Eric van Lustbader: The Bourne Objective

Ican only repeat what you yourself told me.” Suparwita stood up and, with him, Bourne.

“So even then I was concerned with Noah Perlis.” It wasn’t a question and the Balinese shaman didn’t treat it as such. “But why? And what was his connection to Holly Marie Moreau?”

“Whatever the truth of it,” Suparwita said, “it seems likely they met in London.”

“And what of the odd lettering that runs around the inside of the ring?”

“You showed it to me once, hoping I could help. I have no idea what it means.”

“It isn’t any modern language,” Bourne said, still racking his damaged memory for details.

Suparwita took a step toward him and lowered his voice until it was just above a whisper. Nevertheless, it penetrated into Bourne’s mind like the sting of a wasp.

“As I said, you were born in December, Siwa’s month.” He pronounced the god Shiva’s name as all Balinese did. “Further, you were born on Siwa’s day: the last day of the month, which is both the ending and the beginning. Do you understand? You are destined to die and be born again.”

“I already did that eight months ago when Arkadin shot me.”

Suparwita nodded gravely. “Had I not given you a draft of the resurrection lily beforehand, it’s very likely you would have died from that wound.”

“You saved me,” Bourne said. “Why?”

Suparwita gave him another of his thousand-watt grins. “We are linked, you and I.” He shrugged. “Who can say how or why?”

Bourne, needing to turn to practical matters, said, “There are two of them outside, I checked before I came in.”

“And yet you led them here.”

Now it was Bourne’s turn to grin. He lowered his voice even further. “All part of the plan, my friend.”

Suparwita raised a hand. “Before you carry out your plan, there is something you must know and something I must teach you.”

He paused long enough for Bourne to wonder what was on his mind. He knew the shaman well enough to understand when something grave was about to be discussed. He’d seen that expression just before Suparwita had fed him the resurrection lily concoction in this very room some months ago.

“Listen to me.” There was no smile on the shaman’s face now. “Within the year you will die, you will need to die in order to save those around you, everyone you love or care about.”

Despite all his training, all his mental discipline, Bourne felt a wave of coldness sweep through him. It was one thing to put yourself in harm’s way, to cheat death over and over, often by a hairbreadth, but it was quite another to be told in unequivocal terms that you had less than a year to live. On the other hand, he had the choice to laugh it off-he was a Westerner, after all, and there were so many belief systems in the world that it was easy enough to dismiss 99 percent of them. And yet, looking into Suparwita’s eyes, he could see the truth. As before, the shaman’s extraordinary powers had allowed him to see the future, or at least Bourne’s future. “We are linked, you and I.” He had saved Bourne’s life before, it would be foolish to doubt him now.

“Do you know how, or when?”

Suparwita shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. My flashes of the future are like waking dreams, filled with color and portent, but there are no images, no details, no clarity.”

“You once told me that Siwa would look after me.”

“Indeed.” The smile returned to Suparwita’s face as he led Bourne into another room, filled with shadows and the scent of frangipani incense. “And the next several hours will be an example of his help.”

Valerie Zapolsky, Rory Doll’s personal assistant, brought the message to DCI M. Errol Danziger herself, because, as she said, her boss did not want to entrust the news to the computer system, even one as hackproof as CI’s.

“Why didn’t Doll bring this himself?” Danziger frowned without looking up.

“The director of operations is otherwise engaged,” Valerie said. “Temporarily.”

She was a small dark woman with hooded eyes. Danziger didn’t like that Doll had sent her.

“Jason Bourne is alive? What the fuck-!” He leapt off his chair as if he’d been electrocuted. As his eyes scanned the report, which was brief and lacking actionable detail, his face grew red with blood. His head fairly trembled.

Then Valerie made the fatal mistake of trying to be solicitous. “Director, is there anything I can do?”

“Do, do?” He looked up as if coming out of a stupor. “Sure, here’s what, tell me this is a joke, a sick, black joke on Rory Doll’s part. Because if not, I sure as hell am going to fire your ass.”

“That will be all, Val,” Rory Doll said, appearing in the doorway behind her. “Go on back to the office.” Her expression of deliverance only partially assuaged his guilt at thrusting her into the line of fire.

“Goddammit,” Danziger said. “I swear I will fire her.”

Doll strolled into the office and stood in front of Danziger’s desk. “If you do, Stu Gold will be on you like flies on shit.”

“Gold? Who the fuck is Stu Gold and why should I give a shit about him?”

“He’s CI’s lawyer.”

“I’ll fire his ass, too.”

“Impossible, sir. His firm has an ironclad contract with CI, and he’s the only one with clearance all the way up-”

The DCI’s hand cut across the air in a vicious gesture. “You think I can’t find just cause to can her?” He snapped his fingers. “What’s her name?”

“Zapolsky. Valerie A. Zapolsky.”

“Right, what is that, Russian? I want her re-vetted down to the brand of toenail polish she uses, understood?”

Doll nodded diplomatically. He was slender and fair-haired, which only caused his electric-blue eyes to blaze like flares. “Absolutely, sir.”

“And God help you if there’s a spot, however small, or even a question, on that report.”

Ever since Peter Marks’s recent defection the DCI had been in a foul mood. Another director of ops had not yet been named. Marks had been Doll’s boss and Doll knew that if he could prove his loyalty to Danziger, he’d have a good shot at Marks’s position. Grinding his teeth in silent fury, he changed the subject. “We need to talk about this new bit of intel.”

“This isn’t a file photo, is it? This isn’t a joke?”

“I wish it were.” Doll shook his head. “But, no, sir. Jason Bourne was photographed applying for a temporary visa at Denpasar Airport in Bali, Indonesia-”

“I know where the hell Bali is, Doll.”

“Just being complete, sir, as per your instructions to us on first-day orientation.”

The DCI, though still fuming, said nothing. He held the report, and its attendant grainy black-and-white photo of Bourne, in his fist-his mailed fist, as he liked to call it.

“Continuing, as you can see by the electronic legend in the lower right-hand corner, the photo was taken three days ago, at two twenty-nine PM local time. It took our signals department this long to ensure there was no transmission error or interception.”

Danziger took a breath. “He was dead, Bourne was supposed to be dead. I was sure we’d shut him down forever.” He crushed the photo, threw it in the hopper attached to the paper shredder. “He’s still there, I assume you know that much.”

“Yes, sir.” Doll nodded. “At this moment he’s on Bali.”

“You have him under surveillance?”

“Twenty-four hours a day. He can’t make a move without us knowing about it.”

Danziger considered for a moment, then said, “Who’s our wet-work man in Indonesia?”

Doll was ready for this question. “Coven. But, sir, if I may point out, in her last written report filed from Cairo, Soraya Moore claimed that Bourne had a major hand in preventing the disaster in northern Iran that brought down Black River.”