Robert Ludlum: Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

— Jason, you told me Colonel Karpov will be okay, but are you all right?

Bourne, sitting in the cabin of the jet that was just now airborne, had no idea what to say.

How many times do you have to die, he thought, before you learn how to live?

The moment Moira ripped open the package Soraya had sent her and pulled out the titanium tags, she knew she had the last piece of physical evidence to take Noah and Black River down. The tags were Black River, all right. After she had decoded them, had gotten the names and serial numbers of the four operatives, she took the tags and Humphry Bamber‘s laptop with Bardem to the only person she knew she could absolutely trust: Frederick Willard.

Willard accepted her evidence with a controlled amount of glee and, it seemed to her, a curious equanimity that spoke of a degree of foreknowledge. In due course Willard presented the evidence against Black River to a multiplicity of sources, to ensure the evidence would not somehow be deliberately mislaid or otherwise disposed of.

Soraya and Amun Chalthoum returned to Cairo. Despite the fact that Soraya‘s people had gathered compelling evidence on the identity of Chalthoum‘s enemy, it was not a happy time for them personally. Soraya knew that he‘d never leave Egypt, that he felt comfortable only in his homeland. Besides, he still had political battles to fight here, and she knew that even if she hadn‘t helped him, he‘d never run away from them. She also knew that she‘d never leave America to live here with him.

— What are we going to do, Amun? she said.

— I don‘t know, azizti . I love you in a way I‘ve never loved anyone in my life. The thought of losing you is unbearable. He took her hand. -Move here. Live with me. We‘ll get married and you‘ll have babies and we‘ll raise them together.

She laughed and shook her head. -You know I wouldn‘t be happy here.

— But think how beautiful our children will be, azizti !

She laughed again. -Idiot! She kissed him on the lips. She‘d meant it as a friendly kiss, but it turned into something else, something deeper, something ecstatic, and it lasted a long time.

When at last they broke apart, she said, — I have an idea. We‘ll meet once a year for a week, a different place each year, or wherever you wish.

He looked at her for a long time. — Azizti, there is nothing else for us, is there?

— Isn‘t this enough? This has to be enough, you must see that.

— I see very clearly. He sighed and held her tight. -We‘ll make it enough, won‘t we?

Three days later the Black River scandal hit the Internet and newswires with the force of a hurricane, overshadowing even the disbanding of the allied forces on Iran‘s borders, which had already been parsed to death by the news media‘s talking heads.

— This is it, Peter Marks told Willard, — both Black River and Secretary Halliday are going down.

He was surprised when Willard gave him an inscrutable look. -I hope you‘re not eager to back out of our deal, princeling.

That cryptic remark became clear when, hours later, Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday held a press conference condemning Black River‘s role in what he termed — a stupefying abuse of power that goes so far beyond the parameters of the company‘s stated mission that steps are being taken to dismantle it. I‘ve spoken personally to the attorney general, who confirmed to me that both civil and criminal charges are at this moment being prepared against members of Black River, including the principals. I want to make perfectly clear to the American people that the NSA hired Black River in good faith on the basis of that organization‘s assurances that they had met with and had come to an agreement with leaders of a pro-democracy group inside Iran. Documentation was provided as to dates, times, names of the principals, and issues discussed, all of which I have turned over to the attorney general as evidence against Black River. I want to assure the American people that at no time did I or anyone in the NSA know that this was a total fabrication on the part of Black River. To that end, a blue-ribbon panel is at this moment being created to investigate the entire matter. My pledge to you today is that the perpetrators of this unthinkable plot will be punished to the full extent of the law.

Not surprisingly, no link was ever discovered between the NSA, let alone Halliday himself, and Black River other than the one he publicly described. And to Marks‘s astonishment, the principals charged by the attorney general were Kerry Mangold and Dick Braun. Nowhere was there a mention of Oliver Liss, the third member of Black River‘s triumvirate.

When Marks asked Willard about this, he received the same inscrutable look, which sent him scrambling to Google stories on Black River. What he discovered, after an exhaustive search, was a small article buried in The Washington Post of several weeks back. It seemed that Oliver Liss had tendered his resignation without notice from the company he had helped found

— for personal reasons. Try as he might, Marks could find no mention anywhere of what those personal reasons might be.

That‘s when Willard, with a Cheshire Cat grin, told him there weren‘t any.

— I trust you‘re ready to start work, Willard said, — because Treadstone is back in business.

ON A MAGNIFICENT SUNNY DAY in Bali when May had just begun to bud, Suparwita arrived at the sacred temple of Pura Lempuyang. Not a cloud was in the sky as he climbed the dragon staircase and passed through the carved stone portal to the second temple high on the mountainside. Mount Agung, clear, completely free of clouds, and blue as the Strait of Lombok, rose up in all its splendor. Then, as Suparwita made his way toward a group of kneeling penitents, a shadow fell across the stones and he saw that Noah Perlis was waiting for him.

— You don‘t look surprised. Perlis wore his Balinese sarong and T-shirt as uncomfortably as a drug addict wears a suit.

— Why would I be surprised, Suparwita said, — when I knew you would return?

— I had nowhere else to go. Back in the States I‘m a wanted man. I‘m a fugitive now, that‘s what you wanted, isn‘t it?

— I meant for you to be an outcast, Suparwita said. -The two are not the same.

Perlis sneered. -You think you can punish me?

— I have no need of punishing you.

— I should have killed you when I had the chance, years ago.

Suparwita regarded him with his large liquid eyes. -It wasn‘t enough that you killed Holly?

Perlis appeared startled. -You have no proof of that.

— I don‘t need what you call proof. I know what happened.

Perlis took a step toward him. -Which is what, exactly?

— You followed Holly Marie Moreau back here from Europe. What you were doing with her there I can‘t presume to know.

— Why not? The sneer hadn‘t left Perlis‘s face. -You claim to know everything else.

— Why did you follow Holly back here, Mr. Perlis?

Perlis kept his mouth shut, then he shrugged as if feeling that it no longer mattered. -She had come into possession of something of mine.

— And how did that happen?

— She stole it, goddammit! I came back here to retrieve what was mine. I had every right-

— To kill her?

— I was going to say that I had every right to take back what she had stolen. Her death was an accident.

— You killed her without purpose, Suparwita said.

— I got it back from her. I got what I wanted.

— But of what use was it? Did you ever crack its secret?

Perlis remained silent. If he knew how to mourn, he would have done so already.

— This is why you‘ve come back here, Suparwita said, — not just to Bali, but to the very spot where you murdered Holly.