Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Supremacy

intelligence operation. As a civil servant under a like classification I should put my shoulder to the wheel. I need your necktie, too. Matt. '

Two minutes later, Case Officer Richards lay behind the pillar, his feet and hands tied and his mouth drawn taut, all accomplished with three ties.

'We're sterile,' said Alex, studying what remained of the crowd beyond the pillar. They've all gone after our decoy, who's probably halfway to Malaysia by now.'

'Who was she – he! I mean, he certainly wasn't a woman. '

'No sexism intended, but a woman probably couldn't have made it out of here. He did, taking the others with him – after him. He jumped over the escalator railing and worked his way up. Let's go. We're clear. '

'But who is he? pressed Panov, as they walked around the pillar towards the escalator and the few stragglers forming a short line.

'We've used him occasionally over here, mainly as a pair of eyes for out-of-the-way border installations, which he knows something about, since he has to get past them with his merchandise. '

'Narcotics?"

'He wouldn't touch them; he's a top notch jock. He runs stolen gold and jewels, operating between Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore. I think it has something to do with what happened to him a number of years ago. They took away his medals for conduct unbecoming just about everything. He posed for some raunchy photographs when he was in college and needed the money. Later, through the good offices of a sleazy publisher with the ethics of an alley cat, they surfaced and he was crucified, ruined. '

That magazine I carried!' exclaimed Mo, as they both stepped on to the escalator.

'Something like it, I guess. '

'What medals?'

'Nineteen seventy-six Olympics. Track and field. The high hurdles were his speciality. '

Speechless, Panov stared at Alexander Conklin as they rose on the escalator, nearing the entrance to the terminal. A platoon of sweepers carrying wide brooms over their shoulders appeared on the opposite escalator heading down to the platform. Alex jerked his head towards them, snapped the fingers of his right hand, and with the thumb extended, jabbed the air in the direction of the terminal's exit doors above. The message was clear. Within moments a bound CIA agent would be found behind a pillar.

That'd be the one they call the major,' said Marie, sitting in a chair opposite Conklin, while Morris Panov knelt beside her, examining her left foot . 'Ouch? she cried, pulling back her crossed leg. 'I'm sorry, Mo. '

'Don't be,' said the doctor. 'It's a nasty bruise spread over the second and third metatarsals. You must have taken quite a spill. '

'Several. You know about feet?

'Right now I feel more secure with chiropody than psychiatry. You people live in a world that would drive my profession back to the Middle Ages – not that most of us aren't still there; the words are just cuter. ' Panov looked up at Marie, his eyes straying to her severely styled grey-streaked hair. 'You had fine medical treatment, dark-redhead-that-was. Except the hair. It's atrocious. '

'It's brilliant,' corrected Conklin.

'What do you know? You were a patient of mine. ' Mo returned to the foot. They're both healing nicely – the cuts and the blisters, that is, the bruise will take longer. I'll pick up some things later and change the dressings. ' Panov got up and pulled a straight-backed chair away from the small writing table.

'You're staying here then?' asked Marie.

'Down the hall,' said Alex. 'I couldn't get either of the rooms next door. '

'How did you even manage that?'

'Money. This is Hong Kong, and reservations are always getting lost by somebody who isn't around... back to the major. '

'His name is Lin Wenzu. Catherine Staples told me he was with British Intelligence, speaks English with a UK accent. '

'She was sure!'

'Very. She said he was considered the best intelligence officer in Hong Kong, and that included everyone from the KGB to the CIA. '

'It's not hard to understand. His name is Lin Wenzu, not Ivanovitch or Joe Smith. A talented native is sent to England, educated and trained, and brought back to assume a responsible position in government. Standard colonial policy, especially in the area of law enforcement and territorial security. '

'Certainly from a psychological viewpoint,' added Panov, sitting down. There are fewer resentments that way, and another bridge is built to the governed foreign community. '

'I understand that,' said Alex, nodding, 'but something's missing; the pieces don't fit. It's one thing for London to give a green light for an undercover DC operation – which everything we've learned tells us this is, only more bizarre than most – but it's another for MI6 to lend us their local people in a colony the UK is still running. '

'Why? asked Panov.

'Several reasons. First, they don't trust us – oh, it's not that they mistrust our intentions, just our brains. In some ways they're right, in others they're dead wrong, but that's their judgement. Second, why risk exposing their personnel for the sake of decisions made by an American bureaucrat with no expertise in on-the-scene deep cover administration. That's the sticking point, and London would reject it out of hand. '

'I assume you're referring to McAllister,' said Marie.

Till the cows come home from a field of new alfalfa. ' Conklin shook his head, exhaling as he did so. 'I've done my research, and I can tell you he's either the strongest or the weakest factor in this whole damned scenario. I suspect the latter. He's pure, cold brains, like McNamara before his conversion to doubt. '

'Knock off the bullshit,' said Mo Panov. 'What do you mean in straight talk, not chicken soup? Leave that to me. '

'I mean, Doctor, that Edward Newington McAllister is a rabbit. His ears spring up at the first sign of conflict or off-the-wire lapses and he scampers off. He's an analyst and one of the best, but he is not qualified to be a case officer, to say nothing of a station chief, and don't even consider his being the strategist behind a major covert operation. He'd be laughed off the scene, believe me. ' 'He was terribly convincing with David and me,' broke in

Marie.

'He was given that script. "Prime the subject," he was told. Stick to the convoluted narrative that would become clearer to the subject in stages once he made his first moves, which he had to make because you were gone. ' 'Who wrote the script?' asked Panov. 'I wish I knew. No one I reached in Washington knows, and that includes a number of people who should. They weren't lying; after all these years I can spot a swallow in a voice. It's so damn deep and filled with so many contradictions it makes Treadstone Seventy-one look like an amateur effort – which it wasn't. '

'Catherine said something to me,' interrupted Marie. 'I don't know whether it will help or not, but it stuck in my mind. She said a man flew into Hong Kong, a "statesman", she called him, someone who was "far more than a diplomat", or something like that. She thought there might be a connection with everything that's happened. ' 'What was his name?'

'She never told me. Later when I saw McAllister down in the street with her, I assumed it was he. But maybe not. The analyst you just described and the nervous man who spoke to David and me is hardly a diplomat, much less a statesman. It must have been someone else. ' 'When did she say this to you?" asked Conklin. Three days ago when she was hiding me in her apartment in Hong Kong. '

'Before she drove you up to Tuen Mun?' Alex leaned forward in the chair. 'Yes.'

'She never mentioned him again?' 'No, and when I asked her, she said there was no point in either of us getting our hopes up. She said she had more digging to do. '

'You settled for that?