Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

“Martin was your friend,” she said now. “You put yourself in terrible jeopardy to save him. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything for him. Besides, by your own admission, you’re not Jason Bourne now. You’re David Webb.”

He smiled. “You have me there.”

Her face clouded over. “I want to ask you a question, but I don’t know whether I have the right.”

At once, he responded to the seriousness of her expression. “Of course you can ask, Moira. Go on.”

She took a deep breath, let it go. “Jason, I know you’ve said that you’re content at the university, and if that’s so, fine. But I also know you blame yourself for not being able to save Martin. You must understand, though, if you couldn’t save him, no one could. You did your best; he knew that, I’m sure. And now I find myself wondering if you believe you failed him-that you’re not up to being Jason Bourne anymore. I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that you accepted Professor Specter’s offer at the university in order to turn away from Jason Bourne’s life.”

“Of course I’ve considered it.” After Martin’s death he’d once again decided to turn his back on Jason Bourne’s life, on the running, the deaths, a river that seemed to have as many bodies as the Ganges. Always, for him, memories lurked. The sad ones he remembered. The others, the shadowed ones that filled the halls of his mind, seemed to have shape until he neared them, when they flowed away like a tide at ebb. And what was left behind were the bleached bones of all those he’d killed or had been killed because of who he was. But he knew just as surely that as long as he drew breath, the Bourne identity wouldn’t die.

There was a tormented look in his eyes. “You have to understand how difficult it is having two personalities, always at war with each other. I wish with every fiber of my being that I could cut one of them out of me.”

Moira said, “Which one would it be?”

“That’s the damnable part,” Bourne said. “Every time I think I know, I realize that I don’t.”

LUTHER LAVALLE WAS as telegenic as the president and two-thirds his age. He had straw-colored hair slicked back like a movie idol of the 1930s or 1940s and restless hands. By contrast, General Kendall was square-jawed and beady-eyed, the very essence of a ramrod officer. He was big and beefy; perhaps he’d been a fullback at Wisconsin or Ohio State. He looked to LaValle the way a running back looks to his quarterback for instructions.

“Luther,” the president said, “seeing as how you requested this meeting I think it appropriate that you begin.”

LaValle nodded, as if the president deferring to him was a fait accompli. “After the recent debacle of CI being infiltrated at its highest level, culminating with the murder of the former DCI, firmer security and controls need to be set in place. Only the Pentagon can do that.”

Veronica felt compelled to jump in before LaValle got too much of a head start. “I beg to differ, sir,” she said, aiming her remarks at the president. “Human intelligence gathering has always been the province of CI. Our on-the-ground networks are unparalleled, as are our armies of contacts, who have been cultivated for decades. The Pentagon’s expertise has always been in electronic surveillance. The two are separate, requiring altogether different methodologies and mind-sets.”

LaValle smiled as winningly as he did when appearing on Fox TV or Larry King Live. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the landscape of intelligence has changed radically since 2001. We’re at war. In my opinion this state of affairs is likely to last indefinitely, which is why the Pentagon has recently expanded its field of expertise, creating teams of clandestine DIA personnel and special-ops forces who are conducting successful counterintelligence ops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“With all due respect, Mr. LaValle and his military machine are eager to fill any perceived vacuum or create one, if necessary. Mr. LaValle and General Kendall need us to believe that we’re in a perpetual state of war whether or not it’s the truth.” From her briefcase Veronica produced a file, which she opened and read from. “As this evidence makes clear, they have systematically directed the expansion of their human intelligence-gathering squads, outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, into other territories-CI’s territories-often with disastrous results. They’ve corrupted informers and, in at least one instance, they’ve jeopardized an ongoing CI deep-cover operation.”

After the president glanced at the pages Veronica handed him, he said, “While this is compelling, Veronica, Congress seems to be on Luther’s side. It has provided him with twenty-five million dollars a year to pay informants on the ground and to recruit mercenaries.”

“That’s part of the problem, not the solution,” Veronica said emphatically. “Theirs is a failed methodology, the same one they’ve used all the way back to the OSS in Berlin after World War Two. Our paid informants have had a history of turning on us-working for the other side, feeding us disinformation. As for the mercenaries we recruited-like the Taliban or various other Muslim insurgent groups-they, to a man, eventually turned against us to become our implacable enemies.”

“She’s got a point,” the president said.

“The past is the past,” General Kendall said angrily. His face had been darkening with every word Veronica had said. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that either our new informants or our mercenaries, both of which are vital to our victory in the Middle East, would ever turn on us. On the contrary, the intel they’ve provided has been of great help to our men on the field of battle.”

“Mercenaries, by definition, owe their allegiance to whoever pays them the most,” Veronica said. “Centuries of history from Roman times forward have proved this point over and over.”

“All this back-and-forth is of little moment.” LaValle shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Clearly he hadn’t counted on such a spirited defense. Kendall handed him a dossier, which he presented to the president. “General Kendall and I have spent the better part of two weeks putting together this proposal for how to restructure CI going forward. The Pentagon is prepared to implement this plan the moment we get your approval, Mr. President.”

To Veronica’s horror, the president looked over the proposal, then turned it over to her. “What do you say to this?”

Veronica felt suffused with rage. She was already being undermined. On the other hand, she observed, this was a good object lesson for her. Trust no one, not even seeming allies. Up until this moment she’d thought she had the full support of the president. The fact that LaValle, who was, after all, basically the mouthpiece for Defense Secretary Halliday, had the muscle to call this meeting shouldn’t have surprised her. But that the president was asking her to consider a takeover from the Pentagon was outrageous and, quite frankly, frightening.

Without even glancing at the toxic papers, she squared her shoulders. “Sir, this proposal is irrelevant, at best. I resent Mr. LaValle’s flagrant attempt to expand his intelligence empire at CI’s expense. For one thing, as I’ve detailed, the Pentagon is ill suited to direct, let alone win the trust of our vast array of agents in the field. For another, this coup would set a dangerous precedent for the entire intelligence community. Being under the control of the armed forces will not benefit our intelligence-gathering potential. On the contrary, the Pentagon’s history of flagrant disregard for human life, its legacy of illegal operations combined with well-documented fiscal profligacy, makes it an extremely poor candidate to poach on anyone else’s territory, especially CI’s.”