The Bourne Sanction Read Online Free PDF Page B

enthusiasm. Then, turning his charm on Bourne’s companion, he added, “And with the magnificent Moira, no less.” As always the perfect gentleman, he bowed to her in the Old World European fashion.
    He returned his attention to Bourne. He was a short man full of unbridled energy despite his seventy-odd years. His head seemed perfectly round, surmounted by a halo of hair that wound from ear to ear. His eyes were dark and inquisitive, his skin a deep bronze. His generous mouth made him look vaguely and amusingly like a frog about to spring from one lily pad to another. “A matter of some concern has come up and I need your opinion.” He smiled. “I see that this evening is out of the question. Would dinner tomorrow be inconvenient?”
    Bourne discerned something behind Specter’s smile that gave him pause; something was troubling his old mentor. “Why don’t we meet for breakfast?”
    “Are you certain I’m not putting you out, David?” But he couldn’t hide the relief that flooded his face.
    “Actually, breakfast is better for me,” Bourne lied, to make things easier for Specter.
    “Eight o’clock?”
    “Splendid! I look forward to it.” With a nod in Moira’s direction he was off.
    “A firecracker,” Moira said. “If only I’d had professors like him.”
    Bourne looked at her. “Your college years must’ve been hell.”
    She laughed. “Not quite as bad as all that, but then I only had two years of it before I fled to Berlin.”
    “If you’d had professors like Dominic Specter, your experience would have been far different, believe me.” They sidestepped several knots of students gathered to gossip or to trade questions about their last classes.
    They strode along the corridor, out the doors, descended the steps to the quad. He and Moira walked briskly across campus in the direction of the restaurant where they would have dinner. Students streamed past them, hurrying down the paths between trees and lawns. Somewhere a band was playing in the stolid, almost plodding rhythm endemic to colleges and universities. The sky was steeped in clouds, scudding overhead like clipper ships on the high seas. A dank winter wind came streaming in off the Potomac.
    “There was a time when I was plunged deep in depression. I knew it but I wouldn’t accept it-you know what I mean. Professor Specter was the one who connected with me, who was able to crack the shell I was using to protect myself. To this day I have no idea how he did it or even why he persevered. He said he saw something of himself in me. In any event, he wanted to help.”
    They passed the ivy-covered building where Specter, who was now the president of the School of International Studies at Georgetown, had his office. Men in tweed coats and corduroy jackets passed in and out of the doors, frowns of deep concentration on their faces.
    “Professor Specter gave me a job teaching linguistics. It was like a life preserver to a drowning man. What I needed most then was a sense of order and stability. I honestly don’t know what would have happened to me if not for him. He alone understood that immersing myself in language makes me happy. No matter who I’ve been, the one constant is my proficiency with languages. Learning languages is like learning history from the inside out. It encompasses the battles of ethnicity, religion, compromise, politics. So much can be learned from language because it’s been shaped by history.”
    By this time they had left campus and were walking down 36th Street, NW, toward 1789, a favorite restaurant of Moira’s, which was housed in a Federal town house. When they arrived, they were shown to a window table on the second floor in a dim, paneled, old-fashioned room with candles burning brightly on tables set with fine china and sparkling stemware. They sat down facing each other and ordered drinks. Bourne leaned across the table, said in a low voice,”Listen to me, Moira, because I’m going to tell you something very