'He's come back. The assassin has come back to Asia! Jason Bourne! He's come back!'
Chapter Two
2
The sun fell behind the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in central Colorado as the Cobra helicopter roared out of the blazing light, a giant fluttering silhouette, and stuttered its way downward towards the threshold on the edge of the timberline. The concrete landing pad was several hundred feet from a large rectangular house of heavy wood and thick beveled glass. Aside from generators and camouflaged communications disks, no other structures were in sight. Tall trees formed a dense wall concealing the house from all outsiders.
The pilots of these highly maneuverable aircraft were recruited from the senior officer corps of the Cheyenne complex in Colorado Springs. None was lower than a full colonel and each had been cleared by the National Security Council in Washington. They never spoke about their trips to the mountain retreat; the destination was always obscured on flight plans. Headings were issued by radio when the choppers were airborne. The location was not on any public map and its communications were beyond the scrutiny of allies and enemies alike. The security was total; it had to be. This was a place for strategists whose work was so sensitive and frequently entailed such delicate global implications that the planners could not be seen together outside government buildings or in the buildings themselves, and certainly never inside adjacent offices known to have connecting doors.
There were hostile, inquisitive eyes everywhere - allies and enemies alike - who knew of the work these men did, and if they were observed together, alarms would surely go out. The enemy was vigilant and allies jealously guarded their own intelligence fiefdoms.
The doors of the Cobra opened. A frame of steel steps snapped to the ground as an obviously bewildered man climbed down into the floodlights. He was escorted by a major general in uniform. The civilian was slender, middle-aged, and of medium height and dressed in a pinstripe suit, white shirt and paisley tie. Even under the harsh, decelerating wash of the rotor blades his careful grooming remained intact, as though it were important to him and not to be abused. He followed the officer and together they walked up a concrete path to a door at the side of the house which opened as both men approached. However, only the civilian went inside; the general nodded, giving one of those informal salutes veteran soldiers reserve for the non-military and officers of their own rank.
'Nice to have met you, Mr McAllister,' said the general. 'Someone else will take you back. '
'You're not coming in?' asked the civilian.
'I've never been in, replied the officer, smiling. 'I just make sure it's you, and get you from Point B to Point C. '
'Sounds like a waste of rank, General. '
'It probably isn't,' observed the soldier without further comment. 'But then I have other duties. Good-bye. '
McAllister walked inside, into a long paneled corridor, his escort now a pleasant-faced, well- dressed husky man who had all the outward signs of Internal Security about him -physically quick and capable, and anonymous in a crowd.
'Did you have a pleasant flight, sir?' asked the younger man.
'Does anybody, in one of those things?'
The guard laughed. 'This way, sir. '
They went down the corridor, passing several doors along both walls, until they reached the end where there was a pair of larger double doors with two red lights in the upper left and right corners. They were cameras on separate circuits.
Edward McAllister had not seen devices like those since he left Hong Kong two years ago, and then only because he had been briefly assigned to British Intelligence MI6, Special Branch, for consultations. To him the British had seemed paranoid where security was concerned. He had never understood those people, especially after they awarded him a citation for doing minimal work for them in affairs they should have been able to cope with themselves. The guard rapped on the door; there was a quiet click and he opened the right panel.
'Your other guest, sir,' said the husky man.
'Thank you so very much,' replied a voice. The astonished McAllister instantly recognized it from scores of radio and television newscasts over the years, its inflections learned in an expensive prep school and several prestigious universities, with a postgraduate career in the British Isles. There was, however, no time to adjust. The grey-haired, impeccably dressed man with a lined, elongated face that bespoke his seventy-plus years got up from