The Bourne Supremacy

'He diverted your questions to his own ends,' said Havilland, coming through the door, the immense Lin Wenzu behind him. 'Do you agree, Major?'

'Yes, and that means he anticipated the questions. He was primed for them. '

'Which means someone primed him!'

'We never should have called him,' said McAllister quietly, sitting behind the desk, his nervous fingers once again massaging his right temple. 'Nearly everything he brought up was meant to provoke a response from me. '

'We had to call him,' insisted Havilland, 'if only to learn that. '

'He stayed in control. I lost it. '

'You could not have behaved differently, Edward,' said Lin. 'To react other than you did would have been to question his motives. In essence, you would have threatened him. '

'And at the moment, we don't want him to feel threatened,' agreed Havilland. 'He's getting information for someone, and we've got to find out who it is. '

'And that means Webb's wife did reach someone she knew and told that person everything. ' McAllister leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his hands tightly clasped.

'You were right, after all,' said the Ambassador, looking down at the undersecretary of state. 'A street with her favourite maple trees. Paris. The inevitable repetition. It's quite clear. Nelson is working for someone in the Canadian consulate – and whoever it is, is in touch with Webb's wife. '

McAllister looked up. Then Nelson's either a damn fool or a bigger damn fool. By his own admission he knows – at least he assumes – that he's dealing with highly sensitive information involving an adviser to presidents. Dismissal aside, he could be sent to prison for conspiring against the government. '

'He's not a fool, I can assure you,' said Lin.

'Then either someone is forcing him to do this against his win – blackmail most likely – or he's being paid to find out if

there's a connection between Marie St Jacques and this house in Victoria Peak. It can't be anything else. ' Frowning, Havilland sat down in the chair in front of the desk.

'Give me a day,' continued the major from MI6 . 'Perhaps I can find out. If I can, we'll pick up whoever it is in the consulate. '

'No,' said the diplomat whose expertise lay in covert operations. 'You have until eight o'clock tonight. We can't afford that, but if we can avoid a confrontation and any possible fallout, we must try. Containment is everything. Try, Lin. For God's sake, try. '

'And after eight o'clock, Mr Ambassador? What then?'

Then, Major, we pull in our clever and evasive attaché and break him. I'd much prefer to use him without his knowing it, without risking alarms, but the woman comes first. Eight o'clock, Major Lin. '

'I'll do everything I can. '

'And if we're wrong,' went on Havilland, as if Lin Wenzu had not spoken, 'if this Nelson has been set up as a blind and knows nothing, I want all the rules broken. I don't care how you do it or how much it costs in bribes or the garbage you have to employ to get it done. I want cameras, telephone taps, electronic surveillance – whatever you can manage – on every single person in that consulate. Someone there knows where she is. Someone there is hiding her. '

'Catherine, it's John,' said Nelson into the pay phone on Albert Road.

'How good of you to call,' answered Staples quickly. 'It's been a trying afternoon, but do let's have drinks one of these days. It'll be so good to see you after all these months, and you can tell me about Canberra. But do tell me one thing now. Was I right in what I told you?'

'I have to see you, Catherine. '

'Not even a hint?'

'I have to see you. Are you free?'

'I have a meeting in forty-five minutes. '

Then later, around five. There's a place called the Monkey Tree in the Wanchai, on Gloucester-'

'I know it. I'll be there. '

John Nelson hung up. There was nothing else to do but go back to the office. He could not stay away for three hours, not after his conversation with Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister; appearances precluded such an absence. He had heard about McAllister; the undersecretary had spent seven years in Hong Kong, leaving only months before Nelson had arrived. Why had he returned? Why was there a sterile house in Victoria Peak with Ambassador Havilland suddenly in residence? Above all, why was Catherine Staples so frightened? He owed Catherine his career, but he had to have a few answers. He had a decision to make.

Lin Wenzu had all but exhausted his sources. Only one gave him pause for thought. Inspector Ian Ballantyne, as he usually did, answered questions with other questions rather than delivering concise answers himself. It was maddening, for one never knew whether the man from Scotland Yard knew something or not about a given subject, in this case an American attaché named John Nelson.

'Met the chap several times,' Ballantyne had said. 'Bright sort. Speaks your lingo, did you know that?'

'My "lingo", Inspector?'

'Well, damn few of us did, even during the Opium Wars. Interesting period of history, wasn't it, Major?'

'The Opium Wars? I was talking about the attache, John Nelson. '

'Oh, is there a connection?'

'With what, Inspector?'

'The Opium Wars. '

'If there is, he's a hundred and fifty years old and his dossier says thirty-two. '

'Really? That young.

But Ballantyne had employed several pauses too many to satisfy Lin. If the old warhorse did know something he was not going to reveal it. Everyone else, from the Hong Kong and Kowloon police to the 'specialists' who worked the American consulate gathering information for payment gave Nelson as clean a bill of health as was respectable in the territory. If Nelson had a vulnerable side, it was in his extensive and not too discriminate search for sex, but insofar as it was heterosexual, and he was single, it was to be applauded, not condemned. One 'specialist' told Lin that he heard Nelson had been warned to have himself medically checked on a fairly regular basis. No crime; the attache was a cocksman. Ask him to dinner.

The telephone rang; Lin grabbed it . 'Yes?'

'Our subject walked to the Peak Tram and took a taxi to the Wanchai. He is in a cafe called the Monkey Tree. I am with him. I can see him. '

'It's out of the way and very crowded,' said the major. 'Has anyone joined him?'

'No, but he asked for a table for two. '

'I'll be there as soon as I can. If you have to leave, I'll contact you by radio. You're driving Vehicle Seven, are you not?'

'Vehicle Seven, sir... Wait! A woman is walking towards his table. He's getting up. '

'Do you recognize her?'

'It's too dark here. No. '

'Pay the waiter. Disrupt the service. But not obviously, only for a few minutes. I'll use our ambulance and the siren until I'm a block away. '

'Catherine, I owe you so much, and I want to help you in any way I can, but I have to know more than what you've told me. '

There's a connection, isn't there? Havilland and Marie St Jacques. '

'I won't confirm that – I can't confirm it – because I haven't spoken to Havilland. I did, however, speak to another man, a man I've heard a lot about who used to be stationed here -one hell of a brain – and he sounded as desperate as you did last night. '

'I seemed that way to you last night?' said Staples, smoothing her grey-streaked hair. 'I wasn't aware of it. '

'Hey, come on. Not in your words, maybe, but in the way you talked. The stridency was just below the surface. You sounded like me when you gave me the photographs. Believe me, I can identify. '

'Johnny, believe me. We may be dealing with something neither of us should get near, something way up in the clouds on which we – I – don't have the knowledge to make a proper decision. '