The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,42
bowing her head in a brief prayer to protect them against the evil demons that lurked in the forests restless green shadows.
When she was finished, she stepped back and, kneeling, began to dig at the rear corner of the shrine. A moment later she plucked out of the black, volcanic earth a small package of tied banana leaves. She turned and, with a fearful look in her eyes, presented it to Bourne.
Brushing off the soft clots of dirt, he untied and peeled back the leaves, one by one. Inside, he discovered a human eyeball, made of acrylic or glass.
Its the demons eye, Bapak, she said, the demon who shot you.
Bourne looked at her. Where did you find this?
Over there. She pointed to the base of an immense pule or milk wood tree not more than a hundred yards away.
Show me, he said, following her through the tall fan-like ferns to the tree.
The girl would approach no closer than three paces, but Bourne hunkered down on his hams at the spot she indicated, where the ferns were broken, trampled down as if someone had left in great haste. Cocking his head up, he eyed the network of branches.
As he made to climb up, Kasih gave a little cry. Oh, please dont! The spirit of Durga, the goddess of death, lives in the pule.
He swung one leg up, gaining a foothold on the bark, and smiled reassuringly at the girl. Dont worry, Kasih, Im protected by Shiva, my own goddess of death.
Ascending swiftly and surely, he soon came to the thick, almost horizontal branch he had spied from the ground. Arranging himself along it on his belly, he found himself peering out through a narrow gap in the tangle of trees at the precise spot where hed been shot. He rose up on one elbow, looked around. In a moment he found the small hollow in the place where the branch was thickest as it attached to the trunk. Something glinted dully there. Plucking it out, he saw a shell casing. Pocketing this, he shimmied back down the tree, where he grinned down at the clearly nervous girl.
You see, safe and sound, he said. I think Durgas spirit is in another pule tree on the other side of Bali today.
I didnt know Durga could move around.
Of course she can, Bourne said. This isnt the only pule on Bali, is it?
She shook her head.
That proves my point, Bourne said. Shes not here today. Its perfectly safe.
Kasih still appeared troubled. Now that you have the demons eyeball, youll be able to find him and stop him from coming back, wont you?
He knelt beside her. The demon isnt coming back, Kasih, that I promise you. He rolled the eyeball between his fingers. And, yes, with its help I hope to find the demon who shot me.
Moira was taken by the two NSA agents to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where she was subjected to a medical workup both harrowing and stultifying in its thoroughness. In this way, the night crawled by. When, just after ten the next morning, she was declared physically fit, materially unimpaired by the car crash, the NSA agents told her that she was free to go.
Wait a minute, she said. Didnt you say you were taking me in for tampering with a crime scene?
We did take you in, one of the agents said in his clipped Midwestern accent. Then the two of them walked out, leaving her confused and not a little alarmed.
Her alarm escalated significantly when she called four different people at the Department of Defense and State, all of whom were either in a meeting, out of the building, or, even more ominously, simply unavailable.
She had just finished putting on her makeup when her cell buzzed with a text message from Steve Stevenson, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics at the DoD whod recently hired her.
PERRY 1HR, she read off her screen. Quickly erasing it, she applied lipstick, gathered up her handbag and checked out of the hospital.
It was twenty-three miles from the Bethesda Naval Hospital to the Library of Congress. Google Maps claimed the ride would take thirty-six minutes, but that had to have been at two in the morning. At 11 AM, when Moira took the trip by taxi, it was twenty minutes longer, which meant she got to her destination with almost no time to spare. On the way, she had phoned her office, asked for a car to meet her, giving an address three blocks from