The Bourne Supremacy

'You owe me what you can't pay me!' snapped Jason Bourne, interrupting. 'Unless you blow your brains out right here in front of me. ' 'I understand your anger but still I must insist. You'll do nothing to jeopardize the lives of five million people, or the vital interests of the United States government. '

'I'm glad you got the sequence right – for once. All right. Mr Ambassador, I'll tell you. It's what I would have told you before, if you'd had the decency, the decency, to come to me and "state your case". I'm surprised it never occurred to you -no, not surprised, shocked – but I guess I shouldn't be. You believe in your rarefied manipulations, in the trappings of your quiet power... you probably think you deserve it all because of your great intellect, or something like that. You're all the same. You relish complexity – and jour explanations of it – so that you can't see when the simple route is a hell of a lot more effective. '

'I'm waiting to be instructed,' said Havilland, coldly.

'So be it,' said Bourne. 'I listened very carefully during your ponderous explanation. You took pains to explain why no one could officially approach Sheng and tell him what you knew. You were right, too. He'd have laughed in your face, or spat in your eye, or told you to pound sand – whatever you like. Sure, he would. He's got the leverage. You pursue your "outrageous" accusations, he pulls Peking out of the Hong Kong Accords. You lose. You try to go over his head, good luck. You lose again. You have no proof but the words of several dead men who've had their throats cut, members of the Kuomintang who'd say anything to discredit party officials in the People's Republic. He smiles and, without saying it, lets you know that you'd better go along with him. You figure you can't go along because the risks are too great -if the whistle blows on Sheng, the Far East blows. You were right about that, too – more for the reasons Edward gave us than you did. Peking might possibly overlook a corrupt commission as one of those temporary concessions to greed, but it won't permit a spreading Chinese Mafia to infiltrate its industry or its labour forces or its government. As Edward said, they could lose their jobs-'

'I'm still waiting, Mr Webb,' said the diplomat.

'Okay. You recruited me but you forgot the lesson of Treadstone Seventy-one. Send out an assassin to catch an assassin. '

That's the one thing we did not forget,' broke in the diplomat, now astonished. 'We based everything on it. '

'For the wrong reasons,' said Bourne sharply. There was a better way to reach Sheng and draw him out for the kill. I wasn't necessary. My wife wasn't necessary! But you couldn't see it. Your superior brain had to complicate everything. '

'What was it I couldn't see, Mr Webb?

'Send in a conspirator to catch a conspirator, not officially... It's too late for that now but it's what I would have told you. '

'I'm not sure you've told me anything. '

'Part truth, part lie – your own strategy. A courier is sent to Sheng, preferably a half-senile old man who's been paid by a blind and fed the information over the phone. No traceable source. He carries a verbal message, ears only, Sheng's only, nothing on paper. The message contains enough of the truth to paralyse Sheng. Let's say that the man sending it is someone in Hong Kong who stands to lose millions if Sheng's scheme falls apart, a man smart enough and frightened enough not to use his name. The message could allude to leaks, or traitors in the boardrooms, or excluded triads banding together because they've been cut out – all the things you're certain will happen. The truth. Sheng has to follow up, he can't afford not to. Contacts are made and a meeting is arranged. The Hong Kong conspirator is every bit as anxious to protect himself as Sheng, and every bit as leery, demanding a neutral meeting ground. It's set. It's the trap. ' Bourne paused, glancing at McAllister. 'Even a third-rate demolitions grunt could show you how to carry it off. '

'Very quick and very professional,' said the ambassador. 'And with a glaring flaw. Where do we find such a conspirator in Hong Kong?

Jason Bourne studied the elder statesman, his expression bordering on contempt . 'You make him up,' he said. That's the lie. '

Havilland and Alex Conklin were alone in the white-walled room, each at either end of the conference table facing the other. McAllister and Morris Panov had gone to the undersecretary's office to listen on separate telephones to a mocked-up profile of an American killer created by the consulate for the benefit of the press. Panov had agreed to provide the appropriate psychiatric terminology with the correct Washington overtones. David Webb had asked to be alone with his wife until it was time to leave. They had been taken to a room upstairs; the fact that it was a bedroom had not occurred to anyone. It was merely a door to an empty room at the south side of the old Victorian house, away from the water-soaked men and ruins on the north side. Webb's departure had been estimated by McAllister to be in fifteen minutes or less. A car would drive Jason Bourne and the undersecretary to Kai Tak Airport. In the interest of speed and because the hydrofoils stopped ru

'It wouldn't have worked, you know,' said Havilland, looking over at Conklin.

'What wouldn't have?' asked the man from Langley, his own thoughts broken off by the diplomat's statement . 'What David told you?

'Sheng would never have agreed to a meeting with someone he didn't know, with someone who didn't identify himself. '

'It'd depend on how it was presented. That kind of thing always does. If the critical information is mind-blowing and the facts authentic, the subject doesn't have much of a choice. He can't question the messenger – he doesn't know anything -so he-has to go after the source. As Webb put it, he can't afford not to. '

'Webb? asked the ambassador flatly, his brows arched. 'Bourne, Delta. Who the hell knows? The strategy's sound. '

There are too many possible miscalculations, too many chances for a mis-step when one side invents a mythical party. '

Tell that to Jason Bourne. '

'Different circumstances. Treadstone had a willing agent provocateur to go after the Jackal. An obsessed man who chose extreme risk because he was trained for it and had lived with violence too long to let go. He didn't want to let go. There was no place else for him. '

'It's academic,' said Conklin, 'but I don't think you're in a position to argue with him. You sent him out with all the odds against him and he comes back with the assassin in tow – and he finds you. If he said it could be done another way, he's probably right and you can't say he isn't. '

'I can say, however,' said Havilland, resting his forearms on the table and fixing his eyes on the CIA man, 'that what we did really did work. We lost the assassin, but we gained a willing, even obsessed provocateur. From the begi