The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,4

surf line. The water was warm, as soft on the skin as velvet. Across the dark beach, hermit crabs went about their sideways business, and here and there bats could be seen winging in and out of a cave at the other end of the beach, just beyond a finger of rocks, part of the western half of the crescent cove.

Afterward they drank their mango lassis in the pool, guarded by a huge grinning wooden pig with a medallioned collar and a crown behind its ears.

“He’s smiling,” Moira said, “because I paid homage to our suckling pig.”

They swam laps, then came together at the end of the pool over-hung by a magnificent frangipani tree with its buttery white and yellow blossoms. Beneath its leafy branches, they held each other, watching the moon move in and out of gathering clouds. A gust of wind clattered the fronds of the thirty-foot palms that lined the beach side of the pool deck, and their legs went from pale to dark.

“It’s almost over, Jason.”

“What is?”

“This.” Moira wriggled her hand under the water like a fish. “All of this. In a few days we’ll be gone.”

He watched the moon wink out, felt the first fat drops on his face. A moment later, rain goosefleshed the skin of the pool.

She put her head back against his shoulder, deeper into the shadow of the frangipani. “And what will become of us?”

He knew she didn’t want an answer, wanted only to taste the thought on her tongue. He could feel the weight of her, her warmth through the water, against his heart. It was a good weight; it made him drowsy.

“Jason, what will you do when we get back?”

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I haven’t thought about it.” But he wondered now whether he would leave with her. How could he when something from his past was waiting for him here, so close he could feel its breath on the back of his neck? He said nothing of this, however, because it would require an explanation, and he had none. Just a feeling. And how many times had this feeling saved his life?

“I’m not going back to NextGen,” she said.

His attention returned fully to her. “When did you come to that decision?”

“While we were here.” She smiled. “Bali has a way of opening the path to decisions. I came here just before I joined Black River. It seems to be an island of transformations, at least for me.”

“What will you do?”

“I want to start my own risk management firm.”

“Nice.” He smiled. “In direct competition with Black River.”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“Other people will.”

It was raining harder now; the palm fronds clashed against one another, and it was impossible to see the sky.

“That could be dangerous,” he added.

“Life is dangerous, Jason, like anything governed by chaos.”

“I can’t argue with that. But there’s your old boss, Noah Petersen.”

“That’s his ops name. His real name is Perlis.”

Bourne glanced up at the white flowers, which now began to fall all around them like snow. The sweet scent of frangipani mingled with the fresh smell of the rain.

“Perlis was none too happy with you when we ran into him in Munich two weeks ago.”

“Noah’s never happy.” Moira snuggled deeper into his arms. “I gave up trying to please him six months before I quit Black River. It was a fool’s game.”

“The fact remains that we were right about the terrorist attack on the liquid natural gas tanker and he was wrong. I’m willing to bet he hasn’t forgotten. Now that you’re encroaching on his territory you’ll have made an enemy.”

She laughed softly. “You should talk.”

“Arkadin’s dead,” Bourne said soberly. “He took a header off the LNG tanker into the Pacific off Long Beach. He didn’t survive; no one could.”

“He was a product of Treadstone, isn’t that what Willard told you?”

“According to Willard, who was there, Arkadin was Alex Conklin’s first success—and his first failure. He was sent to Conklin by Semion Icoupov, the co-head of the Black Legion and the Eastern Brotherhood until Arkadin killed him for shooting his girlfriend.”

“And his secret partner, Asher Sever, your former mentor, is in a permanent coma.”

“We all get what we deserve, in the end,” Bourne said bitterly.

Moira returned to the subject of Treadstone. “According to Willard, Conklin’s aim was to create a superior warrior—a fighting machine.”

“That was Arkadin,” Bourne said, “but he escaped the Treadstone program back to Russia, where he got up to all sorts of mayhem, hiring himself out