Page 73 of The Bourne Ultimatum (Jason Bourne 3)

  “My God! We’d better turn that over to the SED branch of French intelligence with a restricted chronology.”

  “I’m not turning anything over to anybody until we hear from Conklin. We owe him that much—I think.”

  “What the hell are they doing?” shouted a frustrated Casset over the phone. “Putting out false death notices—from Moscow, no less! What for?”

  “Jason Bourne’s gone hunting,” said Peter Holland. “And when the hunt is over—if it’s over and if the kill is made—he’s going to have to get out of the woods before anyone turns on him.… I want every station and listening post on the borders of the Soviet Union on full alert. Code name: Assassin. Get him back.”

  40

  Novgorod. To say it was incredible was to obliquely recognize the existence of credibility and that was nearly impossible. It was the ultimate fantasy, its optical illusions seemingly more real than reality, the phantasmagoria there to be touched, felt, used, entered into and departed from; it was a collective masterpiece of invention cut out of the immense forests along the Volkhov River. From the moment Bourne emerged from the deep underground tunnel below the water with its guards, gates and myriad cameras, he was as close to being in a state of shock while still being able to keep walking, observing, absorbing, thinking.

  The American compound, presumably like those of the different countries, was broken up into sections, built on areas anywhere from two to five acres, each distinctly separate from the others. One area, erected on the banks of the river, might be the heart of a Maine waterfront village; another, farther inland, a small Southern town; yet another, a busy metropolitan city street. Each was completely “authentic” with the appropriate vehicular traffic, police, dress codes, shops, grocery and drug stores, gas stations and mock structures of buildings—many of which rose two stories high and were so real they had American hardware on the doors and windows. Obviously, as vital as the physical appearances was language—not merely the fluent use of English but the mastery of linguistic idiosyncrasies, the dialects that were characteristic of specific locations. As Jason wandered from one section to another he heard all around him the distinctive sounds. From New England Down East with its “eeahh” to Texas’s drawl and its familiar “you-alls”; from the gentle nasality of the Midwest to the loud abrasiveness of the large Eastern cities with the inevitable “know what I mean?” tacked on to conversational sentences, whether questions or statements. It was all incredible. It was not simply beyond belief, it made the true suspension of disbelief frighteningly viable.

  He had been briefed on the flight from Vnokova by a late-middle-aged Novgorod graduate who had been urgently summoned from his Moscow apartment by Krupkin. The small, bald man was not only garrulously instructive, but in his own way mesmerizing. If anyone had ever told Jason Bourne that he was going to be briefed in depth by a Soviet espionage agent whose English was so laced with the Deep South that it sonorously floated out of his mouth with the essence of magnolias, he would have deemed the information preposterous.

  “Good Lawd, Ah do miss those barbecues, especially the ribs. You know who grilled ’em best? That black fellow who I believed was such a good friend until he exposed me. Can you imagine? I thought he was one of those radicals. He turned out to be a boy from Dartmouth workin’ for the FBI. A lawyer, no less.… Hell, the exchange was made at Aeroflot in New York and we still write each other.”

  “Adolescent games,” had mumbled Bourne.

  “Games?… Oh yes, he was a mighty fine coach.”

  “Coach?”

  “Sure ’nuff. A few of us started a Little League in East Point. That’s right outside Atlanta.”

  Incredible.

  “May we concentrate on Novgorod, please?”

  “Sutt’nly. Dimitri may have told you, I’m semiretired, but my pension requires that I spend five days a month there as a tak govorya—a ‘trainer,’ as you would say.”

  “I didn’t understand what he meant.”

  “Ah’ll explain.” The strange man whose voice belonged to the old Confederacy had been thorough.

  Each compound at Novgorod was divided into three classes of personnel: the trainers, the candidates and operations. The last category included the KGB staff, guards and maintenance. The practical implementation of the Novgorod process was simple in structure. A compound’s staff created the daily training schedules for each individual section, and the trainers, both permanent and part-time retirees, commandeered all individual and group activities while the candidates carried them out, using only the language of the compound and the dialects of the specific areas in which they were located. No Russian was permitted; the rule was tested frequently by the trainers who would suddenly bark orders or insults in the native language, which the candidates could not acknowledge understanding.

  “When you say assignments,” Bourne had asked, “what do you mean?”

  “Situations, mah friend. Jest about anything you might think of. Like ordering lunch or dinner, or buying clothes, or fillin’ the tank of your car, requesting a specific gasoline … leaded or unleaded and the degrees of octane—all of which we don’t know a thing about here. Then, of course, there are the more dramatic events often unscheduled so as to test the candidates’ reactions. Say, an automobile accident necessitating conversations with ‘American’ police and the resulting insurance forms that must be filled out—you can give yourself away if you appear too ignorant.”

  The little things, the insignificant things—they were vital. A back door at the Kubinka Armory. “What else?”

  “So many inconsequential things that a person might not consider significant, but they can be. Say, being mugged in a city street at night—what should you do, what shouldn’t you do? Remember, many of our candidates, and all of the younger ones, are trained in self-defense, but depending upon the circumstances, it may not be advisable to use those skills. Questions of background could be raised. Discretion, always discretion.… For me, as an experienced part-time tak govorya, of course, I’ve always preferred the more imaginative situations which we are permitted to implement whenever we care to as long as they fall within the guidelines of environmental penetration.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Learn always, but never appear to be learning. For example, a favorite of mine is to approach several candidates, say, at a bar in some ‘location’ near a military testing ground. I pretend to be a disgruntled government worker or perhaps an inebriated defense contractor—obviously someone with access to information—and start ladlin’ out classified material of recognized value.”

  “Just for curiosity,” Bourne had interrupted, “under those circumstances how should candidates react?”

  “Listen carefully and be prepared to write down every salient fact, all the while feigning total lack of interest and offering such remarks as”—here the Novgorod graduate’s Southern dialect became so rough-mountain South that the magnolias were replaced by sour mash—“ ‘Who gives a barrel a’ hogshit ’bout that stuff?’ and ‘They got any of them whoors over there lak people say they got?’ or ‘Don’t understand a fuckin’ word you’re talkin’ about, asshole—all Ah knows is that you’re borin’ the holy be-Jesus outta me!’ … that sort of thing.”

  “Then what?”

  “Later, each man is called in and told to list everything he learned—fact by salient fact.”

  “What about passing along the information? Are there training procedures for that?”

  Jason’s Soviet instructor had stared at him in silence for several moments from the adjacent seat in the small plane. “I’m sorry you had to ask the question,” he said slowly. “I’ll have to report it.”

  “I didn’t have to ask it, I was simply curious. Forget I asked it.”

  “I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

  “Do you trust Krupkin?”

  “Of course I do. He’s brilliant, a multilingual phenomenon. A true hero of the Komitet.”

  You don??

?t know the half of it, thought Bourne, but he said, with even a trace of reverence, “Then report it only to him. He’ll tell you it was just curiosity. I owe absolutely nothing to my government; instead, it owes me.”

  “Very well.… Speakin’ of yourself, let’s get to you. With Dimitri’s authority I’ve made arrangements for your visit to Novgorod—please don’t tell me your objective; it’s not in my purview any more than the question you asked is in yours.”

  “Understood. The arrangements?”

  “You will make contact with a young trainer named Benjamin in the manner I will describe in a few moments. I’ll tell you this much about Benjamin so you’ll perhaps understand his attitude. His parents were Komitet officers assigned to the consulate in Los Angeles for nearly twenty years. He’s basically American-educated, his freshman and sophomore years at UCLA; in fact, until he and his father were hurriedly recalled to Moscow four years ago—”

  “He and his father?”

  “Yes. His mother was caught in an FBI sting operation at the naval base in San Diego. She has three more years to serve in prison. There is no clemency and no exchanges for a Russian ‘momma.’ ”

  “Hey, wait a minute. Then it can’t be all our fault.”

  “I didn’t say it was, Ah’m just relayin’ the facts.”

  “Understood. I make contact with Benjamin.”

  “He’s the only one who knows who you are—not by name, of course, you’ll use the name ‘Archie’—and he’ll furnish you with the necessary clearance to go from one compound to the other.”

  “Papers?”

  “He’ll explain. He’ll also watch you, be with you at all times, and, frankly, he’s been in touch with Comrade Krupkin and knows far more than I do—which is precisely the way this retired Georgia cracker likes it.… Good huntin’, polecat, if it’s huntin’ you’re after. Don’t rape no wooden Indians.”

  Bourne followed the signs—everything was in English—to the city of Rockledge, Florida, fifteen miles southwest of NASA’s Cape Canaveral. He was to meet Benjamin at a lunch counter in the local Woolworth store, looking for a man in his mid-twenties wearing a red-checkered shirt, with a Budweiser baseball cap on the stool beside him, saving it. It was the hour, within the time span of minutes: 3:35 in the afternoon.

  He saw him. The sandy-haired, California-educated Russian was seated at the far right end of the counter, the baseball cap on the stool to his left. There were half a dozen men and women along the row talking to one another and consuming soft drinks and snacks. Jason approached the empty seat, glanced down at the cap and spoke politely. “Is this taken?” he asked.

  “I’m waiting for someone,” replied the young KGB trainer, his voice neutral, his gray eyes straying up to Bourne’s face.

  “I’ll find another place.”

  “She may not get here for another five minutes.”

  “Hell, I’m just having a quick vanilla Coke. I’ll be out of here by then—”

  “Sit down,” said Benjamin, removing the hat and casually putting it on his head. A gum-chewing counterman came by and Jason ordered; his drink arrived, and the Komitet trainer continued quietly, his eyes now on the foam of his milk shake, which he sipped through a straw. “So you’re Archie, like in the comics.”

  “And you’re Benjamin. Nice to know you.”

  “We’ll both find out if that’s a fact, won’t we?”

  “Do we have a problem?”

  “I want the ground rules clear so there won’t be one,” said the West Coast-bred Soviet. “I don’t approve of your being permitted in here. Regardless of my former address and the way I may sound, I haven’t much use for Americans.”

  “Listen to me, Ben,” interrupted Bourne, his eyes forcing the trainer to look at him. “All things considered, I don’t approve of your mother still being in prison, either, but I didn’t put her there.”

  “We free the dissidents and the Jews, but you insist on keeping a fifty-eight-year-old woman who was at best a simple courier!” whispered the Russian, spitting out the words.

  “I don’t know the facts and I wouldn’t be too quick to call Moscow the mercy capital of the world, but if you can help me—really help me—maybe I can help your mother.”

  “Goddamned bullshit promises. What the hell can you do?”

  “To repeat what I said an hour ago to a bald-headed friend of yours in the plane, I don’t owe my government a thing, but it sure as hell owes me. Help me, Benjamin.”

  “I will because I’ve been ordered to, not because of your con. But if you try to learn things that have nothing to do with your purpose here—you won’t get out. Clear?”

  “It’s not only clear, it’s irrelevant and unnecessary. Beyond normal astonishment and curiosity, both of which I will suppress to the best of my ability, I haven’t the slightest interest in the objectives of Novgorod. Ultimately, in my opinion, they lead nowhere.… Although, I grant you, the whole complex beats the hell out of Disneyland.”

  Benjamin’s involuntary laugh through the straw caused the foam on his milk shake to swell and burst. “Have you been to Anaheim?” he asked mischievously.

  “I could never afford it.”

  “We had diplomatic passes.”

  “Christ, you’re human, after all. Come on, let’s take a walk and talk some turkey.”

  They crossed over a miniature bridge into New London, Connecticut, home of America’s submarine construction, and strolled down to the Volkhov River, which in this area had been turned into a maximum security naval base—again, all in realistic miniature. High fences and armed “U.S. Marine” guards were stationed at the gates and patrolled the grounds fronting the concrete slips that held enormous mock-ups of the stallions of America’s nuclear undersea fleet.

  “We have all the stations, all the schedules, every device and every reduced inch of the piers,” said Benjamin. “And we’ve yet to break the security procedures. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Not for a minute. We’re pretty good.”

  “Yes, but we’re better. Except for minor pockets of discontent, we believe. You merely accept.”

  “What?”

  “Your crap notwithstanding, white America was never in slavery. We were.”

  “That’s not only long-past history, young man, but rather selective history, isn’t it?”

  “You sound like a professor.”

  “Suppose I were?”

  “I’d argue with you.”

  “Only if you were in a sufficiently broad-minded environment that allowed you to argue with authority.”

  “Oh, come on, cut the bullshit, man! The academic-freedom bromide is history. Check out our campuses. We’ve got rock and blue jeans and more grass than you can find the right paper to roll it in.”

  “That’s progress?”

  “Would you believe it’s a start?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Can you really help my mother?”

  “Can you really help me?”

  “Let’s try.… Okay, this Carlos the Jackal. I’ve heard of him but he’s not large in my vocabulary. Direktor Krupkin says he’s one very bad dude.”

  “I hear California checking in.”

  “It comes back. Forget it. I’m where I want to be and don’t for a moment think otherwise.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “What?”

  “You keep protesting—”

  “Shakespeare said it better. My minor at UCLA was English lit.”

  “What was your major?”

  “American history. What else, Grandpa?”

  “Thanks, kid.”

  “This Jackal,” said Benjamin, leaning against the New London fence as several guards began to run toward him. “Prosteetye!” he yelled. “No, no! I mean, excuse me. Tak govorya! I’m a trainer!… Oh, shit!”

  “Will you be reported?” asked Jason as they quickly walked away.

  “No, they’re too damned dumb. They’re maintenance personnel in uniform

s; they walk their posts but they don’t really know what’s going on. Only who and what to stop.”

  “Pavlov’s dogs?”

  “Who better? Animals don’t rationalize; they go for the throats and plug up the holes.”

  “Which brings us back to the Jackal,” said Bourne.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to, it’s symbolic. How could he get in here?”

  “He couldn’t. Every guard in every tunnel up the line has the name and serial numbers of the Novgorod papers he took from the agent he killed in Moscow. If he shows up, they’ll stop him and shoot him on sight.”

  “I told Krupkin not to do that.”

  “For Christ’s sake, why?”

  “Because it won’t be him and lives could be lost. He’ll send in others, maybe two or three or four into different compounds, always testing, confusing, until he finds a way to get through.”

  “You’re nuts. What happens to the men he sends in?”

  “It wouldn’t matter. If they’re shot, he watches and learns something.”

  “You’re really crazy. Where would he find people like that?”

  “Anyplace where there are people who think they’re making a month’s salary for a few minutes’ work. He could call each one a routine security check—remember, he’s got the papers to prove he’s official. Combined with money, people are impressed with such documents and aren’t too skeptical.”

  “And at the first gate he loses those papers,” insisted the trainer.

  “Not at all. He’s driving over five hundred miles through a dozen towns and cities. He could easily have copies made in any number of places. Your business centers have Xerox machines; they’re all over the place, and touching up those papers to look like the real items is no sweat.” Bourne stopped and looked at the Americanized Soviet. “You’re talking details, Ben, and take my word for it, they don’t count. Carlos is coming here to leave his mark, and we have one advantage that blows away all his expertise. If Krupkin was able to get the news out properly, the Jackal thinks I’m dead.”

  “The whole world thinks you’re dead.… Yes, Krupkin told me; it would’ve been dumb not to. In here, you’re a recruit named ‘Archie,’ but I know who you are, Bourne. Even if I’d never heard of you before, I sure as hell have now. You’re all Radio Moscow’s been talking about for hours.”