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few people know. The Bourne identity continues to haunt me. Marie used to worry that the decisions I was forced to make, the actions I had to take as Jason Bourne would eventually drain me of all feeling, that one day I’d come back to her and David Webb would be gone for good. I can’t let that happen.”
    “Jason, you and I have spent quite a bit of time with each other since we met to scatter Martin’s ashes. I’ve never seen a hint that you’ve lost any part of your humanity.”
    Both sat back, silent as the waiter set the drinks in front of them, handed them menus. As soon as he left, Bourne said, “That’s reassuring, believe me. In the short time I’ve known you I’ve come to value your opinions. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met.”
    Moira took a sip of her drink, set it down, all without taking her eyes from his. “Thank you. Coming from you that’s quite a compliment, particularly because I know how special Marie was to you.”
    Bourne stared down at his drink.
    Moira reached across the starched white linen for his hand. “I’m sorry, now you’re drifting away.”
    He glanced at her hand over his but didn’t pull away. When he looked up, he said, “I relied on her for many things. But I find now that those things are slipping away from me.”
    “Is that a bad thing, or a good thing?”
    “That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know.”
    Moira saw the anguish in his face, and her heart went out to him. It was only months ago that she’d seen him standing by the parapet in the Cloisters. He was clutching the bronze urn holding Martin’s ashes as if he never wanted to let it go. She’d known then, even if Martin hadn’t told her, what they’d meant to each other.
    “Martin was your friend,” she said now. “You put yourself in terrible jeopardy to save him. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything for him. Besides, by your own admission, you’re not Jason Bourne now. You’re David Webb.”
    He smiled. “You have me there.”
    Her face clouded over. “I want to ask you a question, but I don’t know whether I have the right.”
    At once, he responded to the seriousness of her expression. “Of course you can ask, Moira. Go on.”
    She took a deep breath, let it go. “Jason, I know you’ve said that you’re content at the university, and if that’s so, fine. But I also know you blame yourself for not being able to save Martin. You must understand, though, if you couldn’t save him, no one could. You did your best; he knew that, I’m sure. And now I find myself wondering if you believe you failed him-that you’re not up to being Jason Bourne anymore. I wonder if you’ve ever considered the idea that you accepted Professor Specter’s offer at the university in order to turn away from Jason Bourne’s life.”
    “Of course I’ve considered it.” After Martin’s death he’d once again decided to turn his back on Jason Bourne’s life, on the running, the deaths, a river that seemed to have as many bodies as the Ganges. Always, for him, memories lurked. The sad ones he remembered. The others, the shadowed ones that filled the halls of his mind, seemed to have shape until he neared them, when they flowed away like a tide at ebb. And what was left behind were the bleached bones of all those he’d killed or had been killed because of who he was. But he knew just as surely that as long as he drew breath, the Bourne identity wouldn’t die.
    There was a tormented look in his eyes. “You have to understand how difficult it is having two personalities, always at war with each other. I wish with every fiber of my being that I could cut one of them out of me.”
    Moira said, “Which one would it be?”
    “That’s the damnable part,” Bourne said. “Every time I think I know, I realize that I don’t.”

LUTHER LAVALLE WAS as telegenic as the president and two-thirds his age. He had straw-colored hair slicked back like a movie idol of the 1930s or 1940s and restless