"Do you have any idea what you're going to do?" Kim asked David in late March. They were painting the interior walls of the new cinder-block girls' dormitory. She noticed his mouth would fall open slightly, his tongue pressed behind his bottom teeth, when he was concentrating on a task.

He didn't answer for a moment. "No," he finally admitted. "I don't want to run, hide; that's no life for Drächen. I'd like to give her a normal childhood, but I don't know whether we can be safe." He wasn't happy that he didn't have a plan. Jason Bourne would have had a plan by now.

"Can you imagine ever feeling safe?" Kim asked him

"Well, there's safe, and then there's safe," David said. "There was a kill order on me back in January. Nicky Parsons, too. That is definitely, actively unsafe."

Kim looked up from her paintbrush. David saw she had paint on her face and absent-mindedly brushed at it with his fingertips, like he might pick dried food off of Drächen's face. It was dry, not budging; he let it be.

"Nicky?" Kim asked, fingers going to the paint on her cheek, worrying at it.

"I was at the Madrid office, back in January, looking for clues to my identity. Nicky was posted there. She helped me, almost got herself killed."

"Where is Nicky now?" Kim asked.

"I put her on a bus in Tangiers."

David painted a few strokes on the wall, glanced at Kim.

"She said things— We were involved in Paris, when we both worked for Treadstone." The weight of it was crushing: another person's life ruined because of him.

"Do you remember any kind of relationship in Paris?"

David shook his head, agonized.

"It seems to me that it would be awfully difficult for a Treadstone op and a logistics coordinator to conduct a personal relationship. Risky, too…"

David shrugged. He didn't know.

Kim pressed on. "Nicky had free choice, didn't she? If you two were involved, and then when she offered to help you? And nobody forced her to keep accepting new posts." Her voice had become judgmental, and he looked up, surprised.

"What are you saying?" His eyes were questioning, his brow knit; trying to understand.

"She didn't have to help you, David; she chose to. She chose to work for the Company of her own free will, and kept working there after Treadstone, after Berlin. She was responsible for monitoring your health?"

He nodded.

"She had your file, then, beginning to end. She had the training notes, maybe tapes. She had all the details on all the missions; she KNEW what was going on all along. She supported an operation that perpetrated torture on American servicemen." Kim was indignant. "I question the motivations and judgment of someone who worked for Treadstone for YEARS, by choice. Especially if she did have a relationship with you outside the operation. If that did happen… Well, for all you know, she got a thrill from banging a killer." Her face was tight and angry, flushed as red as it ever was at the four mile mark. Kim had met a few associates of that ilk during her time at CIA, though she didn't know whether Nicky was one of them. Her interactions with Nicky in Berlin had been cordial, professional. Nicky had shown her some shortcuts for maneuvering through the UNIX-based database mainframed out of Langley.

David flinched, but Kim was so worked up she hardly noticed.

"I had a choice," he said, looking at her with guarded eyes.

"When you walked in the door, yes. But after the training you received, your choices were narrowed considerably. And still, despite all that, you risked your life to make different choices. You practically committed suicide, to get out, to make amends. Three times." She knew most of the facts of his recent life as well as he did by now.

Kim found herself on the verge of tears, imagining David involved in an affair with someone who could remain committed to Central Intelligence after seeing firsthand what had been done to him and the other Treadstone agents. "How could she live with herself?"

David didn't know what to make of her reaction. She saw his puzzlement, and felt some of her own, too. What are you doing this for, Kim?

She tried to reel herself in. "All I'm saying is, she is not your responsibility any more, if she ever was… Your responsibility is to your little girl first now, and creating a stable life for her."

"I haven't figured out how, yet," David said.

They painted for a few minutes, silent. "I know Pam Landy's secure fax number," she told him. "We could find out how committed she is to helping you."

They worked a week, a little more, to come up with a plan that they felt would both work and be secure. It would mean more exposure than David had ever considered subjecting himself or his daughter to in the past. He could feel himself winding tighter with every day of planning. As launch day approached, he flowed into a state of hyper-vigilance, Jason Bourne always looking over his shoulder. He welcomed Bourne. Only Bourne had a chance at keeping them all alive. He drilled Kim on every move, every detail, every contingency. She cataloged it all, could fire it back at will, and tried to fill in details where she could.

"She'll probably send Tom Cronin to meet you." They were conferencing in his room late into the night, almost every night.

"You know him, right?" David was pacing the short length of the room, electric with tension. Drächen and Indali were curled up together in Drächen's cot.

"He was involved with most of my operations, over two years," she answered.

"You know when he's lying?"

"Mmm, sometimes. You don't get where he's gotten without being really good at bullshit. The more neutral he is, the less comfortable he is." Kim thought of something else. "Do you trust Landy?"

David pondered. She had put her neck on the line for him. He remembered her words: This isn't who we are. It wasn't who she wanted to be, anyway. He licked his lips, chewing on the bottom one absent-mindedly, nodded.

"He's always been totally committed to her. He wouldn't make a move that she doesn't know about and approve."

He relaxed a bit. David was visible again.

It seemed like a good moment to talk to him about something else that was on her mind. "I've been thinking a lot about Indali," she told him. "What's going to happen to her, once we're gone?"

"I don't know," he said, looking across the room to where the orphan lay, curled up with his daughter. "I've thought about it." Obsessed about it.

"Father John says she'll get a 8th grade education here at the orphanage; if she's lucky, she'll work in a shop or a call center for the rest of her life… She has so much more potential than that. All the children do, really. But this one has just really stolen my heart." Kim sighed. She wished she could take all of them. "I want to adopt her."

David looked at her. "Really? You can do that?"

"Sure." Kim's face was open, excited. "I love her. I think she can be happy with me, really thrive…"

"You're a woman of action, Irish." And love. There was admiration in his eyes.

Kim nodded, pleased. And not only by the prospect of motherhood.