into the life that David Webb had fashioned for himself made no sense at all. Khan didn't belong there.
"Perhaps not now, perhaps not ever. But no matter how you feel about me, I want you to know that you have a brother and a sister who deserve to know you and have an older brother in their life. I hope there will come a time when that will happen - for all our sakes."
They walked together to the door and Bourne was very much aware that it was for the last time for many months to come. But not forever, no. This, at least, he had to make known to his son.
He moved forward and took Khan into his embrace. They stood together in silence. Bourne could hear the hiss of the gas jets. Inside the ovens, the fire continued to burn fiercely, annihilating the terrible threat to them all.
Reluctantly, he let Khan go, and for the briefest moment, as he stared into his son's eyes, he saw him as he had been, as a little boy in Phnom Penh with the blazing Asian sun on his face and, in the dappled shadows of the palms just beyond, Dao watching, smiling at them both.
"I'm also Jason Bourne," he said. "That's something you should never forget."
EPILOGUE
When the President of the United States personally opened the double walnut doors to his West Wing study, the DCI felt as if he was being readmitted to the precincts of heaven after cooling his heels in the seventh circle of hell.
The DCI was still suffering from the godawful malady, but with the telephone summons, he'd managed to drag himself out of his leather chair, had showered, shaved and dressed. He had been expecting the call. In fact, after he had his "Eyes Only" report delivered to the president, including all the detailed evidence compiled by Martin Lindros and Detective Harris he'd been mentally waiting for the call. And yet he'd waited in his robe and pajamas, sunk in his chair, listening to the oppressive silence of the house as if, within that void, he could discern the ghost of his wife's voice.
Now, as the president ushered him into the royal blue and gold corner office, he felt the desolation of his house even more keenly. Here was his life - the life he'd painstakingly built for himself over decades of faithful service and convoluted manipulation - here is where he understood the rules and knew how to play them, here and nowhere else.
"Good of you to come," the president said with his high-wattage smile. "It's been too long."
"Thank you, sir," the DCI said. "I was thinking the same thing."
"Take a seat?' The president waved him to an upholstered wing-back chair. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored dark-blue suit, white shirt and a red tie with blue polka dots. His cheeks were slightly flushed, as if he'd just come in from running wind sprints. "Coffee?"
"I think I will. Thank you, sir."
At that moment, as if in response to an unheard summons, one of the presidential aides came in with a chased silver tray on which sat an ornate coffee pot and china cups in their delicate saucers. With a little thrill of pleasure, the DCI noted that there were only two cups.
"The NSA will be along presently," the president said, taking a seat opposite the DCI. The flush, the DCI could see now, wasn't from physical exertion but from the full ripening of his power. "But before that, I wanted to thank you personally for your good work these past several days."
The aide handed them their coffee and left, closing the heavy door softly behind him.
"I shudder to think of the dire consequences suffered by the civilized world were it not for your man Bourne."
"Thank you, sir. We never fully believed that he'd murdered Alex Conklin and Dr. Panov,"
the DCI said with an earnest and thoroughly hypocritical candor, "but we were presented with certain evidence - trumped-up, as it turned out - and we were forced to act on it."
"Of course - I understand." The president dropped two cubes of sugar into his cup and stirred thoughtfully. "All's well that ends well, though in our world - as opposed to Shakespeare's -
there are consequences to every action." He sipped his coffee. "Nevertheless, despite the bloodbath, the summit, as you know, went on as scheduled. And it was an unqualified success. In fact, the threat served to bring us more firmly together. All the heads of