The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,36

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