backed away.
Now Moira‘s view of the scene changed so that she was able to see the man standing behind the NSA agent. It was Noah, staring at her with a feral grin. He took Jay‘s cell and put it in his inside jacket pocket.
As he walked away, he said, — You can‘t say you weren‘t warned.
Astride the motorbike Dr. Firth had rented, Bourne drove up into the East Bali mountains-almost straight up at several points-until he arrived at the foot of Pura Lempuyang, the Dragon Temple complex. He parked under the watchful eye of a diminutive attendant in a canvas chair protected from the fierce sun by the dappled shade of a tree. Buying a bottle of water at one of the line of stands that served both pilgrims and curious tourists, he set off up the stiff incline, wrapped in his traditional sarong and sash.
The priest at the Bat Cave had not seen Suparwita, though he knew of him, but when Bourne had used him as a sounding board to describe his recurring dream, the priest had instantly identified the dragon staircases as those belonging to Pura Lempuyang. Bourne had left him after getting detailed directions to the temple complex high up on Mount Lempuyang.
It did not take him long to reach the first temple, a simple enough affair that seemed more like an anteroom to the steep steps that led up to the second temple. By the time he reached the intricately carved gateway, the ache in his chest had turned into a pain that obliged him to pause. Looking through the arched gate, he saw the three staircases, even steeper than the two he‘d just ascended. They were guarded by six enormous stone dragons whose sinuous and scaly bodies undulated up the stairway serving as banisters.
The priest hadn‘t steered him wrong. This was the place of his dream, this was where he‘d been when he‘d seen the figure framed in the archway turn toward him. Turning around, he peered through the archway at the breathtaking view of sacred Mount Agung, rising blue and misty, now wreathed in clouds, its iconic cone shape visible in all its monumental power.
Drawn to the dragon staircases, Bourne continued his ascent. Stopping midway, he turned to look back at the gateway. There was the volcano framed between the soaring teeth that formed the entrance. His heart skipped a beat as a figure was silhouetted against Mount Agung. Involuntarily, he took a step down, then saw the figure was that of a little girl in a red-and-yellow sarong. She turned, moving in that liquid, sinuous way of all Balinese children, and abruptly vanished, leaving only dusty sunlight in her wake.
Resuming his climb, Bourne soon reached the upper plaza of the temple. There were a few people scattered here and there. A man knelt, praying. Bourne wandered aimlessly among the heavily carved structures, feeling somehow that he was floating, as if he had entered his dream, his past, but as a stranger returning to a place of forgotten familiarity.
He wished this place struck a chord, but it didn‘t, which bothered him. His experience with his form of amnesia was that a name, a sight, a smell often triggered a return of his lost memory about a place or a person. Why had he been in Bali? Being here in this place he had been dreaming about for months should have released the memories from the well of his mind. But those memories were like a fluke on a sandy sea bottom-that strange creature with 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
