“I have trouble remembering last night,” said the... “I have trouble remembering last night,” said the colonel
“Tell him what he wants to know, AlekseiIt can have no bearing on our interestsThe Saigon
chapter is closed, as is Kabul Conklin lowered himself into a chair and massaged his right calf; he tried to speak
casually but the attempt was not wholly successful“In December of 1970 one of your men was
killed during a search-and-destroy patrolIt was called an accident of ‘friendly fire,’ but you knew
betterYou knew he was marked by some horseshit artists down south at headquarters; they had it
in for himHe was a Cambodian and no saint by any means, but he knew all the contraband trails,
so he was your point
“Just images,” interrupted Bourne“All I get are fragmentsI see but I can’t remember
“The facts aren’t important anymore; they’re buried along with several thousand other
questionable eventsApparently a large narcotics
j12 chanel diamond watch deal went sour in the Triangle and your scout was
held responsible, so a few hotshots in Saigon thought a lesson should be taught their gook runners
They flew up to your territory, went into the grass, and took him out like they were a VC advance
unitBut you saw them from a piece of high ground and blew all your gasketsYou tracked them
back to the helicopter pad and gave them a choice: Get in and you’d storm the chopper leaving no
survivors, or they could come back with you to the base campThey came back under your men’s
guns and you forced Field Command to accept your multiple charges of murderThat’s when Ice-
Cold Ogilvie showed up looking after his Saigon boys
“Then something happened, didn’t it? Something crazy—everything got confused, twistedBryce got you on the stand and made you look like a maniac, a sullen
pathological liar and a killer who, except for the war and your
omega geneve automatic expertise, would be in a maximum
security prisonHe called you everything in the rotten black book and demanded that you reveal
your real name—which you wouldn’t do, couldn’t do, because your first wife’s Cambodian family
would have been slaughteredHe tried to tie you in verbal knots, and, failing that, threatened the
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
372
military court with exposing the whole bastard battalion, which it also couldn’t allowOgilvie’s
thugs got off for lack of credible testimony, and after the trial you had to be physically restrained in
the barracks until Ogilvie was airborne back to Saigon
“His name was Kwan Soo,” said Bourne dreamily, his head moving back and forth as if
rejecting a nightmare“He was a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, sending the drug money back to
three villages so they could eatThere wasn’t any other way oh, shit! What would any of
jumbo chanel flap bag us have
done if our families were starving?”
“That wasn’t anything you could say at the trial and you knew itYou had to hold your tongue
and take Ogilvie’s vicious crapI came up and watched you and I never saw a man exercise such
control over his hatred
“That isn’t the way I seem to recall it—what I can recallSome of it’s coming back, not much,
but some
“During that trial you adapted to the necessities of your immediate surroundings—you might say
like a chameleon Their eyes locked, and Jason turned back to the television screen
“And there he is with CarlosIt’s a small rotten world, isn’t it? Does he know I’m Jason
Bourne?”
“How could he?” asked Conklin, getting out of the chair“There was no Jason Bourne then
There wasn’t even a David, only a guerrilla they called Delta OneNo names were used,
remember?”
“I keep forgetting; what else is new?” Jason pointed at the screen“Why
new omega watches is he in Moscow? Why
did you say Medusa found the Jackal? Why?”
“Because he’s the law firm in New York
“What?” Bourne whipped his head toward Conklin“He’s the—”
“The chairman of the board,” completed Alex, interrupting“The Agency closed in and he got
out
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” cried Jason angrily
“Because I never thought for a moment we’d be standing here looking at that picture on the
screenI still can’t understand it, but I can’t deny it, eitherAlso, I saw no reason to bring up a
name you might or might not remember, a personally very disturbing occurrence you might or
might not rememberWhy add an unnecessary complication? There’s enough stress
“All right, Aleksei!” said an agitated Krupkin, stepping forward“I’ve heard words and names
that evoke certain unpleasant memories for me, at any rate, and I think it behooves me to ask a
question or two—specifically
vintage gucci handbags o