fourth block, the last block. Where were they? Where was the slender, compact Panov and the tall, striking, auburn-haired Marie? His instructions had been clear, absolute. The first four blocks north on the right side, the east side. Mo Panov had recited them back to him ... Oh, Christ I He had been looking for two people, one whose physical appearance could belong to hundreds of men in those four crowded blocks. But his eyes had been searching for the tall, dark-red-headed woman - which she was no longer! Her hair had been dyed grey with streaks of white! Alex started back down towards Salisbury Road, his eyes now attuned to what he should look for, not what his painful memories told him he would find.
There they were! On the outskirts of a crowd surrounding a street vendor whose cart was piled high with silks of all descriptions and labels - the silks relatively genuine, the labels as ersatz as the distorted signatures.
'Come on with me!' said Conklin, his hands on both their elbows.
'Alex!' cried Marie.
'Are you all right? asked Panov.
'No,' said the CIA man. 'None of us is.'
'It's David, isn't it?' Marie grabbed Conklin's arm, gripping it.
'Not now. Hurry up. We have to get out of here.'
They're here?' Marie gasped, her grey-haired head turning right and left, fear in her eyes.
'Who?
'I don't know? she shouted over the din of the crowds.
'No, they're not here,' said Conklin. 'Come on. I've got a taxi holding down by the Pen.'
'What pen? asked Panov.
'I told you. The Peninsula Hotel.'
'Oh, yes, I forgot.' All three started walking down Nathan Road, Alex - as was obvious to Marie and Morris Panov -with difficulty. 'We can slow down, can't we?' asked the psychiatrist.
'No, we can't!'
'You're in pain,' said Marie.
'Knock it off! Both of you. I don't need your horseshit.'
'Then tell us what's happened?' yelled Marie, as they crossed a street filled with carts they had to dodge, and buyers and sellers and tourist-voyeurs who made for the exotic congestion of the Golden Mile.
'There's the taxi,' said Conklin, as they approached Salisbury Road. 'Hurry up. The driver knows where to go.' 'Inside the cab, Panov between Marie and Alex, she once again reached out, clutching Conklin's arm. 'It is David, isn't it?
'Yes. He's back. He's here in Hong Kong.'
'Thank God?
'You hope. We hope.'
'What does that mean? asked the psychiatrist sharply.
'Something's gone wrong. The scenario's off the wire.'
'For Christ's sake!' exploded Panov. 'Will you speak English?
'He means,' said Marie, staring at the CIA man, 'that David either did something he wasn't supposed to do, or didn't do something he was expected to do.'
'That's about it.' Conklin's eyes drifted to the right, towards the lights of Victoria Harbour and the island of Hong Kong beyond. 'I used to be able to read Delta's moves, usually before he made them. Then later, when he was Bourne, I was able to track him when others couldn't because I understood his options and knew which ones he would take.
That is until things happened to him, and no one could predict anything because he'd lost touch with the Delta inside him. But Delta's back now and, as happened so often so long ago, his enemies have underestimated him. I hope I'm wrong - Jesus, I hope I'm wrong?
His gun against the back of the assassin's neck, Delta moved silently through the underbrush in front of the high wall of the sterile house. The killer balked; they were within 10 feet of the darkened entrance. Delta jammed the weapon into the commando's flesh and whispered. There aren't any trip lights in the wall or on the ground. They'd be set off by tree rats every thirty seconds. Keep going! I'll tell you when to stop.'
The order came four feet from the gate. Delta grabbed his prisoner by the collar and swung him around, the barrel of the gun still touching the assassin's neck. The man from Medusa then reached into his pocket, pulled out a globule of plastique and stretched his arm out as far as he could towards the gate. He pressed the adhesive side of the packet against the wall; he had pre-set the small digital timer in the soft centre of the explosive for seven minutes, the number chosen both for luck and to give him time to get the killer and himself in place several hundred feet away. 'Move!' he whispered.
They rounded the corner of the wall and proceeded along the side to the mid-point, from where the end of