Alex? Yes, he remembered. Conklin had taken the first commercial flight out of Oahu to Los Angeles and Washington. There are heads to break' was the way he had phrased it. 'And I intend to break them.' Alexander Conklin had a new mission in his fragmented life. It was called accountability.
Mo? Morris Panov? Scourge of the chicken-soup psychologists and the charlatans of his profession? He was next door in the adjoining room, no doubt nursing the most massive hangover of his life.
'You laughed,' whispered Marie, her eyes closed, nestling her face into his throat. 'What the hell is so funny?'
'You, me, us - everything.'
'Your sense of humour positively escapes me. On the other hand, I think I hear a man named David.'
That's all you'll ever hear from now on.'
There was a knock on the door, not the door to the hallway but the one to the adjoining room. Panov. Webb got out of bed, walked rapidly to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, whipping it around his naked waist, 'Just a second, Mo!' he called out, going to the door.
Morris Panov, his face pale but composed, stood there with a suitcase in his hand. 'May I enter the Temple of Eros?'
'You're there, friend.'
'I should hope so... Good afternoon, my dear,' said the psychiatrist, addressing Marie in the bed, as he went to a chair by the glass door that led to the baicot;y overlooking the Hawaiian beach. 'Don't fuss, don't prepare a meal, and if you get out of bed, don't worry. I'm a doctor. I think.'
'How are you, Mo?' Marie sat up, pulling the sheet over her.
'Far better than I was three hours ago, but you wouldn't know anything about that. You're maddeningly sane.'
'You were stretched, you had-to let loose.'
'If you charge a hundred dollars an hour, lovely lady, I'll mortgage my house and sign up for five years of therapy.'
'I'd like that defined,' said David, smiling and sitting down opposite Panov. 'Why the suitcase?'
'I'm leaving. I have patients back in Washington and I like to think they may need me.'
The silence was moving as David and Marie looked at Morris Panov. 'What do we say, MoT asked Webb. 'How do we say it?'
'You don't say anything. I'll do the talking. Marie has been hurt, pained beyond normal endurance. But then her endurance is beyond normality and she can handle it. Perhaps outrageously, we expect as much from certain people. It's unfair, but that's the way it is.'
'I had to survive, Mo,' said Marie, looking at her husband. 'I had to get him back. That's the way it was.'
'You, David. You've gone through a traumatizing experience, one that only you can deal with and you don't need any chicken-soup crap from me to face it. You are now, not anybody else. Jason Bourne is gone. He can't come back. Build your life as David Webb - concentrate on Marie and David - that's all there is and all there should be. And if at any moment the anxieties come back - they probably won't, but I'd appreciate your manufacturing a few - call me and I'll take the next plane up to Maine. I love you both, and Marie's beef stew is outstanding.'
Sundown, the brilliant orange circle settling on top of the western horizon, slowly disappearing into the Pacific. They walked along the beach, their hands gripped fiercely, their bodies touching sc natural, so right.
'What do you do when there's a part of you that you hate?' said Webb.
'Accept it,' answered Marie. 'We all have a dark side, David. We wish we could deny it, but we can't. It's there. Perhaps we can't exist without it. Yours is a legend called Jason Bourne, but that's all it is.'
'I loathe him.'
'He brought you back to me. That's all that matters.'
The End
Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy Page 77