Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

"It all strikes me as unnecessarily complicated," said Panov curtly, nervously. "Expensive games."

"Not necessarily, Mo," interrupted Conklin gently. "Explosives can be concealed pretty easily in heating pipes and ducts. And did you know that during the last days of Hitler's bunker a few of his saner aides tried to insert poison gas into the air-filtering machinery? These are just precautions."

The elevator stopped and the door opened. "To your left, Doctor," Holland said. The hallway was a glistening pristine white, antiseptic in its way, which was altogether proper, as this underground complex was a highly sophisticated medical center. It was devoted not only to the healing of men and women, but also to the process of breaking them down, crippling their resistance so that information might be revealed, truths learned that could prevent the penetration of high-risk operations, frequently saving lives as a result.

They entered a room that was in stark contrast to the antiseptic quality of the fluorescent-lit hallway. There were heavy armchairs and soft indirect lighting, a coffee urn on a table with cups and saucers; newspapers and magazines were folded neatly on other tables, all the comforts of a lounge designed for those waiting for someone or something. From an inner door a man in a white medical jacket appeared; he was frowning, looking uncertain.

"Director Holland?" he said, approaching Peter, extending his hand. "I'm Dr. Walsh, second shift. Needless to say, we didn't expect you."

"I'm afraid it's an emergency and hardly one of my choosing. May I introduce you to Dr. Morris Panov-unless you know him?"

"Of him, of course." Walsh again extended his hand. "A pleasure, Doctor, also a privilege."

"You may take both back before we're finished, Doctor. May we talk privately?"

"Certainly. My office is inside." The two men disappeared through the inner door.

"Shouldn't you go with them?" asked Conklin, looking at Peter.

"Why not you?"

"Goddamn it, you're the director. You should insist!"

"You're his closest friend. So should you."

"I don't have any clout here."

"Mine disappeared when Mo dismissed us. Come on, let's have some coffee. This place gives me the proverbial creeps." Holland went to the table with the coffee urn and poured two cups. "How do you like it?"

"With more milk and sugar than I'm supposed to have. I'll do it."

"I still take it black," said the director, moving away from the table and removing a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "My wife says the acid will kill me one day."

"Other people say tobacco will."

"What?"

"Look." Alex pointed at the sign on the opposite wall. It read: THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.

"That I've got enough clout for," announced Holland quietly as he snapped his lighter and lit a cigarette.

Nearly twenty minutes passed. Every now and then one or the other of them picked up a magazine or a newspaper only to put it down moments later and look up at the inner door. Finally, twenty-eight minutes after he had disappeared with Panov, the doctor named Walsh reappeared.

"He tells me you know what he's requesting and that you have no objections, Director Holland."

"I've got plenty of objections, but it seems he's overruled them. ... Oh, excuse me, Doctor, this is Alex Conklin. He's one of us and a close friend of Panov."

"How do you feel, Mr. Conklin?" asked Walsh, nodding at Alex as he returned the greeting.

"I hate what he's doing-what he wants to do-but he says it makes sense. If it does, it's right for him and I understand why he insists on doing it. If it doesn't make sense, I'll pull him out of there myself, one foot and all. Does it make sense, Doctor? And what's the risk of damage?"

"There's always a risk where drugs are concerned, especially in terms of chemical balance, and he knows that. It's why he's designed an intravenous flow that prolongs his own psychological pain but somewhat reduces the potential damage."

"Somewhat?" cried Alex.

"I'm being honest. So is he."

"Bottom line, Doctor," said Holland.

"If things go wrong, two or three months of therapy, not permanent."

"And the sense?" insisted Conklin. "Does it make sense?"

"Yes," replied Walsh. "What happened to him is not only recent, it's consumed him. It's obsessed his conscious, which can only mean that it's inflamed his subconscious. He's right. His unreachable recall is on the cutting edge. ... I came in here as a courtesy. He's insisted we proceed, and from what he's told me, I'd do the same thing. Each of us would."

"What's the security?" asked Alex.

"The nurse will be dismissed and stay outside the door. There'll be only a single battery-operated tape recorder and me ... and one or both of you." The doctor turned to the door, then glanced back. "I'll send for you at the proper time," he added, again disappearing inside.

Conklin and Peter Holland looked at each other. The second period of waiting began.

To their astonishment, it ended barely ten minutes later. A nurse came out into the lounge and asked them to follow her. They walked through what appeared to be a maze of antiseptic white walls broken up only by recessed white panels with glass knobs that denoted doors. Only once on their brief journey did they see another human being; it was a man in a white smock, wearing a white surgical mask, who walked out of yet another white door, his sharp, intense eyes above the white cloth somehow accusing, determining them to be aliens from some different world that had not been cleared for Sterile House Five.

The nurse opened a door; there was a blinking red light above its top frame. She put her index finger to her lips, indicating silence. Holland and Conklin walked quietly inside a dark room and confronted a drawn white curtain concealing a bed or an examining table beyond, a small circle of intense light shining through the cloth. They heard the softly spoken words of Dr. Walsh.

"You are going back, Doctor, not far back, just a day or so, just when you began to feel the dull, constant pain in your arm ... your arm, Doctor. Why are they inflicting pain on your arm? You were in a farmhouse, a small farmhouse with fields outside your window, and then they put a blindfold on you and began hurting your arm. Your arm, Doctor."

Suddenly, there was a muted flashing of green light reflected on the ceiling. The curtain parted electronically several feet, revealing the bed, the patient and the doctor. Walsh took his finger off a bedside button and looked at them, gesturing slowly with his hands as if to say, There's no one else here. Confirmed?

Both witnesses nodded, at first mesmerized, then repelled at the sight of Panov's grimacing pale face and the tears that began to flow from his wide-open eyes. Then, as one, they saw the white straps that emerged from under the white sheet, holding Mo in place; the order had to be his.

"The arm, Doctor. We have to begin with the physically invasive procedure, don't we? Because you know what it does, Doctor, don't you? It leads to another invasive procedure that you cannot permit. You must stop its progression."

The ear-shattering scream was a prolonged shriek of defiance and horror. "No, no! I won't tell you! I killed him once, I won't kill him again! Get away from meeeee ... !"

Alex slumped, falling to the floor. Peter Holland grabbed him and gently the strong, broad-shouldered admiral, a veteran of the darkest operations in the Far East, led Conklin silently through the door to the nurse. "Get him away from here, please."

"Yes, sir."

"Peter," coughed Alex, trying to stand, collapsing on his false foot. "I'm sorry, Christ, I'm sorry!"

"What for?" whispered Holland.

"I should watch but I can't watch!"

"I understand. It's all too close. If I were you, I probably couldn't either."