Free The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum Page B

home. Mo Panov would tell you to do that. '
    'Yes, Mo would.' David ate his egg half-heartedly. '"If there's a way to get rid of a specific anxiety, do it as fast as you can, " that's what he'd say. '
    "Then do it. '
    Webb smiled, about as enthusiastically as he ate his egg. 'Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I'd rather not announce a latent, or passive, or recurrent paranoia, or whatever the hell they call it. Mo would fly up here and beat my brains out. '
    'If he doesn't, I might. '
    'Ni shi nuhaizi,' said David, using the paper napkin, as he got out of his chair and went to her.
    'And what does that mean, my inscrutable husband and number eighty-seven lover?'
    'Bitch goddess. It means, freely translated, that you are a little girl - and not so little - and I can still take you three out of five on the bed where there are other things to do with you instead of beating you up. '
    'All that in such a short phrase?'
    'We don't waste words, we paint pictures... I've got to leave. The class this morning deals with Siam's Rama the Second, and his claims on the Malay states in the early
    nineteenth century. It's a pain in the ass but important. What's worse is there's an exchange student from Moulmein in Burma, who I think knows more than I do. '
    'Siam?' asked Marie, holding him. That's Thailand. '
    'Yes. It's Thailand now. '
    'Your wife, your children? Does it hurt, David?'
    He looked at her, loving her so. 'I can't be that hurt where I can't see that clearly. Sometimes I hope I never do. '
    'I don't think that way at all. I want you to see them and hear them and feel them. And to know that I love them, too. '
    'Oh, Christ!' He held her, their bodies together in a warmth that was theirs alone.
    The line was busy for the second time so Webb replaced the phone and returned to W. F. Vella's Siam under Rama III to see if the Burmese exchange student had been right about Rama IPs conflict with the sultan of Kedah over the disposition of the island of Penang. It was confrontation time in the rarefied groves of academe; the Moulmein pagodas of Kipling's poetry had been replaced by a smart-ass postgraduate student who had no respect for his betters - Kipling would understand that, and torpedo it.
    There was a brief, rapid knock on his office door, which opened before David could ask the caller in. It was one of his guards, the man who had spoken to him yesterday afternoon during the pre-game rally - among the crowds, amid the noise, in the middle of his fears.
    'Hello there, Professor?'
    'Hello. It's Jim, isn't it?
    'No, Johnny. It doesn't matter; you're not expected to get our names straight. '
    'Is anything the matter?
    'Just the opposite, sir. I dropped in to say good-bye - for all of us, the whole contingent. Everything's clean and you're back to normal. We've been ordered to report to B-One-L. '
    To what?'
    'Sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Instead of saying "Come on back to headquarters" they call it B-One-L, as if anyone couldn't figure it out. '
    'I can't figure it out. '
    'Base-One-Langley. We're CIA, all six of us, but I guess you know that. '
    'You're leaving? All of you?'
    That's about it. '
    'But I thought... I thought there was a crisis here. '
    'Everything's clean. '
    'I haven't heard from anybody. I haven't heard from McAllister. '
    'Sorry, don't know him. We just have our orders. '
    'You can't simply come in here and say you're leaving without some explanation! I was told I was a target! That a man in Hong Kong wanted me killed?
    'Well, I don't know whether you were told that, or whether you told yourself that, but I do know we've got an A-one legitimate problem in Newport News. We have to get briefed and get on it. '
    'A-one legitimate...? What about me?'
    'Get a lot of rest, Professor. We were told you need it.' The man from the CIA abruptly turned, went through the door, and closed it.
    Well, I don't know whether you were told that, or whether you told yourself that... How about you, professor? Do you feel better about