Nicky gets up from the floor, avoiding contact with his body because he does not move; he remains planted where he stands. She walks around him to the small fridge across the room. The efficiency apartment is economical: a bed, a bureau, a small kitchenette, a table for one, two windows. A fan that's barely useful in combating the oppressive heat in Ho Chi Minh City. It's a spare domicile for a single person, devoid of anything warm or personal. It's a place to hole up, with emphasis on hole.
She grabs a bottle of water and drains it, standing with the fridge door open to cool her heated body. Her knuckles are throbbing and she resists the urge to press them against another cold bottle. She's done with showing weakness.
He hasn't moved. He remains with his back to her, an oddly exposed position for Bourne. Surreptitiously she studies the bunched muscles at his shoulders, the tension in his neck. She knows he is sensitive where neck meets shoulder; that he loved it when her lips caressed that curve during lovemaking. Or at least David Webb did.
Jason Bourne is another matter altogether. She wonders what Marie Kreutz discovered during the two years she had with Jason. A full year more than Nicky had with David, although technically they never "broke up." Does it count if you stay in love with a man who doesn't know you anymore? A man who doesn't remember who he was, who loved someone else? The bitterness which never really dissipates begins to churn, and she slams it down viciously.
Now is not the time to confuse Jason Bourne with David Webb.
"There's nothing for you here," Nicky says, closing the fridge door.
Bourne turns to face her, his movements precise, clipped. "Why can't I kill you?"
She reaches out and flips on the small bare bulb in the kitchen. The room floods with weak light. She winces, her eyes smarting with the sudden illumination. He blinks rapidly, agony rippling across his face. It's not merely his eyes adjusting to light; it's a profound sensitivity to light and a chronic headache. She remembers this. She does not address his momentary physical weakness, but makes note of it considering her earlier conversation with Marta Shearing.
"Because I conditioned you outside of the Treadstone programming to never hurt me."
She can see him sifting through his most recent memories, starting from their first post-amnesiac meeting almost four years ago, after the botched Wombosi assassination, to the last time they spoke face to face, at the depot.
"Why?"
"You asked me to."
"Why would I do that?"
"I administered your drugs, oversaw your mental health. You insisted on this particular correction."
"What were you to me?"
"Nothing," she says swiftly. To Jason Bourne she had been a handler. To David Webb…she was the woman who woke in his arms, shared his coffee and the morning paper, the person with whom he could pretend that he was only David Webb.
And David Webb wanted to protect her from Jason Bourne.
But he doesn't remember David Webb, and enough has been taken from her; she's not giving up anything else.
His eyes are narrowed, fury roiling off his body. How to piss off a man who can't remember anything? Refuse to share what you know about him. She regards him mutinously.
"If it makes you feel better, you actually can kill me, but only if I'm directly threatening your life."
He moves on. He's not going to beg. "How did they know about you?"
"Cross and Shearing?" She laughs, the sound hollow. "My face was plastered all over the news afterwards as your accomplice, Bourne."
"How did they find you? Where'd you screw up?"
She wants to point out that he's never had a problem finding her. Then again, she's never actually tried to hide from him.
"Cross pieced together everything that went down last year. Me, you, Landy, Vosen. He said he got a hold of Pamela Landy's email and started searching for me. He found a private email address that she and I used. He tracked me here from Landy's last message to me."
"You were working with Landy?"
"Not at first. I didn't know who to trust. But toward the end, yeah. She was trying to bring me back in, clear me when she realized what Vosen and Kramer had done. But then they burned her when they created that bullshit story that Blackbriar was an operation to bring you down and that she helped you."
"Why would you expose yourself by meeting them?"
She shrugs, wondering herself. It was a violation of tradecraft. It was absolutely stupid. But she'd been alone and adrift for almost a year. Something about that one word email: Foxtrot, for "friendly" had appealed to her, called to her. Despite Bourne's warning at the depot that if something felt wrong, it probably was, to get out, to start over.
"You need to get out of here." She hates the flat, monotonous way he speaks, like an automaton, every sentence exact and succinct. The lack of inflection makes him sound completely indifferent and uncaring…which is probably true.
She shakes her head. "They're not a threat to me. But you're right. It's high time I got on my way. If they're on the run too, who knows what's following them?"
"Before you get your ass out of here, call them," he grinds out.
"So you can kill them?"
He seems surprised that she's accurately guessed his intent. His inability to kill her goes far deeper than he understands. He's also inculcated to protect her from any threat he perceives. It's why he was so determined to save her life in Tangier when Desh Bouksani came after her. He had no loyalty to her; as far as he knew, she was a part of the machine that had made him and killed the woman he loved. An admittedly rogue agent who helped him, but even so: he owed her nothing. He could have let her die. And yet he'd fought Bouksani for her life.
Nicky shakes her head. "Not a chance."
What she doesn't want to tell him is that she's afraid. She's scared that the next gen version of Treadstone is better, stronger, more capable than Bourne. Shearing did a good enough job of explaining Cross' capabilities that Nicky's worried. Outcome was the Ferrari to Treadstone's Porsche.
A fully functional Bourne is superlative, even a match for Cross, but Amnesiac Bourne is flawed with physical and psychological tremors. Cross can possibly outthink Bourne. Cross has most likely considered Bourne's possible responses, has created contingencies. And Cross loves his woman. That's a dangerous advantage.
So no. There's no chance Nicky's going to set into motion a chain of events that may end up with Bourne's death. Because even though he can't remember a blessed thing about her, at least he's alive.
That tightness in her chest, that fluttering in her stomach? It's hope. The same stupid, goddamned bit of hope that kept her walking to Closérie des Lilas that night, to him, even though he should have been long gone. The hope that thinks that maybe one day... But if he's dead?
He moves to the door with purposeful stride and she panics, realizing that he doesn't actually need her to call Cross to find Cross.
"She's his Marie."
He whirls on her, a savage expression on his face.
It's such a low blow. It's been less than a year since Marie died, killed by a bullet meant for Bourne. There's enough of David Webb leaching into Bourne that she knows he hurts.
"He loves her. You take her from him and he'll come for me to get to you. I'm alive" – barely – "and you owe me."
His face is like granite, those eyes cold. "Get out of Vietnam, Nicky."
Then he turns and opens the door, walking out without a backward glance. The door closes behind him. Nicky's heart is racing and she's fighting not to run after him. She goes to the window, looks down below and sees him walk out her building before he disappears into the night.
Nicky reaches for her phone and dials from memory the number Cross gave her earlier. It rings repeatedly; just when she thinks it's going to voicemail, Cross answers.
"Yeah."
"Meet me at the Caravelle Hotel," she says without preamble. "Check into a room, leave a key for me under the name Heidi Barrish. I'll be there in an hour. If I'm not, get the hell out of the country."
Marta starts to tremble.
It's a delayed reaction. Forty-five minutes ago, she was humming with tension, ready to give herself over to sexual pleasure with Aaron; then the phone rang and after Aaron hung up, it was a mad, frantic dash to grab their bags and leave quickly. They've raced from the one end of Ho Chi Minh City to the center of town, checked into this upscale high rise hotel that caters primarily to wealthy expatriates and European visitors.
Aaron is securing the room now, drawing shades and curtains; checking the lock on the door again while she sits on the bed, half leaning against the pillows, watching him.
When he's satisfied with his precautions, he turns around and notices her involuntary shivering. "Doc, hey," he says softly, concern etched on his face. He takes a seat next to her on the bed, putting an arm around her shoulders. She sags into him, breathing deeply, wishing she were stronger, more capable. But even after nearly a year on the run, she still feels fragile, scared. He kisses the top of her head and she closes her eyes, deriving strength from him. She draws in a shuddering breath.
"Aaron," she says softly. "I wish I were better at this."
"You're doing fine," he reassures her. "Parsons is on her way."
"Why? She told us no. Is she changing her mind?"
He shook his head. "I don't know."
"Aaron, about earlier –" She breaks off, not sure where she wants to go with this conversation. Earlier they were about to make love, to give into the awareness that's been throbbing between them since they went on the run. Aaron told her he loved her; she told him she was committed to him. It's all so confusing, so overwhelming –
"Nothing has to be said right now," he says gently. He kisses her head again.
"I don't want to die," she whispers, hating the whininess in her voice.
"No one's dying, Doc."
He is so warm, so capable. She leans on him and they watch the door in perfectly amenable silence.
When footsteps approach the door, Aaron tenses, gets up, drawing his gun, pushing Marta back. They hear the beeping as the electronic hotel key clears and the handle turns slowly.
Aaron lifts the gun.
The door opens slowly and Nicky Parsons' voice calls out, "I'm alone."
Aaron does not drop his gun.
It's not until Nicky steps carefully in the room, kicking the door closed behind her, hands by her sides, palms facing forward that Aaron lowers his gun. Nicky's in the same loose linen pants she wore earlier, with a different cotton shirt. She lifts the strap of her messenger bag over her head. She sees his eyes narrow, focused on her red and swelling knuckles.
"Bourne," she says briefly, with no other explanation.
Cross is tense again.
Nicky turns to Marta.
"I want you to tell me about more about the chems, and what you know about first gen meds they administered at Treadstone."