As both men laughed, Jason stared at the dark face and warm black eyes in front of him. "Something else I just remembered. Thirteen years ago in that hospital in Virginia ... you came to see me. Outside of Marie and those government bastards you were the only one."

"Panov understood, Br'er Rabbit. When in my very unofficial status I worked on you for Europe, I told Morris that you don't study a man's face in a lens without learning things about that face, that man. I wanted you to talk about the things I found missing in that lens and Morris thought it might not be a bad idea. ... And now that confessional hour is over, I gotta say that it's really good to see you, Jason, but to tell you the truth I'm not happy to see you, if you catch my meaning."

"I need your help, Cactus."

"That's the root of my unhappiness. You've been through enough and you wouldn't be here unless you were itching for more, and in my professional, lens-peering opinion, that ain't healthy for the face I'm lookin' at."

"You've got to help me."

"Then you'd better have a damn good reason that passes muster for the good doctor. 'Cause I ain't gonna mess around with anything that could mess you up further. ... I met your lovely lady with the dark red hair a few times in the hospital-she's somethin' special, Br'er, and your kids have got to be outstanding, so you see I can't mess around with anything that might hurt them. Forgive me, but you're all like kinfolk from a distance, from a time we don't talk about, but it's on my mind."

"They're why I need your help."

"Be clearer, Jason."

"The Jackal's closing in. He found us in Hong Kong and he's zeroing in on me and my family, on my wife and my children. Please, help me."

The old man's eyes grew wide under the green shade, a moral fury in his expanded pupils. "Does the good doctor know about this?"

"He's part of it. He may not approve of what I'm doing, but if he's honest with himself, he knows that the bottom line is the Jackal and me. Help me, Cactus."

The aged black studied his pleading client in the hallway, in the afternoon shadows. "You in good shape, Br'er Rabbit?" he asked. "You still got juices?"

"I run six miles every morning and I press weights at least twice a week in the university gym-"

"I didn't hear that. I don't want to know anything about colleges or universities."

"Then you didn't hear it."

" 'Course I didn't. You look in pretty fair condition, I'll say that."

"It's deliberate, Cactus," said Jason quietly. "Sometimes it's just a telephone suddenly ringing, or Marie's late or out with the kids and I can't reach her ... or someone I don't know stops me in the street to ask directions, and it comes back-he comes back. The Jackal. As long as there's a possibility that he's alive, I have to be ready for him because he won't stop looking for me. The awful irony is that his hunt is based on a supposition that may not be true. He thinks I can identify him, but I'm not sure I could. Nothing's really in focus yet."

"Have you considered sending that message to him?"

"With his assets maybe I'll take an ad out in the Wall Street Journal. 'Dear Old Buddy Carlos: Boy, have I got news for you.' "

"Don't chortle, Jason, it's not inconceivable. Your friend Alex could find a way. His gimp doesn't affect that head of his. I believe the fancy word is serpentine."

"Which is why if he hasn't tried it there's a reason."

"I guess I can't argue with that. ... So let's go to work, Br'er Rabbit. What did you have in mind?" Cactus led the way through a wide archway toward a door at the rear of a worn out living room replete with ancient furniture and yellowed antimacassars. "My studio isn't as elegant as it was but all the equipment's there. You see, I'm sort of semi-retired. My financial planners worked out a hell of a retirement program with great tax advantages, so the pressure's not so great."

"You're only incredible," said Bourne.

"I imagine some people might say that, the ones not doin' time. What did you have in mind?"

"Pretty much myself. Not Europe or Hong Kong, of course. Just papers, actually."

"So the Chameleon retreats to another disguise. Himself."

Jason stopped as they approached the door. "That was something else I forgot. They used to call me that, didn't they?"

"Chameleon? ... They sure did and not without cause, as they say. Six people could come face-to-face with our boy Bourne and there'd be six different descriptions. Without a jar of makeup, incidentally."

"It's all coming back, Cactus."

"I wish to almighty God that it didn't have to, but if it does, you make damn sure it's all back. ... Come on into the magic room."

Three hours and twenty minutes later the magic was completed. David Webb, Oriental scholar and for three years Jason Bourne, assassin, had two additional aliases with passports, driver's licenses and voter registration cards to confirm the identities. And since no cabs would travel out to Cactus's "turf," an unemployed neighbor wearing several heavy gold chains around his neck and wrists drove Cactus's client into the heart of Washington in his new Cadillac Allante.

Jason found a pay phone in Garfinkel's department store and called Alex in Virginia, giving him both aliases and selecting one for the Mayflower hotel. Conklin would officially secure a room through the management in the event that summer reservations were tight. Further, Langley would activate a Four Zero imperative and do its best to furnish Bourne with the material he needed, delivering it to his room as soon as possible. The estimate was a minimum of an additional three hours, no guarantees as to the time or authenticity. Regardless, thought Jason, as Alex reconfirmed the information on a second direct line to the CIA, he needed at least two of those three hours before going to the hotel. He had a small wardrobe to put together; the Chameleon was reverting to type.

"Steve DeSole tells me he'll start spinning the disks, crosschecking ours with the army data banks and naval intelligence," said Conklin, returning to the line. "Peter Holland can make it happen; he's the president's crony."

"Crony? That's an odd word coming from you."

"Like in crony appointment."

"Oh? ... Thanks, Alex. How about you? Any progress?"

Conklin paused, and when he answered his quiet voice conveyed his fear; it was controlled but the fear was there. "Let's put it this way. ... I'm not equipped for what I've learned. I've been away too long. I'm afraid, Jason-sorry ... David."

"You're right the first time. Have you discussed-"

"Nothing by name," broke in the retired intelligence officer quickly, firmly.

"I see."

"You couldn't," contradicted Alex. "I couldn't. I'll be in touch." With these cryptic words Conklin abruptly hung up.

Slowly Bourne did the same, frowning in concern. Alex was the one now sounding melodramatic, and it was not like him to think that way or act that way. Control was his byword, understatement his persona. Whatever he had learned profoundly disturbed him ... so much so as to make it seem to Bourne that he no longer trusted the procedures he himself had set up, or even the people he was working with. Otherwise he would have been clearer, more forthcoming; instead, for reasons Jason could not fathom, Alexander Conklin did not want to talk about Medusa or whatever he had learned in peeling away twenty years of deceit. ... Was it possible?

No time! No use, not now, considered Bourne, looking around the huge department store. Alex was not only as good as his word, he lived by it, as long as one was not an enemy. Ruefully, suppressing a short throated laugh, Jason remembered Paris thirteen years ago. He knew that side of Alex, too. But for the cover of gravestones in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rambouillet, his closest friend would have killed him. That was then, not now. Conklin said he'd "be in touch." He would. Until then the Chameleon had to build several covers. From the inside to the outside, from underwear to outerwear and everything in between. No chance of a laundry or a cleaning mark coming to light, no microscopic chemical evidence of a regionally distributed detergent or fluid-nothing. He had given too much. If he had to kill for David's family ... oh, my God! For my family! ... he refused to live with the consequences of that killing or those killings. Where he was going there were no rules; the innocent might well die in the cross fire. So be it. David Webb would violently object, but Jason Bourne didn't give a goddamn. He'd been there before; he knew the statistics, Webb knew nothing.