Diplomats said to be linked with fugitive terrorist known as Carlos 22 страница

So they registered erroneously and were given a plastic room where every accessory worth over twenty francs was bolted into the floor or attached with headless screws to lacquered Formica laminate. There was, however, one positive feature to the place; an ice machine down the hall. They knew it worked because they could hear it. With the door closed.

'All right, now. Who would be sending us a message?' asked Bourne, standing, revolving the glass of whisky in his hand.

'If I knew, I'd get in touch with them,' she said, sitting at the small desk, chair turned, legs crossed, watching him closely. 'It could be connected with why you were running away.'

'If it was, it was a trap.'

'It was no trap. A man like Walther Apfel didn't do what he did to accommodate a trap.'

'I wouldn't be so sure of that.' Bourne walked to the single plastic armchair and sat down. 'Koenig did; he marked me right there in the waiting room.'

'He was a bribed foot-soldier, not an officer of the bank. He acted alone. Apfel couldn't.'

Jason looked up. 'What do you mean?'

'Apfel's statement had to be cleared by his superiors. It was made in the name of the bank.'

'If you're so sure, let's call Zurich.'

'They don't want that Either they haven't the answer, or they can't give it Apfel's last words were that they "would have no further comment To anyone." That too, was part of the message. We're to contact someone else.'

Bourne drank; he needed the alcohol for the moment was coming when he would begin the story of a killer named Cain. Then we're back to whom?' he said. 'Back to the trap.'

'You think you know who it is, don't you?' Marie reached for her cigarettes on the desk. 'It's why you were running, isn't it?'

"The answer to both questions is yes.' The moment had come. The message was sent by Carlos! I am Cain and you must leave me! I must lose you. But first there is Zurich and you have to understand. 'That article was planted to find me.'

'I won't argue with that,' she broke in, surprising him with the interruption. 'I've had time to think; they know the evidence is false – so patently false it's ridiculous. The Zurich police fully expect me to get in touch with the Canadian Embassy now...' Marie stopped, the unlit cigarette in her hand. 'My God, Jason, that's what they want us to do!'

'Who wants us to do?'

'Hoover's sending us the message. They know I have no choice but to call the embassy, get the protection of the Canadian government. I didn't think of it because I've already spoken to the embassy, to what's his name – Dennis Corbelier, and he had absolutely nothing to tell me. He only did what I asked him to do; there was nothing else. But that was yesterday.,. Not today, not tonight." Marie started for the telephone on the bedside table.

Bourne rose quickly from the chair and intercepted her, holding her arm. 'Don't,' he said firmly.

'Why not?'

'Because you're wrong.'

'I'm right, Jason! Let me prove it to you.'

Bourne moved in front of her. 'I think you'd better listen to what I have to say."

'No!' she cried, startling him. 'I don't want to hear it Not now!'

'An hour ago in Paris it was the only thing you wanted to hear. Hear it!'

'No! An hour ago I was dying! You'd made up your mind to run. Without me. And I know now it will happen over and over again until it stops for you. You hear words, you see images, and fragments of things come back to you that you can't understand, but because they're there you condemn yourself! You always will condemn yourself until someone proves to you that whatever you were... there are others using you, who will sacrifice you! But there's also someone else out there who wants to help you, help us! That's the message! I know I'm right. I want to prove it to you. Let me!' Bourne held her arms in silence, looking at her, her lovely face filled with pain and useless hope, her eyes pleading. The terrible ache was everywhere within him. Perhaps it was better this way; she would see for herself and her fear would make her listen, make her understand. There was nothing for them any longer. 7 am Cain... 'All right, you can make the call, but it's got to be done my way.' He released her and went to the telephone; he dialled the Auberge du Coin's front desk. "This is room three-four-one. I've just heard from friends in Paris; they're coming out to join us in a while. Do you have a room down the hall for them...? Fine. Their name is Briggs, an American couple. I'll come down and pay in advance and you can let me have the key... Splendid. Thank you.'

'What are you doing?'

'Proving something to you,' he said. 'Get me a dress,' he continued. The longest one you've got'

'What?'

'If you want to make your call, you'll do as I tell you.'

'You're crazy.'

'I've admitted that,' he said, taking trousers and a shirt from his suitcase. The dress, please?

Fifteen minutes later, Mr and Mrs Briggs' room, six doors away and across the hall from three-four-one, was in readiness. The clothes had been properly placed, selected lights left on, others not functioning because the bulbs had been removed.

Jason returned to their room; Marie was standing by the telephone. 'We're set'

'What have you done?'

'What I wanted to do; what I had to do. You can make the call now.'

'It's very late. Suppose he isn't there?'

'I think he will be. If not, they'll give you his home phone. His name was on the telephone logs in Ottawa; it had to be.'

'I suppose it was.'

Then he will have been reached. Have you gone over what I told you to say?'

'Yes, but it doesn't matter; it's not relevant I know I'm not wrong.'

'We'll see. Just say the words I told you. I'll be right beside you listening. Go ahead.'

She picked up the phone and dialled. Seven seconds after she reached the embassy switchboard, Dennis Corbelier was on the line. It was quarter past one in the morning.

'Christ almighty, where are you?'

'You were expecting me to call then?'

'I was hoping to hell you would! This place is in an uproar. I've been waiting here since five o'clock this afternoon.'

'So was Alan. In Ottawa.'

'Alan who? What are you talking about? Where the hell are you?'

'First, I want to know what you have to tell me.'

'Tell you?'

'You have a message for me, Dennis. What is it?'

'What is what? What message?"

Marie's face went pale. 'I didn't kill anyone in Zurich. I wouldn't..."

"Then for God's sake,' interrupted the attache, 'get in here I We'll give you all the protection we can. No one can touch you here!'

'Dennis, listen to me! You've been waiting there for my call, haven't you?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Someone told you to wait, isn't that true?'

A pause. When Corbelier spoke, his voice was subdued. 'Yes, he did. They did.'

'What did they tell you?'

'That you need our help. Very badly.'

Marie resumed breathing. 'And they want to help us?'

'By us,' replied Corbelier, 'you're saying he's with you, then?'

Bourne's face was next to hers, his head angled to hear Corbelier's words. He nodded.

'Yes,' she answered. 'We're together, but he's out for a few minutes. It's all lies; they told you that, didn't they?'

'All they said was that you had to be found, protected. They do want to help you; they want to send a car for you. One of ours. Diplomatic.'

'Who are they?'

'I don't know them by name: I don't have to. I know their rank.'

'Rank?'

'Specialists, FS-Five. You don't get much higher than that'

'You trust them?'

'My God, yes! They reached me through Ottawa. Their orders came from Ottawa!'

"They're at the embassy now?'

'No, they're out-posted.' Corbelier paused, obviously exasperated. 'Jesus Christ, Marie, where are you?'

Bourne nodded again, she spoke.

'We're at the Auberge du Coin in Montrouge. Under the name of Briggs.'

I'll get that car to you right away.'

'No, Dennis!' protested Marie, watching Jason, his eyes telling her to follow his instructions. 'Send one in the morning.

First thing in the morning – four hours from now, if you like.'

'I can't do that I For your own sake.'

'You have to; you don't understand. He was trapped into doing something and he's frightened: he wants to run. If he knew I called you, he'd be running now. Give me time. I can persuade him to turn himself in. Just a few more hours. He's confused, but underneath he knows I'm right.' Marie said the words looking at Bourne.

'What kind of a son of a bitch is he?'

'A terrified one,' she answered. 'One who's being manipulated. I need the time. Give it to me.'

'Marie,..?' Corbelier stopped. 'All right, first thing in the morning. Say... six o'clock. And, Marie, they want to help you. They can help you.'

'I know. Good night'

'Good night

Marie hung up. 'Now, we'll wait,' Bourne said.

'I don't know what you're proving. Of course he'll call the FS-Fives, and of course they'll show up here. What do you expect? He as much as admitted what he was going to do, what he thinks he has to do.'

'And these diplomatic FS-Fives are the ones sending us the message?'

'My guess is they'll take us to whoever is. Or if those sending it are too far away, they'll put us in touch with them. I've never been surer of anything in my professional life.'

Bourne looked at her. 'I hope you're right, because it's your whole life that concerns me. If the evidence against you in Zurich isn't part of any message, if it was put there by experts to find me – if the Zurich police believe it – then I'm that terrified man you spoke about to Corbelier. No one wants you to be right more than I do. But I don't think you are.'

At three minutes past two, the lights in the motel corridor flickered and went out, leaving the long hallway in relative darkness, the spill from the stairwell the only source of illumination. Bourne stood by the door of their room, pistol in hand, the lights turned off, watching the corridor through a crack between the door's edge and the frame. Marie was behind him, peering over his shoulder; neither spoke.

The footsteps were muffled, but there. Distinct, deliberate, two sets of shoes cautiously climbing the staircase. In seconds, the figures of two men could be seen emerging out of the dim light. Marie gasped involuntarily; Jason reached over his shoulder, his hand gripping her mouth harshly. He understood; she had recognized one of the two men, a man she had seen only once before. In Zurich's Steppdeckstrasse, minutes before another had ordered her execution. It was the blond man they had sent up to Bourne's room, the expendable scout brought now to Paris to spot the target he had missed. In his left hand was a small pencil light, in his right a long-barrelled gun, swollen by a silencer.

His companion was shorter, more compact, his walk not unlike an animal's tread, shoulders and waist moving fluidly with his legs. The lapels of his overcoat were pulled up, his head covered by a narrow-brimmed hat, shading his unseen face. Bourne stared at this man; there was something familiar about him, about the figure, the walk, the way he carried his head. What was it? What was it? He knew him.

But there was not time to think about it; the two men were approaching the door of the room reserved in the name of Mr and Mrs Briggs. The blond man held his pencil light on the numbers, then swept the beam down towards the knob and the lock.

What followed was mesmerising in its efficiency. The stocky man held a ring of keys in his right hand, placing it under the beam of light, his fingers selecting a specific key. In his left hand he gripped a weapon, its shape in the spill revealing an out-sized silencer for a heavy-calibred automatic, not unlike the powerful German Sternlicht Luger favoured by the Gestapo in World War Two. It could cut through webbed steel and concrete, its sound no more than a romantic cough, ideal for taking enemies of the state at night in quiet neighbourhoods, nearby residents unaware of any disturbances, only of disappearance in the morning.

The shorter man inserted the key, turned it silently, then lowered the barrel of the gun to the lock. Three rapid coughs accompanied three flashes of light; the wood surrounding any bolts shattered. The door fell free; the two killers rushed inside.

There were two beats of silence, then an eruption of muffled gunfire, spits and white flashes from the darkness. The door was slammed shut; it would not stay closed, falling back as louder sounds of thrashing and collision came from within the room. Finally, a light was found; it was snapped on briefly, then shot out in fury, a lamp sent crashing to the floor, glass shattering. A cry of frenzy exploded from the throat of an infuriated man.

The two killers rushed out, weapons levelled, prepared for a trap, bewildered that there was none. They reached the staircase and raced down as a door to the right of the invaded room opened. A blinking guest peered out, then shrugged and went back inside. Silence returned to the darkened hallway. Bourne held his place, his arm around Marie St Jacques. She was trembling, her head pressed into his chest, sobbing quietly, hysterically in disbelief. He let the minutes pass, until the trembling subsided and deep breaths replaced the sobs. He could not wait any longer; she had to see for herself. See completely, the impression indelible; she had to finally understand. I am Cain. I am death. 'Come on,' he whispered.

He led her out into the hall, guiding her firmly towards the room that was now his ultimate proof. He pushed the broken door open and they walked inside.

She stood motionless, both repelled and hypnotized by the sight In an open doorway on the right was the dim silhouette of a figure, the light behind it so muted only the outline could be seen, and only when the eyes adjusted to the strange admixture of darkness and glow. It was the figure of a woman in a long gown, the fabric moving gently in the breeze of an open window.

Window. Straight ahead was a second figure, barely visible but there, its shape an obscure blot indistinctly outlined by the wash of light from the distant highway. Again, it seemed to move, brief, spastic flutterings of cloth – of arms.

'Oh, God,' said Marie, frozen. Turn on the lights, Jason.'

'None of them work,' he replied. Only two table lamps, they found one. He walked across the room cautiously and reached the lamp he was looking for; it was on the floor against the wall. He knelt down and turned it on; Marie shuddered.

Strung across the bathroom door, held in place by threads torn from a curtain, was her long dress, rippling from an unseen source of wind. It was riddled with bullet holes.

'Against the far window, Bourne's shirt and trousers had been tacked to the frame, the panes by both sleeves smashed, the breeze rushing in, causing the fabric to move up and down. The white cloth of the shirt was punctured in a half-dozen places, a diagonal line of bullets across the chest.

'There's your message,' said Jason. 'Now you know what it is. And now I think you'd better listen to what I have to say.'

Marie did not answer him. Instead, she walked slowly to the dress, studying it as if not believing what she saw. Without warning, she suddenly spun around, her eyes glittering, the tears arrested. 'No! It's wrong! Something's terribly wrong! Call the embassy.' 'What?'

'Do as I say. Now!'

'Stop it, Marie. You've got to understand.' 'No, goddamn you! You've got to understand! It wouldn't happen this way. It couldn't? 'It did.'

'Call the embassy! Use that phone over there and call it now! Ask for Corbelier. Quickly, for God's sake! If I mean anything to you, do as I ask!'

Bourne could not deny her. Her intensity killing both herself and him. 'What do I tell him?' he asked, going to the telephone.

'Get him first! That's what I'm afraid of... oh, God, I'm frightened!' 'What's the number?'

She gave it to him; he dialled, holding on interminably for the switchboard to answer. When it finally did, the operator was in panic, her words rising and falling, at moments incomprehensible. In the background, he could hear shouts, sharp commands voiced rapidly in English and in French. Within seconds he learned why.

Dennis Corbelier, Canadian attaché, had walked down the steps of the embassy on the avenue Montaigne at 1.40 in the morning and had been shot in the throat. He was dead.

'There's the other part of the message, Jason,' whispered

Marie, drained, staring at him. 'And now I'll listen to anything you have to say. Because there is someone out there trying to reach you, trying to help you. A message was sent, but not to us, not to me. Only to you, and only you were to understand it.

One by one the four men arrived at the crowded Hilton Hotel on Sixteenth Street in Washington, D. C. Each went to a separate lift, taking it two or three floors above or below his destination, walking the remaining flights to the correct level There was no time to meet outside the limits of the District of Columbia; the crisis was unparalleled. These were men of Treadstone Seventy-one – those that remained alive. The rest were dead, slaughtered in a massacre on a quiet, tree-lined street in New York.

Two of the faces were familiar to the public, one more than the other. The first belonged to the ageing senator from Colorado, the second was Brigadier-General I. A. Crawford -Irwin Arthur, freely translated as Iron Ass – acknowledged spokesman for Army Intelligence and defender of the G-Two data banks. The other two men were virtually unknown, except within the corridors of their own operations. One was a middle-aged naval officer, attached to Information Control, 5th Naval District The fourth and last man was a forty-six-year-old veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, a slender, coiled spring of anger who walked with a cane. His foot had been blown off by a grenade in South-east Asia; he had been a deep cover agent with the Medusa operation at the time. His name was Alexander Conklin.

There was no conference table in the room; it was an ordinary double bedroom with the standard twin beds, a couch, two armchairs and a coffee table. It was an unlikely spot to hold a meeting of such consequence; there were no spinning computers to light up dark screens with green letters, no electronic communications equipment that would reach consoles in London or Paris or Istanbul. It was a plain hotel room, devoid of everything but four minds that held the secrets of Tread stone Seventy-one.

The senator sat at one end of the couch, the naval officer at the other. Conklin lowered himself into an armchair, stretching his immobile limb out in front of him, the cane between his legs, while Brigadier-General Crawford remained standing, his face flushed, the muscles of his jaw pulsing in anger.

'I've reached the President,' said the senator, rubbing his forehead, the lack of sleep apparent in his bearing. 'I had to; we're meeting tonight. Tell me everything you can, each of you. You begin, General. What in the name of God happened?'

'Major Webb was to meet his car at twenty-three-hundred hours on the corner of Lexington and Seventy-second Street. The time was firm, but he didn't show up. By twenty-three-thirty the driver became alarmed because of the distance to the airfield in New Jersey. The sergeant remembered the address – mainly because he'd been told to forget it – drove round and went to the door. The security bolts had been jammed, and the door just swung open; all the alarms had been shorted out. There was blood on the foyer floor, the dead woman on the staircase. He walked down the hall into the operations room and found the bodies.'

'That man deserves a very quiet promotion,' said the naval officer.

'Why do you say that?' asked the senator. Crawford replied. 'He had the presence of mind to call the Pentagon and insist on speaking with covert transmissions, domestic. He specified the scrambler frequency, the time and the place of reception, and said he had to speak with the sender. He didn't say a word to anyone until he got me on the phone.'

'Put him in the War College, Irwin,' said Conklin grimly, holding his cane. 'He's brighter than most of the clowns you've got over there.'

That's not only unnecessary, Conklin,' admonished the senator, 'but patently offensive. Go on, please, General.'

Crawford exchanged looks with the C.I.A. man. I reached Colonel Paul McClaren in New York, ordered him over there, and told him to do absolutely nothing until I arrived. I then phoned Conklin and George here, and we flew up together.'

'I called a Bureau print team in Manhattan,' added Conklin. 'One we've used before, and can trust I didn't tell them what we were looking for, but I told them to sweep the place and give what they found only to me.' The C.I.A. man stopped, lifting his cane in the direction of the naval officer. Then George fed them thirty-seven names, all men whose prints we knew were in the F.B.I. files. They came up with the one set we didn't expect, didn't want... didn't believe.'

'Delta's,' said the senator.

'Yes,' concurred the naval officer. The names I submitted were those of anyone – no matter how remote – who might have learned the address of Treadstone, including, incidentally, all of us. The room had been wiped clean; every surface; every knob, every glass – except one. It was a broken brandy glass, only a few fragments in the corner under a curtain, but it was enough. The prints were there: third and index fingers, right hand.'

'You're absolutely positive?' asked the senator slowly.

'The prints can't lie, sir,' said the officer. They were there, moist brandy still on the fragments. Outside this room, Delta's the only one who knows about Seventy-first Street'

'Can we be sure of that? The others may have said something.'

'No possibility,' interrupted the brigadier-general. 'Abbott would never have revealed it and Elliot Stevens wasn't given the address until fifteen minutes before he got there, when he called from a phone booth. Beyond that, assuming the worst, he would hardly ask for his own execution.'

'What about Major Webb?' pressed the senator.

The major,' replied Crawford, 'was radioed the address by me after he landed at Kennedy Airport As you know, it was a G-Two frequency and scrambled. I remind you, he also lost his life.'

'Yes, of course.' The ageing senator shook his head. 'It's unbelievable. Why?'

'I should like to bring up a painful subject,' said Brigadier-General Crawford. 'At the outset, I was not enthusiastic about the candidate. I understood David's reasoning and agreed he was qualified, but if you recall, he wasn't my choice.'

'I wasn't aware we had that many choices,' said the senator. 'We had a man – a qualified man, as you agreed – who was willing to go in deep cover for an indeterminate length of tune, risking his life every day, severing all ties with his past How many such men exist?'

'We might have found a more balanced one,' countered the brigadier. 'I pointed that out at the time.'

'You pointed out,' corrected Conklin, 'your own definition of a balanced man, which I, at the time, pointed out was a crock.'

'We were both in Medusa, Conklin,' said Crawford, angrily yet reasonably. 'You don't have exclusive insight. Delta's conduct in the field was continuously and overtly hostile to command. I was in a position to observe that pattern somewhat more clearly than you. '

'Most of the time he had every right to be. If you'd spent more time in the field and less in Saigon you would have understood that. I understood it.'

'It may surprise you,' said the brigadier, holding his hand up in a gesture of truce, 'but I'm not defending the gross stupidities often rampant in Saigon, no one could. I'm trying to describe a pattern of behaviour that could lead to the night before last on Seventy-first Street.'

The C.I.A. man's eyes remained on Crawford; his hostility vanished as he nodded his head. 'I know you are. Sorry. That's the crux of it, isn't it? It's not easy for me; I worked with Delta in half a dozen sectors, was stationed with him in Phnom-Penh before Medusa was even a gleam in the Monk's eye. He was never the same after Phnom-Penh; it's why he went into Medusa, why he was willing to become Cain.'

The senator leaned forward on the couch. "I've heard it, but tell me again. The President has to know everything.'

'His wife and two children were killed on a pier in the Mekong River, bombed and strafed by a stray aircraft – nobody knew which side's – the identity never uncovered. He hated that war, hated everybody in it He snapped.' Conklin paused, looking up at the brigadier. 'And I think you're right, General. He snapped again. It was in him.' 'What was?" asked the senator sharply. The explosion, I guess,' said Conklin. The dam burst He'd gone beyond his limits and the hate took over. It's not hard, you have to be very careful. He killed those men, that woman, like a madman on a deliberate rampage. None of them expected it, except perhaps the woman who was upstairs and probably heard the shouts,.. He's not Delta any more. We created a myth called Cain, only it's not a myth any longer. It's really him.'

'After so many months...' The senator leaned back, his voice trailing off. 'Why did he come back? From where?'

'From Zurich,' answered Crawford. 'Webb was in Zurich and I think he's the only one who could have brought him back. The "why" we may never know unless he expected to catch all of us there.'

'He doesn't know who we are,' protested the senator. 'His only contacts were the Yachtsman, his wife and David Abbott.'

'And Webb, of course,' added the general.

'Of course,' agreed the senator. 'But not at Treadstone, not even him.'

'It wouldn't matter,' said Conklin, tapping the rug once with his cane. 'He knows "there's a board; Webb might have told him we'd all be there, reasonably expecting that we would. We've got a lot of questions – six months' worth, and now several million dollars. Delta would consider it the perfect solution. He could take us and disappear. No traces.'

'Why are you so certain?'

'Because, one, he was there,' replied the intelligence man, raising his voice. 'We have his prints on a glass of brandy that wasn't even finished. And, two, it's a classic trap with a couple of hundred variations.'

'Would you explain that?'

'You remain silent,' broke in the general, watching Conklin, 'until your enemy can't stand it any longer and exposes himself.'

'And we've become the enemy? His enemy?'

There's no question about it now,' said the naval officer. 'For whatever reasons, Delta's turned. It's happened before thank heaven, not very often. We know what to do.'

The senator once more leaned forward on the couch. 'What will you do?'

'His photograph has never been circulated,' explained Craw-ford. 'We'll circulate it now. To every station and listening post, every source and informant we have. He has to go somewhere, and he'll start with a place he knows, if only to buy another identity. He'll spend money; he'll be found. When he is, the orders will be clear.'

'You'll bring him in at once?'

'We'll kill him,' said Conklin simply. 'You don't bring in a man like Delta, and you don't take the risk that another government will. Not with what he knows.'

'I can't tell the President that! There are laws.'

'Not for Delta,' said the agent 'He's beyond the law. He's beyond salvage.'

'Beyond...'

That's right, Senator,' interrupted the general. 'Beyond salvage. I think you know the meaning of the phrase. You'll have to make the decision whether or not to define it for the President. It might be better to...'

'You've got to explore everything' said the senator, cutting off the officer. 'I spoke to Abbott last week. He told me a strategy was in progress to reach Delta. Zurich, the bank, the naming of Treadstone; it's all part of it, isn't it?'

'It is, and it's over,' said Crawford. 'If the evidence on Seventy-first Street isn't enough for you, that should be. Delta was given a clear signal to come in. He didn't What more do you want?'

'I want to be absolutely certain!

'I want him dead.' Conklin's words, though spoken softly, had the effect of a sudden, cold wind. 'He not only broke all the rules we each set down for ourselves – no matter what but he sunk into the pits. He reeks; he is Cain. We've used the name Delta so much – not even Bourne, but Delta – that I think we've forgotten. Gordon Webb was his brother. Find him. Kill him.'

Book 3

It was ten minutes to three in the morning when Bourne approached the Auberge du Coin's front desk, Marie continuing directly to the entrance. To Jason's relief, there were no newspapers on the counter, but the night clerk behind it was from the same mould as his predecessor in the centre of Paris. He was a balding, heavy-set man with half-closed eyes, leaning back in a chair, his arms folded in front of him, the weary depression of his interminable night hanging over him. But this night, thought Bourne, would be one he'd remember for a long time to come – quite apart from the damage to an upstairs room, which would not be discovered until morning. A night clerk in Montrouge must have his own transportation.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04