The Bourne Supremacy (67 page)

Where do we get our input? From whom? The paladins of congressional oversight?

'Checkmate, again. You're as good as they say you were. He's come up with the breakthroughs. It's why he's here.'

Talk to me, sir' said Conklin, sitting in the chair, his back straight, his club foot awkwardly at an angle. 'I want to hear your story.'

'First the woman. Webb's wife. She's all right? She's safe?'

The answer to your first question is so obvious I wonder how you can ask it. No, she's not all right. Her husband's missing and she doesn't know whether he's alive or dead. As to the second, yes, she's safe. With me, not with you. I can move us around and I know my way around. You have to stay here.'

'We're desperate,' pleaded the diplomat. 'We need her!'

'You've also been penetrated, that doesn't seem to sink in. I won't expose her to that.'

This house is a fortress!'

'All it takes is one rotten cook in the kitchen. One lunatic on a staircase.'

'Conklin, listen to me! We picked up a passport check -everything fits. It's him, we know it. Webb's in Peking. Now! He wouldn't have gone in if he wasn't after the target - the only target. If somehow, God knows how, your Delta comes out with the merchandise and his wife isn't in place, he'll kill the one connection we must have! Without it we're lost. We're all lost.'

'So that was the scenario from the beginning. Reductio ad absurdum. Jason Bourne hunts Jason Bourne.'

'Yes. Painfully simple, but without the escalating complications he never would have agreed. He'd still be in that old house in Maine, poring over his scholarly papers. We wouldn't have our hunter.'

'You really are a bastard,' said Conklin slowly, softly, a certain admiration in his voice. 'And you were convinced he could still do it? Still handle this kind of Asia the way he did years ago as Delta?'

'He has physical checkups every three months, it's part of the government protection programme. He's in superb condition - something to do with his obsessive running, I

understand.'

'Start at the beginning.' The CIA man settled into the chair. 'I want to hear it step by step because I think the rumours are true. I'm in the presence of a master bastard.'

'Hardly, Mr Conklin,' said Havilland. 'We're all groping. I'll want your comments, of course.'

'You'll get them. Go ahead.'

'All right. I'll begin with a name I'm sure you'll recognize. Sheng Chou Yang. Any comment?'

'He's a tough negotiator, and I suspect that underneath his benevolent exterior there's a ramrod. Still, he's one of the most reasonable men in Peking. There should be a thousand like him.' 'If there were, the chances of a Far East holocaust would be a thousand times greater.'

Lin Wenzu slammed his fist down on the desk, jarring the nine photographs in front of him and making the attached summaries of their dossiers leap off the surface. Which? Which one! Each had been certified by London, each background checked and rechecked and triple checked again; there was no room for error. These were not simply well-schooled Zhongguo ren selected by bureaucratic elimination but the products of an intensive search for the brightest minds in government - and in several cases outside government -who might be recruited into this most sensitive of services. It had been Lin's contention that the writing was on the wall -the Great Wall, perhaps - and that a superior special intelligence force manned by the colony's own could well be its first line of defence in the years leading up to 1997, and, in the event of a takeover, its first line of cohesive resistance afterwards. The British had to relinquish leadership in the area of secret intelligence operations for reasons that were as clear as they were' unpalatable to London: the Occidental could never fully understand the peculiar subtleties of the Oriental mind, and these were not the times to render misleading or poorly evaluated information. London had to know - the West had to know- exactly where things stood... for Hong Kong's sake, for the sake of the entire Far East.

Not that Lin believed that his growing task force of intelligence gatherers was pivotal to policy decisions, he did not. But he believed thoroughly, intensely, that if the colony was to have a Special Branch it should be staffed and run by those who could do the job best, and that did not include veterans, however brilliant, of the European-oriented British secret services. For a start, they all looked alike and were not compatible with either the environs or the language. And after years of work and proven-worth, Lin Wenzu had been summoned to London and for three days grilled by unsmiling Far East intelligence specialists. On the morning of the fourth day, however, the smiles had appeared along with the recommendation that the major be given command of the Hong Kong Branch with wide powers of authority. And for a number of years thereafter he had lived up to the commission's confidence, he knew that. He also knew that now, in the single most vital operation of his professional and personal life, he had failed. There were thirty-eight Special Branch officers in his command and he had selected nine -hand picked nine - to be part of this extraordinary, insane operation. Insane until he had heard the ambassador's extraordinary explanation. The nine were the most exceptional of the 38-man task force, each capable of assuming command if their leader was taken out; he had written as much in their evaluation reports. And he had failed. One of the handpicked nine was a traitor.

It was pointless to re-study the dossiers. Whatever inconsistencies he might find would take too long to unearth for they - or it - had eluded his own experienced eyes as well as London's. There was no time for intricate analyses, the painfully slow exploration of nine individual lives. He had only one choice. A frontal assault on each man, and the word 'front' was intrinsic to his plan. If he could play the role of a taipan, he could play the part of a traitor. He realized that his plan was not without risk - a risk neither London nor the American, Havilland, would tolerate, but it had to be taken. If he failed, Sheng Chou Yang would be alerted to the secret war against him and his counter moves could be disastrous, but Lin Wenzu did not intend to fail. If failure was written on the northern winds nothing else would matter, least of all his life.

The major reached for his telephone. He pushed the button on his console for the radio operator in the computerized communication centre of MI6, Special Branch.

'Yes, sir?' said the voice from the white, sterilized room.

'Who in Dragonfly is still on duty?' asked Lin, naming the elite unit of nine who reported in but never gave explanations.

'Two, sir. In vehicles Three and Seven, but I can reach the rest in a few minutes. Five have checked in - they're at home -and the remaining two have left numbers. One is at the Pagoda Cinema until eleven-thirty, when he'll return to his flat, but he can be reached by beeper until then. The other is at the Yacht Club in Aberdeen with his wife and her family. She's English, you know.'

Lin laughed softly. 'No doubt charging the British family's bill to our woefully inadequate budget from London.'

'Is that possible, Major? If so, would you consider me for Dragonfly, whatever it is?'

'Don't be impertinent.'

'I'm sorry, sir-'

'I'm joking, young man. Next week I'll take you to a fine dinner myself. You do excellent work and I rely on you.'

'Thank you, sir!'

The thanks are mine.'

'Shall I contact Dragonfly and put out an alert?'

'You may contact each and every one, but quite the opposite of an alert. They've all been overworked, without a clean day off in several weeks. Tell each of them that of course I want any changes of location to be reported, but unless informed otherwise we're secure for the next twenty-four hours, and the men in vehicles Three and Seven may drive them home but not up into the territories for drinks. Tell them I said they should all get a good night's sleep, or however they wish to pass the time.'

'Yes, sir. They'll appreciate that, sir.'

'I myself will be wandering around in vehicle Four. You may hear from me. Stay awake.'

'Of course, Major.'

'You've got a dinner coming, young man.'

'If I may, sir,' said the enthusiastic radio operator, 'and I know I speak for all of us. We wouldn't care to work for anyone but you.'

'Perhaps two dinners.'

Parked in front of an apartment house on Yun Ping Road, Lin lifted the microphone out of its cradle below the dashboard. 'Radio, its Dragonfly Zero.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Switch me to a direct telephone line with a scrambler. I'll know we're on scrambler when I hear the echo on my part of the call, won't I?'

'Naturally, sir.'

The faint echo pulsated over the line, with the dial tone. The major punched in the numbers; the ringing began and a female voice answered.

'Yes?'

'Mr Zhou. Kuair said Lin, his words rushed, telling the woman to hurry.

'Certainly,' she replied in Cantonese.

'Zhou here,' said the man.

'Xun su! Xiaoxir Lin spoke in a husky whisper; it was the sound of a desperate man pleading to be heard. 'Sheng! Contact instantly! Sapphire is gone!'

'What? Who is this?'

The major pressed down the bar and pushed a button to the right of the microphone. The radio operator spoke instantly.

'Yes, Dragonfly?'

'Patch into my private line, also on scrambler, and reroute all calls here. Right away! This will be standard procedure until I instruct otherwise. Understood?'

'Yes, sir,' said a subdued radioman.

The mobile phone buzzed and Lin picked it up, speaking casually. 'Yes?' he answered, feigning a yawn.

'Major, this is Zhou! I just had a very strange call. A man phoned me - he sounded badly hurt - and told me to contact someone named Sheng. I was to say that Sapphire was gone.' 'Sapphire? said the major, suddenly alert. 'Say nothing to anyone, Zhou! Damned computers - I don't know how it happened but that call was meant for me. This is beyond Dragonfly. I repeat, say nothing to anyone!'

'Understood, sir.'

Lin started the car and drove several blocks west to Tanlung Street. He repeated the exercise and again the call came over his private line.

'Major?

'Yes?'

'I just got off the phone with someone who sounded like he was dying! He wanted me to...'

The explanation was the same: a dangerous error had been made, beyond the purview of Dragonfly. Nothing was to be repeated. The order was understood.

Lin called three more numbers, each time from in front of each recipient's apartment or boarding house. All were negative; each man reached him within moments after a call with his startling news and none had raced outside to a random sterile pay phone. The major knew only one thing for certain. Whoever the infiltrator was, he would not use his home phone to make contact. Telephone bills recorded all numbers dialled and all bills were submitted for departmental audit. It was a routine containment procedure that was welcomed by the agents. Excess charges were picked up by Special Branch as if they were related to business.

The two men in vehicles Three and Seven, having been relieved of duty, had checked in with headquarters by the fifth telephone call. One was at a girlfriend's house and made it plain that he had no intention of leaving for the next twenty-four hours. He pleaded with the radioman to take all 'emergency calls from clients', telling everyone who tried to reach him that his superiors had sent him to the Antarctic. Negative. It was not the way of a double agent, including the humour. He neither cut himself off nor revealed the whereabouts or the identity of a drop. The second man was, if possible, more negative. He informed headquarters-communications that he was available for any and all problems, -major or minor, related or unrelated to Dragonfly, even to answering the phones. His wife had recently given birth to triplets, and he confided in a voice that bordered on panic -according to the radioman - he got more rest on the job than at home. Negative.

Seven down and seven negative. That left one man at the Pagoda Cinema for another forty minutes, and the other at the Yacht Club in Aberdeen.

His mobile phone hummed emphatically it seemed, or was it his own anxiety? 'Yes!'

'I just received a message for you, sir,' said the radio operator. '"Eagle to Dragonfly Zero. Urgent. Respond."'

'Thank you.' Lin looked at the clock in the centre of the dashboard. He was thirty-five minutes late for his appointment with Havilland and the legendary crippled agent from years past, Alexander Conklin. 'Young man, said the major, bringing the microphone back to his lips, the line unbroken.

'Yes, sir?'

'I have no time for the anxious if somewhat irrelevant "Eagle", but I don't wish to offend him. He'll call again when I don't respond and I want you to explain that you've been unable to reach me. Of course, when you do, you'll give me the message immediately.'

'It will be a delight, Major.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'The "Eagle" who called was very disagreeable. He shouted about appointments that should be kept when they were confirmed and that ...'

Lin listened to the second-hand diatribe and made a mental note that if he survived the night he would talk to Edward McAllister about telephone etiquette, especially during emergencies. Sugar brought gentle expressions, salt only grimaces. 'Yes, yes, I understand, young man. As our ancestors might say, May the eagle's beak be caught in its elimination canal. Just do as I say, and in the meantime - in fifteen minutes from now - raise our man at the Pagoda Cinema. When he calls in, give him my unlisted fourth level number and patch it into this frequency, scrambler continuing, of course.' 'Of course, sir.'

Lin sped east on Hennessy Road past Southern Park to Fleming, where he turned south into Johnston and east again on Burrows Street to the Pagoda Cinema. He swerved into the parking lot taking the spot reserved for the Assistant Manager. He stuck a police card in the front window, got out, and ran up to the entrance. There were only a few people at the window for the midnight showing of Lust in the Orient, an odd choice for the agent inside. Nevertheless, to avoid calling attention to himself, since he had six minutes to go, he stood behind three men who were waiting in front of the booth. Ninety seconds later he had paid for and received his ticket. He went inside, gave it to the girl at the door, and adjusted his eyes to the darkness and to the pornographic motion picture on the distant screen. It was an odd choice of entertainment for the man he was testing, but he had vowed to himself he would permit no prejudgements, no balancing of one suspect against another.