They face one another for a few tense moments, then Nicky lowers her gun, tucks it behind her back.
"What are you doing down here?" he asks curiously.
"Cross and Shearing are working out a disagreement. I'm about to go back up."
She turns and starts up the steps when he speaks.
"What do I need to know, Nicky?"
She stops in her tracks, but won't turn around to look at him.
"About?"
"Why do I call you 'Nicky'? You said you conditioned me to protect you. Why?"
Nicky contemplates the floor, doesn't answer. Then she sighs. "In addition to logistics and meds, I was your primary handler. Every asset had one. We worked closely together."
"How closely?" His voice is rough.
Oh God, she hates the tightness in her throat, as if her windpipe were closing in, blocking all air, suffocating her. She schools her features into an impassive mask, wipes all traces of feeling from her senses, and turns around, telling him in as cold a voice as she can:
"Close enough that when Treadstone ordered the Professor to kill his handler, you asked me to make sure that never happened to me."
He blinks trying to piece together what she's saying. She can see the struggle, the anger on his face as he tries to remember…and can't.
"He was the asset you killed in France in the countryside. Tall, dark-haired. Glasses."
"…Look at what they make you give," Bourne murmurs softly, dazedly.
"What?"
Bourne shakes his head, as if trying to clear the memory. "What did you do?"
"I used second order conditioning and operant conditioning. I had you associate me with something that gave you pleasure, made you feel safe; once the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli became paired, I implemented positive reinforcement when you protected me, and negative reinforcement when you tried to hurt me. Hypnotic suggestibility and repetition so it stuck."
His eyes are narrowed, dangerous. Nicky understands. As far as this Jason Bourne knows, she fucked with his mind, too.
She hates it. Hates being lumped in with the inhumane machine that destroyed David Webb to make Jason Bourne. But even if she withholds everything else, he needs to know why he's compelled toward her.
"How long?"
"Six months." She paused. "You had headaches and light sensitivity. And nightmares. I never knew if it was the protocol or the latent effect of the drugs Treadstone had been administering. Marta wasn't able to say definitively."
"The drugs," he says decisively.
Her eyebrows rise in query.
"That asset – the Professor? – he asked me if I had headaches. Said he had them too, all the time. And lights hurt him. He didn't say anything about nightmares, though." He takes a breath, looks at her. "What else?"
Nicky tilts her head, raises her brows, as if in query. "Why are you here?"
It's so painful. Neither of them can or want to answer the questions posed. Because the truth won't set them free.
"You should go," she says quietly. Please go. Please go.
Nicky turns around, heads back upstairs, aware of Bourne following behind her. On the landing, she stands to one side of the door.
"Cross." Nicky calls out. "It's Parsons. And…Bourne."
"Roger that," Cross responds from the other side.
Nicky unlocks the door and steps in, Jason behind her. Cross is seated on the futon, his Sig 229R resting on his thigh. His hair is damp, brushed back, and he's in fresh clothes. Nicky notices that when Bourne enters behind her, Cross' hand slides over the gun, finger resting lightly on the trigger. Behind her, she can sense Bourne's immediate tension.
God save me from alpha males, she thinks.
"At ease," she says firmly.
Cross moves the gun to the futon, breaks eye contact with Bourne and turns his attention to Marta, who is emerging from the bathroom. She's in clean clothes too; jeans and white linen pullover, her wet hair pulled back from a flushed face. It's hard to tell if she's blushing or if it's the heat from her shower. Nicky pretends not to notice.
"Well?" Cross asks.
He wants to know if she's agreed to his plan.
"No," Nicky answers, shaking her head. "No. We're under their radar, we're out of sight. We stay that way."
There's a flare of disappointment in his eyes, simultaneous with Marta's trembling sigh of relief. Cross looks back at Bourne. "I don't suppose you have anything else on the Beta programs you gave Landy?"
"What's a Beta program?" Bourne inquires.
"It's the name attached to programs like Treadstone and Blackbriar and every other variation of the Make-A-Super-Soldier Foundation. Drugs, psychological and physical reconditioning."
Nicky glances behind her. Bourne has take position by the door. He frowns, digesting this new bit of information. "It went beyond Treadstone and Blackbriar?"
Cross gives him a look like, Are you kidding? "You guys were the ground work to figure out what could be done and what went wrong. I was part of the the next step to figure out what to correct."
Bourne's eyes are stormy. Nicky takes a breath. For everything he went through, for everything he lost, to now know it went far beyond what he'd originally surmised. "I gave Landy everything I got."
"Where'd you get the file?"
"Vosen's office."
"CIA Deputy Director Noah Vosen," Nicky supplies.
"Aaron." Marta infuses that one word with steel refusal.
Cross stares the three other people in the room. "Shit," he snaps, frustrated, getting up. Bourne shifts immediately from his position at the door, goes into physically defensive mode: both crouch, ready to spring.
"Stop," Nicky snaps. Her nerves are taut and this room is way too small for two larger than life super soldiers, to say nothing of the other woman (who just got lucky if the missing condom packet is any indication) lurking by the bathroom. "You can all stay, or get out and leave me the fuck alone with some peace. But you're not going to trash this room because your testosterone levels are escalating."
Cross gives her a look. "Were you always this bossy?"
"I was always this assertive, yes. That's why I was put in charge of managing assets like you."
Cross scowls. "I need to check some coordinates, then we're out of here." He walks past Nicky to take Marta's hand, pulling her to the other side of the room. Their duffel bag is on the mattress. He rifles through, pulls out a tablet. Marta settles herself next to him, her body perfectly adjacent: shoulder, hips, knees aligned with his.
Nicky turns to Bourne. "I'm safe," she enunciates carefully. You can go. You should go. Please go before I completely break down.
He seems hesitant, as if waiting for something.
"Jason, you have to stop ghosting me," Nicky says softly, forcing the words out. Words she doesn't really want to stay. "I helped you and I'm willing to do this penance, but…you have to stop following me. You're putting a target on me every time you come to me. You know why you do it now. You don't have to do it anymore."
I need you to go away. I need you to never come back, not unless you're David Webb again.
Jason Bourne is so impossible to read; but Nicky looks for his tells, the slight tic in his check that he's grinding his teeth; the tense set to shoulders. He starts to say something but is forestalled by Cross' utterance.
"Shit."
Nicky turns. Cross is staring grimly at his screen. Marta looks distraught. Cross turns his tablet around, showing Nicky an image.
Fuck.
It's an image from earlier that night – of Nicky and Marta together, walking away from the hotel. Their faces are visible.
"This just went out on Interpol's site," Cross informs them. "This is not random. This is Byers."
"Damn it," whispers Nicky.
"We're targets," Marta utters despairingly.
"We already were." Nicky shakes her head. "But now there's a connection between Treadstone and Outcome."
"And I'm target number one," Bourne mutters.
"Yeah, don't flatter yourself too much," Aaron snaps. "Byers isn't exactly my biggest fan either."
"Who is Byers?" Bourne asks.
"He's the puppet master who owns all these programs. Treadstone, Outcome – his babies. They rolled all of them under NRAG with him in charge. You wanna blame someone for making you what you are now? Byers," answers Cross.
"How can you be sure Byers is running this?" Nicky demands.
Cross gives her an exasperated look. "This is him." He gestures to the women. "Now he knows you two are together, and he knows that I'd never leave her –" he points to Marta – "and he's probably figured out you –" he points to Bourne, "might be nearby because of her." He points to Nicky.
Nicky wants to snarl. "Don't presume."
Cross ignores her. "So if you were Byers and two women affiliated with programs that blew up just surfaced, what would you do? Especially if those two women have links to fugitives from those programs?"
Bourne looks from Nicky to Marta.
Cross nods. "That's right. I'd go after them, too."
Bourne runs his hand through his hair. "He'll have assets on the ground as soon as he can. If they've released this to Interpol, it's to make sure your faces are plastered at every immigration checkpoint in the next few hours and cut you off."
Cross turns to Nicky. "Still 'no' on going after Byers?"
She glares at him. She doesn't like her hand to be forced in making decisions. Should never have answered that email, she thinks.
"How do we get out of here?" Marta wonders.
"Private jet charter," Nicky says definitively.
They all turn to her.
"When you fly private charter, you check in with Fixed Based Operators for your flight. At an international airport, they'll drive you right through security to your aircraft. Immigration and customs can be completed before the flight, or there's a private jet terminal at larger airport for those functions. But at smaller airports, officials will make a special visit to meet the flight. You get escorted directly to and from the plane. You don't wait in any lines, you don't go through any public checkpoints."
In other words, there aren't cameras zooming in on them, people walking through the lines looking for them, zealous customs and immigration officials studying their passports, looking at their faces. It's ideal.
"Great," Cross enthuses sarcastically. "Now where do we find 50 or 60 large to pay for a private charter?"
"Try a hundred grand," Nicky corrects. Nicky glances at her watch. It's midnight. God, how is it midnight already? But that works in her favor.
Walking over to the desk, Nicky reaches into the bag hanging off the chair, and pulls out a surprisingly outdated flip phone. When she is connected to her call, she adopts a posh British accent that takes the others by surprise.
"Heidi Parish, please. Yes, this is Alexandra Seward." There is a pause. Then: "Heidi, darling! It's Alex. I'm in Ho Chi Minh City, and darling I saw the most extraordinary set of sculptures this afternoon, perfect for the Paris flat. There are two of them. I can have them ready to ship immediately. Darling, you want these now, I promise. You do? Perfect. Tell me who's going to be at the flat and I'll get the pieces ready to move. I'll send the information and invoice to Michael after I've purchased them. Is he still managing the accounting? It'll be 600, darling. I know. Isn't it wonderful how cheap things are here? But I promise you, they're high quality. Excellent. All right darling, I have to go to bed soon! Au revoir, chérie!"
Nicky presses the END button on her phone. "I have a ride at Tân Sơn Nhất tomorrow morning at 0600." She looks at Marta. "You want a ride to Paris, come with me. Otherwise, you're on your own. You're going to need to change your hair. There's dye under the sink in the bathroom." She looks at Cross. "I can hide her. I can't hide you. You can rendezvous with her in Paris." She doesn't look at Bourne or address him.
The other three stare at her in stupefaction. Nicky does not deign to offer an explanation, going to the bathroom and closing the door behind her. She leans over the tiny sink, looks at herself in the mirror. Dark hair, pale face. Nothing staring back at her is familiar. Opening the undersink cabinet, Nicky reaches in and searches through several boxes of hair dye until she finds the shade she wants.
Forty five minutes later, she reaches over to turn on the shower, recalls with some childish glee the looks on their faces when she placed that call.
Screw them. They don't need to know everything.
She scowls, irritated when she realizes Cross and Shearing used all the hot water.
Was this fucking day ever going to end?