The Bourne ultimatum

Epilogue

They walked along the moonlit beach, alternately touching and not touching, the embarrassment of intimacy intermittently intruding as if a world that had separated them had not let them escape its terrible orbit, constantly pulling them into its fiery nucleus.
“You carried a gun,” said Marie softly. “I had no idea you had one. I hate guns.”
“So do I. I’m not sure I knew I had one, either. It was just there.”
“Reflex? Compulsion?”
“Both, I guess. It didn’t matter, I didn’t use it.”
“But you wanted to, didn’t you?”
“Again, I’m not sure. If you and the children were threatened, of course I would, but I don’t think I’d fire indiscriminately.”
“Are you sure, David? Would the appearance of danger to us make you pick up a gun and shoot at shadows?”
“No, I don’t shoot at shadows.”
Footsteps. In the sand! Waves lapping over the unmistakable intrusion of a human being, breaks in the flow of the natural rhythm—sounds Jason Bourne knew from a hundred beaches! He spun around, violently propelling Marie off her feet, sending her out of the line of fire as he crouched, his weapon in his hand.
“Please don’t kill me, David,” said Morris Panov, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the area. “It simply wouldn’t make sense.”
“Jesus, Mo!” cried Webb. “What were you doing.”
“Trying to find you, that’s all. ... Would you please help Marie?”
Webb did so, pulling his wife to her feet, both half blinded by the flashlight. “My God, you’re the mole!” cried Jason Bourne, raising his weapon. “You knew every move I was making!”
“I’m what?” roared the psychiatrist, throwing down his flashlight. “If you believe that, gun me down, you son of a bitch!”
“I don’t know, Mo. I don’t know anything anymore ... !” David’s head arched back in pain.
“Then cry your heart out, you bastard! Cry like you’ve never cried before! Jason Bourne is dead, cremated in Moscow, and that’s the way it is! You either accept that or I don’t want a goddamned thing to do with you anymore! Have you got that, you arrogant, brilliant creation! You did it, and it’s over!”
Webb fell to his knees, the tears welling in his eyes, trembling and trying not to make a sound.
“We’re going to be okay, Mo,” said Marie, kneeling beside her husband, holding him.
“I know that,” acknowledged Panov, nodding in the glow of the grounded flashlight. “Two lives in one mind, none of us can know what it’s like. But it’s over now. It’s really over.”


THE END.



About the Author

ROBERT LUDLUM is the author of seventeen novels published in thirty-two languages and forty countries with worldwide sales in excess of two hundred million copies. His works include The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Osterman Weekend, The Matlock Paper, The Rhinemann Exchange, The Gemini Contenders, The Chancellor Manuscript, The Road to Gandolfo, The Holcroft Covenant, The Matarese Circle, The Bourne Identity, The Parsifal Mosaic, The Aquitaine Progression, The Bourne Supremacy, The Icarus Agenda, Trevayne, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Road to Omaha. He lives with his wife, Mary, in Florida.