after us, which is why you and the kids are heading south, way south. The Caribbean."
"I'll send them, darling. Not me." "Will you stop it! We agreed when Jamie was born. It's why we got the place down there, why we damn near bought your kid brother's soul to look after it for us. ... Also, he's done pretty damn well. We now own half interest in a flourishing inn down a dirt road on an island nobody ever heard of until that Canadian hustler landed therein a seaplane."
"Johnny was always the aggressive type. Dad once said he could sell a broken-down heifer as a prime steer and no one would check the parts."
"The point is he loves you ... and the kids. I'm also counting on that wild man's-- Never mind, I trust Johnny."
"While you're trusting so much in my younger brother, don't trust your sense of direction. You just passed the turn to the cabin."
"Goddamn it!" cried Webb, braking the car and swerving around. "Tomorrow! You and Jamie and Alison are heading out of Logan Airport. To the island!"
"We'll discuss it, David."
"There's nothing to discuss." Webb breathed deeply, steadily, imposing a strange control. "I've been here before," he said quietly.
Marie looked at her husband, his suddenly passive face outlined in the dim wash of the dashboard lights. What she saw frightened her far more than the specter of the Jackal. She was not looking at David Webb the soft-spoken scholar. She was staring at a man they both thought had disappeared from their lives forever.
Chapter Two
2
Alexander Conklin gripped his cane as he limped into the conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. He stood facing a long impressive table, large enough to seat thirty people, but instead there were only three, the man at the head the gray-haired DCI, director of Central Intelligence. Neither he nor his two highest-ranking deputy directors appeared pleased to see Conklin. The greetings were perfunctory, and rather than taking his obviously assigned seat next to the CIA official on the DCI's left, Conklin pulled out the chair at the far end of the table, sat down, and with a sharp noise slapped his cane against the edge.
"Now that we've said hello, can we cut the crap, gentlemen?"
"That's hardly a courteous or an amiable way to begin, Mr. Conklin," observed the director.
"Neither courtesy nor amiability is on my mind just now, sir. I just want to know why airtight Four Zero regulations were ignored and maximum-classified information was released that endangers a number of lives, including mine!"
"That's outrageous, Alex!" interrupted one of the two associates..
"Totally inaccurate!" added the other. "It couldn't happen and you know it!"
"I don't know it and it did happen and I'll tell you what's outrageously accurate," said Conklin angrily. "A man's out there with a wife and two children, a man this country and a large part of the world owe more to than anyone could ever repay, and he's running, hiding, frightened out of his mind that he and his family are targets. We gave that man our word, all of us, that no part of the official record would ever see the light of day until it was confirmed beyond doubt that Rich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, was dead. ... All right, I've heard the same rumors you have, probably from the same or much better sources, that the Jackal was killed here or executed there, but no one--repeat no one--has come forward with indisputable proof. ... Yet a part of that file was leaked, a very vital part, and it concerns me deeply because my name is there. ... Mine and Dr. Morris Panov, the chief psychiatrist of record. We were the only--repeat only--two individuals acknowledged to have been close associates of the unknown man who assumed the name of Jason Bourne, considered in more sectors than we can count to be the rival of Carlos in the killing game. ... But that information is buried in the vaults here in Langley. How did it get out? According to the rules, if anyone wants any part of that record--from the White House to the State Department to the holy Joint Chiefs--he has to go through the offices of the director and his chief analysts right here at Langley. They have to be briefed on all the details of the request, and even if they're satisfied as to the legitimacy, there's a final step. Me. Before a release is signed,