" added Krupkin.