indigent expatriates, totally without funds, whom I generously treat at my clinic without charge. For gonorrhea, to be precise. Naturally, there are the usual identifying features - height, approximate weight, hair and eye colouring, nationality. Yours are more complete, I'm afraid, as I had not met your friend. Naturally again, there are duplicates in my files, and no one could mistake it was you, sir.'
'What?
'Once you are out on the streets 1 believe my longstanding debt is cancelled. Wouldn't you agree?
''Gonorrhea?''
'Please, sir, as you say, we must hurry. Everything clockwork.' The doctor opened the door, ushered out the four men and instantly headed to the left with the two young Portuguese towards the side entrance and the medical helicopter.
'Let's go,' whispered Bourne, touching McAllister's arm and starting to the right.'
'Did you hear that man?
'You said he was a thief.'
'He was.'
'There are times when a person shouldn't take that bromide about stealing from a thief too literally.'
'What does that mean?
'Simply this,' said Jason Bourne, looking down at the analyst at his side. 'He's got you on several counts. Collusion, corrupt practices, and gonorrhea.'
'Oh, my God.'
They stood at the rear of the crowds by the high fence watching the helicopter roar up from the landing zone and then soar off into the night sky. One by one the searchlights were turned off, and the parking lot was once again lit by its dim lamps. Most of the police climbed into a van; those remaining walked casually back to their previous posts while several of them lighted cigarettes, as if to proclaim the excitement over. The crowds began to disperse amid questions hurled at anyone and everyone. Who was it? Someone very important, no? What do you think happened? Do you think we II ever be told? Who cares? We had our show so let's have a drink, yes? Will you look at that woman? A first-class whore, I think, don't you agree? She's my first cousin, you bastard.'
The excitement was over.
'Let's go,' said Jason. 'We have to move.'
'You know, Mr Webb, you have two commands you use with irritating frequency. "Move" and "Let's go".'
They work.' Both men started across the Do Amaral.
'I'm as aware as you are that we must move quickly, only you haven't explained where we're going.'
'I know I haven't,' said Bourne.
'I think it's time you did.' They kept walking, Bourne picking up the pace. 'You called me a whore,' continued the undersecretary.
'You are.' 'Because I agreed to do what I thought was right, what had to be done?
'Because they used you. The boys in power used you and they'll throw you away without thinking twice. You saw limousines and high-level conferences in your future and you couldn't resist. You were willing to throw away my life without looking for an alternative - which is what you're paid to do. You were willing to risk the life of my wife because the pull was too great. Dinners with the Forty Committee, perhaps even a member; quiet, confidential meetings in the Oval Office with the celebrated Ambassador Havilland. To me that's being a whore. Only, I repeat, they'll throw you out without a second thought.'
Silence. For nearly a long Macao block. 'You think I don't know that, Mr Bourne?
'What?
That they'll throw me out.'
Again Jason looked down at the meticulous bureaucrat at his side. 'You know that?
'Of course I do. I'm not in their league and they don't want me in it. Oh, I've got the credentials and the mind, but I don't have that extraordinary sense of performance that they have. I'm not prepossessing. I'd freeze in front of a television camera - although 1 watch idiots who do perform consistently make the most ridiculous errors. So, you see, I recognize my limitations. And since I can't do what these men can do, I have to do what's best for them and for the country. I have to think for them.'
'You thought for Havilland! You came to us in Maine and took my wife from me! There weren't any other options in that swollen brain of yours?
'None that I could come up with. None that covered everything as thoroughly as Havilland's strategy. The assassin was the untraceable link to Sheng. If you could hunt him down and bring him in, it was the short-cut we needed to draw Sheng out.'
'You had a hell of a lot more confidence in me than I did.'
'We had confidence in Jason Bourne. In Cain - in the man from Medusa called Delta. You had the