The Bourne ultimatum by Robert Ludlum Page B

Marie’s a widow and the kids have no father. That’s reality, David.”
    “You’re wrong.” Webb shook his head, staring at his glass. “He’s coming after me, so I have to go after him; he’s trying to pull me out, so I have to pull him out first. It’s the only way it can happen, the only way we’ll get him out of our lives. In the final analysis it’s Carlos against Bourne. We’re back where we were thirteen years ago. ‘Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta ... Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain.’ ”
    “That was a crazy Paris code thirteen years ago!” interrupted Alex sharply. “Medusa’s Delta and his mighty challenge to the Jackal. But this isn’t Paris and it’s thirteen years later !”
    “And in five more years it’ll be eighteen; five years after that, twenty-three. What the hell do you want me to do? Live with the specter of that son of a bitch over my family, frightened every time my wife or my children leave the house, living in fear for the rest of my life? ... No, you shut up, field man! You know better than that. The analysts can come up with a dozen strategies and we’ll use bits and pieces of maybe six and be grateful, but when it gets down to the mud, it’s between the Jackal and me. ... And I’ve got the advantage. I’ve got you on my side.”
    Conklin swallowed while blinking. “That’s very flattering, David, maybe too flattering. I’m better in my own element, a couple of thousand miles away from Washington. It was always a little stifling for me here.”
    “It wasn’t when you saw me off on that plane to Hong Kong five years ago. You’d put together half the equation by then.”
    “That was easier. It was a down-and-dirty D.C. operation that had the smell of rotten halibut, so rotten it offended my nostrils. This is different; this is Carlos.”
    “That’s my point, Alex. It is Carlos, not a voice over the telephone neither of us knew. We’re dealing with a known quantity, someone predictable—”
    “ Predictable ?” broke in Conklin, frowning. “That’s also crazy. In what way?”
    “He’s the hunter. He’ll follow a scent.”
    “He’ll examine it first with a very experienced nose, then check the spoors under a microscope.”
    “Then we’ll have to be authentic, won’t we?”
    “I prefer foolproof. What did you have in mind?”
    “In the gospel according to Saint Alex, it’s written that in order to bait a trap one has to use a large part of the truth, even a dangerous amount.”
    “That chapter and verse referred to a target’s microscope. I think I just mentioned it. What’s the relevance here?”
    “Medusa,” said Webb quietly. “I want to use Medusa.”
    “Now you’re out of your mind,” responded Conklin, no louder than David. “That name is as off-limits as you are—let’s be honest, a hell of a lot more so.”
    “There were rumors, Alex, stories all over Southeast Asia that floated up the China Sea to Kowloon and Hong Kong, where most of those bastards ran with their money. Medusa wasn’t exactly the secret evil you seem to think it was.”
    “Rumors, yes, and stories, of course,” interrupted the retired intelligence officer. “Which of those animals didn’t put a gun or a knife to the heads of a dozen or two dozen or two hundred marks during their so-called ‘tours’? Ninety percent were killers and thieves, the original death squads. Peter Holland said that when he was a SEAL in the northern operations he never met a member of that outfit he didn’t want to waste.”
    “And without them, instead of fifty-eight thousand casualties, there could well have been sixty-plus. Give the animals their due, Alex. They knew every inch of the territories, every square foot of jungle in the triangle. They— we —sent back more functional intelligence than all the units sent out by Saigon put together.”
    “My point , David, is that there can never be any connection between Medusa and the United States government. Our involvement