The Next Phase
A/N: It's been a long time since I wrote a Bourne fanfics. I recently re-read Eric van Lustbader's The Bourne Objective and so was inspired to write this one. The character of Frederick Willard has always fascinated me; especially with regards to his backstory with Conklin and the Treadstone project. So I decided to do a story touching upon some of that backstory.
I would recommend this fic mainly to people who are familiar with Lustbader's continuation novels, especially The Bourne Deception and The Bourne Objective as a lot of the backstory used for this fic was revealed in these books.
Washington DC, United States of America
Frederick Willard sat on the topmost floor of the warehouse, absolutely silent and unmoving, almost as though he were meditating. Patience, as he had learnt over the years, was more than just a virtue in this business...it was, often quite literally, the difference between life and death. Even doubly so in his case, given his role as a sleeper agent deep within an NSA safehouse, a part he'd played to perfection for so long that he sometimes worried that it would subsume him entirely. And that was something he simply could not have. No matter what we went through, he could not lose himself during the course of the mission. He could not afford to lose focus or make even the single, most infinitesimal mistake...
If not for the sake of this particular mission, then certainly for the sake of program...
For he was now Treadstone's only remaining asset in the field...the other having become a gross liability.
Thinking about Leonid Danilovich Arkadin reminded him of why he was here in the first place.
Looking back, he felt convinced that, recent events notwithstanding, Arkadin still was the perfect candidate for Treadstone. He had all the makings of the ultimate living weapon...hell, he already was a living weapon when he came to them. All that had been required was a bit of focus, a bit of honing, a bit of...conditioning...
But Alex Conklin's attempts to reinvent the Russian killer, mind, body and soul, while dubiously successful in the initial stages, had ultimately failed. Arkadin had resisted the programming, like a beast refusing to be tamed. And he had broken free of his shackles and fled back to his icy homeland.
Conklin hadn't given up. With all the tenacity of the supreme spymaster that he was, he had launched a full-scale covert operation in Russia, seeking to bring in the rogue agent for reconditioning.
But the rendition op had thus far been unsuccessful; 'unsuccessful' being a euphemism for a complete disaster. Three of Conklin's agents had been killed so far, two were in critical condition in a St. Petersburg hospital. And Conklin himself had just about survived Arkadin's attempt on his own life.
Hence, this meeting. Conklin had hurriedly informed him to wait for him at this particular warehouse, one of the many Treadstone safehouses scattered across the city...Willard's guess was that his mentor wanted to discuss strategy with him. For there was really no doubt about the fact that they had to reacquire Arkadin. He was too good a prize to lose. And far too dangerous to be let loose upon the world...
Besides, Willard wanted to be in on the hunt. Even as he sat contemplating his and Conklin's future course of action vis a vi the Arkadin situation, he felt a latent sense of excitement ripple through his being. For years he had dreamed of being in the field, engaging in covert battles in far off corners of the globe...the mundane life of a steward had all destroyed those fantasies, but now the possibility of Conklin bringing him into the fray reawakened them again.
The sound of footsteps suddenly snapped his mind back into focus. He stood up from the crates on which he was sitting and whirled around, Glock in hand. He lowered the weapon when he recognised the new arrival as his mentor and Treadstone's mastermind, Alexander Conklin.
"At ease, soldier", Conklin said wearily. "I've had enough guns pointed at me in the last couple of days to find it even remotely amusing anymore".
"You trained me too well", Willard replied drily.
"Yeah? Well, yesterday night, I realised I trained him too well...the son-of-a-bitch had set up an ambush for us! A friggin' ambush! And we walked right into it like stupid blithering idiots, without thinking!" Conklin shouted out loud in frustration.
"How many did he have with him?" Willard asked.
"Couple of mercs...Russian Mafia, nothing special. They were just back-up...trash he'd hired. It was his show all along. Single-handedly took down half my unit. Tried to take me out. Luckily the bullet only grazed", Conklin said, lifting his shirt sleeve to reveal a bandaged arm.
"You know where he is now?" Willard asked.
"God alone knows. Probably slunk back to whatever gutter he had crawled out of when Semion Icoupov found him. What was that shithole he kept mumbling about during Panov's sessions with him?" Conklin asked.
"Nizhny Tagil", Willard, who knew Arkadin's dossier by heart, replied. "His birthplace".
"Hope he rots in hell there...that bastard", Conklin said bitterly, wincing slightly owing to his still mildly injured arm.
"So...what's the plan?" Willard asked.
"The plan?", Conklin repeated, staring at him.
"Well, we've got to reacquire him, of course. Look, to be frank I don't think our own manpower's enough. We've got to ask for help from upriver...the Old Man..." Willard began but Conklin cut him off.
"Don't be daft, Freddie. The Old Man would crucify us if he even knew what we'd been up to here! Taking killers from the Moscow underworld, screwing with their heads, making them even more of a threat then they were before...it's a recipe for disaster!" He sighed. To Willard, Conklin suddenly appeared to have aged ten years. Arkadin's turning rogue had certainly taken its toll on him.
"Yes, that's what it was...a recipe for disaster. I should have known better", Conklin said mournfully.
"Well, what do we..." Willard began again, and again Conklin cut him off.
"Haven't you been listening to me, Fred? Arkadin is finished. Or rather...we're finished with him. It's over. We walk away and that's it. Let that son of a bitch fade away...let the stench from this whole mess die down a bit and then...we start over..."
Start over, though Willard, astonished. He couldn't believe it. "Are you saying...you're just going to...let him go?"
"You heard me right, soldier", Conklin said. "I lost three good men chasing after that bastard...and there are two more possibly going the same way. I tried to tame a monster and I failed. This business has taught me enough to realise when to throw in the towel and call it a day".
"But...what about the program?", Willard asked.
"The program will go on...to a new phase", Conklin said, for the first time not sounding all that weary or frustrated. In fact, Willard even sensed a subtle note of hope in his voice.
"New phase?" Willard asked.
"Our fundamental approach with Arkadin was sound", Conklin said. "The problem was the candidate himself. Sure, he was a perfect physical specimen, had a certain talent for picking up new skills, for critical thinking, for improvising...and of course, for terminating with extreme prejudice without any...psychological repercussions. But we didn't factor into our analysis the fact that he was already damaged in ways far beyond anything we could have imagined. Whatever he'd been through in the shithole of a hometown, and since then in the gangs, was enough to completely eat away at his soul from inside out. I'd once thought a killer without a soul would be a good bet...but now, I've learnt different. I started Treadstone with the fundamental assumption that human beings are the ultimate weapons. Well, I think it's pretty clear that a being without a soul is no human being...and as such doesn't really qualify as the ideal candidate".
"Sounds quiet philosophical, coming from you Alex", Willard said.
"Yeah, good old Mo Panov sometimes fills my head with all this psycho-babble", Conklin said. "Point is that our candidate was messed up. But that's not all that was messed up."
He sat down on some crates, while Willard sat down on crates opposite to him.
"I think our training protocols were a bit...extreme. They were effective in theory but applied to the extent that Arkadin's mind...as damaged as it already was...was damaged even further. In fact, I feel that the conditioning may have been what finally sent him over the edge", Conklin explained.
"So we basically shot ourselves in the foot", Willard commented.
"Pretty much the size of it", Conklin admitted.
"So what now?" Willard urged.
"We need to find a new candidate. Someone else. Someone more...stable. Someone who has even the slightest hint of a genuine motivationfor doing what we ask of him. We take that man, channelizethat motivation, hone it and focus it with our training...and with any kind of luck we'll have the perfect soldier", Conklin reasoned. "It's a fundamental military recruitment tactic. It's how armies have functioned for generations. Mercenaries like Arkadin are a dime a dozen, but you can never expect any true commitmentfrom them. Mercenaries will do whatever we want them to as long as we give them whatever they want...and if they don't get it or decide it isn't enough, they sell out to the next guy. Soldiers are different...soldiers are focused, conditioned...indoctrinated. It's why, in the long-term, they're far more valuable assets".
"Fair enough", Willard agreed, though the loss of Arkadin still rankled within him. "But don't you think that's a bit idealistic, Alex?"
"More idealistic than trying to tame a wild beast? I doubt so, Fred", Conklin replied sardonically.
"So where will you find this 'perfect soldier'?" Willard asked.
A hint of uncertainty crept back into Conklin's tone, "I don't know...but I'll start right away and I damn well won't stop till I find him".
"I can help you", Willard offered, though of course, he would have rather led another mission to recapture Arkadin.
"No, Freddie", Conklin said. "You've got enough on your plate already keeping an eye on those bastards in the NSA. I'll handle this". The veteran field agent turned spymaster stole a glance at his wristwatch, "And now I think I'd better head back home for a shower and some sleep. Got an early morning meeting with the Old Man to debrief him about the Arkadin situation. I'm sure I'll cook up something by the morning. Don't you worry, Fred...we'll come out of this smelling like roses, for sure".
Three months later...
Willard unlocked the door of the brownstone, yet another Treadstone safehouse, and let himself in. He had already ascertained that he wasn't being shadowed by NSA operatives or anyone else. As he climbed the narrow wooden stairwell up to Conklin's office on the top floor, his wondered what new breakthrough his mentor had made since their last meeting at the warehouse.
Alex had been right about the 'smelling like roses' part. The Arkadin incident was explained away as a failed attempt at interrogation and reprogramming of a suspected Russian contract killer; the interrogation techniques used having proved ineffective against this particular subject. The Old Man had arranged to increase Treadstone's security budget and offered additional manpower which Conklin cannily accepted.
But that apart, Willard hadn't heard a peek from Alex about the next phase of Treadstone and his scheme to find a new candidate for the program. He still felt that choosing to let Arkadin fade away was a mistake on Conklin's part. The Russian truly was a force of nature, and if he and Conklin somehow found a way to channelize that force, then they would have the ultimate killing machine on their hands! Nevertheless, Willard was willing to give his mentor the benefit of doubt...after all, in all the time he'd known him, Conklin had scarcely been wrong. Perhaps Alex was right about this...perhaps Arkadin truly was impossible to control.
Having reached the door to Conklin's office, he knocked twice before he entered. Alex was seated behind a desk which was littered with intelligence reports, signals and dossiers. A half-empty cup of coffee lay somewhere in the middle of the reams of paper, and Conklin's eyes were bloodshot from a lack of sleep. Evidently, the spymaster had been at work almost continuously without break for the past three days since he'd moved into this safehouse.
Conklin looked up briefly as Willard seated himself on the chair opposite him. He wordlessly reversed a dossier lying on the table and slid it across to him. Willard picked up the dossier and opened it.
Pinned to the front page was the photograph of a man. The man had brown hair and hazel eyes of the kind which took on different hues in different lightining conditions. He seemed to have a certain intellectual demeanour to him, as though he were an academic or an analyst of some sort.
"Who is he?" Willard asked.
"That Fred, is our new candidate. The future of Treadstone", Willard replied.
"You're joking!" Willard explained, staring down at the photograph again...at the calm almost tranquil features of the man, whom he still presumed was an academic...such a stark contrast to the inherently predatory demeanour of Leonid Arkadin...
"On the contrary, I'm dead serious, Fred", Conklin replied, his tone leaving nothing to interpretation.
"Who is he?" Willard asked.
"It's all there in the dossier, but I think I'll make it easier and faster for both of us and just give you the rundown myself. His name is David Webb and up until two months ago, he was a Foreign Service officer with the State Department...one of the best in fact", Conklin began then stopped ominously.
"What happened?" Willard asked.
"Wife and two kids died in a bombing overseas...in Southeast Asia. Webb saw it happen...before his eyes. Saw his family get blown to bits", Conklin said softly.
"My God!" Willard exclaimed.
"I know", Conklin said in a lower tone. "He and his family...were also close friends of mine".
"But why him? I mean...he's doesn't at all look like...", Willard began, but Conklin cut him off.
"Like a soldier? Well, neither did you Willard, back when the Old Man first found you...and you still don't. That's the beauty of it. A man with a thousand faces, able to become anyone, go anywhere, execute any operation...that's the very purpose of Treadstone", said Conklin.
"Besides, as I said the last time, we need someone with a genuine motivation to do the things we need him to do. A drive which can capitalize upon. And this man has that drive, Fred", Conklin said insistently. "He watched his family get blown to bits by maniac...right now he's gone half-crazy screaming for blood and more blood. With a little bit of conditioning...he'll have no reservations whatsoever about terminating with extreme prejudice, to say the least".
"Well, maybe that's true", Willard said. As always, he couldn't really argue with his mentor's logic. "But still...he's an academic...he belongs to an office with files and paperwork and..."
"Not anymore he doesn't", Conklin said firmly. "You should have seen him after...it happened, Fred. The guy literally looked like he'd had his mind blown away in that explosion. Whatever he was before, whoever he was before...is gone. He's empty...a clean slate. And it's up to us to fill in the blanks...write a new chapter for him, and for the program".
"Look, I admit this is a bit personal for me. He was a close friend and the last person I'd have imagined dragging into this dirty business of ours a year ago", Conklin explained. "But the way I see it...it could work out well for everybody long-term. For you, me, the program, the Old Man...most of all, for him. The world needs Treadstone, Fred...it's coming apart at the seams and its going to hell unless we have the tools to hold it all together. And Webb, or rather, whatever we make of him, can be that tool...the ultimate fighter I've planned for years".
"I see you've already made up your mind about him, Alex", Willard said. "Why did you want to consult me about it?"
"Well I just wanted to share the good news, Willard", Conklin said with a wry smile. "I know you were still sore about losing that Russian bastard. Well, never mind him, he's history! Whereas this is our future..."
"Well...I guess it might work out..." Willard said cautiously.
"If it makes you feel any better, the guy's in excellent physical shape for a desk jockey, speaks about a half-dozen languages fluently, and has a certain talent for critical thinking", Conklin added.
Willard sighed. "Well Alex...it's your call. I admit this man...Webb...may be easier to handle than Arkadin was".
"Yeah...he should be...once we've conditioned him. I've already prepared a modified the training procedure, as we discussed at our last meeting. Hopefully, we won't send this one over the edge", said Conklin as he took back the dossier on David Webb from Willard and slapped it shut.
"I hope so too", Willard said as he stood up to leave.
It wasn't long before Conklin began training his new recruit. And it wasn't long after that when that recruit had acquired a cover name, 'Jason Bourne', and a shadowed reputation, in the highest echelons of the Agency, for being their most efficient, their most skilled, their most lethal asset. It would however, be years before Treadstone's second and last graduate went on that fateful last mission to Marseilles, suffered a loss of memory, and was thereafter, like his predecessor, presumed to have turned rogue. And nearly half a lifetime before Alex Conklin, the fabled spymaster, was himself murdered, as the victim of a devious conspiracy.
In all that time, a powerful and compelling idea had taken root in Frederick Willard's mind...and had gradually attained monstrous proportions...
What if...Conklin's prized pupil and the prodigal son of Treadstone were to come face to face? What would the outcome of that clash of titans be? Who would prevail? The perfectly honed weapon gone astray...or the force of nature, as cold as the Russian winter that spawned him?
The possibility fascinated Willard...to the extent that he gradually become convinced that he would do anything...virtually anything...to make it come to fruition...
One day, Jason Bourne and Leonid Arkadin would meet...and then, when their struggle had ended...Willard would emerge from the shadows to discover who won...