Robert Ludlum - Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

— 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 duality. -We watch you as you climb. Sometimes you must stop to catch your breath. Once my daughter saw you bend over and vomit. If you are ill, we will help you.

Bourne smiled. -Thank you, but I‘m not ill. Just a bit out of shape.

If the man disbelieved him, he didn‘t show it. His veiny, big-knuckled hands lay on the table like chunks of granite. His daughter, finished with her basket, stared at Bourne while her nimble fingers, as if of their own accord, began work on another. Her mother came over, set her little boy in Bourne‘s lap. Bourne felt his weight and his heartbeat against his chest, and was reminded of Moira, with whom he‘d deliberately had no contact since she‘d left the island.

— Bapak , in what way can I help you get back in shape? the boy‘s father said softly.

Did he suspect something or was he just being helpful? Bourne asked himself. Then he shrugged mentally. What did it matter, after all? Being Balinese, he was being genuine, which, in the end, was all that mattered. This was something Bourne had learned from his interaction with these people. They were the polar opposites of the treacherous men and women who inhabited his own shadow world. Here the only shadows were demons-and, furthermore, there were ways in which you could protect yourself against them. Bourne thought of the double ikat cloth that Suparwita had told Moira to buy for him.

— There is a way, Bourne said now. -You can help me find Suparwita.

— Ah, the healer, yes. The Balinese paused, as if listening for a voice only he could hear. -He‘s not at his home.

— I know. I was there, Bourne said. -I saw an old woman without teeth.

The man grinned, showing his white teeth. -Suparwita‘s mother, yes. A very old woman. Deaf as a coconut; mute as well.

— She was no help.

The man nodded. -What is inside her head, only Suparwita knows.

— Do you know where he is? Bourne said. -It‘s important I find him.

— Suparwita is a healer, yes. The man studied Bourne in a kindly, even courteous, manner. -He has gone to Goa Lowah.

— Then I will go there.

— Bapak , it would not be wise to follow him.

— To be honest, Bourne said, — I don‘t always do the wise thing.

The man laughed. — Bapak , you are only human, after all. His grin showed again. -Not to worry. Suparwita forgives foolish men as well as wise ones.

The bat, one of dozens clinging to the damp walls, opened its eyes and stared at Bourne. It blinked, as if it couldn‘t believe what it was seeing, then returned to its diurnal slumber. Bourne, the lower half of his body wrapped in a traditional sarong, stood in the flowing heart of the Goa Lowah temple complex amid a welter of praying Balinese and Japanese tourists taking time out from their shopping sprees.

Goa Lowah, which was near the town of Klungkung in southeast Bali, was also known locally as the Bat Cave. Many large temple complexes were built around springs because this water, erupting from the core of the island, was deemed sacred, able to spiritually cleanse those who worshipped there and partook of the water by both drinking it and sprinkling it over their heads. The sacred water at Goa Lowah bubbled up from the earth at the rear of a cave. This cave was inhabited by hundreds of bats that by day hung from the seeping calcite walls sleeping and dreaming, and by night flew into the inky sky in search of insects to gorge on. Though the Balinese often ate bats as a matter of course, the bats of Goa Lowah were spared that fate because anything that lived within a sacred space became sacred as well.