'Again. What happened?'

'He had returned, wounded, from some particularly brutal duty in Uganda expecting to take up where he left off with a woman in London – someone, I gather, rather high-born, as the English say, a throwback to his earlier days, no doubt. But she refused to see him and hired armed guards to protect her house in Chelsea after he called her. Two of those men were among the seven he killed that night. You see, she claimed his temper was uncontrollable and his bouts of drinking made him murderous, which, of course, they did. But for me he was the perfect contender. In Singapore I followed him outside a disreputable bar and saw him corner two murderous thugs in an alleyway – contrebandiers who had made a great deal of money with a narcotics sale in that filthy waterfront cave – and watched as he backed them against the wall, slashing both their throats with a single sweep of his knife and removing the proceeds from their pockets. I knew then that he had it all. I had found my Jason Bourne. I approached him slowly, silently, my hand extended, holding more money than he had extracted from his victims. We talked. It was the beginning.'

'So Pygmalion created his Galatea, and the first contract you accepted became Aphrodite and gave it life. Bernard Shaw would love you, and I could kill you. '

To what end? You came to find him tonight. I came to destroy him. '

'Which is part of your story,' said David Webb, looking away from the Frenchman at the white-lit mountains, thinking of Maine and the life with Marie that had been so violently disrupted. 'You bastard? he suddenly shouted. 'I could kill you! Have you any idea what you've done?'

'That is your story, Delta. Let me finish mine. '

'Make it neat... Echo. That was your name, wasn't it? Echo?' The memories came back.

'Yes, it was. You once told Saigon that you would not travel without "old Echo". I had to be with your team because I could discern trouble with the tribes and the village chiefs that others could not – which had little to do with my alphabetical symbol. Of course, it was nothing mystic. I had lived in the colonies for ten years. I knew when the Quan-si were lying. '

'Finish your story,' ordered Bourne.

'Betrayal,' said d'Anjou, palms outstretched. 'Just as you were created, I created my own Jason Bourne. And just as you went mad, my creation did the same. He turned on me; he became the reality that was my invention. Dismiss Galatea, Delta, he became Frankenstein's monster with none of that creature's torment. He broke away from me and began to think for himself, do for himself. Once his desperation left him – with my inestimable help and a surgeon's knife – his sense of authority came back to him, as well as his arrogance, his ugliness. He considers me a trifle. That's what he called me, a "trifle"! An insignificant nonentity who used him! who created him!'

'You mean he makes contracts on his own?'

'Perverted contracts, grotesque and extraordinarily dangerous. '

'But I traced him through you, through jour arrangements at the Kam Pek casino. Table Five. The telephone number of a hotel in Macao and a name. '

'A method of contact he finds convenient to maintain. And why not? It's virtually security-proof and what can I do? Go to the authorities and say "See here, gentlemen, there's this fellow I'm somewhat responsible for who insists on using arrangements I created so he can be paid for killing someone." He even uses my conduit. '

The Zhongguo ren with the fast hands and faster feet!

D'Anjou looked at Jason. 'So that's how you did it, how you found this place. Delta hasn't lost his touch, n'est-cepas! Is the man alive?'

'He is, and ten thousand dollars richer. '

'He's a money-hungry cochon. But I can hardly criticize, I used him myself. I paid him five hundred to pick up and deliver a message. '

'That brought your creation here tonight so you could kill him? What made you so sure he'd come?'

'A Medusan's instinct, and skeletal knowledge of an extraordinary liaison he has made, a contact so profitable to him and so dangerous it could have all of Hong Kong at war, the entire colony paralysed. '

'I heard that theory before,' said Jason, recalling Mr Allister's words spoken that early evening in Maine, 'and I still don't believe it. When killers kill each other, they're the ones who usually lose. They blow themselves away and informers come out of the woodwork thinking they might be next. '

'If the victims are restricted to such a convenient pattern, certainly you are right. But not when they include a powerful political figure from a vast and aggressive nation. '

Bourne stared at d'Anjou. 'China?' he asked softly.

The Frenchman nodded. 'Five men were killed in the Tsim Sha Tsui-'

'I know that. '

'Four of those corpses were meaningless. Not the fifth. He was the Vice-Premier of the People's Republic. '

'Good God!' Jason frowned, the image of a car corning to him. A car with its windows blacked out and an assassin inside. An official government vehicle of the Chinese government.

'My sources tell me that the wires burned between Government House and Beijing, practicality and face winning out – this time. After all, what was the Vice-Premier doing in Kowloon, to begin with? Was such an august leader of the Central Committee also one of the corrupted? But, as I say, that is this time. No, Delta, my creation must be destroyed before he accepts another contract that could plunge us all into an abyss. '

'Sorry, Echo. Not killed. Taken and brought to someone else. '

That is your story, then?' asked d'Anjou.

'Part of it, yes. '

Tell me. '

'Only what you have to know. My wife was kidnapped and brought to Hong Kong. To get her back – and I'll get her back, or every goddamned one of you will die – I have to deliver your son-of-a-bitch creation. And now I'm one step closer because you're going to help me, and I mean really help me. If you don't-'

Threats are unnecessary, Delta,' interrupted the former Medusan. 'I know what you can do. I've seen you do it. You want him for your reasons and I want him for mine. The order of battle is joined. '

Catherine Staples insisted that her dinner guest had another vodka martini, demurring for herself as her glass was still half full.

'It's also half empty,' said the thirty-two-year-old American attaché, smiling wanly, nervously, pushing his dark hair away from his forehead. That's stupid of me, Catherine,' he added. 'I'm sorry, but I can't forget that you saw the photographs -never mind that you saved my career and probably my life -it's those goddamned photographs. '

'No one else saw them except Inspector Ballantyne. '

'But you saw them. '

'I'm old enough to be your mother. '

'That compounds it. I look at you and feel so ashamed, so damned dirty. '

'My former husband, wherever he is, once said to me that there was absolutely nothing that could or should be considered dirty in sexual encounters. I suspect there was a motive for his making the statement, but I happen to think he was right. Look, John, put them out of your mind. I have. '

'I'll do my best. ' A waiter approached; the drink was ordered by signal. 'Since your call this afternoon I've been a basket case. I thought more had surfaced. That was a twenty-four-hour period of pure outer space. '

'You were heavily and insidiously drugged. On that level you weren't responsible. And I'm sorry, I should have told you it had nothing to do with our previous business. '

'If you had I might have earned my salary for the last five hours. '

'It was forgetful and cruel of me. I apologize. '

'Accepted. You're a great girl, Catherine. '