Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Ultimatum

"That's very interesting, but what's it got to do with your arrangement?"

"Did I mention that Lord Randolph of Gates made great sums of money during those lost but productive years?"

"Several times. So?"

"Well, in recognition of the services I rendered that undoubtedly contributed to the removal of a life-threatening situation in which he found himself, said threat emanating from Paris, he saw clearly the validity of compensating me. Especially in light of the knowledge I possess. ... You know, after a number of bloodletting courtroom battles, I think he's going after a judgeship. Far higher than mine, I think."

"So?"

"So, if I keep my own counsel, get out of Boston, and for the sake of a loose tongue stay off the sauce, his bank will forward me fifty thousand dollars a year for the rest of my life."

"Jesus Christ!"

"That's what I said to myself when he agreed. I even went to Mass for the first time in thirty-odd years."

"Still, you won't be able to go home again."

"Home?" Prefontaine laughed softly. "Was it really? No matter, I may have found another. Through a gentleman named Peter Holland at the Central Intelligence Agency, I was given an introduction to your friend Sir Henry Sykes over in Montserrat, who in turn introduced me to a retired London barrister named Jonathan Lemuel, originally a native islander. We're both getting on, but neither of us is ready for a different sort of 'home.' We may open a consulting firm, specialists in American and UK laws where export and import licensing is concerned. Of course, we'll have to do some boning up, but we'll manage. I expect I'll be here for years."

St. Jacques rose quickly from the table to replenish his drink, his eyes warily on the former, disbarred judge.

Morris Panov walked slowly, cautiously out of his bedroom and into the sitting room of Villa Eighteen, where Alex Conklin sat in a wheelchair. The bandages across the psychiatrist's chest were visible under the light fabric of his white guayabera; they extended down his exposed left arm below the elbow. "It took me damn near twenty minutes to lift this useless appendage through the sleeve!" he complained angrily but without self-pity.

"You should have called me," said Alex, spinning himself around in the chair, away from the telephone. "I can still roll this thing pretty damned fast. Of course, I had a couple of years' experience prior to my Quasimodo's boot."

"Thank you, but I prefer to dress myself-as I believe you preferred to walk by yourself once the prosthesis was fitted."

"That's the first lesson, Doctor. I expect there's something about it in your head books."

"There is. It's called dumb, or, if you like, obstinate stupidity."

"No, it's not," countered the retired intelligence officer, his eyes leveled with Panov's as the psychiatrist lowered himself slowly into a chair.

"No ... it's not," agreed Mo, returning Conklin's look. "The first lesson is independence. Take as much as you can handle and keep grabbing for more."

"There's a good side, too," said Alex, smiling and adjusting the bandage around his throat. "It gets easier, not harder. You learn new tricks every day; it's surprising what our little gray cells come up with."

"Do tell? I must explore that field one day. ... I heard you on the phone, who was it?"

"Holland. The wires have been burning on all the back channels between Moscow and Washington, every covert phone on both sides damn near paralyzed thinking there could be a leak and theirs would be held responsible."

"Medusa?"

"You never heard that name, I never heard that name, and nobody we know has ever heard it. There's been enough bloodletting in the international marketplace-to say nothing of a few buckets of real blood spilled-to call into question the sanity of both governments' controlling institutions, which were obviously blind or just plain stupid."

"How about just plain guilty?" asked Panov.

"Too few at the top to warrant the destruction of the whole-that's the verdict of Langley and Dzerzhinsky Square. The chief pin-stripers at the State Department in the Kremlin's Council of Ministers agree. Nothing can be served by pursuing or exposing the extent of the malfeasance-how do you like that, malfeasance? Murder, assassination, kidnapping, extortion and large-scale corruption using organized crime on both sides of the Atlantic are now conveniently slotted as 'malfeasance'! They say it's better to salvage what we can as quietly and as expeditiously as possible."

"That's obscene."

"That's reality, Doctor. You're about to witness one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history, certainly among powerful sovereign nations. ... And the real obscenity is that they're probably right. If Medusa were exposed to the fullest-and it would be fully exposed if it was exposed at all-the people in their righteous indignation would throw the bastards out-many of them the wrong bastards, tainted only by association. That sort of thing produces vacuums in high places, and these are not the times for vacuums of any kind. Better the Satans you know than the ones you don't who come later."

"So what's going to happen?"

"Trade off," said Conklin pensively. "The scope of Medusa's operations is so far-ranging geographically and structurally that it's almost impossible to unravel. Moscow's sending Ogilvie back with a team of financial analysts, and with our own people they'll start the process of dismantling. Eventually Holland foresees a quiet, unannounced economic minisummit, calling together various financial ministers of the NATO and Eastern bloc countries. Wherever Medusa's assets can be self-sustaining or absorbed by their individual economies, that'll be the case with restrictive covenants on all parties. The main point is to prevent financial panics through mass factory closings and wholesale company collapses."

"Thus burying Medusa," offered Panov. "It's again history, unwritten and unacknowledged, the way it was from the beginning."

"Above all, that," conceded Alex. "By omission and commission there's enough sleaze to go around for everybody."

"What about men like Burton on the Joint Chiefs, and Atkinson in London?"

"No more than messengers and fronts; they're out for reasons of health, and believe me, they understand."

Panov winced as he adjusted his uncomfortable wounded body in the chair. "It hardly compensates for his crimes, but the Jackal served a purpose of sorts, didn't he? If you hadn't been hunting him, you wouldn't have found Medusa."

"The coincidence of evil, Mo," said Conklin. "I'm not about to recommend a posthumous medal."

"I'd say it's more than coincidence," interrupted Panov, shaking his head. "In the final analysis, David was right. Whether forced or leaped upon, a connection was there after all. Someone in Medusa had a killer or killers using the name of 'Jason Bourne' assassinate a high-visibility target in the Jackal's own backyard; that someone knew what he was doing."

"You mean Teagarten, of course."

"Yes. Since Bourne was on Medusa's death list, our pathetic turncoat, DeSole, had to tell them about the Treadstone operation, perhaps not by name but its essentials. When they learned that Jason-David-was in Paris, they used the original scenario: Bourne against the Jackal. By killing Teagarten the way they did, they accurately assumed they were enlisting the most deadly partner they could find to hunt down and kill David."

"We know that. So?"

"Don't you see, Alex? When you think about it, Brussels was the beginning of the end, and at the end, David used that false accusation to tell Marie he was still alive, to tell Peter Holland that he was still alive. The map circling Anderlecht in red."

"He gave hope, that's all. Hope isn't something I put much trust in, Mo."

"He did more than give hope. That message made Holland prepare every station in Europe to expect Jason Bourne, assassin, and to use every extreme to get him back here."