It’s not like the Jackal to leave an
obvious... It’s not like the Jackal to leave an
obvious hole like that
“The Jackal? You think it’s Carlos himself?”
“Not him, of course, but someone on his payroll, someone so unlikely he could carry a sign
around his neck with the Jackal’s name on it and we wouldn’t believe him
“Chinese?”
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
37
“MaybeHe might play that out and then he might notHe’s geometric; whatever he does is
logical, even his logic seems illogical
“I hear a man from the past, a man who never was
Conklin looked toward the door of the apartment, David’s words suddenly provoking another
thought“Where’s your suitcase?” he asked“You brought some clothes, didn’t you?”
“No clothes, and these will be dropped in a Washington sewer once I have othersBut first I
have to see another old friend of mine, another genius who lives in the wrong section of town
“Let me guess,” said the retired agent“An elderly black man with the improbable name of
Cactus, a genius where false papers such as passports and driver’s licenses and credit cards are
concerned
“The Agency could do it all
“Not as well and too bureaucraticallyI want nothing traceable, even with Four Zero securityThen what?”
“You get to work,
dior rasta bag field manBy tomorrow morning I want a lot of people in this town shaken
up? That is impossible!”
“Not for youNot for Saint Alex, the prince of dark operations?”
“Say whatever the hell you like, I’m not even in training
“It comes back quickly, like sex and riding a bicycle
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“After I consult with Cactus, I’ll get a room at the Mayflower hotel,” answered Jason Bourne
Culver Parnell, hotel magnate from Atlanta whose twenty-year reign in the hostelry business had
led to his appointment as chief of protocol for the White House, angrily hung up his office phone as
he scribbled a sixth obscenity on a legal padWith the election and now the turnover of White
House personnel, he had replaced the previous administration’s well-born female who knew
nothing about the political ramifications of 1600’s invitation listThen, to his profound irritation,
he found himself at war with his own first assistant, another middle-aged female, also from one of
the ass-elegant Eastern colleges, and, to make it worse, a popular Washington socialite who
contributed her salary to some la-di-da dance company whose members pranced around in their
underwear when they wore
borse gucci any
“Hog damn!” fumed Culver, running his hand through his fringed gray hair; he picked up the
telephone and poked four digits on his console“Gimme the Redhead, you sweet thing,” he
intoned, exaggerating his already pronounced Georgia accent
“Yes, sir,” said the flattered secretary“He’s on another line but I’ll interruptJust hold on a sec,
Mr
“You’re the loveliest of the peaches, lovely child
“Oh, golly, thank you! Now just hold on
It never failed, mused CulverA little soft oil from the magnolia worked a hell of a lot better
than the bark of a gnarled oakThat bitch of a first assistant of his might take a lesson from her
Southern superiors; she talked like some Yankee dentist had bonded her fucking teeth together with
permanent cement
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
38
“That you, Cull?” came the voice of Redhead over the line, intruding on Parnell’s thoughts as he
wrote a seventh obscenity on the legal pad
“You’re momma-letchin’ right, boy, and we got a problem! The fricassee bitch is doin’ it again
I got our Wall Streeters inked in for a table at the reception on the twenty-fifth, the one for the new
French ambassador and she says we gotta bump ’em for some core-dee-ballet
chanel shopping bag fruitcakes—she says
she and the First Lady feel mighty strong about itShee-it! Those money boys gotta lot of French
interests goin’ for them, and this White House bash could put ’em on topEvery frog on the Bourse
will think they got the ears of the whole town here!”
“Forget it, Cull,” broke in the anxious Redhead, “We may have a bigger problem, and I don’t
know what it means
“What’s that?”
“When we were back in Saigon, did you ever hear of something or someone called Snake
Lady?”
“I heard a hell of a lot about snake eyes,” chuckled Parnell, “but no Snake LadyWhy?”
“The fellow I was just talking to—he’s going to call back in five minutes—sounded as though
he was threatening meI mean actually threatening me, Cull! He mentioned Saigon and implied
that something terrible happened back then and repeated the name Snake Lady several times as if I
should have run for cover
“You leave that son of a bitch to me!” roared Parnell, interrupting“I know exactly what that
bastard’s talking about! This is that snotty bitch first assistant of mine—that’s the fuckin’ Snake
Lady! You give that slug worm my number and tell him I know all about his horseshit!”
“Will you please tell me, Cull?”
“What the
chanel earings hell, you were there, RedheadSo we had a few games going, even a few mini
casinos, and some clowns lost a couple of shirts, but there was nothin’ soldiers haven’t done since
they threw craps for Christ’s clothes! We just put it on a higher plane and maybe tossed in a few
broads who’d have been walkin’ the streets anywayNo, Redhead, that elegant-ass, so-called
assistant thinks she’s got somethin’ on me—that’s why she’s goin’ through you, ’cause everybody
knows we’re buddiesYou tell that slime to call me and I’ll settle his grits along with that bitch’s
twat! Oh, boy, she made a wrong move! My Wall Streeters are in and her pansies are out!”
“Okay, Cull, I’ll simply refer him to you,” said the Redhead, otherwise known as the vice
president of the United States, as he hung up the phone
It rang four minutes later and the words were spat out at Parnell“Snake Lady, Culver, and we’re
all in trouble!”
“No, you listen to me, Divot Head, and I’ll tell you who’s in trouble! She’s no lady, she’s a
bitch! One of her thirty or forty eunuch husbands may have thrown a few snake eyes in Saigon and
lost some of her well-advertised come-and-take-me cash, but nobody gave a shit then and nobody
gives a shit
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