"Shut up! Let's get out of here."

41

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez snapped his fingers twice in the shadows as he climbed the short steps of the miniaturized entrance to a small church in "Madrid's" Paseo del Prado, the duffel bag in his left hand. From behind a fluted mock pillar a figure emerged, a heavyset man in his early sixties who walked partially into the dim light of a distant streetlamp. He was dressed in the uniform of a Spanish army officer, a lieutenant general with three rows of ribbons affixed to his tunic. He was carrying a leather suitcase; he raised it slightly and spoke in the compound's language.

"Come inside, to the vestry. You can change there. That ill-fitting guard's jacket is an invitation for sharpshooters."

"It's good to speak our language again," said Carlos, following the man inside the tiny church and turning stiffly to close the heavy door. "I'm in your debt, Enrique," he added, glancing around at the empty rows of pews and the soft lights playing upon the altar, the gold crucifix gleaming.

"You've been in my debt for over thirty years, Ramirez, and a lot of good it does me," laughed the soldier quietly as they proceeded across to the right aisle and down toward the sacristy.

"Then perhaps you're out of touch with what remains of your family in Baracoa. Fidel's own brothers and sisters don't live half so well."

"Neither does crazy Fidel, but he doesn't care. They say he bathes more frequently now and I suppose that's progress. However, you're talking about my family in Baracoa; what about me, my fine international assassin? No yachts, no racing colors, shame on you! Were it not for my warning you, you would have been executed in this very compound thirty-three years ago. Come to think of it, it was right outside this idiotic dollhouse church on the Prado that you made your escape-dressed as a priest, a figure that perpetually bewilders the Russian, like most everyone else."

"Once I was established, did you ever lack for anything?" They entered a small paneled room where supposed prelates prepared the sacraments. "Did I ever refuse you?" Carlos added, placing the heavy duffel bag on the floor.

"I'm joking with you, of course," objected Enrique, smiling good-naturedly and looking at the Jackal. "Where is that lusty humor of yours, my infamous old friend?"

"I have other things on my mind."

"I'm sure you do, and, in truth, you were never less than generous where my family in Cuba was concerned, and I thank you. My father and mother lived out their lives in peace and comfort, bewildered naturally, but so much better off than anyone they knew. ... It was all so insane. Revolutionaries thrown out by their own revolution's leaders."

"You were threats to Castro, as was Che. It's past."

"A great deal has passed," agreed Enrique, studying Carlos. "You've aged poorly, Ramirez. Where's that once full head of dark hair and the handsome strong face with the clear eyes?"

"We won't talk about it."

"Very well. I grow fat, you grow thin; that tells me something. How badly are you wounded?"

"I can function well enough for what I intend to do-what I must do."

"Ramirez, what else is there?" asked the costumed soldier suddenly. "He's dead! Moscow takes credit over the radio for his death, but when you reached me I knew the credit was yours, the kill yours. Jason Bourne is dead! Your enemy is gone from this world. You're not well; go back to Paris and heal yourself. I'll get you out the same way I got you in. We'll head into 'France' and I'll clear the way. You will be a courier from the commandant of 'Spain' and 'Portugal' who's sending a confidential message to Dzerzhinsky Square. It's done all the time; no one trusts anyone here, especially his own gates. You won't even have to take the risk of killing a single guard."

"No! A lesson must be taught."

"Then let me phrase it another way. When you called with your emergency codes, I did what you demanded, for by and large you have fulfilled your obligations to me, obligations that go back thirty-three years. But now there is another risk involved-risks, to be precise-and I'm not sure I care to take them."

"You speak this way to me?" cried the Jackal, removing the dead guard's jacket, his clean white bandages taut, holding his right shoulder firm with no evidence of blood.

"Stop your theatrics," said Enrique softly. "We go back long before that. I'm speaking to a young revolutionary I followed out of Cuba with a great athlete named Santos. ... How is he, by the way? He was the real threat to Fidel."

"He's well," answered Carlos, his voice flat. "We're moving Le Coeur du Soldat."

"Does he still tend to his gardens-his English gardens?"

"Yes, he does."

"He should have been a landscaper, or a florist, I think. And I should have been a fine agricultural engineer, an agronomist, as they say-that's how Santos and I met, you know. ... Melodramatic politics changed our lives, didn't they?"

"Political commitments changed them. Everywhere the fascists changed them."

"And now we want to be like the fascists, and they want to take what's not so terrible about us Communists and spread a little money around-which doesn't really work, but it's a nice thought."

"What has this to do with me-your monseigneur?"

"Horse droppings, Ramirez. As you may or may not know, my Russian wife died a number of years ago and I have three children in the Moscow University. Without my position they would not be there and I want them there. They will be scientists, doctors. ... You see, those are the risks you ask of me. I've covered myself up until this moment-and you deserve this moment-but perhaps no more. In a few months I will retire, and in recognition of my years of service in southern Europe and the Mediterranean, I will share a fine dacha on the Black Sea where my children will come and visit me. I will not unduly risk what life I have before me. So be specific, Ramirez, and I'll tell you whether you're on your own or not. ... I repeat, your getting in here cannot be traced to me, and, as I say, you deserved that much, but this is where I may be forced to stop."

"I see," said Carlos, approaching the suitcase Enrique had placed on the sacristy table.

"I hope you do and, further, I hope you understand. Over the years you've been good to my family in ways that I could never be, but then I've served you well in ways that I could. I led you to Rodchenko, fed you names in ministries where rumors abounded, rumors Rodchenko himself investigated for you. So, my old revolutionary comrade, I've not been idle on your behalf either. However, things are different now; we're not young firebrands in search of a cause any longer, for we've lost our appetites for causes-you long before me, of course."

"My cause remains constant," interrupted the Jackal sharply. "It is myself and all those who serve me."

"I've served you-"

"You've made that clear, as well as my generosity to you and yours. And now that I'm here, you wonder if I deserve further assistance, that's it, isn't it?"

"I must protect myself. Why are you here?"

"I told you. To teach a lesson, to leave a message."

"They are one and the same?"

"Yes." Carlos opened the suitcase; it held a coarse shirt, a Portuguese fisherman's cap with the appropriate rope-belted trousers, and a seaman's shoulder-strapped canvas satchel. "Why these?" asked the Jackal.

"They're loose-fitting and I haven't seen you in years-not since Málaga in the early seventies, I think. I couldn't very well have clothes tailored for you, and I'm glad I didn't try-you are not as I remembered you, Ramirez."

"You're not much larger than I remember you," countered the assassin. "A little thicker around the stomach, perhaps, but we're still the same height, the same basic frame."