Marie! Oh, Christ, Marie, it happened again! A floodgate opened and I couldn’t handle it. I tried to, my darling, I tried so hard but I got totaled—I got washed away and I was drowning! I know what you’ll say if I tell you, which is why I won’t tell you even though I know you’ll see it in my eyes, hear it in my voice—somehow, as only you know how. You’ll say I should have come home to you, to talk to you, be with you, and we could work it out together. Together! My God! How much can you take? How unfair can I be, how long can it go on this way? I love you so much, in so many ways, that there are times I have to do it myself. If only to let you off the goddamned hook for a while, to let you breathe for a while without having your nerves scraped to their roots while you take care of me. But, you see, my love, I can do it! I did it tonight and I’m all right. I’ve calmed down now, I’m all right now. And now I’ll come home to you better than I was. I have to, because without you there isn’t anything left.
His face drenched with sweat, his track suit clinging to his body, David Webb ran breathlessly across the cold grass of the dark field, past the bleachers, and up the cement path toward the university gym. The autumn sun had disappeared behind the stone buildings of the campus, its glow firing the early evening sky as it hovered over the distant Maine woods. The autumn chill was penetrating; he shivered. It was not what his doctors had had in mind.
Regardless, he had followed medical advice; it had been one of those days. The government doctors had told him that if there were times—and there would be times—when sudden, disturbing images or fragments of memory broke into his mind, the best way to handle them was with strenuous exercise. His EKG charts indicated a healthy heart, his lungs were decent, though he was foolish enough to smoke, and since his body could take the punishment, it was the best way to relieve his mind. What he needed during such times was equanimity.
“What’s wrong with a few drinks and cigarettes?” he had said to the doctors, stating his genuine preference. “The heart beats faster, the body doesn’t suffer, and the mind is certainly far more relieved.”
“They’re depressants” had been the reply from the only man he listened to. “Artificial stimulants that lead only to further depression and increased anxiety. Run, or swim, or make love to your wife—or anybody else, for that matter. Don’t be a goddamned fool and come back here a basket case.… Forget about you, think of me. I worked too hard on you, you ingrate. Get out of here, Webb. Take up your life—what you can remember of it—and enjoy. You’ve got it better than most people, and don’t you forget that, or I’ll cancel our controlled monthly blowouts at the saloons of our choosing and you can go to hell. And hell for you notwithstanding, I’d miss them.… Go, David. It’s time for you to go.”
Morris Panov was the only person besides Marie who could reach him. It was ironic, in a way, for initially Mo had not been one of the government doctors; the psychiatrist had neither sought nor been offered security clearance to hear the classified details of David Webb’s background where the lie of Jason Bourne was buried. Nevertheless, Panov had forcefully inserted himself, threatening all manner of embarrassing disclosures if he was not given clearance and a voice in the subsequent therapy. His reasoning was simple, for when David had come within moments of being blown off the face of the earth by misinformed men who were convinced he had to die, that misinformation had been unwittingly furnished by Panov and the way it had happened infuriated him. He had been approached in panic by someone not given to panic, and asked “hypothetical” questions pertaining to a possibly deranged deep-cover agent in a potentially explosive situation. His answers were restrained and equivocal; he could not and would not diagnose a patient he had never seen—but yes, this was possible and that not unheard of, but, of course, nothing could be considered remotely material without physical and psychiatric examination. The key word was nothing; he should have said nothing! he later claimed. For his words in the ears of amateurs had sealed the order for Webb’s execution—“Jason Bourne’s” death sentence—an act that was aborted only at the last instant through David’s own doing, while the squad of executioners were still in their unseen positions.
Not only had Morris Panov come on board at the Walter Reed Hospital and later at the Virginia medical complex, but he literally ran the show—Webb’s show. The son of a bitch has amnesia, you goddamned fools! He’s been trying to tell you that for weeks in perfectly lucid English—I suspect too lucid for your convoluted mentality.
They had worked together for months, as patient and doctor—and finally as friends. It helped that Marie adored Mo—good Lord, she needed an ally! The burden David had been to his wife was beyond telling, from those first days in Switzerland when she began to understand the pain within the man who had taken her captive, to the moment when she made the commitment—violently against his wishes—to help him, never believing what he himself believed, telling him over and over again that he was not the killer he thought he was, not the assassin others called him. Her belief became an anchor in his own crashing seas, her love the core of his emerging sanity. Without Marie he was a loveless, discarded dead man, and without Mo Panov he was little more than a vegetable. But with both of them behind him, he was brushing away the swirling clouds and finding the sun again.
Which was why he had opted for an hour of running around the deserted, cold track rather than heading home after his late-afternoon seminar. His weekly seminars often continued far beyond the hour when they were scheduled to end, so Marie never planned dinner, knowing they would go out to eat, their two unobtrusive guards somewhere in the darkness behind them—as one was walking across the barely visible field behind him now, the other no doubt inside the gym. Insanity! Or was it?
What had driven him to Panov’s “strenuous exercise” was an image that had suddenly appeared in his mind while he had been grading papers several hours ago in his office. It was a face—a face he knew and remembered, and loved very much. A boy’s face that aged in front of his inner screen, coming to full portrait in uniform, blurred, imperfect, but a part of him. As silent tears rolled down his cheeks he knew it was the dead brother they had told him about, the prisoner of war he had rescued in the jungles of Tam Quan years ago amid shattering explosions and a traitor he had executed by the name of Jason Bourne. He could not handle the violent, fragmented pictures; he had barely gotten through the shortened seminar, pleading a severe headache. He had to relieve the pressures, accept or reject the peeling layers of memory with the help of reason, which told him to go to the gym and run against the wind, any strong wind. He could not burden Marie every time a floodgate burst; he loved her too much for that. When he could handle it himself, he had to. It was his contract with himself.
He opened the heavy door, briefly wondering why every gymnasium entrance was designed with the weight of a portcullis. He went inside and walked across the stone floor through an archway and down a white-walled corridor until he reached the door of the faculty locker room. He was thankful that the room was empty; he was in no frame of mind to respond to small talk, and if required to do so, he would undoubtedly appear sullen, if not strange. He could also do without the stares he would probably provoke. He was too close to the edge; he had to pull back gradually, slowly, first within himself, then with Marie. Christ, when would it all stop? How much could he ask of her? But then he never had to ask—she gave without being asked.
Webb reached the row of lockers. His own was toward the end. He walked between the long wooden bench and the connecting metal cabinets when his eyes were suddenly riveted on an object up ahead. He rushed forward; a folded note had been taped to his locker. He ripped it off and opened it: Your wife phoned. She wants you to call her as soon as you can. Says it’s urgent. Ralph.
The gym custodian might have had the brains to go outside and shout to him! thought David angrily as he spun the combination and opened the locker. After rummaging through his limp trousers for change, he ran to a pay telephone on the wall; he inserted a coin, disturbed that his hand trembled. Then he knew why. Marie never used the word “urgent.” She avoided such words.
“Hello?”
“What is it?”
“I thought you might be there,” said his wife. “Mo’s panacea, the one he guarantees will cure you if it doesn’t give you cardiac arrest.”
“What is it?”
“David, come home. There’s someone here you must see. Quickly, darling.”
Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister kept his own introduction to a minimum, but by including certain facts let Webb know he was not from the lower ranks of the Department. On the other hand, he did not embellish his importance; he was the secure bureaucrat, confident that whatever expertise he possessed could weather changes in administrations.
“If you’d like, Mr. Webb, our business can wait until you get into something more comfortable.”
David was still in his sweat-stained shorts and T-shirt, having grabbed his clothes from the locker and raced to his car from the gym. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think your business can wait—not where you come from, Mr. McAllister.”
“Sit down, David.” Marie St. Jacques Webb walked into the living room, two towels in her hands. “You, too, Mr. McAllister.” She handed Webb a towel as both men sat down facing each other in front of an unlit fireplace. Marie moved behind her husband and began blotting his neck and shoulders with the second towel, the light of a table lamp heightening the reddish tint of her auburn hair, her lovely features in shadows, her eyes on the man from the State Department. “Please, go ahead,” she continued. “As we’ve agreed, I’m cleared by the government for anything you might say.”
“Was there a question?” asked David, glancing up at her and then at the visitor, making no attempt to disguise his hostility.
“None whatsoever,” replied McAllister, smiling wanly yet sincerely. “No one who’s read of your wife’s contributions would dare exclude her. Where others failed she succeeded.”
“That says it,” agreed Webb. “Without saying anything, of course.”
“Hey, come on, David, loosen up.”
“Sorry. She’s right.” Webb tried to smile; the attempt was not successful. “I’m prejudging, and I shouldn’t do that, should I?”
“I’d say you have every right to,” said the undersecretary. “I know I would, if I were you. In spite of the fact that our backgrounds are very much alike—I was posted in the Far East for a number of years—no one would have considered me for the assignment you undertook. What you went through is light years beyond me.”
“Beyond me, too. Obviously.”
“Not from where I stand. The failure wasn’t yours, God knows.”
“Now you’re being kind. No offense, but too much kindness—from where you stand—makes me nervous.”
“Then let’s get to the business at hand, all right?”
“Please.”
“And I hope you haven’t prejudged me too harshly. I’m not your enemy, Mr. Webb. I want to be your friend. I can press buttons that can help you, protect you.”
“From what?”
“From something nobody ever expected.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“As of thirty minutes from now your security will be doubled,” said McAllister, his eyes locked with David’s. “That’s my decision, and I’ll quadruple it if I think it’s necessary. Every arrival on this campus will be scrutinized, the grounds checked hourly. The rotating guards will no longer be part of the scenery, keeping you merely in sight, but in effect will be very much in sight themselves. Very obvious, and, I hope, threatening.”
“Jesus!” Webb sprang forward in the chair. “It’s Carlos!”
“We don’t think so,” said the man from State, shaking his head. “We can’t rule Carlos out, but it’s too remote, too unlikely.”
“Oh?” David nodded. “It must be. If it was the Jackal, your men would be all over the place and out of sight. You’d let him come after me and take him, and if I’m killed, the cost is acceptable.”
“Not to me. You don’t have to believe that, but I mean it.”
“Thank you, but then what are we talking about?”
“Your file was broken—that is, the Treadstone file was invaded.”
“Invaded? Unauthorized disclosure?”
“Not at first. There was authorization, all right, because there was a crisis—and in a sense we had no choice. Then everything went off the wire and now we’re concerned. For you.”
“Back up, please. Who got the file?”
“A man on the inside, high inside. His credentials were the best, no one could question them.”
“Who was he?”
“A British MI-Six operating out of Hong Kong, a man the CIA has relied on for years. He flew into Washington, and went directly to his primary liaison at the Agency, asking to be given everything there was on Jason Bourne. He claimed there was a crisis in the territory that was a direct result of the Treadstone project. He also made it clear that if sensitive information was to be exchanged between British and American Intelligence—continued to be exchanged—he thought it best that his request be granted forthwith.”
“He had to give a damn good reason.”
“He did.” McAllister paused nervously, blinking his eyes and rubbing his forehead with extended fingers.
“Well?”
“Jason Bourne is back,” said McAllister quietly. “He’s killed again. In Kowloon.”
Marie gasped; she clutched her husband’s right shoulder, her large brown eyes angry, frightened. She stared in silence at the man from State. Webb did not move. Instead he studied McAllister, as a man might watch a cobra.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he whispered, then raised his voice. “Jason Bourne—that Jason Bourne—doesn’t exist anymore. He never did!”
“You know that and we know that, but in Asia his legend is very much alive. You created it, Mr. Webb—brilliantly, in my judgment.”
“I’m not interested in your judgment, Mr. McAllister,” said David, removing his wife’s hand and getting out of the chair. “What’s this MI-Six agent working on? How old is he? What’s his stability factor, his record? You must have run an up-to-date trace on him.”
“Of course we did and there was nothing irregular. London confirmed his outstanding service record, his current status, as well as the information he brought us. As chief of post for MI-Six, he was called in by the Kowloon-Hong Kong police because of the potentially explosive nature of events. The Foreign Office itself stood behind him.”
“Wrong!” shouted Webb, shaking his head, then lowered his voice. “He was turned, Mr. McAllister! Someone offered him a small fortune to get that file. He used the only lie that would work and all of you swallowed it!”
“I’m afraid it’s not a lie—not as he knew it. He believed the evidence, and London believes it. A Jason Bourne is back in Asia.”
“And what if I told you it wouldn’t be the first time central control was fed a lie so an overworked, over-risked, underpaid man can turn! All the years, all the dangers, and nothing to show for it. He decides on one opportunity that gives him an annuity for life. In this case that file!”
“If that is the case, it won’t do him much good. He’s dead.”
“He’s what …?”
“He was shot to death two nights ago in Kowloon, in his office, an hour after he’d flown into Hong Kong.”
“Goddamn it, it doesn’t happen!” cried David, bewildered. “A man who turns backs himself up. He builds a case against his benefactor before the act, letting him know it’ll get to the right people if anything ugly happens. It’s his insurance, his only insurance.”
“He was clean,” insisted the State Department man.
“Or stupid,” rejoined Webb.
“No one thinks that.”
“What do they think?”
“That he was pursuing an extraordinary development, one that could erupt into widespread violence throughout the underworlds of Hong Kong and Macao. Organized crime becomes suddenly very disorganized, not unlike the tong wars of the twenties and thirties. The killings pile up. Rival gangs instigate riots; waterfronts become battlegrounds; warehouses, even cargo ships are blown up for revenge, or to wipe out competitors. Sometimes all it takes is several powerful warring factions—and a Jason Bourne in the background.”
“But since there is no Jason Bourne, it’s police work! Not MI-Six.”
“Mr. McAllister just said the man was called in by the Hong Kong police,” broke in Marie, looking hard at the undersecretary of State. “MI-Six obviously agreed with the decision. Why was that?”
“It’s the wrong ballpark!” David was adamant, his breath short.
“Jason Bourne wasn’t the creation of the police authorities,” said Marie, going to her husband’s side. “He was created by U.S. Intelligence by way of the State Department. But I suspect MI-Six inserted itself for a far more pressing reason than to find a killer posing as Jason Bourne. Am I right, Mr. McAllister?”
“You’re right, Mrs. Webb. Far more. In our discussions these last two days, several members of our section thought you’d understand more clearly than we did. Let’s call it an economic problem that could lead to serious political turmoil, not only in Hong Kong but throughout the world. You were a highly regarded economist for the Canadian government. You advised Canadian ambassadors and delegations all over the world.”
“Would you both mind explaining to the man who balances the checkbook around here?”
“These aren’t the times to permit disruptions in Hong Kong’s marketplace, Mr. Webb, even—perhaps especially—its illegal marketplace. Disruptions accompanied by violence give the impression of government instability, if not far deeper instability. This isn’t the time to give the expansionists in Red China any more ammunition than they have already.”
“Come again, please?”
“The treaty of 1997,” answered Marie quietly. “The lease runs out in barely a decade, which is why the new Accords were negotiated with Peking. Still, everybody’s nervous, everything’s shaky and no one had better rock the boat. Calm stability is the name of the game.”
David looked at her, then back at McAllister. He nodded his head. “I see. I’ve read the papers and the magazines … but it’s just not a subject that I know a hell of a lot about.”
“My husband’s interests lie elsewhere,” explained Marie to McAllister. “In the study of people, their civilizations.”
“All right,” Webb agreed. “So?”
“Mine are with money and the constant exchange of money—the expansion of it, the markets and their fluctuations—the stability, or the lack of it. And if Hong Kong is nothing else, it’s money. That’s more or less its only commodity; it has little other reason for being. Its industries would die without it; without priming, the pump runs dry.”
“And if you take away the stability you have chaos,” added McAllister. “It’s the excuse for the old warlords in China. The People’s Republic marches in to contain the chaos, suppress the agitators, and suddenly there’s nothing left but an awkward giant fumbling with the entire colony as well as the New Territories. The cooler heads in Beijing are ignored in favor of more aggressive elements who want to save face through military control. Banks collapse, Far East trade is stymied. Chaos.”
“The PRC would do that?”
“Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macao and all the territories are part of their ‘great nation under heaven’—even the China Accords make that clear. It’s one entity, and the Oriental won’t tolerate a disobedient child, you know that.”
“Are you telling me that one man pretending to be Jason Bourne can do this—can bring about this kind of crisis? I don’t believe you!”
“It’s an extreme scenario, but yes, it could happen. You see, the myth rides with him, that’s the hypnotic factor. Multiple killings are ascribed to him, if only to distance the real killers from the scenes—conspirators from the politically fanatic right and left using Bourne’s lethal image as their own. When you think about it, it’s precisely the way the myth itself was created, wasn’t it? Whenever anyone of importance anywhere in the South China area was assassinated, you, as Jason Bourne, made sure the kill was credited to you. At the end of two years you were notorious, yet in fact you killed only one man, a drunken informer in Macao who tried to garrote you.”
“I don’t remember that,” said David.
The man from State nodded sympathetically. “Yes, I was told. But don’t you see, if the men killed are perceived as political and powerful figures—let’s say the Crown governor, or a PRC negotiator, or anyone like that is assassinated, the whole colony is in an uproar.” McAllister paused, shaking his head in weary dismissal. “However, this is our concern, not yours, and I can tell you we have the best men in the Intelligence community working on it. Your concern is yourself, Mr. Webb. And right now, as a matter of conscience, it’s mine. You have to be protected.”
“That file,” said Marie coldly, “should never have been given to anyone.”
“We had no choice. We work closely with the British; we had to prove that Treadstone was over, finished. That your husband was thousands of miles away from Hong Kong.”
“You told them where he was?” shouted Webb’s wife. “How dare you?”
“We had no choice,” repeated McAllister, again rubbing his forehead. “We have to cooperate when certain crises arise. Surely you can understand that.”
“What I can’t understand is why there ever was a file on my husband!” said Marie, furious. “It was deep, deep cover!”
“Congressional funding of Intelligence operations demanded it. It’s the law.”
“Get off it!” said David angrily. “Since you’re so up on me, you know where I come from. Tell me, where are all those records on Medusa?”
“I can’t answer that,” replied McAllister.
“You just did,” said Webb.
“Dr. Panov pleaded with you people to destroy all the Treadstone records,” insisted Marie. “Or at the very least to use false names, but you wouldn’t even do that. What kind of men are you?”
“I would have agreed to both!” said McAllister with sudden, surprising force. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Webb. Forgive me. It was before my time.… Like you, I’m offended. You may be right, perhaps there never should have been a file. There are ways—”
“Bullshit,” broke in David, his voice hollow. “It’s part of another strategy, another trap. You want Carlos, and you don’t care how you get him.”
“I care, Mr. Webb, and you don’t have to believe that, either. What’s the Jackal to me—or the Far East Section? He’s a European problem.”
“Are you telling me I spent three years of my life hunting a man who didn’t mean a goddamned thing?”
“No, of course not. Times change, perspectives change. It’s all so futile sometimes.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Loosen up, David,” said Marie, her attention briefly on the man from State, who sat pale in his chair, his hands gripping the arms. “Let’s all loosen up.” Then she held her husband’s eyes with her own. “Something happened this afternoon, didn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Of course.” Marie looked at McAllister as David returned to the chair, his face lined and tired, older than it had been only minutes ago. “Everything you’ve told us is leading up to something, isn’t it?” she said to the man from State. “There’s something else you want us to know, isn’t there?”
“Yes, and it’s not easy for me. Please bear in mind that I’ve only recently been assigned, with full clearance, to Mr. Webb’s classified dossier.”
“Including his wife and children in Cambodia?”
“Yes.”
“Then say what you have to say, please.”
McAllister once again extended his thin fingers and nervously massaged his forehead. “From what we’ve learned—what London confirmed five hours ago—it’s possible that your husband is a target. A man wants him killed.”
“But not Carlos, not the Jackal,” said Webb, sitting forward.
“No. At least we can’t see a connection.”
“What do you see?” asked Marie, sitting on the arm of David’s chair. “What have you learned?”
“The MI-Six officer in Kowloon had a great many sensitive papers in his office, any number of which would have brought high prices in Hong Kong. However, only the Treadstone file—the file on Jason Bourne—was taken. That was the confirmation London gave us. It’s as though a signal was sent: He’s the man we want, only Jason Bourne.”
“But why?” cried Marie, her hand gripping David’s wrist.
“Because someone was killed,” answered Webb quietly. “And someone else wants the account settled.”
“That’s what we’ve been working on,” agreed McAllister, nodding. “We’ve made some progress.”
“Who was killed?” asked the former Jason Bourne.
“Before I answer, you should know that all we’ve got is what our people in Hong Kong could dig up by themselves. By and large it’s speculation; there’s no proof.”
“What do you mean ‘by themselves’? Where the hell were the British? You gave them the Treadstone file!”
“Because they gave us proof that a man has killed in the name of Treadstone’s creation, our creation—you. They weren’t about to identify MI-Six’s sources any more than we would turn over our contacts to them. Our people have worked around the clock, probing every possibility, trying to find out who the dead Sixer’s main sources were on the assumption that one of them was responsible for his death. They ran down a rumor in Macao—only, it turned out to be more than a rumor.”
“I repeat,” said Webb, “who was killed?”
“A woman,” answered the man from State. “The wife of a Hong Kong banker named Yao Ming, a taipan whose bank is only a fraction of his wealth. His holdings are so extensive he’s been re-welcomed in Beijing as an investor and consultant. He’s influential, powerful, beyond reach.”
“Circumstances?”
“Ugly but not unusual. His wife was a minor actress who appeared in a number of films for the Shaw brothers, and quite a bit younger than her husband. She was also about as faithful as a mink in season, if you’ll excuse—”
“Please,” said Marie, “go on.”
“Nevertheless, he looked the other way; she was his young, beautiful trophy. She was also part of the colony’s jet set, which has its share of unsavory characters. One weekend it’s gambling for extraordinary stakes in Macao, next the races in Singapore, or flying over to the Pescadores for the pistol games in backwater opium houses, betting thousands on who will be killed as men face one another across tables, spinning chambers and aiming at each other. And, of course, there’s a widespread use of drugs. Her last lover was a distributor. His suppliers were in Guangzhou, his routes up the Deep Bay waterways east of the Lok Ma Chau border.”
“According to reports, it’s a wide avenue with lots of traffic,” interrupted Webb. “Why did your people concentrate on him—on his operation?”
“Because his operation, as you so aptly term it, was rapidly becoming the only one in town, or on that avenue. He was systematically cutting out his competitors, bribing the Chinese marine patrols to sink their boats and dispose of the crews. Apparently they were effective; a great many bodies riddled with bullets ended up floating onto the mud flats and into the riverbanks. The factions were at war and the distributor—the young wife’s lover—was marked for execution.”
“Under the circumstances, he had to have been aware of the possibility. He must have surrounded himself with a dozen bodyguards.”
“Right again. And that kind of security calls for the talents of a legend. His enemies hired that legend.”
“Bourne,” whispered David, shaking his head and closing his eyes.
“Yes,” concurred McAllister. “Two weeks ago the drug dealer and Yao Ming’s wife were shot in their bed at the Lisboa Hotel in Macao. It wasn’t a pleasant kill; their bodies were barely recognizable. The weapon was an Uzi machine gun. The incident was covered up; the police and government officials were bribed with a great deal of money—a taipan’s money.”
“And let me guess,” said Webb in a monotone. “The Uzi. It was the same weapon used in a previous killing credited to this Bourne.”
“That specific weapon was left outside a conference room in a cabaret in Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui. There were five corpses in that room, three of the victims among the colony’s wealthier businessmen. The British won’t elaborate; they merely showed us several very graphic photographs.”
“This taipan, Yao Ming,” said David. “The actress’s husband. He’s the connection your people found, isn’t he?”
“They learned that he was one of MI-Six’s sources. His connections in Beijing made him an important contributor to Intelligence. He was invaluable.”
“Then, of course, his wife was killed, his beloved young wife—”
“I’d say his beloved trophy,” interrupted McAllister. “His trophy was taken.”
“All right,” said Webb. “The trophy is far more important than the wife.”
“I’ve spent years in the Far East. There’s a phrase for it—in Mandarin, I think, but I can’t remember how it goes.”
“Ren you jiaqian,” said David. “The price of a man’s image, as it were.”
“Yes, I guess that’s it.”
“It’ll do. So the man from MI-Six is approached by his distraught contact, the taipan, and told to get the file on this Jason Bourne, the assassin who killed his wife—his trophy—or in short words, there might be no more information coming from his sources in Beijing to British Intelligence.”
“That’s the way our people read it. And for his trouble the Sixer is killed because Yao Ming can’t afford to have the slightest association with Bourne. The taipan has to remain unreachable, untouchable. He wants his revenge, but not with any possibility of exposure.”
“What do the British say?” asked Marie.
“In no uncertain terms to stay away from the entire situation. London was blunt. We made a mess of Treadstone, and they don’t want our ineptitude in Hong Kong during these sensitive times.”
“Have they confronted Yao Ming?” Webb watched the undersecretary closely.
“When I brought up the name, they said it was out of the question. In truth, they were startled, but that didn’t change their stand. If anything, they were angrier.”
“Untouchable,” said David.
“They probably want to continue using him.”
“In spite of what he did?” Marie broke in. “What he may have done, and what he might do to my husband!”
“It’s a different world,” said McAllister softly.
“You cooperated with them—”
“We had to,” interrupted the man from State.
“Then insist they cooperate with you. Demand it!”
“Then they could demand other things from us. We can’t do that.”
“Liars!” Marie turned her head in disgust.
“I haven’t lied to you, Mrs. Webb.”
“Why don’t I trust you, Mr. McAllister?” asked David.
“Probably because you can’t trust your government, Mr. Webb, and you have very little reason to. I can only tell you that I’m a man of conscience. You can accept that or not—accept me or not—but in the meantime I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“You look at me so strangely—why is that?”
“I’ve never been in this position, that’s why.”
The chimes of the doorbell rang, and Marie, shaking her head to their sound, rose and walked rapidly across the room and into the foyer. She opened the door. For a moment she stopped breathing, and stared helplessly. Two men stood side by side, both holding up black plastic identification cases, each with a glistening silver badge attached to the top, each embossed eagle reflecting the light of the carriage lamps on the porch. Beyond, at the curb, was a second dark sedan; inside could be seen the silhouettes of other men, and the glow of a lighted cigarette—other men, other guards. She wanted to scream, but she did not.
Edward McAllister climbed into the passenger seat of his own State Department car and looked through the closed window at the figure standing in the doorway. The former Jason Bourne stood motionless, his eyes fixed rigidly on his departing visitor.
“Let’s get out of here,” said McAllister to the driver, a man about his own age and balding, with tortoiseshell glasses.
The car started forward, the driver cautious on the strange, narrow, tree-lined street a block from the rocky beach in the small Maine town. For several minutes neither man spoke; finally the driver asked, “How did everything go?”
“Go?” replied the man from State. “As the ambassador might say, ‘All the pieces are in place.’ The foundation’s there, the logic there; the missionary work is done.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Are you? Then I’m glad too.” McAllister raised his trembling right hand; his thin fingers massaging his right temple. “No, I’m not!” he said suddenly. “I’m goddamned sick!”
“I’m sorry—”
“And speaking of missionary work, I am a Christian. I mean I believe—nothing so chic as being zealous, or born again, or teaching Sunday school, or prostrating myself in the aisle, but I do believe. My wife and I go to the Episcopal church at least twice a month, my two sons are acolytes. I’m generous because I want to be. Can you understand that?”
“Sure. I don’t have quite those feelings, but I understand.”
“But I just walked out of that man’s house!”
“Hey, easy. What’s the matter?”
McAllister stared straight ahead, the oncoming headlights creating shadows rushing across his face. “May God have mercy on my soul,” he whispered.