After heavy training, in which he learns several languages and masters a wide array of martial arts skills, Bourne is placed in the Treadstone program, whose missions are run by Conklin. His first assignment, an unofficial one, is revealed to have happened in Berlin, Germany: the assassination of Vladimir Neski, a Russian politician who was intending to expose the theft of $20 million in secret funds stolen from the CIA by Treadstone's Director, Ward Abbott, and a Russian oligarch, Yuri Gretkov. Under Conklin's orders, Bourne murders Neski and his wife and makes it look like a murder-suicide.
