Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

— Trained for what?

— For killing.

— Who are they meant to kill?

Arkadin pushed his empty cup across the table until it was sitting squarely in front of Ismael Bey. The gesture, for Bey, was unmistakable. He had nothing; he would have nothing unless he obeyed Arkadin studiously and completely.

Without another word, Arkadin rose, and left Bey confronting the bleak face of his new future.

Today I woke up thinking of Soraya Moore, Willard said. -I was thinking that she must still be grieving over your death.

It was just after sunrise and, as he did every morning at this time, Bourne was sitting through Dr. Firth‘s thorough and tedious examination.

Bourne, who had come to know Willard quite well in the three months the two had been together, said, — I haven‘t tried to contact her.

Willard nodded. -That‘s good. He was small and dapper, with gray eyes and a face that could assume any expression with an unconscious ease.

— Until I find out who tried to kill me three months ago and I deal with him, I‘m determined to keep Soraya out of the loop. It was not that Bourne didn‘t trust her-on the contrary-but because of her ties to CI and the people with whom she worked, he had decided from the first that the burden of truth would be unfair for her to carry with her to CI every day.

— I went back to Tenganan but I could find no trace of the bullet,

Willard said. -I‘ve tried everything else I can think of to discover who shot you, but so far no luck. Whoever he was covered his tracks with commendable ability.

Frederick Willard was a man who had worn a mask for so long that it had become part of him. Bourne had asked Moira to contact him because Willard was a man for whom secrets were sacred. He had faithfully kept all of Alex Conklin‘s secrets at Treadstone; Bourne knew with the instinct of an injured animal that Willard would keep the secret that Bourne was still alive.

At the time of Conklin‘s murder Willard was already in his deep-cover position as chief steward at the NSA‘s safe house in rural Virginia. It was Willard who had smuggled out the digital photos taken of the rendition and waterboarding cells in the house‘s basement that had torpedoed Luther LaValle and had necessitated serious damage control from Secretary of Defense Halliday‘s camp.

— Finished, Benjamin Firth said, getting up off his stool. -Everything is good. Better than good, I might say. The entry and exit wounds are healing at a truly remarkable rate.

— That‘s because of his training, Willard said confidently.

But privately Bourne wondered whether his recovery was aided by the kencur-the resurrection lily-concoction Suparwita had made him drink just before he was shot. He knew he had to speak to the healer again if he was going to discover what had happened to him here.

Bourne rose. -I‘m going for a walk.

— As ever, I counsel against it, Willard warned. -Every time you set foot outside this compound you risk compromising your security.

Bourne strapped on a lightweight backpack with two bottles of water. -I need the exercise.

— You can exercise here, Willard pointed out.

— Hiking up these mountains is the only way to build up my stamina.

This was the same argument they‘d had every day since Bourne felt fit enough to take extended walks, and it was one bit of Willard‘s advice that he chose to ignore.

Opening the gate to the doctor‘s compound, he set off briskly through the steep forested hills and terraced rice paddies of East Bali. It wasn‘t only that he felt hemmed in within the stucco walls of Firth‘s compound, or that he deemed it necessary to push himself through increasingly difficult stages of physical exertion, though either was reason enough for his daily treks. He was compelled to return time and again to the countryside where the tantalizing flame of the past, the sense that something important had happened to him here, something he needed to remember, was constantly flickering.

On these hikes down steep ravines to rushing rivers, past animistic shrines to tiger or dragon spirits, across rickety bamboo bridges, through vast rice paddies and coconut plantations, he tried to conjure up the face of the silhouetted figure turning toward him that he saw in his dreams. To no avail.

When he felt fit enough he went in search of Suparwita, but the healer was nowhere to be found. His house was inhabited by a woman who looked as old as the trees around her. She had a wide face, flat nose, and no teeth. Possibly she was deaf as well, because she stared at Bourne indifferently when he asked where Suparwita was in both Balinese and Indonesian.

One morning that was already becoming hot and steamy, he paused above the highest terrace of a rice paddy, crossing the irrigation conduit to sit in the cool shade of a warung, a small family- run restaurant that sold snacks and drinks. Sipping green coconut water through a straw, he played with the youngest of the three children, while the eldest, a girl of no more than twelve, watched him with dark, serious eyes as she wove thin-cut palm fronds into an intricate pattern that would become a basket. The child-a boy of not more than two months-lay on the tabletop where Bourne sat. He gurgled while exploring Bourne‘s fingers with his tiny brown fists. After a while, his mother took him up in her arms to feed him. The feet of Balinese children under the age of three months were not allowed to touch the ground, which meant they were held almost all the time. Maybe that was why they were so happy, Bourne reflected.

The woman brought him a plate of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf, and he thanked her. While he ate, he chatted with the woman‘s husband, a wiry little man with large teeth and a cheery smile.

— Bapak, you come here every morning, the man said. Bapak meant — father.

It was the Balinese way of address, at once formal and intimate, another expression of life‘s underlying