"Him? Rickman? The one-man British Ku Klux Klan? By-the-Rules-Rickman, scourge of anybody who's afraid to yell back at him? Holy Christ, Henry won't believe it!"

"Why not? You just described a likely disciple of Carlos."

"I suppose I did, but it seems so unlikely. He's the original sanctimonious deacon. Prayer meetings before work in the morning, calling on God to aid him in his battle against Satan, no alcohol, no women-"

"Savonarola?"

"I'd say that fits-from what I remember reading for history courses."

"Then I'd say he's prime meat for the Jackal. And Henry will believe it when his lead boat doesn't come back to Plymouth and the bodies of the crew float up on shore or simply don't show up for the prayer meetings."

"That's how Carlos got away?"

"Yes." Bourne nodded and gestured at the couch several feet in front of him, the space between taken up by a glass-topped coffee table. "Sit down, Johnny. We have to talk."

"What have we been doing?"

"Not about what has happened, Bro, but about what's going to happen."

"What's going to happen?" asked St. Jacques, lowering himself on the couch.

"I'm leaving."

"No!" cried the younger man, shooting to his feet as if propelled by a bolt of electricity. "You can't!"

"I have to. He knows our names, where we live. Everything."

"Where are you going?"

"Paris."

"Goddamn it, no! You can't do that to Marie! Or to the kids, for Christ's sake. I won't let you!"

"You can't stop me."

"For God's sake, David, listen to me! If Washington's too cheap or doesn't give a shit, believe me, Ottawa's cut from better stock. My sister worked for the government and our government doesn't kiss people off because it's inconvenient or too expensive. I know people-like Scotty, the Doc and others. A few words from them and you'll be put in a fortress in Calgary. No one could touch you!"

"You think my government wouldn't do the same? Let me tell you something, Bro, there are people in Washington who've put their lives on the line to keep Marie and the children and me alive. Selflessly, without any reward for themselves or the government. If I wanted a safe house where no one could touch us, I'd probably get an estate in Virginia, with horses and servants and a full platoon of armed soldiers protecting us around the clock."

"Then that's the answer. Take it!"

"To what end, Johnny? To live in our own personal prison? The kids not allowed to go over to friends' houses, guards with them if they go to school and not tutored by themselves, no over nights, no pillow fights-no neighbors? Marie and I staring at each other, glancing over at the searchlights outside the windows, hearing the footsteps of the guards, the occasional cough or sneeze, or, heaven forbid, the crack of a rifle bolt because a rabbit disturbed a garden? That's not living, that's imprisonment. Your sister and I couldn't handle it."

"Neither could I, not the way you describe it. But what can Paris solve?"

"I can find him. I can take him."

"He's got the manpower over there."

"I've got Jason Bourne," said David Webb.

"I don't buy that crap!"

"Neither do I, but it seems to work. ... I'm calling in your debt to me, Johnny. Cover for me. Tell Marie I'm fine, not hurt at all, and that I've got a lead on the Jackal that only old Fontaine could have provided-which is the truth, actually. A café in Argenteuil called Le Coeur du Soldat. Tell her I'm bringing in Alex Conklin and all the help Washington can provide."

"But you're not, are you?"

"No. The Jackal would hear about it; he's got ears up and down the Quai d'Orsay. Solo's the only way."

"Don't you think she'll know that?"

"She'll suspect it, but she can't be certain. I'll have Alex call her, confirming that he's in touch with all the heavy covert firepower in Paris. But first it comes from you."

"Why the lie?"

"You shouldn't have to ask that, Bro. I've put her through enough."

"All right, I'll tell her, but she won't believe me. She'll see right through me, she always has. Since I was a kid, those big brown eyes would look into mine, most of the time pissed off, but not like our brothers', not-oh, I don't know-not with that disgust in their faces because the 'kid' was a screwup. Can you understand that?"

"It's called caring. She's always cared for you-even when you were a screwup."

"Yeah, Mare's okay."

"Somewhat more than that, I think. Call her in a couple of hours and bring them back here. It's the safest place they can be.

"What about you? How are you going to get to Paris? The connections out of Antigua and Martinique are lousy, sometimes booked days in advance."

"I can't use those airlines anyway. I've got to get in secretly under a shroud. Somehow, a man in Washington will have to figure it out. Somehow. He's got to."

Alexander Conklin limped out of the small kitchen in the CIA's Vienna apartment, his face and hair soaking wet. In the old days, before the old days fell into a distillery vat, he would calmly leave the office-wherever it was-when things got too heavy too fast and indulge himself in an unwavering ritual. He would seek out the best steak house-again, wherever he was-have two dry martinis and a thick rare slab of meat with the greasiest potatoes on the menu. The combination of the solitude, the limited intake of alcohol, the blood-rare hunk of beef and, in particular, the grease-laden potatoes, had such a calming effect on him that all the rushing, conflicting complexities of the hectic day sorted themselves out and reason prevailed. He would return to his office-whether a smart flat in London's Belgravia Square or the back rooms of a whorehouse in Katmandu-with multiple solutions. It was how he got the sobriquet of Saint Alex of Conklin. He had once mentioned this gastronomical phenomenon to Mo Panov, who had a succinct reply: "If your crazy head doesn't kill you, your stomach will."

These days, however, with postalcoholic vacuum and various other impediments, such as high cholesterol and dumb little triglycerides, whatever the hell they were, he had to come up with a different solution. It came about by accident. One morning during the Iran-contra hearings, which he found to be the finest hours of comedy on television, his set blew out. He was furious, so he turned on his portable radio, an instrument he had not used in months or perhaps years, as the television set had a built-in radio component-also inoperable at the time-but the portable radio's batteries had long since melted into white slime. His artificial foot in pain, he walked to his kitchen telephone, knowing that a call to his television repairman, for whom he had done several favors, would bring the man running to his emergency. Unfortunately, the call only brought forth a hostile diatribe from the repairman's wife, who screamed that her husband, the "customerfucker," had run off with a "horny rich black bitch from Embassy Row!" (Zaire, as it later turned out in the Puerta Vallarta papers.) Conklin, in progressive apoplexy, had rushed to the kitchen sink, where his stress and blood pressure pills stood on the windowsill above the sink, and turned on the cold water. The faucet exploded, surging out of its recess into the ceiling as a powerful gush of water inundated his entire head. Caramba! The shock calmed him down, and he remembered that the Cable Network was scheduled to rebroadcast the hearings in full that evening. A happy man, he called the plumber and went out and bought a new television set.

So, since that morning, whenever his own furies or the state of the world disturbed him-the world he knew-he lowered his head in a kitchen sink and let the cold water pour over his head. He had done so this morning. This goddamned, fucked-up morning!

DeSole! Killed in an accident on a deserted country road in Maryland at 4:30 that morning. What the hell was Steven DeSole, a man whose driver's license clearly stated that he was afflicted with night blindness, doing on a backcountry road outside Annapolis at 4:30 in the morning? And then Charlie Casset, a very angry Casset, calling him at six o'clock, yelling his usually cool head off, telling Alex he was going to put the commander of NATO on the goddamned spit and demand an explanation for the buried fax connection between the general and the dead chief of clandestine reports, who was not a victim of an accident but of murder! Furthermore, one retired field officer named Conklin had better damned well come clean with everything he knew about DeSole and Brussels and related matters, or all bets were off where said retired field agent and his elusive friend Jason Bourne were concerned. Noon at the latest! And then, Ivan Jax! The brilliant black doctor from Jamaica phoned, telling him he wanted to put Norman Swayne's body back where he had found it because he did not want to be loused up by another Agency fiasco. But it was not Agency, cried Conklin to himself, unable to explain to Ivan Jax the real reason he had asked for his help. Medusa. And Jax could not simply drive the corpse back to Manassas because the police, on federal orders-the orders of one retired field agent using appropriated codes he was not entitled to use-had sealed off General Norman Swayne's estate without explanation.