Page 60 of The Bourne Ultimatum (Jason Bourne 3)

  “The KGB in Moscow is closing in on the Jackal’s man in Dzerzhinsky Square. They’ve narrowed it down to, say, ten or fifteen officers in the highest ranks. Once they find him, Carlos is neutralized in the Komitet—worse, he’s about to lose an informer who knows far too much about him to the Lubyanka interrogators.”

  “But how would she know that?” said Jason.

  “Who would tell her?” added Krupkin.

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “So are your very secret substations in Beijing, Kabul and—forgive my impertinence—Canada’s Prince Edward Island, but you don’t advertise them,” said Krupkin.

  “I didn’t know about Prince Edward,” admitted Alex. “Regardless, there are times when advertisements aren’t necessary, only the means to convey the information credibly. A few minutes ago I didn’t have any means, only authenticity, but that gap has just been filled.… Come over here, Kruppie—just you for the moment, and stay away from the window. Look between the corner of the drapes.” The Soviet did as he was told, going to Conklin’s side and parting the fold of lace fabric from the wall. “What do you see?” asked Alex, gesturing at a shabby, nondescript brown car below on the avenue Montaigne. “Doesn’t do much for the neighborhood, does it?”

  Krupkin did not bother to reply. Instead, he whipped the miniaturized radio from his pocket and pressed the transmitter button. “Sergei, there’s a brown automobile roughly eighty meters down the street from the building’s entrance—”

  “We know, sir,” interrupted the aide. “We’ve got it covered, and if you’ll notice, our backup is parked across the way. It’s an old man who barely moves except to look out the window.”

  “Does he have a car telephone?”

  “No, comrade, and should he leave the automobile he’ll be followed, so there can be no outside calls unless you direct otherwise.”

  “I shall not direct otherwise. Thank you, Sergei. Out.” The Russian looked at Conklin. “The old man,” he said. “You saw him.”

  “Bald head and all,” affirmed Alex. “He’s not a fool; he’s done this before and knows he’s being watched. He can’t leave for fear of missing something, and if he had a phone there’d be others down in the Montaigne.”

  “The Jackal,” said Bourne, stepping forward, then stopping, remembering Conklin’s order to stay away from the window.

  “Now, do you understand?” asked Alex, addressing the question to Krupkin.

  “Of course,” conceded the KGB official, smiling. “It’s why you wanted an ostentatious limousine from our embassy. After we leave, Carlos is told that a Soviet diplomatic vehicle was sent to pick us up, and for what other reason would we be here but to interrogate Madame Lavier? Naturally, in my well-advertised presence was a tall man who might or might not be Jason Bourne, and another shorter individual with a disabled leg—thus confirming that it was Jason Bourne.… Our unholy alliance is therefore established and observed, and again, naturally, during our harsh questioning of Madame Lavier, tempers flared and references were made to the Jackal’s informer in Dzerzhinsky Square.”

  “Which only I’d known about through my dealing with Santos at Le Coeur du Soldat,” said Jason quietly. “So Dominique has a credible observer—an old man from Carlos’s army of old men—to back up the information she delivers.… I’ve got to say it, Saint Alex, that serpentine brain of yours hasn’t lost its cunning.”

  “I hear a professor I once knew.… I thought he’d left us.”

  “He has.”

  “Only for a while, I hope.”

  “Well done, Aleksei. You still have the touch; you may remain abstemious if you must, much as it pains me.… It’s always the nuances, isn’t it?”

  “Not always by any means,” disagreed Conklin simply, shaking his head. “Most of the time it’s foolish mistakes. For instance, our new colleague here, ‘Domie,’ as you affectionately call her, was told she was still trusted, but she wasn’t, not completely. So an old man was dispatched to watch her apartment—no big deal, just a little insurance in a car that doesn’t belong in a street with Jaguars and Rolls-Royces. So we pay off on the small policy, and with luck cash in on the big one. Moscow.”

  “Let me intellectualize,” said Krupkin. “Although you were always far better in that department than I, Aleksei. I prefer the best wine to the most penetrating thoughts, although the latter—in both our countries—invariably leads to the former.”

  “Merde!” yelled Dominique Lavier, crushing out her cigarette. “What are you two idiots talking about?”

  “They’ll tell us, believe me,” answered Bourne.

  “As has been reported and repeated in secure circles too often for comfort,” continued the Soviet, “years ago we trained a madman in Novgorod, and years ago we would have put a bullet in his head had he not escaped. His methods, if sanctioned by any legitimate government, especially the two superpowers, would lead to confrontations neither of us can ever permit. Yet, withal, in the beginning he was a true revolutionary with a capital R, and we, the world’s truest revolutionaries, disinherited him.… By his lights, it was a great injustice and he never forgets it. He will always yearn to come back to the mother’s breast, for that’s where he was born.… Good God, the people he’s killed in the name of ‘aggressors’ while he made fortunes is positively revolting!”

  “But you denied him,” said Jason flatly, “and he wants that denial reversed. He has to be acknowledged as the master killer you trained. That psychopathic ego of his is the basis for everything Alex and I mounted.… Santos said he continuously bragged about the cadre he was building in Moscow—‘Always Moscow, it’s an obsession with him’—those were Santos’s words. The only specific person he knew about, and not by name, was Carlos’s mole high up in the KGB, but he said Carlos claimed to have others in key positions at various powerful departments, that as the monseigneur he’d been sending them money for years.”

  “So the Jackal thinks he forms a core of supporters within our government,” observed Krupkin. “Despite everything, he still believes he can come back. He is, indeed, an egomaniac but he’s never understood the Russian mind. He may temporarily corrupt a few cynical opportunists, but these will cover themselves and turn on him. No one looks forward to a stay at the Lubyanka or a Siberian gulag. The Jackal’s Potemkin village will burn to the ground.”

  “All the more reason for him to race to Moscow and put out the brushfires,” said Alex.

  “What do you mean?” asked Bourne.

  “The burning will start with the exposure of Carlos’s man in Dzerzhinsky Square; he’ll know that. The only way to prevent it is for him to reach Moscow and make a determination. Either his informer will elude internal security or the Jackal will have to kill him.”

  “I forgot,” interrupted Bourne. “Something else Santos said … most of the Russians on Carlos’s payroll spoke French. Look for a man high up in the Komitet who speaks French.”

  Krupkin’s radio again intruded, the two piercing beeps barely muffled by his jacket. He pulled it out and spoke. “Yes?”

  “I don’t know how or why, comrade,” said the tense voice of Sergei, “but the ambassador’s limousine has just arrived at the building. I swear to you I have no idea what happened!”

  “I do. I called for it.”

  “But the embassy flags will be seen by everyone!”

  “Including, I trust, an alert old man in a brown automobile. We’ll be down shortly. Out.” Krupkin turned to the others. “The car’s here, gentlemen. Where shall we meet, Domie? And when?”

  “Tonight,” replied Lavier. “There’s a showing at La Galerie d’Or in the rue de Paradis. The artist’s a young upstart who wants to be a rock star or something, but he’s the rage and everyone will be there.”

  “Tonight, then.… Come, gentlemen. Against our instincts, we must be very observable outside on the pavement.”

  * * *

  The crowds moved in and out of the shafts of light while the music was p

rovided by an ear-shattering rock band mercifully placed in a side room away from the main viewing area. Were it not for the paintings on the walls and the beams of the small spotlights illuminating them, a person might think he was in a discotheque rather than in one of Paris’s elegant art galleries.

  Through a series of nods, Dominique Lavier maneuvered Krupkin to a corner of the large room. Their graceful smiles, arched brows and intermittently mimed laughter covered their quiet conversation.

  “The word passed among the old men is that the monseigneur will be away for a few days. However, they are all to continue searching for the tall American and his crippled friend and list wherever they are seen.”

  “You must have done your job well.”

  “As I relayed the information he was utterly silent. In his breathing, however, there was utter loathing. I felt my bones grow cold.”

  “He’s on his way to Moscow,” said the Russian. “No doubt through Prague.”

  “What will you do now?”

  Krupkin arched his neck and raised his eyes to the ceiling in false, silent laughter. Leveling his gaze on her, he answered, smiling. “Moscow,” he said.

  33

  Bryce Ogilvie, managing partner of Ogilvie, Spofford, Crawford and Cohen, prided himself on his self-discipline. That was to say, not merely the outward appearance of composure, but the cold calm he forced upon his deepest fears in times of crisis. However, when he arrived at his office barely fifty minutes ago and found his concealed private telephone ringing, he had experienced a twinge of apprehension at such an early morning call over that particular line. Then when he heard the heavily accented voice of the Soviet consul general of New York demanding an immediate conference, he had to acknowledge a sudden void in his chest … and when the Russian instructed him—ordered him—to be at the Carlyle Hotel, Suite 4-C, in one hour, rather than their usual meeting place at the apartment on Thirty-second and Madison, Bryce felt a searing-hot pain filling that void in his chest. And when he had mildly objected to the suddenness of the proposed, unscheduled conference, the pain in his chest had burst into fire, the flames traveling up to his throat at the Soviet’s reply: “What I have to show you will make you devoutly wish we never knew each other, much less had any occasion to meet this morning. Be there!”

  Ogilvie sat back in his limousine, as far back as the upholstery could be pressed, his legs stretched, rigid on the carpeted floor. Abstract, swirling thoughts of personal wealth, power and influence kept circling in his mind; he had to get hold of himself! After all, he was Bryce Ogilvie, the Bryce Ogilvie, perhaps the most successful corporate attorney in New York, and arguably second only to Boston’s Randolph Gates in the fast track of corporate and antitrust law.

  Gates! The mere thought of that son of a bitch was a welcome diversion. Medusa had asked a minor favor of the celebrated Gates, an inconsequential, perfectly acceptable staff appointment on an ad hoc government-oriented commission, and he had not even answered their phone calls! Calls put through by another perfectly acceptable source, the supposedly irreproachable, impartial head of Pentagon procurements, an asshole named General Norman Swayne, who only wanted the best information. Well, perhaps more than information, but Gates could not have known about that.… Gates? There was something in the Times the other morning about his bowing out of a hostile takeover proceeding. What was it?

  The limousine pulled up to the curb in front of the Carlyle Hotel, once the Kennedy family’s favored New York City address, now the temporary clandestine favorite of the Soviets. Ogilvie waited until the uniformed doorman opened the left rear door of the car before he stepped out onto the pavement. He normally would not have done so, believing the delay was an unnecessary affectation, but this morning he did; he had to get hold of himself. He had to be the Ice-Cold Ogilvie his legal adversaries feared.

  The elevator’s ascent to the fourth floor was swift, the walk over the blue-carpeted hallway to Suite 4-C far slower, the distance much closer. The Bryce Ogilvie breathed deeply, calmly, and stood erect as he pressed the bell. Twenty-eight seconds later, irritatingly clocked by the attorney as he silently counted “one one-thousand, two one-thousand,” ad nauseam, the door was opened by the Soviet consul general, a slender man of medium height whose aquiline face had taut white skin and large brown eyes.

  Vladimir Sulikov was a wiry seventy-three-year-old full of nervous energy, a scholar and former professor of history at Moscow University, a committed Marxist, yet oddly enough, considering his position, not a member of the Communist Party. In truth, he was not a member of any political orthodoxy, preferring the passive role of the unorthodox individual within a collectivist society. That, and his singularly acute intellect, had served him well; he was sent to posts where more conformist men would not have been half so effective. The combination of these attributes, along with a dedication to physical exercise, made Sulikov appear ten to fifteen years younger than his age. His was an unsettling presence for those negotiating with him, for somehow he radiated the wisdom acquired over the years and the vitality of youth to implement it.

  The greetings were abrupt. Sulikov offered nothing but a stiff, cold handshake and a stiffly upholstered armchair. He stood in front of the suite’s narrow mantel of white marble as though it were a classroom blackboard, his hands clasped behind him, an agitated professor about to question and lecture simultaneously an annoying, disputatious graduate student.

  “To our business,” said the Russian curtly. “You are aware of Admiral Peter Holland?”

  “Yes, of course. He’s the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Why do you ask?”

  “Is he one of you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Is it possible he became one of you without your knowledge?”

  “Certainly not, I don’t even know the man. And if this is some kind of amateurish interrogatory, Soviet style, practice on someone else.”

  “Ohh, the fine expensive American attorney objects to being asked simple questions?”

  “I object to being insulted. You made an astonishing statement over the phone. I’d like it explained, so please get to it.”

  “I’ll get to it, Counselor, believe me, I’ll get to it, but in my own fashion. We Russians protect our flanks; it’s a lesson we learned from the tragedy and the triumph of Stalingrad—an experience you Americans never had to endure.”

  “I came from another war, as you well know,” said Ogilvie coolly, “but if the history books are accurate, you had some help from your Russian winter.”

  “That’s difficult to explain to thousands upon thousands of frozen Russian corpses.”

  “Granted, and you have both my condolences and my congratulations, but it’s not the explanation—or even the lack of one—that I requested.”

  “I’m only trying to explain a truism, young man. As has been said, it’s the painful lessons of history we don’t know about that we are bound to repeat.… You see, we do protect our flanks, and if some of us in the diplomatic arena suspect that we have been duped into international embarrassment, we reinforce those flanks. It’s a simple lesson for one so erudite as yourself, Counselor.”

  “And so obvious, it’s trivial. What about Admiral Holland?”

  “In a moment.… First, let me ask you about a man named Alexander Conklin.”

  Bryce Ogilvie bolted forward in the chair, stunned. “Where did you get that name?” he asked, barely audible.

  “There’s more.… Someone called Panov, Mortimer or Moishe Panov, a Jewish physician, we believe. And finally, Counselor, a man and a woman we assume are the assassin Jason Bourne and his wife.”

  “My God!” exclaimed Ogilvie, his body angled and tense, his eyes wide. “What have these people got to do with us?”

  “That’s what we have to know,” answered Sulikov, staring at the Wall Street lawyer. “You’re obviously aware of each one, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes—n

o!” protested Ogilvie, his face flushed, his words spilling over one another. “It’s an entirely different situation. It has nothing to do with our business—a business we’ve poured millions into, developed for twenty years!”

  “And made millions in return, Counselor, may I be permitted to remind you of that?”

  “Venture capital in the international markets!” cried the attorney. “That’s no crime in this country. Money flows across the oceans with the touch of a computer button. No crime!”

  “Really?” The Soviet consul general arched his brows. “I thought you were a better attorney than that statement suggests. You’ve been buying up companies all over Europe through mergers and acquisitions using surrogate and misleading corporate entities. The firms you acquire represent sources of supply, often in the same markets, and you subsequently determine prices between former competitors. I believe that’s called collusion and restraint of trade, legal terms that we in the Soviet Union have no problems with, as the state sets prices.”

  “There’s no evidence whatsoever to support such charges!” declared Ogilvie.

  “Of course not, as long as there are liars and unscrupulous lawyers to bribe and advise the liars. It’s a labyrinthine enterprise, brilliantly executed, and we’ve both profited from it. You’ve sold us anything we’ve wanted or needed for years, including every major item on your government’s restricted lists under so many names our computers broke down trying to keep track of them.”

  “No proof!” insisted the Wall Street attorney emphatically.

  “I’m not interested in such proof, Counselor. I’m only interested in the names I mentioned to you. In order, they are Admiral Holland, Alexander Conklin, Dr. Panov and, lastly, Jason Bourne and his wife. Please tell me about them.”

  “Why?” pleaded Ogilvie. “I’ve just explained they have nothing to do with you and me, nothing to do with our arrangements!”

  “We think they might have, so why not start with Admiral Holland?”