| 2:50a |
@@@@@Of course, it was a hell of a lot easier
@@@@@Of course, it was a hell of a lot easier with a computer doing the
scanning
“You might have included a note! I’ve been poring over these things since eight o’clock
“I didn’t find it—them—until after nine and I didn’t want to call you from Virginia
“That’s another story, isn’t it?” said Bourne, sitting down on the couch, once again leaning
forward anxiously
“Yes, it is, and it’s God-awful
“Medusa?”
“It’s worse than I thought, and worse than that, I didn’t think it could be
“It’s a bowelful,” countered the retired intelligence officerPentagon
procurements? The Federal Trade Commission? Our ambassador in London, or would you like the
supreme commander of NATO?”
“My God !”
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
54
“Oh, I can go one betterFor size, try on the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
“Christ, what is it? Some kind of cabal?”
“That’s so academic, DrNow try collusion, down deep and elusive and after all these
years still breathing, still aliveThey’re in contact with each other in high placesWhy?”
“What’s the purpose? The objective?”
“I just said that, asked that, really
“There has to be a reason!”
“Try motiveI just said that, too, and it may be as simple as hiding past sinsIsn’t that what we
were looking for? A collection of former Medusans who’d run to the hills at the thought of the past
coming to light?”
“Then that’s it
“No, it’s not, and this is Saint Alex’s instincts searching for wordsTheir reactions were too
immediate, too visceral, too loaded with today, not twenty years agoSomething’s different from what we expected, and I’m goddamned sick of
making mistakesBut this isn’t a mistakeYou said this morning that it could be a net work, and
I thought you were way the hell off baseI thought that maybe we’d find a few high profiles who
didn’t want to be publicly drawn and quartered for things they did twenty years ago, or who
legitimately didn’t want to embarrass the government, and we could use them, force them in their
collective fear to do things and say things we told them to doBut this is differentIt’s today, and I
can’t figure it |