The Bourne Deception by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page B

proper.

    As Bourne’s gaze was drawn again to the gates and Mount Agung, he saw a figure silhouetted against the sacred volcano, and his heart began to pound in his chest. The setting sun fell upon his face, and he shaded his eyes with one hand, straining to identify the figure, who now turned toward him. At once, he felt searing pain and pleasure.

    At that precise moment Dr. Firth came across the curious abnormality in Bourne’s heart and began to work, knowing that he now had a chance to save his patient.

    Just over four hours later, Firth, exhausted but cautiously triumphant, wheeled Bourne into the recovery room, adjacent to the surgery, that would become Bourne’s home for the next six weeks.

    Moira was waiting for them. Her face was pale, her emotions retreated from her flesh, curled into a ball in the pit of her stomach.

    “Will he live?” She almost choked on the words. “Tell me he’ll live.”

    Firth sat wearily on a canvas folding chair as he stripped off his bloody gloves. “The bullet went clear through him, which is good because I didn’t have to dig it out. It is my considered opinion that he’ll live, Ms. Trevor, with the important caveat that nothing in life is certain, especially in medicine.”

    As Firth took the first drink of
arak
he’d had that day, Moira approached Bourne with a mixture of elation and trepidation. She’d been so terrified that for the last four and a half hours her heart had hurt as much as she had imagined Bourne’s had. Gazing down into his near-bloodless but peaceful face, she took his hand in hers, squeezing hard to reestablish the physical connection between them.

    “Jason,” she said.

    “He’s still well under,” Firth said, as if from a great distance. “He can’t hear you.”

    Moira ignored him. She tried not to imagine the hole in Bourne’s chest beneath the bandage, but failed. Her eyes were streaming tears, as they had periodically while he was in surgery, but the abyss of despair along which she had been walking was folding in on itself. Still, her breathing was ragged and she had to struggle to feel the solid ground beneath her feet, because for hours she was certain it had been about to open up and swallow her whole.

    “Jason, listen to me. Suparwita knew what would happen to you, and he prepared you as best he could. He fed you the
kencur
, he had me get the double
ikat
for you. They both protected you, I know it, even if you won’t ever believe it.”

    Morning broke in the soft colors of pink and yellow against the pale blue sky. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva rose as Bourne opened his eyes. Last night’s storm had scrubbed off the film of haze that had built up from the burning off of the rice stalks in the hillside paddies.

    As Bourne sat up, his eyes fell upon the double
ikat
that Moira had bought for him in Tenganan. Holding its rough texture between his fingers he saw, like a flash of lightning, the silhouette standing between him and Mount Agung, framed by the temple gates, and wondered anew who it could possibly be.

3

    THE COCKPIT of the American passenger airliner, Flight 891 out of Cairo, Egypt, hummed contentedly. The pilot and copilot, longtime friends, joked about the flight attendant they’d both like to take to bed. They were in the final stages of negotiating the terms of a thoroughly adolescent contest that would involve her as a prize when the radar picked up a blip rapidly closing on the plane. Responding in proper fashion, the pilot got on the intercom and ordered all seat belts fastened, then took the plane out of its pre-planned route in an attempt at an evasive maneuver. But the 767 was too large and ungainly; it wasn’t built for easy maneuverability. The copilot tried to get a visual fix on the object, even as he raised the Cairo airport control tower on the radio.

    “Flight Eight-Niner-One, there are no scheduled flights that close to you,” the calm voice from the control tower said. “Can you get a visual