He barely remembers them, but they’re at the core... He barely remembers them, but they’re at the core of his
torment; Mo Panov believes that and I do, tooNow, years later, another wife and two children
are threatenedEvery nerve in him has to be on fire
Suddenly, from three hundred feet away on the beach, Bourne’s voice erupted, splitting through
the breezes from the sea“Goddamn it, I told you to hurry! Expert, there’s a reef
out here with the color of a sandbar beyond it! Have you considered that?”
“Don’t answer, JohnnyWe’ll go out to the plane
“A sandbar? What the hell’s he talking about? Oh, my God, I do see!”
“I don’t,” said Marie as they walked rapidly up the pier
“There are reefs around eighty percent of the island, ninety-five percent where this beach is
concernedThey brake the waves, it’s why it’s called Tranquility; there’s no surf at all
“So what?”
“So someone using a tank under water wouldn’t risk
new omega watches crashing into a reef, but he would into a
sandbar in front of a reefHe could watch the beach and the guards and crawl up when his landing
was clear, lying in the water only feet from shore until he could take the guardI never thought
about that
Bourne sat on the corner of the desk, the two old men on a couch in front of him, his brother-inlaw
standing by a window fronting the beach in the unoccupied villa
“Why would I—why would we—lie to you, monsieur?” asked the hero of France
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
141
“Because it all sounds like a classic French farceSimilar but different names; one door opening
as another closes, look-alikes disappearing and entering on cue
“Perhaps you are a student of Molière or Racine ?”
“I’m a student of uncanny coincidence, especially where the Jackal is concerned
“I don’t think there’s the slightest similarity in our
balenciaga twiggy appearances,” offered the judge from Boston
“Except, perhaps, our agesJason quickly reached down and picked it up“Yes?”
“Everything checks out in Boston,” said Conklin“His name’s Prefontaine, Brendan
PrefontaineHe was a federal judge of the first circuit caught in a government scam and convicted
of felonious misconduct on the bench—read that as being very large in the bribery businessHe
was sentenced to twenty-one years and did ten, which was enough to blow him away in every
departmentHe’s what they call a functioning alcoholic, something of a character in Bean Town’s
shadier districts, but harmless—actually kind of liked in a warped sort of wayHe’s also considered
very bright when he’s clearheaded, and I’m told a lot of crumbs wouldn’t have gone court-free and
others would be doing longer jail terms if he hadn’t given shrewd advice to their attorneys of
recordYou
fendi spy bags might say he’s a behind-the-scenes storefront lawyer, the ‘stores’ in his case being
saloons, pool halls and probably warehousesSince I’ve been where he’s at in the booze terrain,
he sounds straight arrow to meHe’s handling it better than I ever did
“If I could have managed better in that twilight zone, I might not haveThere’s something to be
said for the grape on many occasions
“What about his client?”
“Awesome, and our once and former judge was an adjunct professor at Harvard Law, where
Gates was a student in two of his classesNo question about it, Prefontaine knows the manThere’s no reason for him to lieHe was simply after a score
“You’re following up on the client?”
“With all the quiet ammunition I can pull out of my personal woodworkHe’s our link to
CarlosThe Medusa connection was a false lead, a stupid attempt by a stupid general in the
Pentagon to put
prada bags cheap someone inside Gates’s inner legal circle
“You’re sure of that?”
“I am nowGates is a highly paid consultant to a law firm representing a megadefense contractor
under antitrust scrutinyHe wouldn’t even return Swayne’s calls, which, if he did, would make him
more stupid than Swayne, which he isn’t
“That’s your problem, friend, not mineIf everything goes the way I intend it to go here, I don’t
even want to hear about Snake LadyIn fact, I can’t remember ever having heard of it
“Thanks for dumping it in my lap—and in a way I guess I mean thatIncidentally, the grammarschool
notebook you grabbed from the gunslinger in Manassas has some interesting things in it
“Oh?”
“Do you remember those three frequent fliers from the Mayflower’s registry who flew into
Philadelphia eight months ago and just happened to be at the hotel at the same time eight
chanel sac months
later?”
“Certainly