'Yes. He spent months learning everything there was to learn about Carlos, studying every file we had, every known and suspected assassination with which Carlos was involved. He pored over Carlos's tactics, his methods of operation, everything. Much of that material has never seen the light of day and probably never will. It's explosive - governments and international combines would be at one another's throats. There was literally nothing Bourne did not know - that could be known - about Carlos. And then he'd show himself, always with a different appearance, speaking any of several languages, talking about things to selected circles of hardened criminals that only a professional killer would talk about. Then he'd be gone, leaving behind bewildered and often frightened men and women. They had seen Cain; he existed, and he was ruthless. That was the image Bourne conveyed.'

'He's been underground like this for three years?' asked

Stevens.

'Yes. He moved to Europe, the most accomplished white assassin in Asia, graduate of the infamous Medusa, challenging Carlos in his own backyard. And in the process he saved four men marked by Carlos, took credit for others Carlos had killed, mocked him at every opportunity ... always trying to force him out in the open. He's spent nearly three years living the most dangerous sort of life a man can live, the kind of existence few men ever know. Most would have broken under it; and that possibly can never be ruled out.'

'What kind of man is he?'

'A professional,' answered Gordon Webb. 'Someone who had the training and the capability, who understood that Carlos had to be found, stopped.'

'But three years... ?'

'If that seems incredible,' said Abbott, 'you should know that he submitted to surgery. It was like a final break with the past, with the man he was in order to become a man he wasn't. I don't think there's any way a nation can repay a man like Bourne for what he's done. Perhaps the only way is to give him the chance to succeed, and, by God, I intend to do that.' The Monk stopped for precisely two seconds, then added, 'If it is Bourne.'

It was as if Elliot Stevens had been struck by an unseen hammer. 'What did you say?' he asked.

'I'm afraid I've held this to the end. I wanted you to understand the whole picture, before I described the gap. It may not be a gap, we just don't know. Too many things have happened that make no sense to us, but we don't know. It's the reason why there can be absolutely no interference from other levels, no diplomatic sugar pills that might expose the strategy. We could condemn a man to death, a man who's given more than any of us. If he succeeds, he can go back to his own life, but only anonymously, only without his identity ever being revealed.'

'I'm afraid you'll have to explain that,' said the astonished presidential aide.

'Loyalty, Elliot It's not restricted to what's commonly referred to as the "good guys". Carlos has built up an army of men and women who are devoted to him. They may not know him but they revere him. If Bourne is exposed, that army will spread out and kill him. However, if he can take Carlos - or trap Carlos so we can take him - then vanish, he's home free.'

'But you say he may not be Bourne!'

'I said we don't know. It was Bourne at the bank, the signatures were authentic. But is it Bourne now? The next few days will tell us.'

'If he surfaces,' added Webb.

'It's delicate,' continued the old man. There are so many variables. If it isn't Bourne - or if he's turned - it could explain the call to Ottawa, the killing at the airport. From what we can gather, the woman's expertise was used to withdraw the money in Paris. All Carlos had to do was make a few inquiries at the Canadian Department of Finance. The rest would be child's play for him. Kill her contact, panic her, cut her off and use her to contain Bourne.'

'Were you able to get word to her?' asked the major. 'I tried and failed. I had Mac Hawkins call a man who also worked closely with the St Jacques woman, a man named Alan somebody-or-other. He instructed her to return to Canada immediately. She hung up on him.' 'Goddamn it!' exploded Webb.

'Precisely. If we could have got her back, we might have learned so much. She's the key. Why is she with him? Why he with her? Nothing makes sense.'

'Less so to me!' said Stevens, his bewilderment turning into anger. 'If you want the President's co-operation - and I promise nothing - you'd better be clearer.'

Abbott turned to him. 'Six months ago Bourne disappeared,' he said. 'Something happened; we're not sure what, but we can piece together a probability. He got word into Zurich that he was on his way to Marseilles, Later - too late - we understood. He'd learned that Carlos had accepted a contract on Howard Leland, and Bourne tried to stop it ... Then nothing: he vanished. Had he been killed? Had he broken under the strain? Had he ... given up?'

'I can't accept that,' interrupted Webb. 'I won't accept it.' 'I know you won't,', said, the Monk. 'It's why I want you to go through that file. You know his codes; they're all in there. See if you can spot any deviations in Zurich.'

'Please!' broke in Stevens. 'What do you think"! You must have found something concrete, something on which to base a judgment! I need that, Mr Abbott. The President needs it.'

'I wish to heaven I had," replied the Monk. 'What have we found? Everything and nothing ... Two years and ten months of the most carefully constructed deception in our records. Every false act documented, every move defined and justified; each man and woman informants, contacts, sources - given faces, voices, stories to tell. And every month, every week just a little bit closer to Carlos ... Then nothing. Silence. Six months' vacuum.'

'Not now,' countered the President's aide. 'That silence was broken. By whom?'

That's the basic question, isn't it?' said the old man, his voice tired. 'Months of silence, then suddenly an explosion of unauthorized, incomprehensible activity. The account penetrated, the fiche altered, millions transferred - by all appearances, stolen. Above all, men killed and traps set for other men. But for whom, by whom?' The Monk shook his head wearily. 'Who is the man out there?'

20

The limousine was parked between two street lamps, diagonally across from the heavy ornamental doors of the brownstone house. In the front seat sat a uniformed chauffeur; such a driver at the wheel of such a vehicle was not an uncommon sight on the tree-lined street. What was unusual, however, was the fact that two other men remained in the shadows of the deep back seat, neither making any move to get out. Instead, they watched the entrance of the brownstone, confident that they could not be picked up by the infra-red beam of a scanning camera.

One man adjusted his glasses, the eyes beyond his thick lenses owl-like, flatly suspicious of most of what they surveyed. Alfred Gillette, Director of Personnel Screening and Evaluation for the National Security Council, spoke. 'How gratifying to be there when arrogance collapses. How much more so to be the instrument.'

'You really dislike him, don't you?' said Gillette's companion, a heavy-shouldered man in a black raincoat whose accent derived from a Slavic language somewhere in Europe.

'I loathe him. He stands for everything I hate in Washington. The right schools, houses in Georgetown, farm in Virginia, quiet meetings at their clubs. They've got their tight little world and you don't break in - they run it all. The bastards. The superior, self-inflated gentry of Washington. They use other men's intellects, other men's work, wrapping it all into decisions bearing their imprimatures. And if you're on the outside, you become part of that amorphous entity, a "damn fine staff".'