Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Supremacy

'In those respects, far better, I'm sure,' said Marie, resting her head against the comforting chest of Morris Panov. 'There were so many things he wouldn't talk about. He was too frightened, or too ashamed... Oh, God, Mo! Will he come back to me?"

'Alex thinks "Delta" will come back. '

Marie leaned away from the psychiatrist and looked into his eyes; through the tears her stare was rigid. 'What about David?' she asked in a plaintive whisper. 'Will he come back?'

'I can't answer that. I wish I could, but I can't. '

'I see. ' She released Panov and walked to a window, looking down at the crowds below in the congested, garishly lighted streets. 'You asked Alex if he'd been drinking. Why did you do that, Mo?'

The moment the words came out I regretted them. '

'Because you offended him?' asked Marie, turning back to the psychiatrist.

'No. Because I knew you'd heard them and you'd want an explanation. I couldn't refuse you that. '

'Well'

'It was the last thing he said to me – two things, actually. He said you were wrong about Staples-'

'Wrong? I was there. I saw. I heard her lies!'

'She was trying to protect you without sending you into panic. '

'More lies! What was the other?'

Panov held his place and spoke simply, his eyes locked with Marie's. 'Alex said that crazy as things seemed, they weren't really so crazy after all. '

'My God, they've turned him!'

'Not all the way. He won't tell them where you are – where we are. He told me we should be ready to move within minutes after his next call. He can't take the chance of coming back here. He's afraid he'll be followed. '

'So we're running again – with nowhere to go but back into hiding. And all of a sudden there's a rotten growth in our armour. Our crippled St George who slays dragons now wants to lie with them. '

That's not fair, Marie. That's not what he said, not what I said. '

'Bullshit, Doctor! That's my husband out there, or up there! They're using him, killing him, without telling us why! Oh, he may – just may – survive because he's so terribly good at what he does – did – which was everything he despised, but what's going to be left of the man and his mind! You're the expert, Doctor! What's going to be left when all the memories come back? And they damn well better come back, or he won't survive!'

'I told you, I can't answer that. '

'Oh, you're terrific, Mo! All you've got is carefully qualified positions and no answers, not even well couched projections. You're hiding! You should have been an economist! You missed your calling!'

'I miss a lot of things. Almost including the plane to Hong Kong. '

Marie stood motionless, as if struck. She burst into a new wave of tears as she ran to Panov, embracing him. 'Oh, God, I'm sorry, Mo! Forgive me, forgive me!'

'I'm the one who should apologize,' said the psychiatrist . 'It was a cheap shot. ' He tilted her head back, gently stroking the grey hair streaked with white. 'Lord, I can't stand that wig. '

'It's not a wig, Doctor. '

'My degrees, by way of Sears Roebuck, never included cosmetology. '

'Only taking care of feet. '

'They're easier than heads, take my word for it. '

The telephone rang. Marie gasped and Panov stopped breathing. He slowly turned his head towards the hateful ringing.

'You try that again or anything like it and you're dead!' roared Bourne, gripping the back of his hand where the flesh was darkening from the force of the blow. The assassin, his wrists tied in front of him beneath the sleeves of his jacket, had lunged against the door of the cheap hotel, jamming

Jason's left hand into the doorframe.

'What the hell do you expect me to do?' the former British commando yelled. 'Walk gently into that good night smiling at my own firing squad?'

'So you're a closet reader too,' said Bourne, watching the killer clutch his ribcage, where Jason's right foot had landed an agonizing blow. 'Maybe it's time I asked you why you're in the business I was never actually a part of. Why, Major?"

'Are you really interested, Mr Original?' grunted the impostor, falling into a worn-out armchair against the wall. 'Then it's my turn to ask why. ' •

'Perhaps because I never understood myself,' said David Webb . 'I'm quite rational about that. '

'Oh, I know all about you! It was part of the Frenchman's training. The great Delta was bonkers! His wife and kiddies were blown up in the water in a place called Phnom Penh by a stray jet. This oh-so-civilized scholar went crazy and it's a fact nobody could control him and nobody gave a damn because he and the teams he led did more damage than most of the search-and-destroys put together. Saigon said you were suicidal and from its point of view the more so the better. They wanted you and the garbage you commanded to buy it. They never wanted you back. You were an embarrassment!'

Snake lady, snake lady... this is a friend talking, you assholes. You don't have many down here... Abort! It's a no-win!

'I know, or I think I know that part of it,' said Webb . 'I asked about you. '

The assassin's eyes grew wide as he stared at his bound wrists. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, the voice that emerged an echo of itself, and unreal. 'Because I'm psycho, you son of a bitch! I've known it since I was a kid. The nasty dark thoughts, the knives into animals just to watch their eyes and their mouths. Raping a neighbour's daughter, a vicar's kid, because I knew she couldn't say anything, and then catching up with her on the street afterwards and walking her to school. I was eleven years old. And later, at Oxford, during club hazing, holding a lad under water, just below the surface, until he drowned – to watch his eyes, his mouth. Then going back to classes and excelling in that nonsense any damn fool could do who had the wits to get out of a thunder shower. There I was the right sort of fellow, as befitted the son of the father. '

'You never sought help?

'Help? With a name like Allcott-Price?'

'Allcott-?' Stunned, Bourne stared at his prisoner. 'General Allcott-Price? Montgomery's boy genius in World War Two? "Slaughter" Allcott, the man who led the flank attack on Tobruk, and later barrelled through Italy and Germany? England's Patton?'

'I wasn't alive then, for Christ's sake! I was a product of his third wife – perhaps his fourth, for all I know. He was very large in that department – women, I mean. '

'D'Anjou said you never told him your real name. '

'He was bloody well right! The general, swilling his brandy in his oh-so-superior club in St James's, has passed the word. "Kill him! Kill the rotten seed and never let the name out. He's no part of me, the woman was a whore!" But I am part of him and he knows it. He knows where I get my kicks from, the sadistic bastard, and we both have a slew of citations for doing what we like doing best. '

'He knew, then? About your sickness?'

'He knew... he knows. He kept me out of Sandhurst – our West Point, in case you don't know – because he didn't want me anywhere near his precious army. He figured they'd find me out and it'd dim his precious image. He damn near had apoplexy when I joined up. He won't have a decent night's sleep until he's told quietly that I'm out – dead out with all the traces buried. '

'Why are you telling me who you are? 'Simple,' replied the former commando, his eyes boring into Jason's. The way I read it, whichever way it goes, only one of us is going to make it through. I'll do my damndest to see that it's me, I told you that. But it may not be – you're no slouch – and if it isn't, you'll have a name you can shock the goddamn world with, probably make a bloody fortune in the bargain what with literary and cinema rights, that sort of thing. '

'Then the general will spend the rest of his life sleeping peacefully. '