Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

"Your man knows exactly what to do?"

"Come on, a virgin he's not. He's got a searchlight mounted on that car so powerful it can be seen in Miami. He comes alongside, switches it on high, and wiggles the handle. Your two million-dollar flunky is blinded and out of business, and we're only charging a quarter of that amount for the job. It's your day, Alby."

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission sat back in the shadows of the left rear seat and stared out the window at the dark, rushing images beyond the smoked glass. "You know," he said quietly, "if anyone had ever told me twenty years ago that I'd be sitting in this car with someone like you, saying what I'm saying, I would've told him it was impossible."

"Oh, that's what we like about you class-act characters. You look down your noses and drip your snot on us until you need us. Then all of a sudden we're 'associates.' Live and be well, Alby, we're eliminating another problem for you. Go back to your big federal commission and decide which companies are clean and which aren't-decisions not necessarily based on soap, right?"

"Shut up!" roared Armbruster, pounding his hand on the armrest. "This Simon-this Webb! Where's he coming from? What's he on our case for? What's he want?"

"Something to do with that Jackal character maybe."

"That doesn't make sense. We don't have anything to do with the Jackal."

"Why should you?" asked the mafioso, grinning. "You got us, right?"

"It's a very loose association and don't you forget it. ... Webb-Simon, goddamn it, whoever he is, we've got to find him! With what he already knew, plus what I told him, he's a fucking menace!"

"He's a real major item, isn't he?"

"A major item," agreed the chairman, again staring out the window, his right fist clenched, the fingers of his left hand drumming furiously on the armrest.

"You want to negotiate?"

"What?" snapped Armbruster, turning and looking at the calm Sicilian face of his companion.

"You heard me, only I used the wrong word and I apologize for that. I'll give you a nonnegotiable figure and you can either accept it or reject it."

"A ... contract? On Simon-Webb?"

"No," replied the mafioso, slowly shaking his head. "On a character named Jason Bourne. It's cleaner to kill someone who's already dead, isn't it? ... Since we just saved you one and a half mill, the price of the contract is five."

"Five million?"

"The cost of eliminating problems in the category of major items is high. Menaces are even higher. Five million, Alby, half on acceptance within the usual twenty-four hours."

"That's outrageous!"

"Then turn me down. You come back, it's seven-fifty; and if you come back again, it's double that. Fifteen million."

"What guarantee do we have that you can even find him? You heard DeSole. He's Four Zero, which means he's out of reach, buried."

"Oh, we'll dig him up just so we can replant him."

"How? Two and a half million is a lot to pay on your word. How?"

Again smiling, the Mafia supremo reached into his pocket and pulled out the small notebook Steven DeSole had returned to him. "Close friends are the best sources, Alby. Ask the sleazes who write all those gossip books. I got two addresses."

"You won't get near them."

"Hey, come on. You think you're dealing with old Chicago and the animals? With Mad Dog Capone and Nitti, the nervous finger. We got sophisticated people on the payroll these days. Geniuses. Scientists, electronics whiz kids-doctors. By the time we get finished with the spook and the yid, they won't know what happened. But we'll have Jason Bourne, the character who doesn't exist because he's already dead."

Albert Armbruster nodded once and turned to the window in silence.

"I'll close up for six months, change the name, then start a promotional campaign in the magazines before reopening," said John St. Jacques, standing by the window as the doctor worked on his brother-in-law.

"There's no one left?" asked Bourne, wincing as he sat in a chair dressed in a bathrobe, the last suture on his neck being pincered.

"Sure, there is. Seven crazy Canadian couples, including my old buddy, who's needlepointing your throat at the moment. Would you believe they wanted to start up a brigade, Renfrews of the Mounties, after the evil people."

"That was Scotty's idea," interrupted the doctor softly, concentrating on the wound. "Count me out. I'm too old."

"So's he but he doesn't know it. Then he wanted to advertise a reward to the tune of a hundred thousand for information leading to the et cetera! I finally convinced him that the less said the better."

"Nothing said is the best," added Jason. "That's the way it's got to be."

"That's a little tough, David," said St. Jacques, misunderstanding the sharp glance Bourne leveled at him. "I'm sorry, but it is. We're deflecting most of the local inquiries with an ersatz story about a massive propane-gas leak, but not too many people are buying it. Of course, to the world outside, an earthquake down here wouldn't rate six lines buried in the last pages of the want ads, but rumors are flying around the Leewards."

"You said local inquiries ... what about that world outside? Has there been anything from it?"

"There will be but not about here, not about Tranquility. Montserrat, yes, and the news will get a column in the London Times and maybe an inch in the New York and Washington papers, but I don't think it'll touch us."

"Stop being so cryptic."

"We'll talk later."

"Say whatever you like, John," broke in the doctor. "I'm just about finished, so I'm not paying much attention, and even if I heard you, I'm entitled to."

"I'll make it brief," said St. Jacques, walking to the right of the chair. "The Crown governor," he continued. "You were right, at least I have to assume you were right."

"Why?"

"The news came in while you were getting cleaned up. The CG's boat was found smashed on one of the nastier reefs off Antigua, halfway to Barbuda. There was no sign of survivors. Plymouth assumes it was one of those whipsaw squalls that can come out of south Nevis, but it's hard to swallow. Not a squall necessarily, but the circumstances."

"Which were?"

"His usual two crewmen weren't with him. He dismissed them at the yacht club, saying he wanted to take the boat out by himself, yet he told Henry he was going out for the running big fish-"

"Which means he would've had to have a crew," interrupted the Canadian physician. "Oh, sorry."

"Yes, he would've," agreed the owner of Tranquility Inn. "You can't fish the big fellas and skipper a boat at the same time-at least the CG couldn't. He was afraid to take his eyes off the charts."

"But he could read them, couldn't he?" asked Jason. "The charts?"

"As a navigator, he was no Captain Bligh sailing by the Pacific stars, but he was good enough to stay out of trouble."

"He was told to go out alone," said Bourne. "Ordered to rendezvous with a boat in waters that called for him to really keep his eyes on the charts." Jason suddenly realized that the doctor's nimble fingers were no longer touching his neck; instead, there was the constricting bandage and the physician was standing beside him looking down. "How are we doing?" asked Bourne, looking up, an appreciative smile creasing his lips.

"We're done," said the Canadian.

"Well ... then I think we'd better meet later, for a drink, all right?"

"Good heavens, you're just getting to the good part."

"It's not good, Doctor, it's not good at all, and I'd be a very ungrateful patient-which I'm not-if I even unwittingly let you hear things I don't think you should hear."

The elderly Canadian locked his eyes with Jason's. "You mean that, don't you? In spite of everything that's happened, you really don't want to involve me any further. And you're not playing melodramatic games, secrecy for secrecy's sake-an old dodge for inferior doctors, incidentally-but you're really concerned, aren't you?"