The Bourne ultimatum by Robert Ludlum Page A

yourself in what appears to be an extremely sensitive government operation, that’s the bottom line. ... On the assumption that anyone in an emergency leaving one place for another would do so with the fastest transportation possible, our rumbottom detective went to Logan Airport, under what guise I don’t know. Nevertheless, he succeeded in obtaining the manifests of every plane leaving Boston yesterday morning from the first flight at six-thirty to ten o’clock. As you recall, that corresponds with the parameters of your statement to me—‘leaving first thing in the morning.’ ”
    “ And ?”
    “Patience, Randolph. You told me not to write anything down, so I must take this step by step. Where was I?”
    “The manifests .”
    “Oh, yes. Well, according to Detective Sleaze, there were eleven unaccompanied children booked on various flights, and eight women, two of them nuns, who had reservations with minors. Of these eight, including the nuns who were taking nine orphans to California, the remaining six were identified as follows.” The old man reached into his pocket and shakily took out a typewritten sheet of paper. “Obviously, I did not write this. I don’t own a typewriter because I can’t type; it comes from F ü hrer Sleaze.”
    “Let me have it!” ordered Gates, rushing forward, his hand outstretched.
    “Surely,” said the seventy-year-old disbarred attorney, giving the page to his former student. “It won’t do you much good, however,” he added. “Our Sleaze checked them out, more to inflate his hours than for anything else. Not only are they all squeaky clean, but he performed that unnecessary service after the real information was uncovered.”
    “What?” asked Gates, his attention diverted from the page. “What information?”
    “Information that neither Sleaze nor I would write down anywhere. The first hint of it came from the morning setup clerk for Pan American Airlines. He mentioned to our lowbrow detective that among his problems yesterday was a hotshot politician, or someone equally offensive, who needed diapers several minutes after our clerk went on duty at five-forty-five. Did you know that diapers come in sizes and are locked away in an airline’s contingency supplies?”
    “What are you trying to tell me?”
    “All the stores in the airport were closed. They open at seven o’clock.”
    “So?”
    “So someone in a hurry forgot something. A lone woman with a five-year-old child and an infant were leaving Boston on a private jet taking off on the runway nearest the Pan Am shuttle counters. The clerk responded to the request and was personally thanked by the mother. You see, he’s a young father and understood about diaper sizes. He brought three different packages—”
    “For God’s sake, will you get to the point , Judge?”
    “Judge?” The gray-faced old man’s eyes widened. “Thank you, Randy. Except for my friends in various gin mills, I haven’t been called that in years. It must be the aura I exude.”
    “It was a throwback to that same boring circumlocution you used both on the bench and in the classroom!”
    “Impatience was always your weak suit. I ascribed it to your annoyance with other people’s points of view that interfered with your conclusions. ... Regardless, our Major Sleaze knew a rotten apple when the worm emerged and spat in his face, so he hied himself off to Logan’s control tower, where he found a bribable off duty traffic controller who checked yesterday morning’s schedules. The jet in question had a computer readout of Four Zero, which to our Captain Sleaze’s astonishment he was told meant it was government-cleared and maximum-classified. No manifest, no names of anyone on board, only a routing to evade commercial aircraft and a destination.”
    “Which was ?”
    “Blackburne, Montserrat.”
    “What the hell is that?”
    “The Blackburne Airport on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.”
    “That’s where they went? That’s