The Bourne Deception

by Robert Ludlum

  Then the pain set in and she began screaming.

  The ticking was real; it was, in fact, the sound of the over-revved engine cooling. Hands were pulling at her, cutting through the web of her seat belt, the flaccid cloud of the air bag. As if in a dream, she felt her body moving, the drag of gravity settling in her shoulder and the pit of her stomach. Her head felt as if it had been split open; she was nauseated with pain. Then, with a crash that reverberated through the cotton in her ears, she was out of her steel cage. She felt the night air soft on her cheek, and there were voices near her, buzzing like angry insects.

  Her mother… the hospital waiting room, stinking of disinfectant and despair… the sight of the wax doll in the open coffin, horrifying in its inhuman lack of animation… at the cemetery, the yellow sky reeking of coal gas and sorrow… the ground swallowing the coffin whole, like a beast closing its jaws… clods of newly turned earth damp with rain and tears…

  Awareness returned to her slowly, like a fog creeping over a moor, and then, with the suddenness of a floodlight being switched on, full consciousness returned. Awakening from a dream, she knew where she was and what had happened. She felt death close by, knew that it had bypassed her by inches. Each breath felt like fire and ice, but she was alive. She wriggled her fingers and toes. All there; all working.

  “Jay,” she said into the face of the paramedic bent over her. “Is Jay all right?”

  “Who’s Jay?” a voice out of her field of vision said.

  “There was no one else in your car.” The paramedic had a kind face. He looked too young for this kind of work.

  “Not my car,” she managed. “The one in front.”

  “Oh, jeez,” came the voice at her side.

  The kind face above her split in sorrow. “Your friend… Jay. He didn’t make it.”

  Tears leaked from the corners of Moira’s eyes. “Oh, hell,” she said. “Oh, damn.”

  They began to work on her again, and she said, “I want to sit up.”

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea, ma’am,” the kind face said. “You’re in shock and—”

  “I’m sitting up,” Moira said, “with or without your help.”

  With hands under her arms, he drew her up. She was in the street, next to her car. When she tried to look around, she winced and lights exploded behind her eyes.

  “Get me to my feet,” she said through gritted teeth. “I need to see him.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “Is anything broken?”

  “No, ma’am, but—”

  “Then get me to my goddamn feet!”

  There were two of them now, the second one improbably looking younger than the first.

  “Do you even shave?” she said as they raised her off the tarmac. Her knees nearly buckled and a wave of blackness consumed her so she had to lean on them for a minute.

  “Ma’am, you’re white as a sheet,” the kind face said. “I really think—”

  “Please don’t call me ma’am. My name is Moira.”

  “The cops will be here in a minute,” the other one said under his breath.

  She felt a clutch in the pit of her stomach.

  The kind face said to her, “Moira, my name is Dave and my partner here is Earl. There are policemen who want to ask you what happened.”

  “It was a policeman who caused all this,” Moira said.

  “What?” Dave said. “What did you say?”

  “I want to see Jay.”

  “Believe me,” Earl said, “you really don’t.”

  Moira reached down, patted her Lady Hawk. “Don’t fuck with me, guys.”

  Without another word they took her down the street. It was littered with car parts and the glitter of blown-out windows and taillights. She saw a fire truck, an EMT ambulance beside the hideous wreck of the Audi. No one could have survived that crash. With each step she gained strength and confidence. She was banged up and bruised, possibly, as they said, in shock, but otherwise unscathed. Luck beyond words. She thought of the pig spirit in Bali, who must still be protecting her.

  “Here come the Warm Jets,” Earl said.

  “He means the cops,” Dave translated.

  “Guys,” she said, “I need some alone time with my friend and the cops won’t let me have it.”

  “Neither should we,” Dave said dubiously.

  “I’ll handle these bozos.” Earl peeled off to intercept them.

  “Steady on.”

  Dave gripped her more tightly as she staggered without Earl’s countervailing support. She took another couple of deep breaths to clear her mind and steady her body. She knew she had very little time before the cops would brush aside whatever smokescreen Earl managed to concoct.

  They passed the all-but-unrecognizable crumple-and-twist of the Audi. She took a deep breath, righted herself, then they were at what remained of Jay Weston. He looked more like a lump of raw meat than a human being.

  “How in the world did you get him out?”

  “Jaws of Life. In his case, it didn’t help.” Dave helped her to squat down beside the corpse, held her up as another wave of dizziness threatened to topple her. “It might be my job for this,” he said.

  “Relax. My friends will keep you safe.” Her eyes were roving over every inch of the wasteland that was Jay. “Jesus, nothing could survive this mash-up.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I wish I knew, but his jacket…”

  Dave reached down, drew something out from underneath the wreckage. “You mean this?”

  Moira’s heart rate accelerated. It was Jay’s sapphire-blue suede jacket, miraculously unscathed except for a couple of burned patches on the sleeves. It stank of smoke and toasted cologne.

  “Believe it or not, things like this happen all the time,” Dave said. He had deliberately positioned himself between Moira and the two cops who now brushed by Earl, having had their fill of his medical gobbledygook. “We find things—wallets, keys, baseball caps, condoms—you wouldn’t believe—in virtually mint condition, thrown clear of the most horrendous wrecks.”

  Moira was listening with only one ear as her nimble fingers rifled through the outer and inner pockets. Rolaids, two rubber bands, a paper clip, a pinch of lint. Inside pockets contained no wallet or ID of any kind, which was standard operating procedure. If he got into trouble or needed clearance he made a call. Money was somewhere on his person, burned to a crisp. But speaking of his cell, she palmed it as Dave rose to intercept the cops.

  She was about to give up when she spotted the loose thread at one of the inside seams. Pulling it opened a small hole out of which she dug a two-gigabyte thumb drive. Hearing the sound of heavy footfalls coming up behind her, she made the sign of the cross over Jay’s body and, with Dave’s strong hand gripping her elbow, stood up to face her wearying interview with the Warm Jets.

  Which turned out to be fully as stultifying and dunderheaded as she had foreseen, but at least she had the last laugh because before they got around to asking her the same questions for the third time she pulled out her Federal Securities Act ID, at which point they went silent. It was all Dave and Earl could do not to snicker into their red faces.

  “About this traffic cop,” Moira said. “I need to know who he was. I’ve already told you twice even though you clearly didn’t believe me, he discharged his weapon through the side window of Mr. Weston’s Audi.”

  “And you say Mr. Weston worked for you?” The taller of the two cops was a badge named Severin.

  When she said yes, he nodded at his partner, who stepped away to use his cell phone.

  “What were you doing kneeling over the body?” Severin said. Maybe he was just marking time, because he’d seen what she was doing and he’d already asked her twice.

  “Praying for my friend’s soul.”

  Severin frowned, though he nodded, possibly in sympathy. Then he jerked his head at Dave and Earl. “These yahoos shouldn’t have let you anywhere near your friend. This is a crime scen
e.”

  “So I understand.”

  His frown deepened, but the nature of his thoughts remained a mystery as his partner returned to the huddle.

  “Here’s a kick in the groin,” he said facetiously. “There’s no record of a motorcycle police from traffic or from any other department, for that matter, in this vicinity in the time frame we have.”

  “Damn it to hell.”

  Moira palmed open her cell, but before she had a chance to make a call, two men strode up. They wore identical dark suits but had the slope-shouldered military bearing of NSA operatives. She knew she was in trouble the moment they showed their IDs to the detectives.

  “We’ve got it from here, boys,” Dark Suit Number One said while his partner gave the cops the thousand-yard stare. As the police backed off, Dark Suit Number One slipped his hand into Moira’s pocket with the deftness of a professional pickpocket. “I’ll take that, Ms. Trevor,” he said, holding Jay’s cell between the tips of his blunt fingers.

  Moira lunged for it, but Dark Suit One snatched it out of her reach.

  “Hey, that’s the property of my company.”

  “Sorry,” Dark Suit One said, “this has been impounded as a matter of national security.”

  Before Moira could say a word he took her arm. “Now if you’ll be kind enough to come with us.”

  “What?” Moira said. “You have no right to do this.”

  “I’m afraid we do,” Dark Suit One said as his partner positioned himself on her other side. He held aloft Jay’s cell. “You were tampering with a crime scene.”

  As she was taken away, Dave took a step toward her.

  “Out of the way!” Dark Suit Number Two barked.

  His sharp tone seemed to take the paramedic aback and he stumbled against her, mumbled an apology, then backed away.

  Now Moira’s view of the scene changed so that she was able to see the man standing behind the NSA agent. It was Noah, staring at her with a feral grin. He took Jay’s cell and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

  As he walked away, he said, “You can’t say you weren’t warned.”

  Astride the motorbike Dr. Firth had rented, Bourne drove up into the East Bali mountains—almost straight up at several points—until he arrived at the foot of Pura Lempuyang, the Dragon Temple complex. He parked under the watchful eye of a diminutive attendant in a canvas chair protected from the fierce sun by the dappled shade of a tree. Buying a bottle of water at one of the line of stands that served both pilgrims and curious tourists, he set off up the stiff incline, wrapped in his traditional sarong and sash.

  The priest at the Bat Cave had not seen Suparwita, though he knew of him, but when Bourne had used him as a sounding board to describe his recurring dream, the priest had instantly identified the dragon staircases as those belonging to Pura Lempuyang. Bourne had left him after getting detailed directions to the temple complex high up on Mount Lempuyang.

  It did not take him long to reach the first temple, a simple enough affair that seemed more like an anteroom to the steep steps that led up to the second temple. By the time he reached the intricately carved gateway, the ache in his chest had turned into a pain that obliged him to pause. Looking through the arched gate, he saw the three staircases, even steeper than the two he’d just ascended. They were guarded by six enormous stone dragons whose sinuous and scaly bodies undulated up the stairway serving as banisters.

  The priest hadn’t steered him wrong. This was the place of his dream, this was where he’d been when he’d seen the figure framed in the archway turn toward him. Turning around, he peered through the archway at the breathtaking view of sacred Mount Agung, rising blue and misty, now wreathed in clouds, its iconic cone shape visible in all its monumental power.

  Drawn to the dragon staircases, Bourne continued his ascent. Stopping midway, he turned to look back at the gateway. There was the volcano framed between the soaring teeth that formed the entrance. His heart skipped a beat as a figure was silhouetted against Mount Agung. Involuntarily, he took a step down, then saw the figure was that of a little girl in a red-and-yellow sarong. She turned, moving in that liquid, sinuous way of all Balinese children, and abruptly vanished, leaving only dusty sunlight in her wake.

  Resuming his climb, Bourne soon reached the upper plaza of the temple. There were a few people scattered here and there. A man knelt, praying. Bourne wandered aimlessly among the heavily carved structures, feeling somehow that he was floating, as if he had entered his dream, his past, but as a stranger returning to a place of forgotten familiarity.

  He wished this place struck a chord, but it didn’t, which bothered him. His experience with his form of amnesia was that a name, a sight, a smell often triggered a return of his lost memory about a place or a person. Why had he been in Bali? Being here in this place he had been dreaming about for months should have released the memories from the well of his mind. But those memories were like a fluke on a sandy sea bottom—that strange creature with two eyes on one side and none on the other—either all there or not at all.

  The man at prayer was finished. He rose from his kneeling position and, as he turned around, Bourne recognized Suparwita.

  His heart beating fast, he walked over to where Suparwita stood, contemplating him.

  “You look well,” Suparwita said.

  “I survived. Moira thinks it’s because of you.”

  The healer smiled, looked beyond Bourne for a moment, at the temple. “I see you’ve found part of your past.”

  Bourne turned, looked as well. “If I have,” he said, “I don’t know what it is.”

  “And yet you came.”

  “I’ve been dreaming about this place ever since I got here.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you, and the powerful entity who guides and protects you brought you.”

  Bourne turned back. “Shiva? Shiva is the god of destruction.”

  “And of transformation.” Suparwita raised an arm, indicating that they should walk. “Tell me about your dream.”

  Bourne looked around. “I’m here, looking back at Mount Agung through the entryway. Suddenly, there’s a figure silhouetted there. It turns to look at me.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I wake up.”

  Suparwita nodded slowly, as if he half expected this answer. They had walked the entire circumference of the temple plaza, and now had reached the area just in front of the entryway. The angle of light was just as it was in his dream, and Bourne gave a little shiver.

  “You were seeing the person you were here with,” Suparwita said. “A woman named Holly Marie Moreau.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Bourne couldn’t place it. “Where is she now?”

  “I’m afraid she’s dead.” Suparwita pointed to the space between the two heavily carved teeth of the gateway. “She was there, just as you remember in your dream, and then she was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “She fell.” Suparwita turned to him. “Or was pushed.”

  7

  GOD IN HEAVEN, it’s hotter than Hades in there, even without these clean suits.” Delia wiped the sweat off her face. “Good news. We’ve recovered the black box.”

  Soraya, standing with Amun Chalthoum inside one of the tents his people had erected adjacent to the crash site, was grateful for the interruption. Being with Amun in such close quarters had put her nerves on overload. That there were so many layers to their relationship—professional, personal, ethnic—was difficult enough, but they were also frenemies, ostensibly on the same side but underneath fierce competitors for intel, bound to governments with vastly different agendas. So their dance was complex, often dizzyingly so.

  “What does it tell you?” Chalthoum said.

  Delia gave him one of her Sphinx-like looks. “We’ve just begun analyzing the instrument data from the aircraft’s last moments, but from the cockpit conversation it’s perfectly clear the crew didn’t see an aircraft of any kind. However, the copilot saw something
at the very last minute. It was small, coming at them very fast.”

  “A missile,” Soraya said while looking into Amun’s face. She wondered whether he already knew this. He would if al Mokhabarat had been complicit in the incident. But Chalthoum’s dark face remained impassive.

  Delia was nodding. “A ground-to-air missile seems the likeliest scenario at this stage.”

  “So,” Chalthoum said in his native tongue even before Delia had left the tent, “it seems as if the United States isn’t protecting us from extremists, after all.”

  “I think it would better serve both of us to start figuring out who was responsible,” she said, “rather than pointing fingers, don’t you?”

  Chalthoum watched her carefully for a moment, then nodded, and they retreated to opposite sides of the tent to update their superiors. Using the Typhon satellite phone she’d brought with her, Soraya called Veronica Hart.

  “This is bad news,” Hart said from halfway around the world. “The very worst.”

  “I can only imagine how Halliday is going to run with it.” While Soraya spoke, she assumed Chalthoum was briefing the Egyptian president with the same information Delia had provided. “Why do good things happen to bad people?”

  “Because life is chaos, and chaos can’t distinguish between good and evil.” There was a slight pause before Hart continued. “Any news on the MIG?” She meant the Iranian militant indigenous group.

  “Not yet. We’ve had our hands full with the crash. The scene is horrific and the conditions are next to intolerable. Besides, I haven’t had three minutes to myself.”

  “This can’t wait,” Hart said firmly. “Finding out about the Iranian indigenous group is your primary mission.”

  The two of you came to me,” Suparwita said. “Holly was extremely agitated, but she wouldn’t tell you why.”

  Bourne stared at the spot where the body must have ended up, where his new beginning lay shattered. Why had he been so foolish to think that his past was dead and buried when, even here in a remote corner of the world, it existed like an egg waiting to hatch? Another piece of his past, another death. Why was he always entwined with loss of life?