When her intercom sounded, she started, realizing she‘d been gazing at the photo, her thoughts wandering back, as they often did these days, to those golden days on Bali before Bourne was gunned down in the dirt of Tenganan. Glancing at the electronic clock on her desk, she gathered herself, finished up her call, and said — Send him in into the intercom speaker.
A moment later Noah Perlis entered. He was her former handler at Black River, a private mercenary army used by the United States in Middle East hot spots. Moira‘s firm was now in direct competition with Black River. Noah‘s narrow face was more sallow than ever, his hair flecked with more gray. His long nose swept out like a sword-stroke above a mouth that had forgotten how to laugh or even smile. He prided himself on his keen insight into other people, which was ironic considering he was so heavily defended he was cut off even from himself.
She gestured at one of the contemporary chrome and black-strap chairs facing her desk. -Take a seat.
He remained standing, as if he already had one foot out the door. -I‘ve come to tell you to stop raiding our personnel.
— You mean you‘ve been sent like a common messenger. Moira looked up, smiled with a warmth she didn‘t feel. Her uptilted brown eyes, wide apart and inquiring, betrayed none of her feelings. Her face was uncommonly strong or intimidating, depending on your point of view. Nevertheless, she possessed a serenity that served her well in stressful situations such as this one.
Bourne had warned her even before she set up Heartland almost three months ago that this moment was going to come. Something inside her had been looking forward to it. Noah had come to personify Black River, and she‘d been under his boot heel for too long.
Taking several steps toward her, he plucked the framed photograph off her desk, then turned it to gaze down at the image.
— Too bad about your boyfriend, he said. -Got gunned down in a stinking village in the middle of nowhere. You must have been broken up.
Moira had no intention of allowing him to upset her. -It‘s nice to see you, Noah.
He sneered as he replaced the photo. — Nice is a word people use when they politely lie.
Her face held its innocent expression, a form of armor against his slings and arrows. -Why shouldn‘t we continue to be polite to each other?
Noah returned to stand with his fingers curled hard into his palms. His knuckles were white with the force he used to make his fists, and Moira couldn‘t help but wonder whether he wished he had his hands around her neck rather than hanging at his sides.
— I‘m very fucking serious, Moira. His eyes engaged hers. Noah could be a scary individual when he put his mind to it. -There‘s no turning back for you, but as for going forward in the way you have… He shook his head in warning.
Moira shrugged. -No problem. The fact is, you have no people left who meet my ethical requirements.
Her words had the effect of relaxing him enough to say in an entirely different tone, — Why are you doing this?
— Why are you asking me a question to which you already know the answer?
He stared at her, keeping silent, until she continued, — There needs to be a legitimate alternative to Black River, one whose members don‘t skate at the edge of legality, then regularly cross over.
— This is a dirty business. You of all people know that.
— Of course I know it. That‘s why I started this company. She rose, leaned across her desk. -Iran is now on everyone‘s radar. I‘m not going to sit back and let the same thing happen there that‘s happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Noah turned on his heel and crossed to the door. With his hand on the knob he looked back at her with a cold intensity, an old trick of his. -You know you can‘t hold back the flood of filthy water. Don‘t be a hypocrite, Moira. You want to wade in the muck like the rest of us because it‘s all about the money. His eyes glittered darkly. -Billions of dollars to be made off a war in a new theater of operations.
2
LYING IN THE DIRT of Tenganan, Bourne whispers into Moira‘s ear. — Tell them…
She is bent low over him in the dust and the running blood. She is listening to him with one ear while pressing her cell phone to the other.
— Just lie still, Jason. I’m calling for help.
— Tell them I’m dead, Bourne says just before losing consciousness…
Jason Bourne awoke from his recurring dream, sweating like a pig through the bedsheets. The warm tropical night was clouded by the mosquito netting tented around him. Somewhere high in the mountains it was raining. He heard the thunder like hoofbeats, felt the sluggish, wet wind on his chest, bare where the wound was in the latter stages of healing.
It had been three months since the bullet struck him, three months since Moira followed his orders to the letter. Now virtually everyone who knew him believed him to be dead. Only three people other than him knew the truth: Moira; Benjamin Firth, the Australian surgeon whom Moira brought him to in the village of Manggis; and Frederick Willard, the last remaining member of Treadstone, who had revealed Leonid Arkadin‘s Treadstone training to Bourne. It was Willard, contacted by Moira at Bourne‘s behest, who had begun reconditioning Bourne as soon as Dr. Firth allowed it.
— You‘re damn lucky to be alive, mate, Firth said when Bourne had regained consciousness after the first of two operations. Moira was there, having just returned from making very public arrangements for Bourne‘s — body
to be shipped back to the States. -In fact, if it weren‘t for a congenital abnormality in the shape of your heart, the bullet would have killed you almost instantly. Whoever shot you knew what he was doing.
Then he‘d gripped Bourne‘s forearm and flashed a bony smile. -Not to worry, mate. We‘ll have you right as rain in a month or two.
A month or two. Bourne, listening to the torrential rain come closer, reached out to touch the double ikat cloth that hung beside his bed, and felt calmer. He remembered the long weeks he‘d been forced to remain in the doctor‘s surgery on Bali, both for health and for security reasons. For a number of weeks after the second operation it was all he could do just to sit up. During that syrupy time Bourne discovered Firth‘s secret: He was an inveterate alcoholic. The only time he could be counted on to be stone-cold sober was when he had a patient on the operating table. He proved himself to be a brilliant cutter; any other time, he reeked of arak, the fermented Balinese palm liquor. It was so strong, he used it to wipe down his operating theater when he occasionally forgot to refill his order of pure alcohol. In this way, Bourne unlocked the mystery of what the doctor was doing hidden far away from everything: He‘d been canned from every hospital in Western Australia.