“It’s whatever you want to make of it,” said Marie. “If it’s true.”
   “Why wouldn’t it be?”
   “Because the doctor was more often drunk than sober. You’ve told me that. He piled conjecture on top of conjecture, heaven knows how warped by alcohol. He was never specific. He couldn’t be.”
   “He was about one thing. I’m a chameleon, designed to fit a flexible mold. I want to find out whose; maybe I can now. Thanks to you I’ve got an address. Someone there may know the truth.
   Just one man, that’s all I need. One person I can confront, break if I have to ...”
   “I can’t stop you, but for God’s sake be careful. If they do recognize you, they’ll kill you.”
   “Not there they won’t; it’d be rotten for business. This is Paris.”
   “I don’t think that’s funny, Jason.”
   “Neither do I. I’m counting on it very seriously.”
   “What are you going to do? I mean, how?”
   “I’ll know better when I get there. See if anyone’s running around looking nervous or anxious or waiting for a phone call as if his life depended on it.”
   “Then what?”
   “I’ll do the same as I did with d’Amacourt. Wait outside and follow whoever it is. I’m this close; I won’t miss. And I’ll be careful.”
   “Will you call me?”
   “I’ll try.”
   “I may go crazy waiting. Not knowing.”
   “Don’t wait. Can you deposit the bonds somewhere?”
   “The banks are closed.”
   “Use a large hotel; hotels have vaults.”
   “You have to have a room.”
   “Take one. At the Meurice or the George Cinq. Leave the case at the desk but come back here.”
   Marie nodded. “It would give me something to do.”
   “Then call Ottawa. Find out what happened.”
   “I will.”
   Bourne crossed to the bedside table and picked up a number of five-thousand franc notes. “A bribe would be easier,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll happen, but it could.”
   “It could,” agreed Marie, and then in the same breath continued. “Did you hear yourself? You just rattled off the names of two hotels.”
   “I heard.” He turned and faced her. “I’ve been here before. Many times. I lived here, but not in those hotels. In out-of-the-way streets, I think. Not very easily found.” The moment passed in silence, the fear electric.
   “I love you, Jason.”
   “I love you, too,” said Bourne.
   “Come back to me. No matter what happens, come back to me.”
   The lighting was soft and dramatic, pinpoint spotlights shining down from the dark brown ceiling, bathing manikins and expensively dressed clients in pools of flattering yellows. The jewelry and accessories counters were lined with black velvet, silks of bright red and green tastefully flowing above the midnight sheen, glistening eruptions of gold and silver caught in the recessed frame lights.
   The aisles curved graciously in semicircles, giving an illusion of space that was not there, for Les Classiques, though hardly small, was not a large emporium. It was, however, a beautifully appointed store on one of the most costly strips of real estate in Paris. Fitting rooms with doors of tinted glass were at the rear, beneath a balcony where the offices of management were located. A carpeted staircase rose on the right beside an elevated switchboard in front of which sat an oddly out-of-place middle-aged man dressed in a conservative business suit, operating the console, speaking into a mouthpiece that was an extension of his single earphone.
   The clerks were mostly women, tall, slender, gaunt of face and body, living postmortems of former fashion models whose tastes and intelligence had carried them beyond their sisters in the trade, other practices no longer feasible. The few men in evidence were also slender; reedlike figures emphasized by form-fitting clothes, gestures rapid, stances balletically defiant.
   Light romantic music floated out of the dark ceiling, quiet crescendos abstractly punctuated by the beams of the miniature spotlights. Jason wandered through the aisles, studying manikins, touching the fabric, making his own appraisals. They covered his essential bewilderment. Where was the confusion, the anxiety he expected to find at the core of Carlos’ message center? He glanced up at the open office doors and the single corridor that bisected the small complex. Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip. Nowhere was there the slightest sense of urgency, no sign at all that a vital trap had exploded in their faces, an imported killer--the only man in Paris who worked for Carlos and could identify the target--shot in the head, dead in the back of an armored van on the Quai de la Rapée.
   It was incredible, if only because the whole atmosphere was the opposite of what he had anticipated. Not that he expected to find chaos, far from it; the soldiers of Carlos were too controlled for that. Still he had expected something. And here there were no strained faces, or darting eyes, no abrupt movements that signified alarm. Nothing whatsoever was unusual; the elegant world of haute couture continued to spin in its elegant orbit, unmindful of events that should have thrown its axis off balance.
   Still, there was a private telephone somewhere and someone who not only spoke for Carlos but was also empowered to set in motion three killers on the hunt. A woman ...
   He saw her, it had to be her. Halfway down the carpeted staircase, a tall imperious woman with a face that age and cosmetics had rendered into a cold mask of itself. She was stopped by a reedlike male clerk who held out a salesbook for the woman’s approval; she looked at it, then glanced down at the floor, at a nervous, middle-aged man by a nearby jewelry counter. The glance was brief but pointed, the message clear. All right, mon ami, pick up your bauble but pay your bill soon. Otherwise you could be embarrassed next time. Or worse. I might call your wife. In milliseconds the rebuke was over; a smile as false as it was broad cracked the mask, and with a nod and a flourish the woman took a pencil from the clerk and initialed the sales slip. She continued down the staircase, the clerk following, leaning forward in further conversation. It was obvious he was flattering her; she turned on the-bottom step, touching her crown of streaked dark hair and tapped his wrist in a gesture of thanks.
   There was little placidity in the woman’s eyes. They were as aware as any pair of eyes Bourne had ever seen, except perhaps behind gold-rimmed glasses in Zurich.
   Instinct. She was his objective; it remained how to reach her. The first moves of the pavane had to be subtle, neither too much nor too little, but warranting attention. She had to come to him.
   The next few minutes astonished Jason--which was to say he astonished himself. The term was “role-playing,” he understood that, but what shocked him was the ease with which he slid into a character far from himself--as he knew himself. Where minutes before he had made appraisals, he now made inspections, pulling garments from their individual racks, holding the fabrics up to the light. He peered closely at stitchings, examined buttons and buttonholes, brushing his fingers across collars, fluffing them up, then letting them fall. He was a judge of fine clothes, a schooled buyer who knew what he wanted and rapidly disregarded that which did not suit his tastes. The only items he did not examine were the price tags; obviously they held no interest for him.
   The fact that they did not prodded the interest of the imperious woman who kept glancing over in his direction. A sales clerk, her concave body floating upright on the carpet, approached him; he smiled courteously, but said he preferred to browse by himself. Less than thirty seconds later he was behind three manikins, each dressed in the most expensive designs to be found in Les Classiques.
   He raised his eyebrows, his mouth set in silent approval as he squinted between the plastic figures at the woman beyond the counter. She whispered to the clerk who had spoken to him; the former model shook her head, shrugging.
   Bourne stood arms akimbo, billowing his cheeks, his breath escaping slowly as his eyes shifted from one manikin to another, he was an uncertain man about to make up his mind. And a potential client in that situation, especially one who did not look at prices, needed assistance from the most knowledgeable person in the vicinity; he was irresistible. The regal woman touched her hair and gracefully negotiated the aisles toward him. The pavane had come to its first conclusion; the dancers bowed, preparing for the gavotte.
   “I see you’ve gravitated to our better items, monsieur,” said the woman in English, a presumption obviously based on the judgment of a practiced eye.
   “I trust I have,” replied Jason. “You’ve got an interesting collection here, but one does have to ferret, doesn’t one?”
   “The ever-present and inevitable scale of values, monsieur. However, all our designs are exclusive.”
   “Cela va sans dire, madame.”
   “Ah, vous parlez français?”
   “Un peu. Passably.”
   “You are American?”
   “I’m rarely there,” said Bourne. “You say these are made for you alone?”
   “Oh, yes. Our designer is under exclusive contract; I’m sure you’ve heard of him. René Bergeron.”
   Jason frowned. “Yes. I have. Very respected, but he’s never made a breakthrough, has he?”
   “He will, monsieur. It’s inevitable; his reputation grows each season. A number of years ago he worked for St. Laurent, then Givenchy. Some say he did far more than cut the patterns, if you know what I mean.”
   “It’s not hard to follow.”
   “And how those cats try to push him in the background! It’s disgraceful! Because he adores women; he flatters them and does not make them into little boys, vous comprenez?”
   “Je vous comprends parfaitement.”
   “He’ll emerge worldwide one day soon and they’ll not be able to touch the hems of his creations.
   Think of these as the works of an emerging master, monsieur.”
   “You’re very convincing. I’ll take these three. I assume they’re in the size twelve range.”
   “Fourteen, monsieur. They will be fitted, of course.”
   “I’m afraid not, but I’m sure there are decent tailors in Cap-Ferrat.”
   “Naturellement,” conceded the woman quickly.
   “Also ...” Bourne hesitated, frowning again. “While I’m here, and to save time, select a few others for me along these lines. Different prints, different cuts, but related, if that makes sense.”
   “Very good sense, monsieur.”
   “Thanks, I appreciate it. I’ve had a long flight from the Bahamas and I’m exhausted.”
   “Would monsieur care to sit down then?”
   “Frankly, monsieur would care for a drink.”
   “It can be arranged, of course. As to the method of payment, monsieur ... ?”
   “Je paierai cash, I think,” said Jason, aware that the exchange of merchandise for hard currency would appeal to the overseer of Les Classiques. “Checks and accounts are like spoors in the forest, aren’t they?”
   “You are as wise as you are discriminating.” The rigid smile cracked the mask again, the eyes in no way related. “About that drink, why not my office? It’s quite private; you can relax and I shall bring you selections for your approval.”
   “Splendid.”
   “As to the price range, monsieur?”
   “Les meilleurs, madame.”
   “Naturellement.” A thin white hand was extended. “I am Jacqueline Lavier, managing partner of Les Classiques.”
   “Thank you.” Bourne took the hand without offering a name. One might follow in less public surroundings, his expression said, but not at the moment. For the moment, money was his introduction. “Your office? Mine’s several thousand miles from here.”
   “This way, monsieur.” The rigid smile appeared once more, breaking the facial mask like a sheet of progressively cracked ice. Madame Lavier gestured toward the staircase. The world of haute couture continued, its orbit uninterrupted by failure and death on the Quai de la Rapée.
   That lack of interruption was as disturbing to Jason as it was bewildering. He was convinced the woman walking beside him was the carrier of lethal commands that had been aborted by gunfire an hour ago, the orders having been issued by a faceless man who demanded obedience or death. Yet there was not the slightest indication that a strand of her perfectly groomed hair had been disturbed by nervous fingers, no pallor on the chiseled mask that might be taken for fear. Yet there was no one higher at Les Classiques, no one else who would have a private number in a very private office.
   Part of an equation was missing ... but another had been disturbingly confirmed.
   Himself. The chameleon. The charade had worked; he was in the enemy’s camp, convinced beyond doubt that he had not been recognized. The whole episode had a déjà vu quality about it. He had done such things before, experienced the feelings of similar accomplishment before. He was a man running through an unfamiliar jungle, yet somehow instinctively knowing his way, sure of where the traps were and how to avoid them. The chameleon was an expert.
   They reached the staircase and started up the steps. Below on the right, the conservatively dressed, middle-aged operator was speaking quietly into the extended mouthpiece, nodding his gray-haired head almost wearily, as if assuring the party on the line that their world was as serene as it should be.
   Bourne stopped on the seventh step, the pause involuntary. The back of the man’s head, the outline of the cheekbone, the sight of the thinning gray hair--the way it fell slightly over the ear; he had seen that man before! Somewhere. In the past, in the unremembered past, but remembered now in darkness ... and with flashes of light. Explosions, mists; buffeting winds followed by silences filled with tension. What was it? Where was it? Why did the pain come to his eyes again? The gray-haired man began to turn in his swivel chair, Jason looked away before they made contact.
   “I see monsieur is taken by our rather unique switchboard,” said Madame Lavier. “It’s a distinction we feel sets Les Classiques apart from the other shops on Saint-Honoré.”
   “How so?” asked Bourne, as they proceeded up the steps, the pain in his eyes causing him to blink.
   “When a client calls Les Classiques, the telephone is not answered by a vacuous female, but instead by a cultured gentleman who has all our information at his fingertips.”
   “A nice touch.”
   “Other gentlemen think so,” she added. “Especially when making telephone purchases they would prefer to keep confidential. There are no spoors in our forest, monsieur.” They reached Jacqueline Lavier’s spacious office. It was the lair of an efficient executive, scores of papers in separate piles on the desk, an easel against the wall holding watercolor sketches, some boldly initialed, others left untouched, obviously unacceptable. The walls were filled with framed photographs of the Beautiful People, their beauty too often marred by gaping mouths and smiles as false as the one on the mask of the inhabitant of the office. There was a bitch quality in the perfumed air, these were the quarters of an aging, pacing tigress, swift to attack any who threatened her possessions or the sating of her appetites. Yet she was disciplined; all things considered, an estimable liaison to Carlos.
   Who was that man on the switchboard? Where had he seen him?
   He was offered a drink from a selection of bottles; he chose brandy.
   “Do sit down, monsieur. I shall enlist the help of René himself, if I can find him.”
   “That’s very kind, but I’m sure whatever you choose will be satisfactory. I have an instinct about taste; yours is all through this office. I’m comfortable with it.”
   “You’re too generous.”
   “Only when it’s warranted,” said Jason, still standing. “Actually, I’d like to look around at the photographs. I see a number of acquaintances, if not friends. A lot of these faces pass through the Bahamian banks with considerable frequency.”
   “I’m sure they do,” agreed Lavier, in a tone that bespoke regard for such avenues of finance. “I shan’t be long, monsieur.”
   Nor would she, thought Bourne, as Les Classiques’ partner swept out of the office. Mme. Lavier was not about to allow a tired, wealthy mark too much time to think. She would return with the most expensive designs she could gather up as rapidly as possible. Therefore, if there was anything in the room that could shed light on Carlos’ intermediary--or on the assassin’s operation--it had to be found quickly. And, if it was there, it would be on or around the desk.
   Jason circled behind the imperial chair in front of the wall, feigning amused interest in the photographs, but concentrating on the desk. There were invoices, receipts, and overdue bills, along with dunning letters of reprimand awaiting Lavier’s signature. An address book lay open, four names on the page; he moved closer to see more clearly. Each was the name of a company, the individual contacts bracketed, his or her positions underlined. He wondered if he should memorize each company, each contact. He was about to do so when his eyes fell on the edge of an index card. It was only the edge; the rest was concealed under the telephone itself. And there was something else--dull, barely discernible. A strip of transparent tape, running along the edge of the card, holding it in place. The tape itself was relatively new, recently stuck over the heavy paper and the gleaming wood; it was clean, no smudges or coiled borders or signs of having been there very long.
   Instinct.
   Bourne picked up the telephone to move it aside. It rang, the bell vibrating through his hand, the shrill sound unnerving. He replaced it on the desk and stepped away as a man in shirtsleeves rushed through the open door from the corridor. He stopped, staring at Bourne, his eyes alarmed but noncommittal. The telephone rang a second time; the man walked rapidly to the desk and picked up the receiver.
   “Allô?” There was silence as the intruder listened, head down, concentration on the caller. He was a tanned, muscular man of indeterminate age, the sun-drenched skin disguising the years. His face was taut, his lips thin, his close-cropped hair thick, dark brown, and disciplined. The sinews of his bare arms moved under the flesh as he transferred the phone from one hand to the other, speaking harshly. “Pas ici. Sais pas. Téléphonez plus tard ...” He hung up and looked at Jason. “Où est Jacqueline?”
   “A little slower, please,” said Bourne, lying in English. “My French is limited.”
   “Sorry,” replied the bronzed man. “I was looking for Madame Lavier.”
   “The owner?”
   “The title will suffice. Where is she?”
   “Depleting my funds.” Jason smiled, raising his glass to his lips.
   “Oh? And who are you, monsieur?”
   “Who are you?”
   The man studied Bourne. “René Bergeron.”
   “Oh, Lord!” exclaimed Jason. “She’s looking for you. You’re very good, Mr. Bergeron. She said I was to look upon your designs as the work of an emerging master.” Bourne smiled again. “You’re the reason I may have to wire the Bahamas for a great deal of money.”
   “You’re most kind, monsieur. And I apologize for barging in.”
   “Better that you answered that phone than me. Berlitz considers me a failure.”
   “Buyers, suppliers, all screaming idiots. To whom, monsieur, do I have the honor of speaking?’ “Briggs,” said Jason, having no idea where the name came from, astonished that it came so quickly, so naturally. “Charles Briggs.”
   “A pleasure to know you.” Bergeron extended his hand; the grip was firm. “You say Jacqueline was looking for me?”
   “On my behalf, I’m afraid.”
   “I shall find her.” The designer left quickly.
   Bourne stepped to the desk, his eyes on the door, his hand on the telephone. He moved it to the side, exposing the index card. There were two telephone numbers, the first recognizable as a Zurich exchange, the second obviously Paris.
   Instinct. He had been right, a strip of transparent tape the only sign he had needed. He stared at the numbers, memorizing them, then moved the telephone back in place and stepped away.
   He had barely managed to clear the desk when Madame Lavier swept back into the room, a half dozen dresses over her arm. “I met René on the steps. He approves of my selections most enthusiastically. He also tells me your name is Briggs, monsieur.”
   “I would have told you myself,” said Bourne, smiling back, countering the pout in Lavier’s voice.
   “But I don’t think you asked.”
   “ ‘Spoors in the forest,’ monsieur. Here, I bring you a feast!” She separated the dresses, placing them carefully over several chairs. “I truly believe these are among the finest creations René has brought us.”
   “Brought you? He doesn’t work here then?”
   “A figure of speech; his studio’s at the end of the corridor, but it is a holy sacristy. Even I tremble when I enter.”
   “They’re magnificent,” continued Bourne, going from one to another. ‘But I don’t want to overwhelm her, just pacify her,” he added, pointing out three garments. “I’ll take these.”
   “A fine selection, Monsieur Briggs!”
   “Box them with the others, if you will.”
   “Of course. She is, indeed, a fortunate lady.”
   “A good companion, but a child. A spoiled child, I’m afraid. However, Ire been away a lot and haven’t paid much attention to her, so I guess I should make peace. It’s one reason I sent her to Cap-Ferrat.” He smiled, taking out his Louis Vuitton billfold. “La facture, si’il vous plaît?”
   “I’ll have one of the girls expedite everything.” Madame Lavier pressed a button on the intercom next to the telephone. Jason watched closely, prepared to comment on the call Bergeron had answered in the event the woman’s eyes settled on a slightly out-of-place phone. “Faites venir Janine-– avec les robes. La facture aussi.” She stood up. “Another brandy, Monsieur Briggs?”
   “Merci bien.” Bourne extended his glass; she took it and walked to the bar. Jason knew the time had not yet arrived for what he had in mind; it would come soon--as soon as he parted with money--but not now. He could, however, continue building a foundation with the managing partner of Les Classiques. “That fellow Bergeron,” he said. “You say he’s under exclusive contract to you?”
   Madame Lavier turned, the glass in her hand. “Oh, yes. We are a closely knit family here.” Bourne accepted the brandy, nodded his thanks, and sat down in an armchair in front of the desk. “That’s a constructive arrangement,” he said pointlessly.
   The tall, gaunt clerk he had first spoken with came into the office, a salesbook in her hand.
   Instructions were given rapidly, figures entered, the garments gathered and separated as the salesbook exchanged hands. Lavier held it out for Jason’s perusal. “Voici la facture, monsieur,” she said.
   Bourne shook his head, dismissing inspection. “Com-bien?” he asked.
   “Vingt-mille, soixante francs, monsieur,” answered the Les Classiques partner, watching his reaction with the expression of a very large, wary bird.
   There was none. Jason merely removed five five-thousand-franc notes and handed them to her.
   She nodded and gave them in turn to the slender salesclerk, who walked cadaverously out of the office with the dresses.
   “Everything will be packaged and brought up here with your change.” Lavier went to her desk and sat down. “You’re on your way to Ferrat, then. It should be lovely.” He had paid; the time had come. “A last night in Paris before I go back to kindergarten,” said Jason, raising his glass in a toast of self-mockery.
   “Yes, you mentioned that your friend is quite young.”
   “A child is what I said, and that’s what she is. She’s a good companion, but I think I prefer the company of more mature women.”
   “You must be very fond of her,” contested Lavier, touching her perfectly coiffed hair, the flattery accepted. “You buy her such lovely--and, frankly--very expensive things.”
   “A minor price considering what she might try to opt for.”
   “Really.”
   “She’s my wife, my third to be exact, and there are appearances to be kept up in the Bahamas.
   But all that’s neither here nor there; my life’s quite in order.”
   “I’m sure it is, monsieur.”
   “Speaking of the Bahamas, a thought occurred to me a few minutes ago. It’s why I asked you about Bergeron.”
   “What is that?”
   “You may think I’m impetuous; I assure you I’m not. But when something strikes me, I like to explore it. Since Bergeron’s yours exclusively, have you ever given any thought to opening a branch in the islands?”
   “The Bahamas?”
   “And points south. Into the Caribbean, perhaps.”
   “Monsieur, Saint-Honoré by itself is often more than we can handle. Untended farmland generally goes fallow, as they say.”
   “It wouldn’t have to be tended; not in the way that you think. A concession here, one there, the
   designs exclusive, local ownership on a percentage-franchise basis. Just a boutique or two, spreading,
   of course, cautiously.”
   “That takes considerable capital, Monsieur Briggs.”
   “Key prices, initially. What you might call entrance fees. They’re high but not prohibitive, in the finer hotels and clubs it usually depends on how well you know the managements.”
   “And you know them?”
   “Extremely well. As I say, I’m just exploring, but I think the idea has merit. Your labels would have a certain distinction--Les Classiques, Paris, Grand Bahama ... Caneel Bay, Perhaps.” Bourne swallowed the rest of his brandy. “But you probably think I’m crazy. Consider it just talk. ...
   Although I’ve made a dollar or two on risks that simply struck me on the spur of the moment.”
   “Risks?” Jacqueline Lavier touched her hair again.
   “I don’t give ideas away, madame. I generally back them.”
   “Yes, I understand. As you say, the idea does have merit.”
   “I think so. Of course, I’d like to see what kind of agreement you have with Bergeron.”
   “It could be produced, monsieur.”
   “Tell you what,” said Jason. “If you’re free, let’s talk about it over drinks and dinner. It’s my only night in Paris.”
   “And you prefer the company of more mature women,” concluded Jacqueline Lavier, the mask cracked into a smile again, the white ice breaking beneath eyes now more in concert.
   “C’est vrai, madame.”
   “It can be arranged,” she said, reaching for the phone.
   The phone. Carlos.
   He would break her, thought Bourne. Kill her if he had to. He would learn the truth.

   Marie walked through the crowd toward the booth in the telephone complex on rue Vaugirard.
   She had taken a room at the Meurice, left the attaché case at the front desk, and had sat alone in the room for exactly twenty-two minutes. Until she could not stand it any longer. She had sat in a chair facing a blank wall, thinking about Jason, about the madness of the last eight days that had propelled her into an insanity beyond her understanding. Jason. Considerate, frightening, bewildered Jason Bourne. A man with so much violence in him, and yet oddly, so much compassion. And too terribly capable in dealing with a world ordinary men knew nothing about. Where had he sprung from, this love of hers? Who had taught him to find his way through the dark back streets of Paris, Marseilles, and Zurich ... as far away as the Orient, perhaps? What was the Far East to him? How did he know the languages? What were the languages? Or language?
   Tao.
   Che-sah.
   Tam Quan.
   Another world, and she knew nothing of it. But she knew Jason Bourne, or the man called Jason Bourne, and she held on to the decency she knew was there. Oh, God, how she loved him so!
   Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. Carlos. What was he to Jason Bourne?
   Stop it! she had screamed at herself while in that room alone. And then she had done what she had seen Jason do so many times: she had lunged up from the chair, as if the physical movement would clear the mists away--or allow her to break through them.
   Canada. She had to reach Ottawa and find out why Peter’s death--his murder--was being handled so secretly, so obscenely. It did not make sense; she objected with all her heart. For Peter, too, was a decent man, and he had been killed by indecent men. She would be told why or she would expose that death--that murder--herself. She would scream out loud to the world that she knew, and say, “Do something!”
   And so she had left the Meurice, taken a cab to the rue Vaugirard, and placed the call to Ottawa.
   She waited now outside the booth, her anger mounting, an unlit cigarette creased between her fingers. When the bell rang, she could not take the time to crush it out.
   It rang. She opened the glass door of the booth and went inside.
   “Is this you, Alan?”
   “Yes,” was the curt reply.
   “Alan, what the hell is going on? Peter was murdered, and there hasn’t been a single word in any newspaper or on any broadcast! I don’t think the embassy even knows! It’s as though no one cared!
   What are you people doing?”
   “What we’re told to do. And so will you.”
   “What? That was Peter! He was your friend! Listen to me, Alan ...”
   “No!” The interruption was harsh. “You listen. Get out of Paris. Now! Take the next direct flight back here. If you have any problems, the embassy will clear them--but you’re to talk only to the ambassador, is that understood?”
   “No!” screamed Marie St. Jacques. “I don’t understand! Peter was killed and nobody cares! All you’re saying is bureaucratic bullshit! Don’t get involved; for God’s sake, don’t ever get involved!”
   “Stay out of it, Marie!”
   “Stay out of what? That’s what you’re not telling me, isn’t it? Well, you’d better ...”
   “I can’t!” Alan lowered his voice. “I don’t know. I’m only telling you what I was told to tell you.”
   “By whom?”
   “You can’t ask me that.”
   “I am asking!”
   “Listen to me, Marie. I haven’t been home for the past twenty-four hours. I’ve been waiting here for the last twelve for you to call. Try to understand me--I’m not suggesting you come back. Those are orders from your government.”
   “Orders? Without explanations?”
   “That’s the way it is. I’ll say this much. They want you out of there; they want him isolated. ...
   That’s the way it is.”
   “Sorry, Alan--that’s not the way it is. Goodbye.” She slammed the receiver down, then instantly gripped her hands to stop the trembling. Oh, my God, she loved him so ... and they were trying to kill him.
   Jason, my Jason. They all want you killed. Why?
   The conservatively dressed man at the switchboard snapped the red toggle that blocked the lines, reducing all incoming calls to a busy signal. He did so once or twice an hour, if only to clear his mind and expunge the empty insanities he had been required to mouth during the past minutes. The necessity to cut off all conversation usually occurred to him after a particularly tedious one; he had just had it. The wife of a Deputy trying to conceal the outrageous price of a single purchase by breaking it up into several, thus not to be so apparent to her husband. Enough! He needed a few minutes to breathe.
   The irony struck him. It was not that many years ago when others sat in front of switchboards for him. At his companies in Saigon and in the communications room of his vast plantation in the Mekong Delta. And here he was now in front of someone else’s switchboard in the perfumed surroundings of Saint-Honoré. The English poet said it best: There were more preposterous vicissitudes in life than a single philosophy could conjure.
   He heard laughter on the staircase and looked up. Jacqueline was leaving early, no doubt with one of her celebrated and fully bankrolled acquaintances. There was no question about it, Jacqueline had a talent for removing gold from a well-guarded mine, even diamonds from De Beers. He could not see the man with her; he was on the other side of Jacqueline, his head oddly turned away.
   Then for an instant he did see him; their eyes made contact; it was brief and explosive. The gray-haired switchboard operator suddenly could not breathe; he was suspended in a moment of disbelief, staring at a face, a head, he had not seen in years. And then almost always in darkness, for they had worked at night ... died at night.
   Oh, my God--it was him! From the living--dying--nightmares thousands of miles away. It was him!
   The gray-haired man rose from the switchboard as if in a trance. He pulled the mouthpiece-earphone off and let it drop to the floor. It clattered as the board lit up with incoming calls that made no connections, answered only with discordant hums. He stepped off the platform and sidestepped his way quickly toward the aisle to get a better look at Jacqueline Lavier and the ghost that was her escort. The ghost who was a killer--above all men he had ever known, a killer. They said it might happen but he had never believed them; he believed them now. It was the man.
   He saw them both clearly. Saw him. They were walking down the center aisle toward the entrance.
   He had to stop them. Stop her! But to rush out and yell would mean death. A bullet in the head, instantaneous.
   They reached the doors; he pulled them open, ushering her out to the pavement. The gray-haired man raced out from his hiding place, across the intersecting aisle and down to the front window.
   Out in the street he had flagged a taxi. He was opening the door, motioning for Jacqueline to get inside. Oh, God! She was going!
   The middle-aged man turned and ran as fast as he could toward the staircase. He collided with two startled customers and a salesclerk, pushing all three violently out of his way. He raced up the steps, across the balcony and down the corridor, to the open studio door.
   “René! René!” he shouted, bursting inside.
   Bergeron looked up from his sketchboard, astonished. “What is it?”
   “That man with Jacqueline! Who is he? How long has he been here?”
   “Oh? Probably the American,” said the designer. “His name’s Briggs. A fatted calf; he’s done very well by our grosses today.”
   “Where did they go?”
   “I didn’t know they went anywhere.”
   “She left with him!”
   “Our Jacqueline retains her touch, no? And her good sense.”
   “Find them! Get her!”
   “Why?”
   “He knows! He’ll kill her!”
   “What?”
   “It’s him! I’d swear to it! That man is Cain!”

15
   “The man is Cain,” said Colonel Jack Manning bluntly, as if he expected to be contradicted by at least three of the four civilians at the Pentagon conference table. Each was older than he, and each considered himself more experienced. None was prepared to acknowledge that the army had obtained information where his own organization had failed. There was a fourth civilian but his opinion did not count. He was a member of the Congressional Oversight Committee, and as such to be treated with deference, but not seriously. “If we don’t move now,” continued Manning, “even at the risk of exposing everything we’ve learned, he could slip through the nets again. As of eleven days ago, he was in Zurich. We’re convinced he’s still there. And, gentlemen, it is Cain.”
   “That’s quite a statement,” said the balding, birdlike academic from the National Security Council as he read the summary page concerning Zurich given to each delegate at the table. His name was Alfred Gillette, an expert in personnel screening and evaluation, and was considered by the Pentagon to be bright, vindictive, and with friends in high places.
   “I find it extraordinary,” added Peter Knowlton, an associate director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a man in his middle fifties who perpetuated the dressy the appearance, and the attitude of an Ivy Leaguer of thirty years ago. “Our sources have Cain in Brussels, not Zurich, at the same time-eleven days ago. Our sources are rarely in error.”
   “That’s quite a statement,” said the third civilian, the only one at that table Manning really respected. He was the oldest there, a man named David Abbott, a former Olympic swimmer whose intellect had matched his physical prowess. He was in his late sixties now, but his bearing was still erect, his mind as sharp as it had ever been, his age, however, betrayed by a face lined from the tensions of a lifetime he would never reveal. He knew what he was talking about, thought the colonel. Although he was currently a member of the omnipotent Forty Committee, he had been with the CIA since its origins in the OSS. The Silent Monk of Covert Operations had been the sobriquet given him by his colleagues in the intelligence community. “In my days at the Agency,” continued Abbott, chuckling, “the sources were often as not in conflict as in agreement.”
   “We have different methods of verification,” pressed the associate director. “No disrespect, Mr. Abbott, but our transmissions equipment is literally instantaneous.”
   “That’s equipment, not verification. But I won’t argue; it seems we have a disagreement. Brussels or Zurich.”
   “The case for Brussels is airtight,” insisted Knowlton firmly.
   “Let’s hear it,” said the balding Gillette, adjusting his glasses. “We can return to the Zurich summary; it’s right in front of us. Also, our sources have some input to offer, although it’s not in conflict with Brussels or Zurich. It happened some six months ago.” The silver-haired Abbott glanced over at Gillette. “Six months ago? I don’t recall NSC having delivered anything about Cain six months ago.”
   “It wasn’t totally confirmed,” replied Gillette. “We try not to burden the committee with unsubstantiated data.”
   “That’s also quite a statement,” said Abbott, not needing to clarify.
   “Congressman Walters,” interrupted the colonel, looking at the man from Oversight, “do you have any questions before we go on?”
   “Hell, yes,” drawled the congressional watchdog from the state of Tennessee, his intelligent eyes roaming the faces, “but since I’m new at this, you go ahead so I’ll know where to begin.”
   “Very well, sir,” said Manning, nodding at the CIA’s Knowlton. “What’s this about Brussels eleven days ago?”
   “A man was killed in the Place Fontainas--a covert dealer in diamonds between Moscow and the West. He operated through a branch of Russolmaz, the Soviet firm in Geneva that brokers all such purchases. We know it’s one way Cain converts his funds.”
   “What ties the killing to Cain?” asked the dubious Gillette.
   “Method, first. The weapon was a long needle, implanted in a crowded square at noontime with surgical precision. Cain’s used it before.”
   “That’s quite true,” agreed Abbott. “There was a Rumanian in London somewhat over a year ago; another only weeks before him. Both were narrowed to Cain.”
   “Narrowed but not confirmed,” objected Colonel Manning. “They were high-level political defectors; they could have been taken by the KGB.”
   “Or by Cain with far less risk to the Soviets,” argued the CIA man.
   “Or by Carlos,” added Gillette, his voice rising. “Neither Carlos nor Cain is concerned about ideology; they’re both for hire. Why is it every time there’s a killing of consequence, we ascribe it to Cain?”
   “Whenever we do,” replied Knowlton, his condescension obvious, “it’s because informed sources unknown to each other have reported the same information. Since the informants have no knowledge of each other, there could hardly be collusion.”
   “It’s all too pat,” said Gillette disagreeably.
   “Back to Brussels,” interrupted the colonel. “If it was Cain, why would he kill a broker from Russolmaz? He used him.”
   “A covert broker,” corrected the CIA director. “And for any number of reasons, according to our informants. The man was a thief, and why not? Most of his clients were too; they couldn’t very well file charges. He might have cheated Cain, and if he did, it’d be his last transaction. Or he could have been foolish enough to speculate on Cain’s identity; even a hint of that would call for the needle. Or perhaps Cain simply wanted to bury his current traces. Regardless, the circumstances plus the sources leave little doubt that it was Cain.”
   “There’ll be a lot more when I clarify Zurich,” said Manning. “May we proceed to the summary?”
   “A moment, please.” David Abbott spoke casually while lighting his pipe. “I believe our colleague from the Security Council mentioned the occurrence related to Cain that took place six months ago. Perhaps we should hear about it.”
   “Why?” asked Gillette, his eyes owl-like beyond the lenses of his rimless glasses. “The time factor removes it from having any bearing on Brussels or Zurich. I mentioned that, too.”
   “Yes, you did,” agreed the once-formidable Monk of Covert Services. “I thought, however, any background might be helpful. As you also said, we can return to the summary; it’s right in front of us. But if it’s not relevant, let’s get on with Zurich.”
   “Thank you, Mr. Abbott,” said the colonel. “You’ll note that eleven days ago, four men were killed in Zurich. One of them was a watchman in a parking area by the Limmat River, it can be presumed that he was not involved in Cain’s activities, but caught in them. Two others were found in an alley on the west bank of the city, on the surface unrelated murders, except for the fourth victim. He’s tied in with the dead men in the alley--all three part of the Zurich--Munich underworld--and is, without question, connected to Cain.”
   “That’s Chernak,” said Gillette, reading the summary. “At least I assume its Chernak. I recognize the name and associate it with the Cain file somewhere.”
   “You should,” replied Manning. “It first appeared in a G-Two report eighteen months ago and cropped up again a year later.”
   “Which would make it six months ago,” interjected Abbott, softly, looking at Gillette.
   “Yes, sir,” continued the colonel. “If there was ever an example of what’s called the scum-of-the-earth, it was Chernak. During the war he was a Czechoslovakian recruit at Dachau, a trilingual interrogator as brutal as any guard in the camp. He sent Poles, Slovaks and Jews to the showers after torture sessions in which he extracted--and manufactured--‘incriminating’ information Dachau’s commandants wanted to hear. He went to any length to curry favor with his superiors, and the most sadistic cliques were hard pressed to match his exploits. What they didn’t realize was that he was cataloguing theirs. After the war he escaped, got his legs blown off by an undetected land mine, and still managed to survive very nicely on his Dachau extortions. Cain found him and used him as a go-between for payments on his kills.”
   “Now just wait a minute!” objected Knowlton strenuously. “We’ve been over this Chernak business before. If you recall, it was the Agency that first uncovered him; we would have exposed him long ago if State hadn’t interceded on behalf of several powerful anti-Soviet officials in the Bonn government. You assume Cain’s used Chernak; you don’t know it for certain any more than we do.”
   “We do now,” said Manning. “Seven and a half months ago we received a tip about a man who ran a restaurant called the Drei Alpenhäuser; it was reported that he was an intermediary between Cain and Chernak. We kept him under surveillance for weeks, but nothing came of it; he was a minor figure in the Zurich underworld, that was all. We didn’t stay with him long enough.” The colonel paused, satisfied that all eyes were on him. “When we heard about Chernak’s murder, we gambled. Five nights ago two of our men hid in the Drei Alpenhäuser after the restaurant closed.
   They cornered the owner and accused him of dealing with Chernak, working for Cain; they put on a hell of a show. You can imagine their shock when the man broke, literally fell to his knees begging to be protected. He admitted that Cain was in Zurich the night Chernak was killed; that, in fact, he had seen Cain that night and Chernak had come up in the conversation. Very negatively.” The military man paused again, the silence filled by a slow soft whistle from David Abbott, his pipe held in front of his crag-lined face. “Now, that is a statement,” said the Monk quietly.
   “Why wasn’t the Agency informed of this tip you received seven months ago?” asked the CIA’s Knowlton abrasively.
   “It didn’t prove out.”
   “In your hands; it might have been different in ours.”
   “That’s possible. I admitted we didn’t stay with him long enough. Manpower’s limited; which of us can keep up a nonproductive surveillance indefinitely?”
   “We might have shared it if we’d known.”
   “And we could have saved you the time it took to build the Brussels file, if we’d been told about that.”
   “Where did the tip come from?” asked Gillette, interrupting impatiently, his eyes on Manning.
   “It was anonymous.”
   “You settled for that?” The birdlike expression on Gillette’s face conveyed his astonishment.
   “It’s one reason the initial surveillance was limited.”
   “Yes, of course, but you mean you never dug for it?”
   “Naturally we did,” replied the colonel testily.
   “Apparently without much enthusiasm,” continued Gillette angrily. “Didn’t it occur to you that someone over at Langley, or on the Council, might have helped, might have filled in a gap? I agree with Peter. We should ha ve been informed.”
   “There’s a reason why you weren’t.” Manning breathed deeply; in less military surroundings it might have been construed as a sigh. “The informant made it clear that if we brought in any other branch, he wouldn’t make contact again. We felt we had to abide by that; we’ve done it before.”
   “What did you say?” Knowlton put down the page summary and stared at the Pentagon officer.
   “It’s nothing new, Peter. Each of us sets up his own sources, protects them.”
   “I’m aware of that. It’s why you weren’t told about Brussels. Both drones said to keep the army out.”
   Silence. Broken by the abrasive voice of the Security Council’s Alfred Gillette. “How often is ‘we’ve done it before,’ Colonel?”
   “What?” Manning looked at Gillette, but was aware that David Abbott was watching both of them closely.
   “I’d like to know how many times you’ve been told to keep your sources to yourself. I refer to Cain, of course.”
   “Quite a few, I guess.”
   “You guess?”
   “Most of the time.”
   “And you, Peter? What about the Agency?”
   “We’ve been severely limited in terms of in-depth dissemination.”
   “For God’s sake, what’s that mean?” The interruption came from the least expected member of the conference; the congressman from Oversight. “Don’t misunderstand me, I haven’t begun yet. I just want to follow the language.” He turned to the CIA man. “What the hell did you just say? In-depth what?”
   “Dissemination, Congressman Walters; it’s throughout Cain’s file. We risked losing informants if we brought them to the attention of other intelligence units. I assure you, it’s standard.”
   “It sounds like you were test-tubing a heifer.”
   “With about the same results,” added Gillette. “No cross-pollinization to corrupt the strain. And, conversely, no cross-checking to look for patterns of inaccuracy.”
   “A nice turn of phrases,” said Abbott, his craggy face wrinkled in appreciation, “but I’m not sure I understand you.”
   “I’d say it’s pretty damned clear,” replied the man from NSC, looking at Colonel Manning and Peter Knowlton. “The country’s two most active intelligence branches have been fed information about Cain--for the past three years--and there’s been no cross-pooling for origins of fraud. We’ve simply received all information as bona fide data, stored and accepted as valid.”
   “Well, I’ve been around a long time--perhaps too long, I concede--but there’s nothing here I haven’t heard before,” said the Monk. “Sources are shrewd and defensive people; they guard their contacts jealously. None are in the business for charity, only for profit and survival.”
   “I’m afraid you’re overlooking my point.” Gillette removed his glasses. “I said before that I was alarmed so many recent assassinations have been attributed to Cain--attributed here to Cain--when it seems to me that the most accomplished assassin of our time--perhaps in history--has been relegated to a comparatively minor role. I think that’s wrong. I think Carlos is the man we should be concentrating on. What’s happened to Carlos?”
   “I question your judgment, Alfred,” said the Monk. “Carlos’ time has passed, Cain’s moved in.

The. old order changes; there’s a new and, I suspect, far more deadly shark in the waters.”
   “I can’t agree with that,” said the man from National Security, his owl-eyes boring into the elder statesman of the intelligence community. “Forgive me, David, but it strikes me as if Carlos himself were manipulating this committee. To take the attention away from himself, making us concentrate on a subject of much less importance. We’re spending all our energies going after a toothless sand shark while the hammerhead roams free.”
   “No one’s forgetting Carlos,” objected Manning. “He’s simply not as active as Cain’s been.”
   “Perhaps,” said Gillette icily, “that’s exactly what Carlos wants us to believe. And, by God, we believe it.”
   “Can you doubt it?” asked Abbott. “The record of Cain’s accomplishments is staggering.”
   “Can I doubt it?” repeated Gillette. “That’s the question, isn’t it? But can any of us be sure?
   That’s also a valid question. We now find out that both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been literally operating independently of each other, without even conferring as to the accuracy of their sources.”
   “A custom rarely breached in this town,” said Abbott, amused.
   Again the congressman from Oversight interrupted. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Gillette?”
   “I’d like more information about the activities of one Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. That’s--“ “Carlos,” said the congressman. “I remember my reading. I see. Thank you. Go on, gentlemen.”
   Manning spoke quickly. “May we get back to Zurich, please. Our recommendation is to go after
   Cain now. We can spread the word in the Verbrecherwelt, pull in every informer we have, request the cooperation of the Zurich police. We can’t afford to lose another day. The man in Zurich is Cain.”
   “Then what was Brussels?” The CIA’s Knowlton asked the question as much of himself as anyone at the table. “The method was Cain’s, the informants unequivocal. What was the purpose?”
   “To feed you false information, obviously,” said Gillette. “And before we make any dramatic moves in Zurich, I suggest that each of you comb the Cain files and recheck every source given you.
   Have your European stations pull in every informant who so miraculously appeared to offer information. I have an idea you might find something you didn’t expect: the fine Latin hand of Ramirez Sanchez.”
   “Since you’re so insistent on clarification, Alfred,” interrupted Abbott, “why not tell us about the unconfirmed occurrence that took place six months ago. We seem to be in a quagmire here; it might be helpful.”
   For the first time during the conference, the abrasive delegate from the National Security Council seemed to hesitate. “We received word around the middle of August from a reliable source in Aix-en-Provence that Cain was on his way to Marseilles.”
   “August?” exclaimed the colonel. “Marseilles? That was Leland! Ambassador Leland was shot in Marseilles. In August!”
   “But Cain didn’t fire that rifle. It was a Carlos kill; that was confirmed. Bore-markings matched with previous assassinations, three descriptions of an unknown dark-haired man on the third and fourth floors of the waterfront warehouse, carrying a satchel. There was never any doubt that Leland was murdered by Carlos.”
   “For Christ’s sake,” roared the officer. “That’s after the fact, after the kill! No matter whose, there was a contract out on Leland--hadn’t that occurred to you? If we’d known about Cain, we might have been able to cover Leland. He was military property! Goddamn it, he might be alive today!”
   “Unlikely,” replied Gillette calmly. “Leland wasn’t the sort of man to live in a bunker. And given his life-style, a vague warning would have served no purpose. Besides, had our strategy held together, warning Leland would have been counterproductive.”
   “In what way?” asked the Monk harshly.
   “It’s your fuller explanation. Our source was to make contact with Cain during the hours of midnight and three in the morning in the rue Sarrasin on August 23. Leland wasn’t due until the twenty-fifth. As I say, had it held together we would have taken Cain. It didn’t; Cain never showed up.”
   “And your source insisted on cooperating solely with you,” said Abbott. “To the exclusion of all others.”
   “Yes,” nodded Gillette, trying but unable to conceal his embarrassment. “In our judgment, the risk to Leland had been eliminated--which in terms of Cain turned out to be the truth--and the odds for capture greater than they’d ever been. We’d finally found someone willing to come out and identify Cain. Would any of you have handled it any other way?” Silence. This time broken by the drawl of the astute congressman from Tennessee.
   “Jesus Christ Almighty ... what a bunch of bullshitters.”
   Silence, terminated by the thoughtful voice of David Abbott.
   “May I commend you, sir, on being the first honest man sent over from the Hill. The fact that you are not overwhelmed by the rarefied atmosphere of these highly classified surroundings is not lost on any of us. It’s refreshing.”
   “I don’t think the congressman fully grasps the sensitivity of--“
   “Oh, shut up, Peter,” said the Monk. “I think the congressman wants to say something.”
   “Just for a bit,” said Walters. “I thought you were all over twenty-one; I mean, you look over twenty-one, and by then you’re supposed to know better. You’re supposed to be able to hold intelligent conversations, exchange information while respecting confidentiality, and look for common solutions. Instead, you sound like a bunch of kids jumping on a goddamn carousel, squabbling over who’s going to get the cheap brass ring. It’s a hell of a way to spend taxpayers’ money.”
   “You’re oversimplifying, Congressman,” broke in Gillette. “You’re talking about a utopian fact-finding apparatus. There’s no such thing.”
   “I’m talking about reasonable men, sir. I’m a lawyer, and before I came up to this godforsaken circus, I dealt with ascending levels of confidentiality every day of my life. What’s so damn new about them?”
   “And what’s your point?” asked the Monk.
   “I want an explanation. For over eighteen months I’ve sat on the House Assassination Subcommittee. I’ve plowed through thousands of pages, filled with hundreds of names and twice as many theories. I don’t think there’s a suggested conspiracy or a suspected assassin I’m not aware of.
   I’ve lived with those names and those theories for damn near two years, until I didn’t think there was anything left to learn.”
   “I’d say your credentials were very impressive,” interrupted Abbott.
   “I thought they might be; it’s why I accepted the Oversight chair. I thought I could make a realistic contribution, but now I’m not so sure. I’m suddenly beginning to wonder what I do know.”
   “Why?” asked Manning apprehensively.
   “Because I’ve been sitting here listening to the four of you describe an operation that’s been going on for three years, involving networks of personnel and informants and major intelligence posts throughout Europe--all centered on an assassin whose ‘list of accomplishments’ is staggering.
   Am I substantively correct?”
   “Go on,” replied Abbott quietly, holding his pipe, his expression rapt. “What’s your question?”
   “Who is he? Who the hell is this Cain?”

16
   The silence lasted precisely five seconds, during which time eyes roamed other eyes, several throats were cleared, and no one moved in his chair. It was as if a decision were being reached without discussion: evasion was to be avoided. Congressman Efrem Walters, out of the hills of Tennessee by way of the Yale Law Review, was not to be dismissed with facile circumlocution that dealt with the esoterica of clandestine manipulations. Bullshit was out.
   David Abbott put his pipe down on the table, the quiet clatter his overture. “The less public exposure a man like Cain receives the better it is for everyone.”
   “That’s no answer,” said Walters. “But I assume it’s the beginning of one.”
   “It is. He’s a professional assassin--that is, a trained expert in wide-ranging methods of taking life. That expertise is for sale, neither politics nor personal motivation any concern to him whatsoever. He’s in business solely to make a profit--and his profits escalate in direct ratio to his reputation.”
   The congressman nodded. “So by keeping as tight a lid as you can on that reputation you’re holding back free advertising.”
   “Exactly. There are a lot of maniacs in this world with too many real or imagined enemies who might easily gravitate to Cain if they knew of him. Unfortunately, more than we care to think about already have; to date thirty-eight killings can be directly attributed to Cain, and some twelve to fifteen are probables.”
   “That’s his list of ‘accomplishments’?”
   “Yes. And we’re losing the battle. With each new killing his reputation spreads.”
   “He was dormant for a while,” said Knowlton of the CIA. “For a number of months recently we thought he might have been taken himself. There were several probables in which the killers themselves were eliminated; we thought he might have been one of them.”
   “Such as?” asked Walters.
   “A banker in Madrid who funneled bribes for the Europolitan Corporation for government purchases in Africa. He was shot from a speeding car on the Paseo de la Castellana. A chauffeur-bodyguard gunned down both driver and killer, for a time we believed the killer was Cain.”
   “I remember the incident. Who might have paid for it?”
   “Any number of companies,” answered Gillette, “who wanted to sell gold-plated cars and indoor plumbing to instant dictators.”
   “What else? Who else?”
   “Sheik Mustafa Kalig in Oman,” said Colonel Manning.
   “He was reported killed in an abortive coup.”
   “Not so,” continued the officer. “There was no attempted coup; G-Two informants confirmed that. Kalig was unpopular, but the other sheiks aren’t fools. The coup story was a cover for an assassination that could tempt other professional killers. Three troublesome nonentities from the Officer Corps were executed to lend credence to the lie. For a while, we thought one of them was Cain; the timing corresponds to Cain’s dormancy.”
   “Who would pay Cain for assassinating Kalig?”
   “We asked ourselves that over and over again,” said Manning. “The only possible answer came from a source who claimed to know, but there was no way to verify it. He said Cain did it to prove it could be done. By him. Oil sheiks travel with the tightest security in the world.”
   “There are several dozen other incidents,” added Knowlton. “Probables that fall into the same pattern where highly protected figures were killed, and sources came forward to implicate Cain.”
   “I see.” The congressman picked up the summary page for Zurich. “But from what I gather you don’t know who he is.”
   “No two descriptions have been alike,” interjected Abbott. “Cain’s apparently a virtuoso at disguise.”
   “Yet people have seen him, talked to him. Your sources, the informants, this man in Zurich; none of them may come out in the open and testify, but surely you’ve interrogated them. You’ve got to have come up with a composite, with something.”
   “We’ve come up with a great deal,” replied Abbott, “but a consistent description isn’t part of it.
   For openers, Cain never lets himself be seen in daylight. He holds meetings at night, in dark rooms or alleyways. If he’s ever met more than one person at a time--as Cain--we don’t know about it.
   We’ve been told he never stands, he’s always seated--in a dimly lit restaurant, or a corner chair, or parked car. Sometimes he wears heavy glasses, sometimes none at all; at one rendezvous he may have dark hair, on another white or red or covered by a hat.”
   “Language?”
   “We’re closer here,” said the CIA director, anxious to put the Company’s research on the table.
   “Fluent English and French, and several Oriental dialects.”
   “Dialects? What dialects? Doesn’t a language come first?”
   “Of course. It’s root-Vietnamese.”
   “Viet--“ Walters leaned forward. “Why do I get the idea that I’m coming to something you’d rather not tell me?”
   “Because you’re probably quite astute at cross-examination, counselor.” Abbott struck a match and lit his pipe.
   “Passably alert,” agreed the congressman. “Now, what is it?”
   “Cain,” said Gillette, his eyes briefly, oddly, on David Abbott. “We know where he came from.”
   “Where?”
   “Out of Southeast Asia,” answered Manning, as if sustaining the pain of a knife wound. “As far as we can gather, he mastered the fringe dialects so to be understood in the hill country along the Cambodian and Laos border routes, as well as in rural North Vietnam. We accept the data; it fits.”
   “With what?”
   “Operation Medusa.” The colonel reached for a large, thick manila envelope on his left. He opened it and removed a single folder from among several, inside; he placed it in front of him.
   “That’s the Cain file,” he said, nodding at the open envelope. “This is the Medusa material, the aspects of it that might in any way be relevant to Cain.”
   The Tennessean leaned back in his chair, the trace of a sardonic smile creasing his lips. “You know, gentlemen, you slay me with your pithy titles. Incidentally, that’s a beaut; it’s very sinister, very ominous. I think you fellows take a course in this kind of thing. Go on, Colonel. What’s this Medusa?”
   Manning glanced briefly at David Abbott, then spoke. “It was a clandestine outgrowth of the search-and-destroy concept, designed to function behind enemy lines during the Vietnam war. In the late sixties and early seventies, units of American, French, British, Australian and native volunteers were formed into teams to operate in territories occupied by the North Vietnamese.
   Their priorities were the disruption of enemy communications and supply lines, the pinpointing of prison camps and, not the least, the assassination of village leaders known to be cooperating with the Communists, as well as the enemy commanders whenever possible.”
   “It was a war-within-a-war,” broke in Knowlton. “Unfortunately, racial appearances and languages made participation infinitely more dangerous than, say, the German and Dutch undergrounds, or the French Resistance in World War Two. Therefore, Occidental recruitment was not always as selective as it might have been.”
   “There were dozens of these teams,” continued the colonel, “the personnel ranging from old-line navy chiefs who knew the coastlines to French plantation owners whose only hope for reparations lay in an American victory. There were British and Australian drifters who’d lived in Indochina for years, as well as highly motivated American army and civilian intelligence career officers. Also, inevitably, there was a sizable faction of hard-core criminals. In the main, smugglers--men who dealt in running guns, narcotics, gold and diamonds throughout the entire South China Sea area.
   They were walking encyclopedias when it came to night landings and jungle routes. Many we employed were runaways or fugitives from the States, a number well-educated, all resourceful. We needed their expertise.”
   “That’s quite a cross-section of volunteers,” interrupted the congressman. “Old-line navy and army; British and Australian drifters, French colonials, and platoons of thieves. How the hell did you get them to work together?”
   “To each according to his greeds,” said Gillette.
   “Promises,” amplified the colonel. “Guarantees of rank, promotions, pardons, outright bonuses of cash, and, in a number of cases, opportunities to steal funds from the operation itself. You see, they all had to be a little crazy; we understood that. We trained them secretly, using codes, methods of transport, entrapment and killing--even weapons Command Saigon knew nothing about. As Peter mentioned, the risks were incredible--capture resulting in torture and execution; the price was high and they paid it. Most people would have called them a collection of paranoiacs, but they were geniuses where disruption and assassination were concerned. Especially assassination.”
   “What was the price?”
   “Operation Medusa sustained over ninety percent casualties. But there’s a catch--among those who didn’t come back were a number who never meant to.”
   “From that faction of thieves and fugitives?”
   “Yes. Some stole considerable amounts of money from Medusa. We think Cain is one of those men.”
   “Why?”
   “His modus operandi. He’s used codes, traps, methods of killing and transport that were developed and specialized in the Medusa training.”
   “Then for Christ’s sake,” broke in Walters, “you’ve got a direct line to his identity. I don’t care where they’re buried--and I’m damn sure you don’t want them made public--but I assume records were kept.”
   “They were, and we’ve extracted them all from the clandestine archives, inclusive of this material here.” The officer tapped the file in front of him. “We’ve studied everything, put rosters under microscopes, fed facts into computers--everything we could think of. We’re no further along than when we began.”
   “That’s incredible,” said the congressman. “Or incredibly incompetent.”
   “Not really,” protested Manning. “Look at the man; look at what we’ve had to work with. After the war, Cain made his reputation throughout most of East Asia, from as far north as Tokyo down through the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, with side trips to Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos and Calcutta. About two and a half years ago reports began filtering in to our Asian stations and embassies. There was an assassin for hire; his name was Cain. Highly professional, ruthless. These reports started growing with alarming frequency. It seemed that with every killing of note, Cain was involved. Sources would phone embassies in the middle of the night, or stop attachés in the streets, always with the same information. It was Cain, Cain was the one. A murder in Tokyo; a car blown up in Hong Kong; a narcotics caravan ambushed in the Triangle; a banker shot in Calcutta; an ambassador assassinated in Moulmein; a Russian technician or an American businessman killed in the streets of Shanghai itself. Cain was everywhere, his name whispered by dozens of trusted informants in every vital intelligence sector. Yet no one--not one single person in the entire east Pacific area--would come forward to give us an identification. Where were we to begin?”
   “But by this time hadn’t you established the fact that he’d been with Medusa?” asked the Tennessean.
   “Yes. Firmly.”
   “Then with the individual Medusa dossiers, damn it!”
   The colonel opened the folder he had removed from the Cain file. “These are the casualty lists. Among the white Occidentals who disappeared from Operation Medusa--and when I say disappeared, I mean vanished without a trace--are the following. Seventy-three Americans, forty-six French, thirty-nine and twenty-four Australians and British respectively, and an estimated fifty white male contacts recruited from neutrals in Hanoi and trained in the field--most of them we never knew. Over two hundred and thirty possibilities; how many are blind alleys? Who’s alive? Who’s dead? Even if we learned the name of every man who actually survived, who is he now? What is he?
   We’re not even sure of Cain’s nationality. We think he’s American, but there’s no proof.”
   “Cain’s one of the side issues contained in our constant pressure on Hanoi to trace MIAs,” explained Knowlton. “We keep recycling these names in with the division lists.”
   “And there’s a catch with that, too,” added the army officer. “Hanoi’s counterintelligence forces broke and executed scores of Medusa personnel. They were aware of the operation, and we never ruled out the possibility of infiltration. Hanoi knew the Medusans weren’t combat troops; they wore no uniforms. Accountability was never required.”
   Walters held out his hand. “May I?” he said, nodding at the stapled pages.
   “Certainly.” The officer gave them to the congressman. “You understand of course that those names still remain classified, as does the Medusa Operation itself.”
   “Who made that decision?”
   “It’s an unbroken executive order from successive presidents based on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was supported by the Senate Armed Services Committee.”
   “That’s considerable firepower, isn’t it?”
   “It was felt to be in the national interest,” said the CIA Man.
   “In this case, I won’t argue,” agreed Walters. “The specter of such an operation wouldn’t do much for the glory of Old Glory. We don’t train assassins, much less field them.” He flipped through the pages. “And somewhere here just happens to be an assassin we trained and fielded and now can’t find.”
   “We believe that, yes,” said the colonel.
   “You say he made his reputation in Asia, but moved to Europe. When?”
   “About a year ago.”
   “Why? Any ideas?”
   “The obvious, I’d suggest,” said Peter Knowlton. “He overextended himself. Something went wrong and he felt threatened. He was a white killer among Orientals, at best a dangerous concept, it was time for him to move on. God knows his reputation was made; there’d be no lack of employment in Europe.”
   David Abbott cleared his throat. “I’d like to offer another possibility based on something Alfred said a few minutes ago.” The Monk paused and nodded deferentially at Gillette. “He said that we had been forced to concentrate on a ‘toothless sand shark while the hammerhead roamed free,’ I believe that was the phrase, although my sequence may be wrong.”
   “Yes,” said the man from NSC. “I was referring to Carlos, of course. It’s not Cain we should be after. It’s Carlos.”
   “Of course. Carlos. The most elusive killer in modern history, a man many of us truly believe has been responsible--in one way or another--for the most tragic assassinations of our time. You were quite right, Alfred, and, in a way, I was wrong. We cannot afford to forget Carlos.”
   “Thank you,” said Gillette. “I’m glad I made my point.”
   “You did. With me, at any rate. But you also made me think. Can you imagine the temptation for a man like Cain, operating in the steamy confines of an area rife with drifters and fugitives and regimes up to their necks in corruption? How he must have envied Carlos; how he must have been jealous of the faster, brighter, more luxurious world of Europe. How often did he say to himself, ‘I’m better than Carlos.’ No matter how cold these fellows are, their egos are immense. I suggest he went to Europe to find that better world ... and to dethrone Carlos. The pretender, sir, wants to take the title. He wants to be champion.”
   Gillette stared at the Monk. “It’s an interesting theory.”
   “And if I follow you,” interjected the congressman from Oversight, “by tracking Cain we may come up with Carlos.”
   “Exactly.”
   “I’m not sure I follow,” said the CIA director, annoyed. “Why?”
   “Two stallions in a paddock,” answered Walters. “They tangle.”
   “A champion does not give up the title willingly.” Abbott reached for his pipe. “He fights viciously to retain it. As the congressman says, we continue to track Cain, but we must also watch for other spoors in the forest. And when and if we find Cain, perhaps we should hold back. Wait for Carlos to come after him.”
   “Then take both,” added the military officer.
   “Very enlightening,” said Gillette.

   The meeting was over, the members in various stages of leaving. David Abbott stood with the Pentagon colonel, who was gathering together the pages of the Medusa folder; he had picked up the casualty sheets, prepared to insert them.
   “May I take a look?” asked Abbott. “We don’t have a copy over at Forty.”
   “Those were our instructions,” replied the officer, handing the stapled pages to the older man. “I thought they came from you. Only three copies. Here, at the Agency, and over at the Council.”
   “They did come from me.” The silent Monk smiled benignly. “Too damn many civilians in my part of town.”
   The colonel turned away to answer a question posed by the congressman from Tennessee. David Abbott did not listen; instead his eyes sped rapidly down the columns of names; he was alarmed. A number had been crossed out, accounted for. Accountability was the one thing they could not allow.
   Ever. Where was it? He was the only man in that room who knew the name, and he could feel the pounding in his chest as he reached the last page. The name was there.
   Bourne, Jason C.--Last known station: Tam Quan. What in God’s name had happene

René Bergeron slammed down the telephone on his desk; his voice only slightly more controlled than his gesture. “We’ve tried every café, every restaurant and bistro she’s ever frequented!”
   “There’s not a hotel in Paris that has him registered,” said the gray-haired switchboard operator, seated at a second telephone by a drafting board. “It’s been more than two hours now, she could be dead. If she’s not, she might well wish she were.”
   “She can only tell him so much,” mused Bergeron. “Less than we could; she knows nothing of the old men.”
   “She knows enough; she’s called Parc Monceau.”
   “She’s relayed messages; she’s not certain to whom.”
   “She knows why.”
   “So does Cain, I can assure you. And he would make a grotesque error with Parc Monceau.” The designer leaned forward, his powerful forearms tensing as he locked his hands together, his eyes on the gray-haired man. “Tell me, again, everything you remember. Why are you so sure he’s Bourne?”
   “I don’t know that. I said he was Cain. If you’ve described his methods accurately, he’s the man.”
   “Bourne is Cain. We found him through the Medusa records. It’s why you were hired.”
   “Then he’s Bourne, but it’s not the name he used. Of course, there were a number of men in Medusa who would not permit their real names to be used. For them, false identities were guaranteed; they had criminal records. He would be one of those men.”
   “Why him? Others disappeared. You disappeared.”
   “I could say because he was here in Saint-Honoré and that should be enough. But there’s more, much more. I watched him function. I was assigned to a mission he commanded; it was not an experience to be forgotten, nor was he. That man could be--would be--your Cain.”
   “Tell me.”
   “We parachuted at night into a sector called Tam Quan, our objective to bring out an American named Webb who was being held by the Viet Cong. We didn’t know it, but the odds against survival were monumental. Even the flight from Saigon was horrendous; gale-force winds at a thousand feet, the aircraft vibrating as if it would fall apart. Still, he ordered us to jump.”
   “And you did?”
   “His gun was pointed at our heads. At each of us as we approached the hatchway. We might survive the elements, not a bullet in our skulls.”
   “How many were there of you?”
   “Ten.”
   “You could have taken him.”
   “You didn’t know him.”
   “Go on,” said Bergeron, concentrating; immobile at the desk.
   “Eight of us regrouped on the ground; two, we assumed, had not survived the jump. It was amazing that I did. I was the oldest and hardly a bull, but I knew the area; it was why I was sent.” The gray-haired man paused, shaking his head at the memory. “Less than an hour later we realized it was a trap. We were running like lizards through the jungle. And during the nights he went out alone through the mortar explosions and the grenades. To kill. Always coming back before dawn to force us closer and closer to the base camp. I thought at the time, sheer suicide.”
   “Why did you do it? He had to give you a reason; you were Medusans, not soldiers.”
   “He said it was the only way to get out alive, and there was logic to that. We were far behind the lines; we needed the supplies we could find at the base camp--if we could take it. He said we had to take it; we had no choice. If any argued, he’d put a bullet in his head--we knew it. On the third night we took the camp and found the man named Webb more dead than alive, but breathing. We also found the two missing members of our team, very much alive and stunned at what had happened. A white man and a Vietnamese; they’d been paid by the Cong to trap us--trap him, I suspect.”
   “Cain?”
   “Yes. The Vietnamese saw us first and escaped. Cain shot the white man in the head. I understand he just walked up to him and blew his head off.”
   “He got you back? Through the lines?”
   “Four of us, yes, and the man named Webb. Five men were killed. It was during that terrible journey back that I thought I understood why the rumors might be true--that he was the highest-paid recruit in Medusa.”
   “In what sense?”
   “He was the coldest man I ever saw, the most dangerous, and utterly unpredictable. I thought at the time it was a strange war for him; he was a Savonarola, but without religious principle, only his own odd morality which was centered about himself. All men were his enemies--the leaders in particular and he cared not one whit for either side.” The middle-aged man paused again, his eyes on the drafting board, his mind obviously thousands of miles away and back in time. “Remember, Medusa was filled with diverse and desperate men. Many were paranoid in their hatred of Communists. Kill a Communist and Christ smiled--odd examples of Christian teaching. Others-– such as myself--had fortunes stolen from us by the Viet Minh; the only path to restitution was if the Americans won the war. France had abandoned us at Dienbienphu. But there were dozens who saw that fortunes could be made from Medusa. Pouches often contained fifty to seventy-five thousand American dollars. A courier siphoning off half during ten, fifteen runs, could retire in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or set up his own narcotics network in the Triangle. Beyond the exorbitant pay--and frequently the pardoning of past crimes---the opportunities were unlimited. It was in this group that I placed that very strange man. He was a modern-day pirate in the purest sense.” Bergeron unlocked his hands. “Wait a minute. You used the phrase, ‘a mission he commanded.’
   There were military men in Medusa; are you sure he wasn’t an American officer?”
   “American, to be sure, but certainly not army.”
   “Why?”
   “He hated all aspects of the military. His scorn for Command Saigon was in every decision he made; he considered the army fools and incompetents. At one point orders were radioed to us in Tam Quan. He broke off the transmission and told a regimental general to have sex with himself-– he would not obey. An army officer would hardly do that.”
   “Unless he was about to abandon his profession,” said the designer. “As Paris abandoned you, and you did the best you could, stealing from Medusa, setting up your own hardly patriotic activities--wherever you could.”
   “My country betrayed me before I betrayed her, René.”
   “Back to Cain. You say Bourne was not the name he used. What was it?”
   “I don’t recall. As I said, for many, surnames were not relevant. He was simply ‘Delta’ to me.”
   “Mekong?”
   “No, the alphabet, I think.”
   “ ‘Alpha, Bravo, Charlie ... Delta,’ “ said Bergeron pensively in English. “But in many operations the code word ‘Charlie’ was replaced by ‘Cain’ because ‘Charlie’ had become synonymous with the Cong. ‘Charlie’ became ‘Cain.’ “ “Quite true. So Bourne dropped back a letter and assumed ‘Cain.’ He could have chosen ‘Echo’ or ‘Foxtrot’ or ‘Zulu.’ Twenty-odd others. What’s the difference? What’s your point?”
   “He chose Cain deliberately. It was symbolic. He wanted it clear from the beginning.”
   “Wanted what clear?”
   “That Cain would replace Carlos. Think. ‘Carlos’ is Spanish for Charles--Charlie. The code word ‘Cain’ was substituted for ‘Charlie’--Carlos. It was his intention from the start. Cain would replace Carlos. And he wanted Carlos to know it.”
   “Does Carlos?”
   “Of course. Word goes out in Amsterdam and Berlin, Geneva and Lisbon, London and right here in Paris. Cain is available; contracts can be made, his price lower than Carlos’ fee. He erodes!
   He constantly erodes Carlos’ stature.”
   “Two matadors in the same ring. There can only be one.”
   “It will be Carlos. We’ve trapped the puffed-up sparrow. He’s somewhere within two hours of Saint-Honoré.”
   “But where?”
   “No matter. We’ll find him. After all, he found us. He’ll come back; his ego will demand it. And then the eagle will sweep down and catch the sparrow. Carlos will kill him.”

   The old man adjusted his single crutch under his left arm, parted the black drape and stepped into the confessional booth. He was not well; the pallor of death was on his face, and he was glad the figure in the priest’s habit beyond the transparent curtain could not see him clearly. The assassin might not give him further work if he looked too worn to carry it out; he needed work now. There were only weeks remaining and he had responsibilities. He spoke.
   “Angelus Domini.”
   “Angelus Domini, child of God,” came the whisper. “Are your days comfortable?”
   “They draw to an end, but they are made comfortable.”
   “Yes. I think this will be your last job for me. It is of such importance, however, that your fee will be five times the usual. I hope it will be of help to you.”
   “Thank you, Carlos. You know, then.”
   “I know. This is what you must do for it, and the information must leave this world with you.
   There can be no room for error.”
   “I have always been accurate. I will go to my death being accurate now.”
   “Die in peace, old friend. It’s easier. ... You will go to the Vietnamese Embassy and ask for an attaché named Phan Loc. When you are alone, say the following words to him: ‘Late March 1968 Medusa, the Tam Quan sector. Cain was there. Another also.’ Have you got that?”
   “ ‘Late March 1968 Medusa, the Tam Quan sector. Cain was there. Another also.’ “ “He’ll tell you when to return. It will be in a matter of hours.”

17
   “I think it’s time we talked about a fiche confidentielleout of Zurich.”
   “My God!”
   “I’m not the man you’re looking for.”
   Bourne gripped the woman’s hand, holding her in place, preventing her from running into the aisles of the crowded, elegant restaurant in Argenteuil, a few miles outside of Paris. The pavane was over, the gavotte finished. They were alone; the velvet booth a cage.
   “Who are you?” The Lavier woman grimaced, trying to pull her hand away, the veins in the cosmeticized neck pronounced.
   “A rich American who lives in the Bahamas. Don’t you believe that?”
   “I should have known,” she said, “no charges, no check--only cash. You didn’t even look at the bill.”
   “Or the prices before that. It’s what brought you over to me.”
   “I was a fool. The rich always look at prices, if only for the pleasure of dismissing them.” Lavier spoke while glancing around, looking for a space in the aisles, a waiter she might summon. Escape.
   “Don’t,” said Jason, watching her eyes. “It’d be foolish. We’d both be better off if we talked.” The woman stared at him, the bridge of hostile silence accentuated by the hum of the large, dimly lit, candelabraed room and the intermittent eruptions of quiet laughter from the nearby tables. “I ask you again,” she said. “Who are you?”
   “My name isn’t important. Settle for the one I gave you.”
   “Briggs? It’s false.”
   “So’s Larousse, and that’s on the lease of a rented car that picked up three killers at the Valois Bank. They missed there. They also missed this afternoon at the Pont Neuf. He got away.”
   “Oh, God!” she cried, trying to break away.
   “I said don’t!” Bourne held her firmly, pulling her back.
   “If I scream, monsieur?” The powdered mask was cracked with lines of venom now, the bright red lipstick defining the snarl of an aging, cornered rodent.
   “I’ll scream louder,” replied Jason. “We’d both be thrown out, and once outside I don’t think you’ll be unmanageable. Why not talk? We might learn something from each other. After all, we’re employees, not employers.”
   “I have nothing to say to you.”
   “Then I’ll start. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” He lessened his grip cautiously. The tension remained on her white, powdered face, but it, too, was lessened as the pressure of his fingers was reduced. She was ready to listen. “You paid a price in Zurich. We paid, too. Obviously more than you did. We’re after the same man; we know why we want him.” He released her. “Why do you?” She did not speak for nearly half a minute, instead, studying him in silence, her eyes angry yet frightened. Bourne knew he had phrased the question accurately; for Jacqueline Lavier not to talk to him would be a dangerous mistake. It could cost her her life if subsequent questions were raised.
   “Who is ‘we?’ “ she asked.
   “A company that wants its money. A great deal of money. He has it.”
   “He did not earn it, then?”
   Jason knew he had to be careful; he was expected to know far more than he did. “Let’s say there’s a dispute.”
   “How could there be? Either he did or he did not, there’s hardly a middle ground.”
   “It’s my turn,” said Bourne. “You answered a question with a question and I didn’t avoid you.
   Now, let’s go back. Why do you want him? Why is the private telephone of one of the better shops in Saint-Honoré put on a fiche in Zurich?”
   “It was an accommodation, monsieur.”
   “For whom?”
   “Are you mad?”
   “All right, I’ll pass on that for now. We think we know anyway.”
   “Impossible!”
   “Maybe, maybe not. So it was an accommodation ... to kill a man?”
   “I have nothing to say.”
   “Yet a minute ago when I mentioned the car, you tried to run. That’s saying something.”
   “A perfectly natural reaction.” Jacqueline Lavier touched the stem of her wineglass. “I arranged for the rental. I don’t mind telling you that because there’s no evidence that I did so. Beyond that I know nothing of what happened.” Suddenly she gripped the glass, her mask of a face a mixture of controlled fury and fear. “Who are you people?”
   “I told you. A company that wants its money back.”
   “You’re interfering! Get out of Paris! Leave this alone!”
   “Why should we? Were the injured party; we want the balance sheet corrected. We’re entitled to that.”
   “You’re entitled to nothing!” spat Mme. Lavier. “The error was yours and you’ll! pay for it!”
   “Error?” He had to be very careful. It was here--right below the hard surface--the eyes of the truth could be seen beneath the ice. “Come off it. Theft isn’t an error committed by the victim.”
   “The error was in your choice, monsieur. You chose the wrong man.”
   “He stole millions from Zurich,” said Jason. “But you know that. He took millions, and if you think you’re going to take them from him--which is the same as taking them from us--you’re very much mistaken.”
   “We want no money!”
   “I’m glad to know it. Who’s ‘we?’ “
   “I thought you said you knew.”
   “I said we had an idea. Enough to expose a man named Koenig in Zurich; d’Amacourt here in Paris. If we decide to do that, it could prove to be a major embarrassment, couldn’t it?”
   “Money? Embarrassment? These are not issues. You are consumed with stupidity, all of you! I’ll say it again. Get out of Paris. Leave this alone. It is not your concern any longer.”
   “We don’t think it’s yours. Frankly, we don’t think you’re competent.”
   “Competent?” repeated Lavier, as if she did not believe what she had heard.
   “That’s right.”
   “Have you any idea what you’re saying? Whom you’re talking about?”
   “It doesn’t matter. Unless you back off, my recommendation is that we come out loud and clear.
   Mock up charges--not traceable to us, of course. Expose Zurich, the Valois. Call in the Sûreté, Interpol ... anyone and anything to create a manhunt--a massive manhunt.”
   “You are mad. And a fool.”
   “Not at all. We have friends in very important positions; we’ll get the information first We’ll be waiting at the right place at the right time. We’ll take him.”
   “You won’t take him. He’ll disappear again! Can’t you see that? He’s in Paris and a network of people he cannot know are looking for him. He may have escaped once, twice; but not a third time!
   He’s trapped now. We’ve trapped him!”
   “We don’t want you to trap him. That’s not in our interests.” It was almost the moment, thought Bourne. Almost, but not quite; her fear had to match her anger. She had to be detonated into revealing the truth. “Here’s our ultimatum, and we’re holding you responsible for conveying it-– otherwise you’ll join Koenig and d’Amacourt. Call off your hunt tonight If you don’t we’ll move first thing in the morning; we’ll start shouting. Les Classiques’ll be the most popular store in Saint-Honoré, but I don’t think it’ll be the right people.”
   The powdered face cracked. “You wouldn’t dare! How dare you? Who are you to say this?!”
   He paused, then struck. “A group of people who don’t care much for your Carlos.” The Lavier woman froze, her eyes wide, stretching the taut skin into scar tissue. “You do know,” she whispered. “And you think you can oppose him? You think you’re a match for Carlos?”
   “In a word, yes.”
   “You’re insane. You don’t give ultimatums to Carlos.”
   “I just did.”
   “Then you’re dead. You raise your voice to anyone and you won’t last the day. He has men everywhere; they’ll cut you down in the street.”
   “They might if they knew whom to cut down,” said Jason. “You forget. No one does. But they know who you are. And Koenig, and d’Amacourt. The minute we expose you, you’d be eliminated.
   Carlos couldn’t afford you any longer. But no one knows me.”
   “You forget, monsieur. I do.”
   “The least of my worries. Find me ... after the damage is done and before the decision is made regarding your own future. It won’t be long.”
   “This is madness. You come out of nowhere and talk like a madman. You cannot do this!”
   “Are you suggesting a compromise?”
   “It’s conceivable,” said Jacqueline Lavier. “Anything is possible.”
   “Are you in a position to negotiate it?”
   “I’m in a position to convey it ... far better than I can an ultimatum. Others will relay it to the one who decides.”
   “What you’re saying is what I said a few minutes ago: we can talk.”
   “We can talk, monsieur,” agreed Mme. Lavier, her eyes fighting for her life.
   “Then let’s start with the obvious.”
   “Which is?”
   Now. The truth.
   “What’s Bourne to Carlos? Why does he want him?”
   “What’s Bourne--“ The woman stopped, venom and fear replaced by an expression of absolute shock. “You can ask that?”
   “I’ll ask it again,” said Jason, hearing the pounding echoes in his chest. “What’s Bourne to Carlos?”
   “He’s Cain! You know it as well as we do. He was your error, your choice! You chose the wrong man!”
   Cain. He heard the name and the echoes erupted into cracks of deafening thunder. And with each crack, pain jolted him, bolts searing one after another through his head, his mind and body recoiling under the onslaught of the name. Cain. Cain. The mists were there again. The darkness, the wind, the explosions.
   Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. ... Cain, Delta. Delta, Cain. Delta ... Cain.
   Cain is for Charlie.
   Delta is for Cain!
   “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”
   “Nothing.” Bourne had slipped his right hand over his left wrist, gripping it, his fingers pressed into his flesh with such pressure he thought his skin might break. He had to do something; he had to stop the trembling, lessen the noise, repulse the pain. He had to clear his mind. The eyes of the truth were staring at him; he could not look away. He was there, he was home, and the cold made him shiver. “Go on,” he said, imposing a control on his voice that resulted in a whisper; he could not help himself.
   “Are you ill? You’re very pale and you’re--“
   “I’m fine,” he interrupted curtly. “I said, go on.”
   “What’s there to tell you?”
   “Say it all. I want to hear it from you.”
   “Why? There’s nothing you don’t know. You chose Cain. You dismissed Carlos; you think you can dismiss him now. You were wrong then and you are wrong now.”
   I will kill you. I will grab your throat and choke the breath out of you. Tell me! For Christ’s sake, tell me! At the
   end, there is only my beginning! I must know it.
   “That doesn’t matter,” he said. “If you are looking for a compromise--if only to save your life-– tell me why we should listen. Why is Carlos so adamant ... so paranoid ... about Bourne? Explain it to me as if I hadn’t heard it before. If you don’t, those names that shouldn’t be mentioned will be spread all over Paris, and you’ll be dead by the afternoon.” Lavier was rigid, her alabaster mask set. “Carlos will follow Cain to the ends of the earth and kill him.”
   “We know that. We want to know why.”
   “He has to. Look to yourself. To people like you.”
   “That’s meaningless. You don’t know who we are.”
   “I don’t have to. I know what you’ve done.”
   “Spell it out!”
   “I did. You picked Cain over Carlos--that was your error. You chose the wrong man. You paid the wrong assassin.”
   “The wrong ... assassin.”
   “You were not the first, but you will be the last. The arrogant pretender will be killed here in Paris, whether there is a compromise or not.”
   “We picked the wrong assassin ...” The words floated in the elegant, perfumed air of the restaurant. The deafening thunder receded, angry still but far away in the storm clouds; the mists were clearing, circles of vapor swirling around him. He began to see, and what he saw was the outlines of a monster. Not a myth, but a monster. Another monster. There were two.
   “Can you doubt it?” asked the woman. “Don’t interfere with Carlos. Let him take Cain; let him have his revenge.” She paused, both hands slightly off the table; Mother Rat. “I promise nothing, but I will speak for you, for the loss your people have sustained. It’s possible ... only possible, you understand ... that your contract might be honored by the one you should have chosen in the first place.”
   “The one we should have chosen. ... Because we chose the wrong one.”
   “You see that, do you not, monsieur? Carlos should be told that you, see it. Perhaps ... only perhaps ... he might have sympathy for your losses if he were convinced you saw your error.”
   “That’s your compromise?” said Bourne flatly, struggling to find a line of thought.
   “Anything is possible. No good can come from your threats, I can tell you that. For any of us,
   and I’m frank enough to include myself. There would be only pointless killing; and Cain would stand
   back laughing. You would lose not once, but twice.”
   “If that’s true ...” Jason swallowed, nearly choking as dry air filled the vacuum in his dry throat, “then I’ll have to explain to my people why we ... chose ... the ... wrong man.” Stop it! Finish the statement. Control yourself. “Tell me everything you know about Cain.”
   “To what purpose?” Lavier put her fingers on the table, her bright red nail polish ten points of a weapon.
   “If we chose the wrong man, then we had the wrong information.”
   “You heard he was the equal of Carlos, no? That his fees were more reasonable, his apparatus more contained, and because fewer intermediaries were involved there was no possibility of a contract being traced. Is this not so?”
   “Maybe.”
   “Of course it’s so. It’s what everyone’s been told and it’s all a lie. Carlos’ strength is in his far-reaching sources of information--infallible information. In his elaborate system of reaching the right person at precisely the right moment prior to a kill.”
   “Sounds like too many people. There were too many people in Zurich, too many here in Paris.”
   “All blind, monsieur. Every one.”
   “Blind?”
   “To put it plainly, I’ve been part of the operation for a number of years, meeting in one way or another dozens who have played their minor roles--none is major. I have yet to meet a single person who has ever spoken to Carlos, much less has any idea who he is.”
   “That’s Carlos. I want to know about Cain. What you know about Cain.” Stay controlled. You cannot
   turn away. Look at her. Look at her!
   “Where shall I begin?”
   “With whatever comes to mind first. Where did he come from?” Do not look away!
   “Southeast Asia, of course.”
   “Of course ...” Oh, God.
   “From the American Medusa, we know that ...”
   Medusa! The winds, the darkness, the flashes of light, the pain. ... The pain ripped through his skull now; he was not where he was, but where he had been. A world away in distance and time. The pain. Oh, Jesus. The pain ...
   Tao!
   Che-sah!
   Tam Quan! Alpha, Bravo, Cain ... Delta.
   Delta ... Cain!
   Cain is for Charlie.
   Delta is for Cain.
   “What is it?” The woman looked frightened; she was studying his face, her eyes roving, boring into his. “You’re perspiring. Your hands are shaking. Are you having an attack?”
   “It passes quickly.” Jason pried his hand away from his wrist and reached for a napkin to wipe his forehead.
   “It comes with the pressures, no?”
   “With the pressures, yes. Go on. There isn’t much time; people have to be reached, decisions made. Your life is probably one of them. Back to Cain: You say he came from the American ...
   Medusa.”
   “Les mercenaires du diable,” said Lavier. “It was the nickname given Medusa by the Indochina colonials--what was left of them. Quite appropriate, don’t you think?”
   “It doesn’t make any difference what I think. Or what I know. I want to hear what you think, what you know about Cain.”
   “Your attack makes you rude.”
   “My impatience makes me impatient. You say we chose the wrong man; if we did we had the wrong information. Les mercenaires du diable. Are you implying that Cain is French?”
   “Not at all, you test me poorly. I mentioned that only to indicate how deeply we penetrated Medusa.”
   “ ‘We’ being the people who work for Carlos.”
   “You could say that.”
   “I will say that. If Cain’s not French, what is he?”
   “Undoubtedly American.”
   Oh, God! “Why?”
   “Everything he does has the ring of American audacity. He pushes and shoves with little or no finesse, taking credit where none is his, claiming kills when he had nothing to do with them. He had studied Carlos’ methods and connections like no other man alive. Were told he recites them with total recall to potential clients, more often than not putting himself in Carlos’ place, convincing fools that it was he, not Carlos, who accepted and fulfilled the contracts.” Lavier paused. “I’ve struck a chord, no? He did the same with you--your people--yes?”
   “Perhaps.” Jason reached for his own wrist again, as the statements came back to him.
   Statements made in response to clues in a dreadful game.
   Stuttgart. Regensburg. Munich. Two kills and a kidnapping, Baader accreditation. Fees from U. S. sources. ...
   Teheran? Eight kills. Divided accreditation--Khomeini and PLO. Fee, two million. Southwest Soviet sector.
   Paris ... All contracts will be processed through Paris.
   Whose contracts?
   Sanchez ... Carlos.
   “... always such a transparent device.”
   The Lavier woman had spoken; he had not heard her. “What did you say?”
   “You were remembering, yes? He used the same device with you--your people. It’s how he gets his assignments.”
   “Assignments?” Bourne tensed the muscles in his stomach until the pain brought him back to the table in the candelabraed dining room in Argenteuil. “He gets assignments, then,” he said pointlessly.
   “And carries them out with considerable expertise; no one denies him that. His record of kills is impressive. In many ways, he is second to Carlos--not his equal, but far above the ranks of les guérilleros. He’s a man of immense skill, extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon out of Medusa. But it is his arrogance, his lies at the expense of Carlos that will bring him down.”

“And that makes him American? Or is it your bias? I have an idea you like American money, but that’s about all they export that you do like.” Immense skill; extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon. ... Port Noir, La Ciotat, Marseilles, Zurich, Paris.
   “It is beyond prejudice, monsieur. The identification is positive.”
   “How did you get it?”
   Lavier touched the stem of her wineglass, her red-tipped index finger curling around it. “A discontented man was bought in Washington.”
   “Washington?”
   “The Americans also look for Cain--with an intensity approaching Carlos’, I suspect. Medusa has never been made public, and Cain might prove to be an extraordinary embarrassment. This discontented man was in a position to give us a great deal of information, including the Medusa records. It was a simple matter to match the names with those in Zurich. Simple for Carlos, not for anyone else.”
   Too simple, thought Jason, not knowing why the thought struck him. “I see,” he said.
   “And you? How did you find him? Not Cain, of course, but Bourne.” Through the mists of anxiety, Jason recalled another statement. Not his, but one spoken by Marie. “Far simpler,” he said. “We paid the money to him by means of a shortfall deposit into one account, the surplus diverted blindly into another. The numbers could be traced; it’s a tax device.”
   “Cain permitted it?”
   “He didn’t know it. The numbers were paid for ... as you paid for different numbers--telephone numbers--on a fiche.”
   “I commend you.”
   “It’s not required, but everything you know about Cain is. All you’ve done so far is explain an identification. Now, go on. Everything you know about this man Bourne, everything you’ve been told.” Be careful. Take the tension from your voice. You are merely ... evaluating data. Marie, you said that. Dear, dear Marie. Thank God you’re not here.
   “What we know about him is incomplete. He’s managed to remove most of the vital records, a lesson he undoubtedly learned from Carlos. But not all; we’ve pieced together a sketch. Before he was recruited into Medusa, he supposedly was a French-speaking businessman living in Singapore, representing a collective of American importers from New York to California. The truth is he had been dismissed by the collective, which then tried to have him extradited back to the States for prosecution; he had stolen hundreds of thousands from it. He was known in Singapore as a reclusive figure, very powerful in contraband operations, and extraordinarily ruthless.”
   “Before that,” interrupted Jason, feeling again the perspiration breaking out on his hairline.
   “Before Singapore. Where did he come from?” Be careful! The images! He could see the streets of Singapore.
   Prince Edward Road, Kim Chuan, Boon Tat Street, Maxwell, Cuscaden.
   “Those are the records no one can find. There are only rumors, and they are meaningless. For example, it was said that he was a defrocked Jesuit, gone mad; another speculation was that he had been a young, aggressive investment banker caught embezzling funds in concert with several Singapore banks. There’s nothing concrete, nothing that can be traced. Before Singapore, nothing.”
   You’re wrong, there was a great deal. But none of that is part of it... There is a void, and it must be filled, and you
   can’t help me. Perhaps no one can; perhaps no one should.
   “So far, you haven’t told me anything startling,” said Bourne, “nothing relative to the information I’m interested in.”
   “Then I don’t know what you wan! You ask me questions, press for details, and when I offer you answers you reject them as immaterial. What do you want?”
   “What do you know about Cain’s ... work? Since you’re looking for a compromise, give me a reason for it. If our information differs, it would be over what he’s done, wouldn’t it? When did he first come to your attention? Carlos’ attention? Quickly!”
   “Two years ago,” said Mme. Lavier, disconcerted by Jason’s impatience, annoyed, frightened.
   “Word came out of Asia of a white man offering a service astonishingly similar to the one provided by Carlos. He was swiftly becoming an industry. An ambassador was assassinated in Moulmein; two days later a highly regarded Japanese politician was killed in Tokyo prior to a debate in the Diet. A week after that a newspaper editor was blown out of his car in Hong Kong, and in less than forty– eight hours a banker was shot on a street in Calcutta. Behind each one, Cain. Always Cain.” The woman stopped, appraising Bourne’s reaction. He gave none. “Don’t you see? He was everywhere. He raced from one kill to another, accepting contracts with such rapidity that he had to be indiscriminate. He was a man in an enormous hurry, building his reputation so quickly that he shocked even the most jaded professionals. And no one doubted that he was a professional, least of all Carlos. Instructions were sent: find out about this man, learn all you can. You see, Carlos understood what none of us did, and in less than twelve months he was proven correct. Reports came from informers in Manila, Osaka, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Cain was moving to Europe, they said; he would make Paris itself his base of operations. The challenge was clear, the gauntlet thrown.
   Cain was out to destroy Carlos. He would become the new Carlos, his services the services required by those who sought them. As you sought them, monsieur.”
   “Moulmein, Tokyo, Calcutta ...” Jason heard the names coming from his lips, whispered from his throat. Again they were floating, suspended in the perfumed air, shadows of a past forgotten.
   “Manila, Hong Kong ...” He stopped, trying to clear the mists, peering at the outlines of strange shapes that kept racing across his mind’s eye.
   “These places and many others,” continued Lavier. “That was Cain’s error, his error still. Carlos may be many things to many people, but among those who have benefited from his trust and generosity, there is loyalty. His informers and hirelings are not so readily for sale, although Cain has tried time and again. It is said that Carlos is swift to make harsh judgments, but, as they also say, better a Satan one knows than a successor one doesn’t. What Cain did not realize--does not realize now--is that Carlos’ network is a vast one. When Cain moved to Europe, he did not know that his activities were uncovered in Berlin, Lisbon, Amsterdam ... as far away as Oman.”
   “Oman,” said Bourne involuntarily. “Sheik Mustafa Kalig,” he whispered, as if to himself.
   “Never proven!” interjected the Lavier woman defiantly. “A deliberate smokescreen of confusion, the contract itself fiction. He took credit for an internal murder; no one could penetrate that security. A lie!”
   “A lie,” repeated Jason.
   “So many lies,” added Mme. Lavier contemptuously. “He’s no fool, however; he lies quietly, dropping a hint here and there, knowing that they will be exaggerated in the telling into substance.
   He provokes Carlos at every turn, promoting himself at the expense of the man he would replace.
   But he’s no match for Carlos; he takes contracts he cannot fulfill. You are only one example; we hear there have been several others. It’s said that’s why he stayed away for months, avoiding people like yourselves.”
   “Avoiding people ...” Jason reached for his wrist; the trembling had begun again, the sound of distant thunder vibrating in far regions of his skull. “You’re ... sure of that?”
   “Very much so. He wasn’t dead; he was in hiding. Cain botched more than one assignment; it was inevitable. He accepted too many in too short a time. Yet whenever he did, he followed an abortive kill with a spectacular, unsolicited one, to uphold his stature. He would select a prominent figure and blow him away, the assassination a shock to everyone, and unmistakably Cain’s. The ambassador traveling in Moulmein was an example; no one had called for his death. There were two others that we know of--a Russian commissar in Shanghai and more recently a banker in Madrid.
   ...” The words came from the bright red lips working feverishly in the lower part of the powdered mask facing him. He heard them; he had heard them before. He had lived them before. They were no longer shadows, but remembrances of that forgotten past. Images and reality were fused. She began no sentence he could not finish, nor could she mention a name or a city or an incident with which he was not instinctively familiar.
   She was talking about ... him.
   Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta ...
   Cain is for Charlie, and Delta is for Cain.
   Jason Bourne was the assassin called Cain.
   There was a final question, his brief reprieve from darkness two nights ago at the Sorbonne. Marseilles. August 23.
   “What happened in Marseilles?” he asked.
   “Marseilles?” the Lavier woman recoiled. “How could you? What lies were you told? What other lies?”
   “Just tell me what happened.”
   “You refer to Leland, of course. The ubiquitous ambassador whose death was called for--paid for, the contract accepted by Carlos.”
   “What if I told you that there are those who think Cain was responsible?”
   “It’s what he wanted everyone to think! It was the ultimate insult to Carlos--to steal the kill from him. Payment was irrelevant to Cain; he only wanted to show the world--our world--that he could get there first and do the job for which Carlos had been paid. But he didn’t, you know. He had nothing to do with the Leland kill.”
   “He was there.”
   “He was trapped. At least, he never showed up. Some said he’d been killed, but since there was no corpse, Carlos didn’t believe it.”
   “How was Cain supposedly killed?”
   Madame Lavier retreated, shaking her head in short, rapid movements. “Two men on the waterfront tried to take credit, tried to get paid for it. One was never seen again; it can be presumed Cain killed him, if it was Cain. They were dock garbage.”
   “What was the trap?”
   The alleged trap, monsieur. They claimed to have gotten word that Cain was to meet someone in the rue Sarrasin a night or so before the assassination. They say they left appropriately obscure messages in the street and lured the man they were convinced was Cain down to the piers, to a fishing boat. Neither trawler nor skipper were seen again, so they may have been right--but as I say, there was no proof. Not even an adequate description of Cain to match against the man led away from the Sarrasin. At any rate, that’s where it ends.”
   You’re wrong. That’s where it began. For me.
   “I see,” said Bourne, trying again to infuse naturalness into his voice. “Our information’s different naturally. We made a choice on what we thought we knew.”
   “The wrong choice, monsieur. What I’ve told you is the truth.”
   “Yes, I know.”
   “Do we have our compromise, then?”
   “Why not?”
   “Bien.” Relieved, the woman lifted the wineglass to her lips. “You’ll see, it will be better for everyone.”
   “It ... doesn’t really matter now.” He could barely be heard, and he knew it. What did he say?
   What had he just said? Why did he say it? ... The mists were closing in again, the thunder getting louder; the pain had returned to his temples. “I mean ... I mean, as you say, it’s better for everyone.” He could feel--see--Lavier’s eyes on him, studying him. “It’s a reasonable solution.”
   “Of course it is. You are not feeling well?”
   “I said it was nothing; it’ll pass.”
   “I’m relieved. Now, would you excuse me for a moment?”
   “No.” Jason grabbed her arm.
   “Je vous prie, monsieur. The powder room, that is all. If you care to, stand outside the door.”
   “We’ll leave. You can stop on the way.” Bourne signaled the waiter for a check.
   “As you wish,” she said, watching him.
   He stood in the darkened corridor between the spills of light that came from recessed lamps in the ceiling. Across the way was the ladies’ room, denoted by small, uncapitalized letters of gold that read FEMMES. Beautiful people--stunning women, handsome men--kept passing by; the orbit was similar to that of Les Classiques. Jacqueline Lavier was at home.
   She had also been in the ladies’ room for nearly ten minutes, a fact that would have disturbed Jason had he been able to concentrate on the time. He could not; he was on fire. Noise and pain consumed him, every nerve ending raw, exposed, the fibers swelling, terrified of puncture. He stared straight ahead, a history of dead men behind him. The past was in the eyes of truth; they had sought him out and he had seen them. Cain ... Cain ... Cain.
   He shook his head and looked up at the black ceiling. He had to function; he could not allow himself to keep falling, plunging into the abyss filled with darkness and high wind. There were decisions to make. ... No, they were made; it was a question now of implementing them.
   Marie. Marie? Oh, God, my love, we’ve been so wrong!
   He breathed deeply and glanced at his watch--the chronometer he had traded for a thin gold piece of jewelry belonging to a marquis in the south of France. He is a man of immense skill, extremely inventive. ... There was no joy in that appraisal. He looked across at the ladies’ room.
   Where was Jacqueline Lavier? Why didn’ t she come out? What could she hope to accomplish remaining inside? He had had the presence of mind to ask the maître d’ if there was a telephone there; the man had replied negatively, pointing to a booth by the entrance. The Lavier woman had been at his side, she heard the answer, understanding the inquiry.
   There was a blinding flash of light. He lurched backward, recoiling into the wall, his hands in front of his eyes. The pain! Oh, Christ! His eyes were on fire!
   And then he heard the words, spoken through the polite laughter of well-dressed men and women walking casually about the corridor.
   “In memory of your dinner at Roget’s, monsieur,” said an animated hostess, holding a press camera by its vertical flashbar. “The photograph will be ready in a few minutes. Compliments of Roget.”
   Bourne remained rigid, knowing that he could not smash the camera, the fear of another realization sweeping over him. “Why me?” he asked.
   “Your fiancée requested it, monsieur,” replied the girl, nodding her head toward the ladies’ room.
   “We talked inside. You are most fortunate; she is a lovely lady. She asked me to give you this.” The hostess held out a folded note; Jason took it as she pranced away toward the restaurant entrance.

   Your illness disturbs me, as I’m sure it does you, my new friend. You may be what you say you are, and then again you may not. I shall have the answer in a half hour or so. A telephone call was made by a sympathetic diner, and that photograph is on its way to Paris. You cannot stop it any more than you can stop those driving now to Argenteuil. If we, indeed, have our compromise, neither will disturb you--as your illness disturbs me--and we shall talk again when my associates arrive.
   It is said that Cain is a chameleon, appearing in various guises, and most convincing. It is also said that he is prone to violence and to fits of temper. These are an illness, no?

   He ran down the dark street in Argenteuil after the receding roof light of the taxi; it turned the corner and disappeared. He stopped, breathing heavily, looking in all directions for another; there were none. The doorman at Roget’s had told him a cab would take ten to fifteen minutes to arrive; why had not monsieur requested one earlier? The trap was set and he had walked into it.
   Up ahead! A light, another taxi! He broke into a run. He had to stop it; he had to get back to Paris. To Marie.
   He was back in a labyrinth, racing blindly, knowing, finally, there was no escape. But the race would be made alone; that decision was irrevocable. There would be no discussion, no debate, no screaming back and forth--arguments based in love and uncertainty. For the certainty had been made clear. He knew who he was ... what he had been; he was guilty as charged--as suspected.
   An hour or two saying nothing. Just watching, talking quietly about anything but the truth.
   Loving. And then he would leave; she would never know when and he could never tell her why. He owed her that; it would hurt deeply for a while, but the ultimate pain would be far less than that caused by the stigma of Cain.
   Cain!
   Marie. Marie! What have I done?
   “Taxi! Taxi!”

18
   Get out of Paris! Now! Whatever you’re doing, stop it and get out! ... Those are orders from your government. They want you out of there. They want him isolated.
   Marie crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table, her eyes falling on the three-year-old issue of Potomac Quarterly, her thoughts briefly on the terrible game Jason had forced her to play.
   “I won’t listen!” she said to herself out loud, startled at the sound of her own voice in the empty room. She walked to the window, the same window he had faced, looking out, frightened, trying to make her understand.
   I have to know certain things ... enough to make a decision ... but ma ybe not everything. A part of me has to be able ... to run, disappear. I have to be able to say to myself, what was isn’t any longer, and there’s a possibility that it never was because I have no memory of it. What a person can’t remember didn’t exist ... for him.
   “My darling, my darling. Don’t let them do this to you!” Her spoken words did not startle now, for it was as though he were there in the room, listening, heeding his own words, willing to run, disappear ... with her. But at the core of her understanding she knew he could not do that; he could not settle for a half-truth, or three-quarters of a lie.
   They want him isolated.
   Who were they? The answer was in Canada and Canada was cut off, another trap.
   Jason was right about Paris; she felt it, too. Whatever it was, was here. If they could find one person to lift the shroud and let him see for himself he was being manipulated, then other questions might be manageable, the answers no longer pushing him toward self-destruction. If he could be convinced that whatever unremembered crimes he had committed, he was a pawn for a much greater single crime, he might be able to walk away, disappear with her. Everything was relative.
   What the man she loved had to be able to say to himself was not that the past no longer existed, but that it had, and he could live with it, and put it to rest. That was the rationalization he needed, the conviction that whatever he had been was far less than his enemies wanted the world to believe, for they would not use him otherwise. He was the scapegoat, his death to take the place of another’s. If he could only see that, if she could only convince him. And if she did not, she would lose him. They would take him; they would kill him.
   They.
   “Who are you?” she screamed at the window, at the lights of Paris outside. “Where are you?” She could feel a cold wind against her face as surely as if the panes of glass had melted, the night air rushing inside. It was followed by a tightening in her throat, and for a moment she could not swallow ... could not breathe. The moment passed and she breathed again. She was afraid; it had happened to her before, on their first night in Paris, when she had left the café to find him on the steps of the Cluny. She had been walking rapidly down the Saint-Michel when it happened: the cold wind, the swelling of the throat ... at that moment she had not been able to breathe. Later she thought she knew why; at that moment also, several blocks away inside the Sorbonne, Jason had raced to a judgment that in minutes he would reverse--but he had reached it then. He had made up his mind he would not come to her.
   “Stop it!” she cried. “It’s crazy,” she added, shaking her head, looking at her watch. He had been gone over five hours; where was he? Where was he?

   Bourne got out of the taxi in front of the seedily elegant hotel in Montparnasse. The next hour would be the most difficult of his briefly remembered life--a life that was a void before Port Noir, a nightmare since. The nightmare would continue, but he would live with it alone; he loved her too much to ask her to live it with him. He would find a way to disappear, taking with him the evidence that tied her to Cain. It was as simple as that; he would leave for a nonexistent rendezvous and not return. And sometime during the next hour he would write her a note:

   It’s over. I’ve found my arrows. Go back to Canada and say nothing for both our sakes. I know where to reach you.

   The last was unfair--he would never reach her--but the small, feathered hope had to be there, if only to get her on a plane to Ottawa. In time--with time--their weeks together would fade into a darkly kept secret, a cache of brief riches to be uncovered and touched at odd quiet moments. And then no more, for life was lived for active memories; the dormant ones lost meaning. No one knew that better than he did.
   He passed through the lobby, nodding at the concierge, who sat on his stool behind the marble counter, reading a newspaper. The man barely looked up, noting only that the intruder belonged.
   The elevator rumbled and groaned its way up to the fifth floor. Jason breathed deeply and reached for the gate; above all he would avoid dramatics--no alarms raised by words or by looks.
   The chameleon had to merge with his quiet part of the forest, one in which no spoors could be found. He knew what to say; he had thought about it carefully as he had the note he would write.

   “Most of the night walking around,” he said, holding her, stroking her dark red hair, cradling her head against his shoulder ... and aching, “chasing down cadaverous clerks, listening to animated nonsense, and drinking coffee disguised as sour mud. Les Classiques was a waste of time; it’s a zoo.
   The monkeys and the peacocks put on a hell of a show, but I don’t think anyone really knows anything. There’s one outside possibility, but he could simply be a sharp Frenchman in search of an American mark.”
   “He?” asked Marie, her trembling diminished.
   “A man who operated the switchboard,” said Bourne, repelling images of blinding explosions, and darkness and high winds as he pictured the face he did not know but knew so well. That man now was only a device; he pushed the images away. “I agreed to meet him around midnight at the Bastringue on rue Hautefeuille.”
   “What did he say?”
   “Very little, but enough to interest me. I saw him watching me while I was asking questions. The place was fairly crowded, so I could move around pretty freely, talk to the clerks.”
   “Questions? What questions did you ask?”
   “Anything I could think of. Mainly about the manager, or whatever she’s called. Considering what happened this afternoon, if she were a direct relay to Carlos, she should have been close to hysterics. I saw her. She wasn’t; she behaved as if nothing had happened except a good day in the shop.”
   “But she was a relay, as you call it. D’Amacourt explained that. The fiche.”
   “Indirect. She gets a phone call and is told what to say before making another call herself.”
   Actually, Jason thought, the invented assessment was based on reality. Jacqueline Lavier was, indeed,
   an indirect relay.
   “You couldn’t just walk around asking questions without seeming suspicious,” protested Marie.
   “You can,” answered Bourne, “if you’re an American writer doing an article on the stores in Saint-Honoré for a national magazine.”
   “That’s very good, Jason.”
   “It worked. No one wants to be left out.”
   “What did you learn?”
   “Like most of those kinds of places, Les Classiques has its own clientele, all wealthy, most known to each other and with the usual marital intrigues and adulteries that go with the scene. Carlos knew what he was doing; it’s a regular answering service over there, but not the kind listed in a phone book.”
   “People told you that?” asked Marie, holding his arms, watching his eyes.
   “Not in so many words,” he said, aware of the shadows of her disbelief. “The accent was always on this Bergeron’s talent, but one thing leads to another. You can get the picture. Everyone seems to gravitate to that manager. From what I’ve gathered, she’s a font of social information, although she probably couldn’t tell me anything except that she did someone a favor--an accommodation--and that someone will turn out to be someone else who did another favor for another someone. The source could be untraceable, but it’s all I’ve got.”
   “Why the meeting tonight at Bastringue?”
   “He came over to me when I was leaving and said a very strange thing.” Jason did not have to invent this part of the lie. He had read the words on a note in an elegant restaurant in Argenteuil less than an hour ago. “He said, ‘You may be what you say you are, and then again you may not.’ That’s
   when he suggested a drink later on, away from Saint-Honoré.” Bourne saw her doubts receding. He had done it; she accepted the tapestry of lies. And why not? He was a man of immense skill, extremely inventive. The appraisal was not loathsome to him; he was Cain.
   “He may be the one, Jason. You said you only needed one; he could be it!”
   “We’ll see.” Bourne looked at his watch. The countdown to his departure had begun; he could not look back. “We’ve got almost two hours. Where did you leave the attaché case?”
   “At the Meurice. I’m registered there.”
   “Let’s pick it up and get some dinner. You haven’t eaten, have you?”
   “No ... “ Marie’s expression was quizzical. “Why not leave the case where it is? It’s perfectly safe; we wouldn’t have to worry about it.”
   “We would if we had to get out of here in a hurry,” he said almost brusquely, going to the bureau. Everything was a question of degree now, traces of friction gradually slipping into speech, into looks, into touch. Nothing alarming, nothing based on false heroics; she would see through such tactics. Only enough so that later she would understand the truth when she read his words. “It’s over. I’ve found my arrows. ...”
   “What’s the matter, darling?”
   “Nothing.” The chameleon smiled. “I’m just tired and probably a little discouraged.”
   “Good heavens, why? A man wants to meet you confidentially late at night, a man who operates a switchboard. He could lead you somewhere. And you’re convinced you’ve narrowed Carlos’ contact down to this woman; she’s bound to be able to tell you something--whether she wants to or not. In a macabre way, I’d think you’d be elated.”
   “I’m not sure I can explain it,” said Jason, now looking at her reflection in the mirror. “You’d have to understand what I found there.”
   “What you found?” A question.
   “What I found.” A statement. “It’s a different world,” continued Bourne, reaching for the bottle of scotch and a glass, “different people. It’s soft and beautiful and frivolous, with lots of tiny spotlights and dark velvet. Nothings taken seriously except gossip and indulgence. Any one of those giddy people--including that woman--could be a relay for Carlos and never know it, never even suspect it A man like Carlos would use such people; anyone like him would, including me. ... That’s what I found. It’s discouraging.”
   “And unreasonable. Whatever you believe, those people make very conscious decisions. That indulgence you talk of demands it; they think. And you know what I think? I think you are tired, and hungry, and need a drink or two. I wish you could put off tonight; you’ve been through enough for one day.”
   “I can’t do that,” he said sharply.
   “All right, you can’t,” she answered defensively.
   “Sorry, I’m edgy.”
   “Yes. I know.” She started for the bathroom. “I’ll freshen up and we can go. Pour yourself a stiff one, darling. Your teeth are showing.”
   “Marie?”
   “Yes?”
   “Try to understand. What I found there upset me. I thought it would be different. Easier.”
   “While you were looking, I was waiting, Jason. Not knowing. That wasn’t easy either.”
   “I thought you were going to call Canada. Didn’t you?”
   She held her place for a moment. “No,” she said “It was too late.” The bathroom door closed; Bourne walked to the desk across the room. He opened the drawer, took out stationery, picked up the ballpoint pen and wrote the words:
   It’s over. I’ve found my arrows. Go back to Canada and say nothing for both our sakes. I know where to reach
   you.
   He folded the stationery, inserted it into an envelope, holding the flap open as he reached for his billfold. He took out both the French and the Swiss bills, slipping them behind the folded note, and sealed the envelope. He wrote on the front: MARIE.
   He wanted so desperately to add: My love, my dearest love.
   He did not. He could not.
   The bathroom door opened. He put the envelope in his jacket pocket. “That was quick,” he said.
   “Was it? I didn’t think so. What are you doing?”
   “I wanted a pen,” he answered, picking up the ballpoint. “If that fellow has anything to tell me I want to be able to write it down.”
   Marie was by the bureau; she glanced at the dry, empty glass. “You didn’t have your drink.”
   “I didn’t use the glass.”
   “I see. Shall we go?”
   They waited in the corridor for the rumbling elevator, the silence between them awkward, in a real sense unbearable. He reached for her hand. At the touch she gripped his, staring at him, her eyes telling him that her control was being tested and she did not know why. Quiet signals had been sent and received, not loud enough or abrasive enough to be alarms, but they were there and she had heard them. It was part of the countdown, rigid, irreversible, prelude to his departure.
   Oh God, I love you so. You are next to me and we are touching and I am dying. But you cannot die with me. You must not. I am Cain.
   “We’ll be fine,” he said.
   The metal cage vibrated noisily into its recessed perch. Jason pulled the brass grille open, then suddenly swore under his breath.
   “Oh, Christ, I forgot!”
   “What?”
   “My wallet. I left it in the bureau drawer this afternoon in case there was any trouble in Saint-Honoré. Wait for me in the lobby.” He gently swung her through the gate, pressing the button with his free hand. “I’ll be right down.” He closed the grille; the brass latticework cutting off the sight of her startled eyes. He turned :away and walked rapidly back toward the room.
   Inside, he took the envelope out of his pocket and placed it against the base of the lamp on the bedside table. He stared down at it, the ache unendurable.
   “Goodbye, my love,” he whispered.
   Bourne waited in the drizzle outside the Hotel Meurice on the rue de Rivoli, watching Marie through the glass doors of the entrance. She was at the front desk, having signed for the attaché case, which had been handed to her over the counter. She was now obviously asking a mildly astonished clerk for her bill, about to pay for a room that had been occupied less than six hours.
   Two minutes passed before the bill was presented. Reluctantly; it was no way for a guest at the Meurice to behave. Indeed, all Paris shunned such inhibited visitors.
   Marie walked out on the pavement, joining him in the shadows and the mistlike drizzle to the left of the canopy. She gave him the attaché case, a forced smile on her lips, a slight breathless quality in her voice.
   “That man didn’t approve of me. I’m sure he’s convinced I used the room for a series of quick tricks.”
   “What did you tell him?” asked Bourne.
   “That my plans had changed, that’s all.”
   “Good, the less said the better. Your name’s on the registration card. Think up a reason why you were there.”
   “Think up? ... I should think up a reason?” She studied his eyes, the smile gone.
   “I mean we’ll think up a reason. Naturally.”
   “Naturally.”
   “Let’s go.” They started walking toward the corner, the traffic noisy in the street, the drizzle in the air fuller, the mist denser, the promise of heavy rain imminent. He took her arm--not to guide her, not even out of courtesy--only to touch her, to hold a part of her. There was so little time.
   I am Cain. I am death.
   “Can we slow down?” asked Marie sharply.
   “What?” Jason realized he had been practically running; for a few seconds he had been back in the labyrinth, racing through it, careening, feeling, and not feeling. He looked up ahead and found an answer. At the corner an empty cab had stopped by a garish newsstand, the driver shouting through an open window to the dealer. “I want to catch that taxi,” said Bourne, without breaking stride. “It’s going to rain like hell.”
   They reached the corner, both breathless as the empty cab pulled away, swinging left into rue de Rivoli. Jason looked up into the night sky, feeling the wet pounding on his face, unnerved. The rain had arrived. He looked at Marie in the gaudy lights of the newsstand; she was wincing in the sudden downpour. No. She was not wincing; she was staring at something ... staring in disbelief, in shock. In horror. Without warning she screamed, her face contorted, the fingers of her right hand pressed against her mouth. Bourne grabbed her, pulling her head into the damp cloth of his topcoat; she would not stop screaming.
   He turned, trying to find the cause of her hysterics. Then he saw it, and in that unbelievable split half-second he knew the countdown was aborted. He had committed the final crime; he could not leave her. Not now, not yet.
   On the first ledge of the newsstand was an early-morning tabloid, black headlines electrifying under the circles of light:

   SLAYER IN PARIS
   WOMAN SOUGHT IN ZURICH KILLINGS
   SUSPECT IN RUMORED THEFT OF MILLIONS

   Under the screaming words was a photograph of Marie St. Jacques.
   “Stop it!” whispered Jason, using his body to cover her face from the curious newsdealer, reaching into his pocket for coins. He threw the money on the counter, grabbed two papers, and propelled her down the dark, rainsoaked street. They were both in the labyrinth now.

   Bourne opened the door and led Marie inside. She stood motionless, looking at him, her face pale and frightened, her breathing erratic, an audible mixture of fear and anger.
   “I’ll get you a drink,” said Jason, going to the bureau. As he poured, his eyes strayed to the mirror and he had an overpowering urge to smash the glass, so despicable was his own image to him. What the hell had he done? Oh God!
   I am Cain. I am death.
   He heard her gasp and spun around, too late to stop her, too far away to lunge and tear the awful thing from her hand. Oh, Christ, he had forgotten) She had found the envelope on the bedside table, and was reading his note. Her single scream was a searing, terrible cry of pain.
   “Jasonnnn! ...”
   “Please! No!” He raced from the bureau and grabbed her. “It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t count anymore!” He shouted helplessly, seeing the tears swelling in her eyes, streaking down her face.
   “Listen to me! That was before, not now.”
   “You were leaving! My God, you were leaving me!” Her eyes went blank, two blind circles of panic. “I knew it! I felt it!”
   “I made you feel it!” he said, forcing her to look at him. “But it’s over now. I won’t leave you.
   Listen to me. I won’t leave you!”
   She screamed again. “I couldn’t breathe! ... It was so cold!” He pulled her to him, enveloping her. “We have to begin again. Try to understand. Its different now--and I can’t cha nge what was--but I won’t leave you. Not like this.” She pushed her hands against his chest, her tear-stained face angled back, begging, “Why, Jason?
   Why?”
   “Later. Not now. Don’t say anything for a while. Just hold me; let me hold you.”
   The minutes passed, hysteria ran its course and the outlines of reality came back into focus.
   Bourne led her to the chair; she caught the sleeve of her dress on the frayed lace. They both smiled, as he knelt beside her, holding her hand in silence.
   “How about that drink?” he said finally.
   “I think so,” she replied, briefly tightening her grip on his hand as he got up from the floor. “You poured it quite a while ago.”
   “It won’t go flat.” He went to the bureau and returned with two glasses half filled with whiskey.
   She took hers. “Feeling better?” he asked.
   “Calmer. Still confused ... frightened, of course. Maybe angry, too, I’m not sure. I’m too afraid to think about that.” She drank, closing her eyes, her head pressed back against the chair. “Why did you do it, Jason?”
   “Because I thought I had to. That’s the simple answer.”
   “And no answer at all. I deserve more than that.”
   “Yes, you do, and I’ll give it to you. I have to now because you have to hear it; you have to understand. You have to protect yourself.”
   “Protect--“
   He held up his hand, interrupting her. “It’ll come later. All of it, if you like. But the first thing we have to do is know what happened--not to me, but to you. That’s where we have to begin. Can you do it?”
   “The newspaper?”
   “Yes.”
   “God knows, I’m interested,” she said, smiling weakly.
   “Here.” Jason went to the bed where he had dropped the two papers. “We’ll both read it.”
   “No games?”
   “No games.”
   They read the long article in silence, an article that told of death and intrigue in Zurich. Every now and then Marie gasped, shocked at what she was reading; at other times she shook her head in disbelief. Bourne said nothing. He saw the hand of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. Carlos will follow Cain to the ends of the earth. Carlos will kill him. Marie St. Jacques was expendable, a baited decoy that would die in the trap that caught Cain.
   I am Cain. I am death.
   The article was, in fact, two articles--an odd mixture of fact and conjecture, speculations taking over where evidence came to an end. The first part indicated a Canadian government employee, a female economist, Marie St. Jacques. She was placed at the scene of three murders, her fingerprints confirmed by the Canadian government. In addition, police found a hotel key from the Carillon du Lac, apparently lost during the violence on the Guisan Quai. It was the key to Marie St. Jacques’ room, given to her by the hotel clerk, who remembered her well--remembered what appeared to him to be a guest in a highly disturbed state of anxiety. The final piece of evidence was a handgun discovered not far from the Steppdeckstrasse, in an alley close by the scene of two other killings.

Ballistics held it to be the murder weapon, and again there were fingerprints, again confirmed by the Canadian government. They belonged to the woman, Marie St. Jacques.
   It was at this point that the article veered from fact. It spoke of rumors along the Bahnhofstrasse that a multimillion-dollar theft had taken place by means of a computer manipulation dealing with a numbered, confidential account belonging to an American corporation called Treadstone Seventy-One. The bank was also named; it was of course the Gemeinschaft. But everything else was clouded, obscure, more speculation than fact.
   According to “unnamed sources,” an American male holding the proper codes transferred millions to a bank in Paris, assigning the new account to specific individuals who were to assume rights of possession. The assignees were waiting in Paris, and upon clearance, withdrew the millions and disappeared. The success of the operation was traced to the American’s obtaining the accurate codes to the Gemeinschaft account, a feat made possible by penetrating the bank’s numerical sequence related to year, month and day of entry, standard procedure for confidential holdings. Such an analysis could only be made through the use of sophisticated computer techniques and a thorough knowledge of Swiss banking practices. When questioned, an officer of the bank, Herr Walther Apfel, acknowledged that there was an ongoing investigation into matters pertaining to the American company, but pursuant to Swiss law, “the bank would have no further comment--to anyone.”
   Here the connection to Marie St. Jacques was clarified. She was described as a government economist extensively schooled in international banking procedures, as well as a skilled computer programmer. She was suspected of being an accomplice, her expertise necessary to the massive theft. And there was a male suspect; she was reported to have been seen in his company at the Carillon du Lac.
   Marie finished the article first and let the paper drop to the floor. At the sound, Bourne looked over from the edge of the bed. She was staring at the wall, a strange pensive serenity having come over her. It was the last reaction he expected. He finished reading quickly, feeling depressed and hopeless--for a moment, speechless. Then he found his voice and spoke.
   “Lies,” he said, “and they were made because of me, because of who and what I am. Smoke you out, they find me. I’m sorry, sorrier than I can ever tell you.” Marie shifted her eyes from the wall and looked at him. “It goes deeper than lies, Jason,” she said.
   “There’s too much truth for lies alone.”
   “Truth? The only truth is that you were in Zurich. You never touched a gun, you were never in an alley near the Steppdeckstrasse, you didn’t lose a hotel key and you never went near the Gemeinschaft.”
   “Agreed, but that’s not the truth I’m talking about.”
   “Then what is?”
   “The Gemeinschaft, Treadstone Seventy-One, Apfel. Those are true and the fact that any were mentioned--especially Apfel’s acknowledgment--is incredible. Swiss bankers are cautious men.
   They don’t ridicule the laws, not this way; the jail sentences are too severe. The statutes pertaining to banking confidentiality are among the most sacrosanct in Switzerland. Apfel could go to prison for years for saying what he did, for even alluding to such an account, much less confirming it by name.
   Unless he was ordered to say what he did by an authority powerful enough to contravene the laws.”
   She stopped, her eyes straying to the wall again. “Why? Why was the Gemeinschaft or Treadstone or Apfel ever made part of the story?”
   “I told you. They want me and they know we’re together. Carlos knows we’re together. Find you, he finds me.”
   “No, Jason, it goes beyond Carlos. You really don’t understand the laws in Switzerland Not even a Carlos could cause them to be flaunted this way.” She looked at him, but her eyes did not see him; she was peering through her own mists. “This isn’t one story, it’s two. Both are constructed out of lies, the first connected to the second by tenuous speculation--public speculation--on a banking crisis that would never be made public, unless and until a thorough and private investigation proved the facts. And that second story--the patently false statement that millions were stolen from the Gemeinschaft--was tacked onto the equally false story that I’m wanted for killing three men in Zurich. It was added. Deliberately.”
   “Explain that, please.”
   “It’s there, Jason. Believe me when I tell you that; it’s right in front of us.”
   “What is?”
   “Someone’s trying to send us a message.”

19
   The army sedan sped south on Manhattan’s East River Drive, headlights illuminating the swirling remnants of a late-winter snowfall. The major in the back seat dozed, his long body angled into the corner, his legs stretched out diagonally across the floor. In his lap was a briefcase, a thin nylon cord attached to the handle by a metal clamp, the cord itself strung through his right sleeve and down his inner tunic to his belt. The security device had been removed only twice in the past nine hours.
   Once during the major’s departure from Zurich, and again with his arrival at Kennedy Airport. In both places, however, U. S. government personnel had been watching the customs clerks--more precisely, watching the briefcase. They were not told why, they were simply ordered to observe the inspections, and at the slightest deviation from normal procedures--which meant any undue interest in the briefcase--they were to intercede. With weapons, if necessary.
   There was a sudden, quiet ringing; the major snapped his eyes open and brought his left hand up in front of his face. The sound was a wrist alarm; he pressed the button on his watch and squinted at the second radium dial of his two-zoned instrument. The first was on Zurich time, the second, New York; the alarm had been set twenty-four hours ago, when the officer had received his cabled orders.
   The transmission would come within the next three minutes. That is, thought the major, it would come if Iron Ass was as precise as he expected his subordinates to be. The officer stretched, awkwardly balancing the briefcase, and leaned forward, speaking to the driver.
   “Sergeant, turn on your scrambler to 1430 megahertz, will you please?”
   “Yes, sir.” The sergeant flipped two switches on the radio panel beneath the dashboard, then twisted the dial to the 1430 frequency. “There it is, Major.”
   “Thanks. Will the microphone reach back here?”
   “I don’t know. Never tried it, sir.” The driver pulled the small plastic microphone from its cradle and stretched the spiral cord over the seat. “Guess it does,” he concluded.
   Static erupted from the speaker, the scrambling transmitter electronically scanning and jamming the frequency. The message would follow in seconds. It did.
   “Treadstone? Treadstone, confirm, please.”
   “Treadstone receiving,” said Major Gordon Webb. “You’re clear. Go ahead.”
   “What’s your position?”
   “About a mile south of the Triborough, East River Drive,” said the major.
   “Your timing is acceptable,” came the voice from the speaker.
   “Glad to hear it. It makes my day ... sir.”
   There was a brief pause, the major’s comment not appreciated. “Proceed to 139 East Seventy-first. Confirm by repeat.”
   “One-three-niner East Seventy-first
   “Keep your vehicle out of the area. Approach on foot.”
   “Understood.”
   “Out.”
   “Out.” Webb snapped the transmission button in place and handed the microphone back to the driver. “Forget that address, Sergeant. Your name’s on a very short file now.”
   “Gotcha’, Major. Nothing but static on that thing anyway. But since I don’t know where it is and these wheels aren’t supposed to go there, where do you want to be dropped off?” Webb smiled. “No more than two blocks away. I’d go to sleep in the gutter if I had to walk any further than that.”
   “How about Lex and Seventy-second?”
   “Is that two blocks?”
   “No more than three.”
   “If it’s three blocks you’re a private.”
   “Then I couldn’t pick you up later, Major. Privates aren’t cleared for this duty.”
   “Whatever you say, Captain.” Webb closed his eyes. After two years, he was about to see Treadstone Seventy-One for himself. He knew he should feel a sense of anticipation; he did not. He felt only a sense of weariness, of futility. What had happened?
   The incessant hum of the tires on the pavement below was hypnotic, but the rhythm was broken by sharp intrusions where concrete and wheels were not compatible. The sounds evoked memories of long ago, of screeching jungle noises woven into a single tone. And then the night--that night--
   when blinding lights and staccato explosions were all around him, and below him, telling him he was
   about to die. But he did not die; a miracle wrought by a man had given his life back to him ... and the years went on, that night, those days never to be forgotten. What the hell had happened?
   “Here we are, Major.”
   Webb opened his eyes, his hand wiping the sweat that had formed on his forehead. He. looked at his watch, gripped his briefcase and reached for the handle of the door.
   “I’ll be here between 2300 and 2330 hours, Sergeant. If you can’t park, just cruise around and I’ll find you.”
   “Yes, sir.” The driver turned in his seat. “Could the major tell me if we’re going to be driving any distance later?”
   “Why? Have you got another fare?”
   “Come on, sir. I’m assigned to you until you say otherwise, you know that. But these heavy-plated trucks use gas like the old-time Shermans. If we’re going far I’d better fill it.”
   “Sorry.” The major paused. “Okay. You’ll have to find out where it is, anyway, because I don’t know. We’re going to a private airfield in Madison, New Jersey. I have to be there no later than one hundred hours.”
   “I’ve got a vague idea,” said the driver. “At 2330, you’re cutting it pretty close, sir.”
   “OK--2300, then. And thanks.” Webb got out of the car, closed the door and waited until the brown sedan entered the flow of traffic on Seventy-second Street. He stepped off the curb and headed south to Seventy-first.
   Four minutes later he stood in front of a well-kept brownstone, its muted, rich design in concert with those around it in the tree-lined street. It was a quiet street, a monied street--old money. It was the last place in Manhattan a person would suspect of housing one of the most sensitive intelligence operations in the country. And as of twenty minutes ago, Major Gordon Webb was one of only eight or ten people in the country who knew of its existence.
   Treadstone Seventy-One.
   He climbed the steps, aware that the pressure of his weight on the iron grids embedded in the stone beneath him triggered electronic devices that in turn activated cameras, producing his image on screens inside. Beyond this, he knew little, except that Treadstone Seventy-One never closed; it was operated and monitored twenty-four hours a day by a select few, identities unknown.
   He reached the top step and rang the bell, an ordinary bell, but not for an ordinary door, the major could see that. The heavy wood was riveted to a steel plate behind it, the decorative iron designs in actuality the rivets, the large brass knob disguising a hotplate that caused a series of steel bolts to shoot across into steel receptacles at the touch of a human hand when the alarms were turned on. Webb glanced up at the windows. Each pane of glass, he knew, was an inch thick, capable of withstanding the impact of .30 caliber shells. Treadstone Seventy-One was a fortress.
   The door opened and the major involuntarily smiled at the figure standing there, so totally out of place did she seem. She was a petite, elegant-looking, gray-haired woman with soft aristocratic features and a bearing that bespoke monied gentility. Her voice confirmed the appraisal; it was mid-Atlantic, refined in the better finishing schools, and at innumerable polo matches.
   “How good of you to drop by, Major. Jeremy wrote us that you might. Do come in. It’s such a pleasure to see you again.”
   “It’s good to see you again, too,” replied Webb, stepping into the tasteful foyer, finishing his statement when the door was closed, “but I’m not sure where it was we met before.” The woman laughed. “Oh, we’ve had dinner ever so many times.”
   “With Jeremy?”
   “Of course.”
   “Who’s Jeremy?”
   “A devoted nephew who’s also your devoted friend. Such a nice young man; it’s a pity he doesn’t exist.” She took his elbow as they walked down a long hallway. “It’s all for the benefit of neighbors who might be strolling by. Come along now, they’re waiting.” They passed an archway that led to a large living room; the major looked inside. There was a grand piano by the front windows, harp beside it; and everywhere--on the piano and on polished tables glistening under the spill of subdued lamps--were silver-framed photographs, mementos of a past filled with wealth and grace. Sailboats, men and women on the decks of ocean liners, several military portraits. And, yes, two candid shots of someone mounted for a polo match. It was a room that belonged in a brownstone on this street.
   They reached the end of the hallway; there was a large mahogany door, bas-relief and iron ornamentation part of its design, part of its security. If there was an infrared camera, Webb could not detect the whereabouts of the lens. The gray-haired woman pressed an unseen bell; the major could hear a slight hum.
   “Your friend is here, gentlemen. Stop playing poker and go to work. Snap to, Jesuit.”
   “Jesuit?” asked Webb, bewildered.
   “An old joke,” replied the woman. “It goes back to when you were probably playing marbles and snarling at little girls.”
   The door opened and the aged but still erect figure of David Abbott was revealed. “Glad to see you, Major,” said the former Silent Monk of Covert Services, extending his hand.
   “Good to be here, sir.” Webb shook hands. Another elderly, imposing-looking man came up beside Abbott.
   “A friend of Jeremy’s, no doubt,” said the man, his deep voice edged with humor. “Dreadfully sorry time preludes proper introductions, young fellow. Come along, Margaret. There’s a lovely fire upstairs.” He turned to Abbott. “You’ll let me know when you’re leaving, David?”
   “Usual time for me, I expect,” replied the Monk. “I’ll show these two how to ring you.” It was then that Webb realized there was a third man in the room; he was standing in the shadows at the far end, and the major recognized him instantly. He was Elliot Stevens, senior aide to the president of the United States--some said his alter ego. He was in his early forties, slender, wore glasses and had the bearing of unpretentious authority about him.
   “... it’ll be fine.” The imposing older man who had not found time to introduce himself had been speaking; Webb had not heard him, his attention on the White House aide. “I’ll be waiting.”
   “Till next time,” continued Abbott, shifting his eyes kindly to the gray-haired woman. “Thanks, Sister Meg. Keep your habit pressed. And down.”
   “You’re still wicked, Jesuit.”
   The couple left, closing the door behind them. Webb stood for a moment, shaking his head and smiling. The man and woman of 139 East Seventy-first belonged to the room down the hall, just as that room belonged in the brownstone, all a part of the quiet, monied, tree-lined street. “You’ve known them a long time, haven’t you?”
   “A lifetime, you might say,” replied Abbott. “He was a yachtsman we put to good use in the Adriatic runs for Donovan’s operations in Yugoslavia. Mikhailovitch once said he sailed on sheer nerve, bending the worst weather to his will. And don’t let Sister Meg’s graciousness fool you. She was one of Intrepid’s girls, a piranha with very sharp teeth.”
   “They’re quite a story.”
   “It’ll never be told,” said Abbott, closing the subject. “I want you to meet Elliot Stevens. I don’t think I have to tell you who he is. Webb, Stevens. Stevens, Webb.”
   “That sounds like a law firm,” said Stevens amiably, walking across the room, hand extended.
   “Nice to know you, Webb. Have a good trip?”
   “I would have preferred military transport. I hate those damned commercial airlines. I thought a customs agent at Kennedy was going to slice the lining of my suitcase.”
   “You look too respectable in that uniform,” laughed the Monk. “You’re obviously a smuggler.”
   “I’m still not sure I understand the uniform,” said the major, carrying his briefcase to a long hatch table against the wall, and unclipping the nylon cord from his belt.
   “I shouldn’t have to tell you,” answered Abbott, “that the tightest security is often found in being quite obvious on the surface. An army intelligence officer prowling around undercover in Zurich at this particular time could raise alarms.”
   “Then I don’t understand, either,” said the White House aide, coming up beside Webb at the table, watching the major’s manipulations with the nylon cord and the lock. “Wouldn’t an obvious presence raise even more shrill alarms? I thought the assumption of undercover was that discovery was less probable.”
   “Webb’s trip to Zurich was a routine consulate check, predated on the G-Two schedules. No one fools anybody about those trips; they’re what they are and nothing else. Ascertaining new sources, paying off informants. The Soviets do it all the time; they don’t even bother to hide it. Neither do we, frankly.”
   “But that wasn’t the purpose of this trip,” said Stevens, beginning to understand. “So the obvious conceals the unobvious.”
   “That’s it.”
   “Can I help?” The presidential aide seemed fascinated by the briefcase.
   “Thanks,” said Webb. “Just pull the cord through.”
   Stevens did so. “I always thought it was chains around the wrist,” he said.
   “Too many hands cut off,” explained the major, smiling at the White House man’s reaction.
   “There’s a steel wire running through the nylon.” He freed the briefcase and opened it on the table, looking around at the elegance of the furnished library-den. At the rear of the room was a pair of French doors that apparently led to an outside garden, an outline of a high stone wall seen dimly through the panes of thick glass. “So this is Treadstone Seventy-One. It isn’t the way I pictured it.”
   “Pull the curtains again, will you please, Elliot?” Abbott said. The presidential aide walked to the French doors and did so. Abbott crossed to a bookcase, opened the cabinet beneath it, and reached inside. There was a quiet whir, the entire bookcase came out of the wall and slowly revolved to the left. On the other side was an electronic radio console, one of the most sophisticated Gordon Webb had seen. “Is this more what you had in mind?” asked the Monk. “Jesus ...” The major whistled as he studied the dials, calibrations, cable patches and scanning devices built into the panel. The Pentagon war rooms had far more elaborate equipment, but this was the miniaturized equal of most well-structured intelligence stations.
   “I’d whistle, too,” said Stevens, standing in front of the dense curtain. “But Mr. Abbott already gave me my personal sideshow. That’s only the beginning. For more buttons and this place looks like a SAC base in Omaha.”
   “Those same buttons also transform this room back into a graceful East Side library.” The old man reached inside the cabinet; in seconds the enormous console was replaced by bookshelves. He then walked to the adjacent bookcase, opened the cabinet beneath and once again put his hand inside. The whirring began; the bookcase slid out, and shortly in its place were three tall filing cabinets. The Monk took out a key and pulled out a file drawer. “I’m not showing off, Gordon.
   When we’re finished, I want you to look through these. I’ll show you the switch that’ll send them back. If you have any problems, our host will take care of everything.”
   “What am I to look for?”
   “We’ll get to it; right now I want to hear about Zurich. What have you learned?”
   “Excuse me, Mr. Abbott,” interrupted Stevens. “If I’m slow, it’s because all this is new to me. But I was thinking about something you said a minute ago about Major Webb’s trip.”
   “What is it?”
   “You said the trip was predated on the G-Two schedules.”
   “That’s right.”
   “Why? The major’s obvious presence was to confuse Zurich, not Washington. Or was it?” The Monk smiled. “I can see why the president keeps you around. We’ve never doubted that Carlos has bought his way into a circle or two--or ten--in Washington. He finds the discontented men and offers them what they do not have. A Carlos could not exist without such people. You must remember, he doesn’t merely sell death, he sells a nation’s secrets. All too frequently to the Soviets, if only to prove to them how rash they were to expel him.”
   “The president would want to know that,” said the aide. “It would explain several things.”
   “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” said Abbott.
   “I guess it is.”
   “And it’s a good place to begin for Zurich,” said Webb, taking his briefcase to an armchair in front of the filing cabinets. He sat down, spreading the folds inside the case at his feet, and took out several sheets of paper. “You may not doubt Carlos is in Washington, but I can confirm it.”
   “Where? Treadstone?”
   “There’s no clear proof of that, but it can’t be ruled out. He found the fiche. He altered it.”
   “Good God, how?”
   “The how I can only guess; the who I know.”
   “Who?”
   “A man named Koenig. Until three days ago he was in charge of primary verifications at the Gemeinschaft Bank.”
   “Three days ago? Where is he now?”
   “Dead. A freak automobile accident on a road he traveled every day of his life. Here’s the police report; I had it translated.” Abbott took the papers, and sat down in a nearby chair. Elliot Stevens remained standing; Webb continued. “There’s something very interesting there. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know, but there’s a lead I’d like to follow up.”
   “What is it?” asked the Monk, reading. “This describes the accident. The curve, speed of vehicle, apparent swerving to avoid a collision.”
   “It’s at the end. It mentions the killing at the Gemeinschaft, the bolt that got us off our asses.”
   “It does?” Abbott turned the page.
   “Look at it. Last couple of sentences. See what I mean?”
   “Not exactly,” replied Abbott, frowning. “This merely states that Koenig was employed by the Gemeinschaft where a recent homicide took place ... and he had been a witness to the initial gunfire.
   That’s all.”
   “I don’t think it is ‘all,’ “ said Webb. “I think there was more. Someone started to raise a question, but it was left hanging. I’d like to find out who has his red pencil on the Zurich police reports. He could be Carlos’ man; we know he’s got one there.” The Monk leaned back in the chair, his frown unrelieved. “Assuming you’re right, why wasn’t the entire reference deleted?”
   “Too obvious. The killing did take place; Koenig was a witness; the investigating officer who wrote up the report might legitimately ask why.”
   “But if he had speculated on a connection wouldn’t he be just as disturbed that the speculation was deleted?”
   “Not necessarily. We’re talking about a bank in Switzerland. Certain areas are officially inviolable unless there’s proof.”
   “Not always. I understood you were very successful with the newspapers.”
   “Unofficially. I appealed to prurient journalistic sensationalism, and--although it damn near killed him--got Walther Apfel to corroborate halfway.”
   “Interruption,” said Elliot Stevens. “I think this is where the Oval Office has to come in. I assume by the newspapers you’re referring to the Canadian woman.”
   “Not really. That story was already out; we couldn’t stop it. Carlos is wired into the Zurich police; they issued that report. We simply enlarged on it and tied her to an equally false story about millions having been stolen from the Gemeinschaft.” Webb paused and looked at Abbott. “That’s something we have to talk about; it may not be false after all.”
   “I can’t believe that,” said the Monk.
   “I don’t want to believe it,” replied the major. “Ever.”
   “Would you mind backing up?” asked the White House aide, sitting down opposite the army officer. “I have to get this very clear.”
   “Let me explain,” broke in Abbott, seeing the bewilderment on Webb’s face. “Elliot’s here on orders from the president. It’s the killing at the Ottawa airport.”
   “It’s an unholy mess,” said Stevens bluntly. “The prime minister damn near told the president to take our stations out of Nova Scotia. He’s one angry Canadian.”
   “How did it come down?” asked Webb.
   “Very badly. All they know is that a ranking economist at National Revenue’s Treasury Board made discreet inquiries about an unlisted American corporation and got himself killed for it. To make matters worse, Canadian Intelligence was told to stay out of it; it was a highly sensitive U. S. operation.”
   “Who the hell did that?”
   “I believe I’ve heard the name Iron Ass bandied about here and there,” said the Monk.
   “General Crawford? Stupid son of a bitch--stupid iron-assed son of a bitch!”
   “Can you imagine?” interjected Stevens. “Their man gets killed and we have the gall to tell them to stay out.”
   “He was right, of course,” corrected Abbott. “It had to be done swiftly, no room for misunderstanding. A clamp had to be put on instantly, the shock sufficiently outrageous to stop everything. It gave me time to reach MacKenzie Hawkins--Mac and I worked together in Burma; he’s retired but they listen to him. They’re cooperating now and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”
   “There are other considerations, Mr. Abbott,” protested Stevens.
   “They’re on different levels, Elliot. We working stiffs aren’t on them; we don’t have to spend time over diplomatic posturing. I’ll grant you those postures are necessary, but they don’t concern us.”
   “They do concern the president, sir. They’re part of his every working-stiff day. And that’s why I have to go back with a very clear picture.” Stevens paused, turning to Webb. “Now, please, let me have it again. Exactly’ what did you do and why? What part did we play regarding this Canadian woman?”
   “Initially not a goddamn thing, that was Carlos’ move. Someone very high up in the Zurich police is on Carlos’ payroll. It was the Zurich police who mocked up the so-called evidence linking her to the three killings. And it’s ludicrous; she’s no killer.”
   All right, all right,” said the aide. “That was Carlos. Why did he do it?”
   “To flush out Bourne. The St. Jacques woman and Bourne are together.”
   “Bourne being this assassin who calls himself Cain, correct?”
   “Yes,” said Webb. “Carlos has sworn to kill him. Cain’s moved in on Carlos all over Europe and the Middle East, but there’s no photograph of Cain, no one really knows what he looks like. So by circulating a picture of the woman--and let me tell you, it’s in every damn newspaper over there-– someone may spot her. If she’s found, the chances are that Cain--Bourne--will be found too.
   Carlos will kill them both.”
   “All right. Again, that’s Carlos. Now what did you do?”
   “Just what I said. Reached the Gemeinschaft and convinced the bank into confirming the fact that the woman might--just might--be tied with a massive theft. It wasn’t easy, but it was their man Koenig who’d been bribed, not one of our people. That’s an internal matter; they wanted a lid on it.
   Then I called the papers and referred them to Walther Apfel. Mysterious woman, murder, millions stolen; the editors leaped at it.”
   “For Christ’s sake, why?” shouted Stevens. “You used a citizen of another country for a U. S. intelligence strategy! A staff employee of a closely allied government. Are you out of your minds? You only exacerbated the situation, you sacrificed her!”
   “You’re wrong,” said Webb. “We’re trying to save her life. We’ve turned Carlos’ weapon against him.”
   “How?”
   The Monk raised his hand. “Before we answer we have to go back to another question,” he said.
   “Because the answer to that may give you an indication of how restricted the information must remain. A moment ago I asked the major how Carlos! man could have found Bourne--found the fiche that identified Bourne as Cain. I think I know, but I want him to tell you.” Webb leaned forward. “The Medusa records,” he said, quietly, reluctantly.
   “Medusa ...?” Stevens’ expression conveyed the fact that the Medusa had been the subject of early White House confidential briefings. “They’re buried,” he said.
   “Correction,” intruded Abbott. “There’s an original and two copies, and they’re in vaults at the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council. Access to them is limited to a select group, each one among the highest-ranking members of his unit. Bourne came out of Medusa; a cross-checking of those names with the bank records would produce his name. Someone gave them to Carlos.”
   Stevens stared at the Monk. “Are you saying that Carlos is ... wired into ... men like that? It’s an extraordinary charge.”
   “It’s the only explanation,” said Webb.
   “By why would Bourne ever use his own name?”
   “It was necessary,” replied Abbott. “It was a vital part of the portrait. It had to be authentic; everything had to be authentic. Everything.”
   “Authentic?”
   “Maybe you’ll understand now,” continued the major. “By tying the St. Jacques woman into millions supposedly stolen from the Gemeinschaft Bank, we’re telling Bourne to surface. He knows it’s false.”
   “Bourne to surface?”
   “The man called Jason Bourne,” said Abbott, getting to his feet and walking slowly toward the drawn curtains, “is an American intelligence officer. There is no Cain, not the one Carlos believes.
   He’s a lure, a trap for Carlos; that’s who he is. Or was.”
   The silence was brief, broken by the White House man. “I think you’d better explain. The president has to know.”
   “I suppose so,” mused Abbott, parting the curtains, looking absently outside. “It’s an insoluble dilemma, really. Presidents change, different men with different temperaments and appetites sit in the Oval Office. However, a long-range intelligence strategy doesn’t change, not one like this. Yet an
   offhand remark over a glass of whiskey in a post-presidential conversation, or an egotistical phrase in a memoir, can blow that same strategy right to hell. There isn’t a day that we don’t worry about those men who have survived the White House.”
   “Please,” interrupted Stevens. “I ask you to remember that I’m here on the orders of this president. Whether you approve or disapprove doesn’t matter. He has the right by law to know; and in his name I insist on that right.”
   “Very well,” said Abbott, still looking outside. “Three years ago we borrowed a page from the British. We created a man who never was. If you recall, prior to the Normandy invasion British Intelligence floated a corpse into the coast of Portugal, knowing that whatever documents were concealed on it would find their way to the German Embassy in Lisbon. A life was created for that dead body; a name, a naval officer’s rank; schools, training, travel orders, driver’s license, membership cards in exclusive London clubs and a half-dozen personal letters. Scattered throughout were hints, vaguely worded allusions, and a few very direct chronological and geographical references. They all pointed to the invasion taking place a hundred miles away from the beaches at Normandy, and six weeks off the target date in June. After panicked checks were made by German agents all over England--and, incidentally, controlled and monitored by MI Five--the High Command in Berlin bought the story and shifted a large part of their defenses. As many as were lost, thousands upon thousands of lives were saved by that man who never was.” Abbott let the curtain fall into place and walked wearily back to his chair.
   “I’ve heard the story,” said the White House aide. “And?”
   “Ours was a variation,” said the Monk, sitting down wearily. “Create a living man, a quickly established legend, seemingly everywhere at once, racing all over Southeast Asia, outdoing Carlos at every turn, especially in the area of sheer numbers. Whenever there was a killing, or an unexplained death, or a prominent figure involved in a fatal accident, there was Cain. Reliable sources--paid informants known for accuracy--were fed his name; embassies, listening posts, entire intelligence networks were repeatedly funneled reports that concentrated on Cain’s rapidly expanding activities.
   His ‘kills’ were mounting every month, sometimes it seemed weekly. He was everywhere ... and he was. In all ways.”
   “You mean this Bourne was?”
   “Yes. He spent months learning everything there was to learn about Carlos, studying every file we had, every known and suspected assassination with which Carlos was involved. He pored over Carlos’ tactics, his methods of operation, everything. Much of that material has never seen the light of day, and probably never will. It’s explosive--governments and international combines would be at each others’ throats. There was literally nothing Bourne did not know--that could be known-– about Carlos. And then he’d show himself, always with a different appearance, speaking any of several languages, talking about things to selected circles of hardened criminals that only a professional killer would talk about. Then he’d be gone, leaving behind bewildered and often frightened men and women. They had seen Cain; he existed, and he was ruthless. That was the image Bourne conveyed.”
   “He’s been underground like this for three years?” asked Stevens.
   “Yes. He moved to Europe, the most accomplished white assassin in Asia, graduate of the infamous Medusa, challenging Carlos in his own yard. And in the process he saved four men marked by Carlos, took credit for others Carlos had killed, mocked him at every opportunity ... always trying to force him out in the open. He spent nearly three years living the most dangerous sort of lie a man can live, the kind of existence few men ever know. Most would have broken under it; and that possibility can never be ruled out.”
   “What kind of man is he?”
   “A professional,” answered Gordon Webb. “Someone who had the training and the capability, who understood that Carlos had to be found, stopped.”
   “But three years ...?”
   “If that seems incredible,” said Abbott, “you should know that he submitted to surgery. It was like a final break with the past, with the man he was in order to become a man he wasn’t. I don’t think there’s any way a nation can repay a man like Bourne for what he’s done. Perhaps the only way is to give him the chance to succeed--and by God I intend to do that.” The Monk stopped for precisely two seconds, then added, “If it is Bourne.”
   It was as if Elliot Stevens had been struck by an unseen hammer. “What did you say?” he asked.
   “I’m afraid I’ve held this to the end. I wanted you to understand the whole picture before I described the gap. It may not be a gap--we just don’t know. Too many things have happened that make no sense to us, but we don’t know. It’s the reason why there can be absolutely no interference from other levels, no diplomatic sugar pills that might expose the strategy. We could condemn a man to death, a man who’s given more than any of us. If he succeeds, he can go back to his own life, but only anonymously, only without his identity ever being revealed.”
   “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that,” said the astonished presidential aide.
   “Loyalty, Elliot. It’s not restricted to what’s commonly referred to as the ‘good guys.’ Carlos has built up an army of men and women who are devoted to him. They may not know him but they revere him. However, if he can take Carlos--or trap Carlos so we can take him--then vanish, he’s home free.”
   “But you say he may not be Bourne!”
   “I said we don’t know. It was Bourne at the bank, the signatures were authentic. But is it Bourne now? The next few days will tell us.”
   “If he surfaces,” added Webb.
   “It’s delicate,” continued the old man. “There are so many variables. If it isn’t Bourne--or if he’s turned--it could explain the call to Ottawa, the killing at the airport. From what we can gather, the woman’s expertise was used to withdraw the money in Paris. All Carlos had to do was make a few inquiries at the Canadian Treasury Board. The rest would be child’s play for him. Kill her contact, panic her, cut her off, and use her to contain Bourne.”
   “Were you able to get word to her?” asked the major.
   “I tried and failed. I had Mac Hawkins call a man who also worked closely with the St. Jacques woman, a man named Alan somebody-or-other. He instructed her to return to Canada immediately.
   She hung up on him.”
   “Goddamn it!” exploded Webb.
   “Precisely. If we could have gotten her back, we might have learned so much. She’s the key. Why is she with him? Why he with her? Nothing makes sense.”
   “Less to me!” said Stevens, his bewilderment turning into anger. “If you want the president’s cooperation--and I promise nothing--you’d better be clearer.” Abbott turned to him. “Some six months ago Bourne disappeared,” he said. “Something happened; we’re not sure what, but we can piece together a probability. He got word into Zurich that he was on his way to Marseilles. Later--too late--we understood. He’d learned that Carlos had accepted a contract on Howard Leland, and Bourne tried to stop it. Then nothing; he vanished. Had he been killed? Had he broken under the strain? Had he ... given up?”
   “I can’t accept that,” interrupted Webb angrily. “I won’t accept it!”
   “I know you won’t,” said the Monk. “It’s why I want you to go through that file. You know his codes; they’re all in there. See if you can spot any deviations in Zurich.”
   “Please!” broke in Stevens. “What do you think? You must have found something concrete, something on which to base a judgment. I need that, Mr. Abbott. The president needs it.”
   “I wish to heaven I had,” replied the Monk. “What have we found? Everything and nothing.
   Almost three years of the most carefully constructed deception in our records. Every false act documented, every move defined and justified; each man and woman--informants, contacts, sources--given faces, voices, stories to tell. And every month, every week just a little bit closer to Carlos. Then nothing. Silence. Six months of a vacuum.”
   “Not now,” countered the president’s aide. “That silence was broken. By whom?”
   “That’s the basic question, isn’t it?” said the old man, his voice tired. “Months of silence, then suddenly an explosion of unauthorized, incomprehensible activity. The account penetrated, the fiche altered, millions transferred--by all appearances, stolen. Above all, men killed and traps set for other men. But for whom, by whom?” The Monk shook his head wearily. “Who is the man out there?”