The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,14
keeping silent, until she continued, There needs to be a legitimate alternative to Black River, one whose members dont skate at the edge of legality, then regularly cross over.
This is a dirty business. You of all people know that.
Of course I know it. Thats why I started this company. She rose, leaned across her desk. Iran is now on everyones radar. Im not going to sit back and let the same thing happen there thats happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Noah turned on his heel and crossed to the door. With his hand on the knob he looked back at her with a cold intensity, an old trick of his. You know you cant hold back the flood of filthy water. Dont be a hypocrite, Moira. You want to wade in the muck like the rest of us because its all about the money. His eyes glittered darkly. Billions of dollars to be made off a war in a new theater of operations.
2
LYING IN THE DIRT of Tenganan, Bourne whispers into Moiras ear. Tell them
She is bent low over him in the dust and the running blood. She is listening to him with one ear while pressing her cell phone to the other. Just lie still, Jason. Im calling for help.
Tell them Im dead, Bourne says just before losing consciousness
Jason Bourne awoke from his recurring dream, sweating like a pig through the bedsheets. The warm tropical night was clouded by the mosquito netting tented around him. Somewhere high in the mountains it was raining. He heard the thunder like hoofbeats, felt the sluggish, wet wind on his chest, bare where the wound was in the latter stages of healing.
It had been three months since the bullet struck him, three months since Moira followed his orders to the letter. Now virtually everyone who knew him believed him to be dead. Only three people other than him knew the truth: Moira; Benjamin Firth, the Australian surgeon whom Moira brought him to in the village of Manggis; and Frederick Willard, the last remaining member of Treadstone, who had revealed Leonid Arkadins Treadstone training to Bourne. It was Willard, contacted by Moira at Bournes behest, who had begun reconditioning Bourne as soon as Dr. Firth allowed it.
Youre damn lucky to be alive, mate, Firth said when Bourne had regained consciousness after the first of two operations. Moira was there, having just returned from making very public arrangements for Bournes body to be shipped back to the States. In fact, if it werent for a congenital abnormality in the shape of your heart, the bullet would have killed you almost instantly. Whoever shot you knew what he was doing.
Then hed gripped Bournes forearm and flashed a bony smile. Not to worry, mate. Well have you right as rain in a month or two.
A month or two. Bourne, listening to the torrential rain come closer, reached out to touch the double ikat cloth that hung beside his bed, and felt calmer. He remembered the long weeks hed been forced to remain in the doctors surgery on Bali, both for health and for security reasons. For a number of weeks after the second operation it was all he could do just to sit up. During that syrupy time Bourne discovered Firths secret: He was an inveterate alcoholic. The only time he could be counted on to be stone-cold sober was when he had a patient on the operating table. He proved himself to be a brilliant cutter; any other time, he reeked of arak, the fermented Balinese palm liquor. It was so strong, he used it to wipe down his operating theater when he occasionally forgot to refill his order of pure alcohol. In this way, Bourne unlocked the mystery of what the doctor was doing hidden far away from everything: Hed been canned from every hospital in Western Australia.
All at once Bournes attention turned outward as the doctor entered the room across the compound from the surgery.
Firth, he said, sitting up. What are you doing up at this time of night?
The doctor moved over to the rattan chair by the wall. He had a noticeable limp; one leg was shorter than the other. I dont like thunder and lightning, he said as he sat down heavily.
Youre like a child.
In many ways, yes. Firth nodded. But unlike many blokes I met back in the bad old days, I can admit it.
Bourne switched on the bedside lamp, and a cone of cool light spread over the bed and