From what I recall, Montserrat’s near... From what I recall, Montserrat’s near Dominica
and Martinique, isn’t it?”
“Less than an hour to each, and Johnny knows every pilot on the big island
“Martinique’s French, we’ll go with thatI know people in the Deuxième BureauGet down
there and call me from the airport terminalI’ll have made the arrangements by thenThere’s a last item, AlexShe and the children will be back here this
afternoonCall her and tell her I’m covered with all the firepower in Paris
“You lying son of a bitch—”
“Do it!”
“Of course I willOn that score and not lying, if I live through the day, I’m having dinner with
Mo Panov at his place tonightHe’s a terrible cook, but he thinks he’s the Jewish Julia ChildI’d
like to bring him up to date; he’ll go crazy if I don’tWithout him we’d both be in padded cells chewing rawhide
The next day at 10:25 in the morning, Washington time, DrMorris Panov, accompanied by his
guard, walked out of Walter Reed Hospital after a psychiatric session with a retired army lieutenant
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
186
suffering
repica rolex watches from the aftereffects of a training exercise in Georgia that took the lives of twenty-odd
recruits under his command eight weeks beforeThere was not much Mo could do; the man was
guilty of competitive overachievement, military style, and had to live with his guiltThe fact that he
was a financially privileged black and a graduate of West Point did not helpMost of the twenty
dead recruits were also black and they had been underprivileged
Panov, muddling over the available options with his patient, looked at his guard, suddenly
startled“You’re a new man, aren’t you? I mean, I thought I knew all of youWe’re often reassigned on short notice, keeps all of us on our toes
“Habit-oriented anticipation—it can lull anybody The psychiatrist continued across the
pavement to where his armor-plated car was usually waiting for himIt was a different vehicle
“This isn’t my car,” he said, bewildered
“Get in,” ordered his guard, politely opening the door
“What?” A pair of hands from inside the car grabbed him and a uniformed man pulled him into
the backseat as
louis vuitton denim bags the guard followed, sandwiching Panov between themThe two men held the
psychiatrist as the one who had been inside yanked Mo’s seersucker jacket off his shoulder and
shoved up the short sleeve of his summer shirtHe plunged a hypodermic needle into Panov’s arm
“Good night, Doctor,” said the soldier with the insignia of the Medical Corps on the lapels of his
uniform“Call New York,” he added
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
187
19
The Air France 747 from Martinique circled Orly Airport in the early evening haze over Paris; it
was five hours and twenty-two minutes behind schedule because of the severe weather patterns in
the CaribbeanAs the pilot entered his final approach the flight officer acknowledged their
clearance to the tower, then switched to his prescribed sterile frequency and sent a last message in
French to an off limits communications room
“Deuxième, special cargoPlease instruct your interested party to go to his designated holding
area
“Instructions received and relayed” was the terse reply
The special cargo in
hermes birkins question sat in the left rear bulkhead seat in the first-class section of the
aircraft; the seat beside him was unoccupied, on orders of the Deuxième Bureau in cooperation
with WashingtonImpatient, annoyed and unable to sleep because of the constricting bandage
around his neck, Bourne, close to exhaustion, reflected on the events of the past nineteen hoursTo
put it mildly, they had not gone as smoothly as Conklin had anticipatedThe Deuxième had balked
for over six hours as phone calls went back and forth feverishly between Washington, Paris And,
finally, Vienna, VirginiaThe stumbling block, and it was more of a hard rock, was the CIA’s
inability to spell out the covert operation in terms of one Jason Bourne, for only Alexander Conklin
could release the name and he refused to do so, knowing that the Jackal’s penetrations in Paris
extended to just about everywhere but the kitchens of the Tour d’ArgentFinally, in desperation
and realizing it was lunchtime in Paris, Alex placed ordinary, unsafe overseas telephone calls to
several cafés on the
gucci purse Rive Gauche, finding an old Deuxième acquaintance at one on the rue de
Vaugirard
“Do you remember the tinamou and an American somewhat younger than he is now who made
things a little simpler for you?”
“Ah, the tinamou, the bird with hidden wings and ferocious legs! They were such better days,
younger daysAnd if the somewhat older American was at the time given the status of a saint, I
shall never forget him
“Don’t now, I need you
“It is you, Alexander?”
“It is and I’ve got a problem with D
And it was, but the weather was insolubleThe storm that had battered the central Leeward
Islands two nights before was only a prelude to the torrential rain and winds that swept up from the
Grenadines, with another storm behind itThe islands were entering the hurricane season, so the
weather was not astonishing, it was merely a delaying factorFinally, when clearance for takeoff
was around the chronological corner, it was discovered that there was a malfunction in the far
starboard engine; no one argued while the problem was traced, found and
d&g dolce gabbana repaired