The jet was handsomely appointed without seeming lavish, the cabin of a man for whom price was no object, but luxury no concern. The interior was maroon; the leather-upholstered seats were large, club-sized, one on either side of the aisle; some faced each other, with a low, bolted table between them. Four grim-faced men and women, evidently members of Márta Lang’s staff, were already seated farther back in the plane.
Márta gestured for him to take the seat opposite her, in the front of the cabin, and then picked up an internal phone and murmured a few words. Only very faintly could Janson detect the whine of the engine revving up as the plane began to taxi. The sound insulation was extraordinary. A carpeted bulkhead separated them from the cockpit.
“That inscription on the fuselage—what does it mean?”
“It means ‘Many small things can add up to a big one.’ A Hungarian folk saying and a favorite motto of Peter Novak’s. I’m sure you can appreciate why.”
“You can’t say he’s forgotten where he came from.”
“For better or worse, Hungary made him who he is. And Peter is not one to forget his debts.” A meaningful look.
“Nor am I.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said. “It’s why we know we can rely upon you.”
“If he has an assignment for me, I’d like to hear about it sooner rather than later. And from him rather than someone else.”
“You will have to make do with me. I’m deputy director of the Foundation and have been with him for many years.”
“I don’t question your absolute loyalty to your employer,” Janson said coolly. “Novak’s people are … renowned for it.” Several rows back, her staffers seemed to be huddled over maps and diagrams. What was going on? He felt a growing sense of unease.
“I understand what you are saying, and also what you are too polite to say. People like me are often seen as starry-eyed true believers, I realize. Please accept that we have no illusions, none of us. Peter Novak is only a mortal. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, as you Americans like to say. We know that better than anyone. This isn’t a religion. But it is a calling. Imagine if the richest person you knew was at once the smartest person you knew and the kindest person you knew. If you want to know why he commands loyalty, it’s because he cares—and cares with an intensity that really is almost superhuman. In plain English, he gives a damn. He wants to leave the world a better place than he found it, and you can call that vanity if you like, but if so, it’s the kind of vanity we need more of. And the kind of vision.”
“‘A visionary’ is what the Nobel committee called him.”
“A word I use under protest. It’s a debased coin. Every article of Fortune proclaims some cable titan or soft-drink CEO a ‘visionary.’ But the Liberty Foundation was Novak’s vision, and his alone. He believed in directed democracy when the idea seemed a pipe dream. He believed that civil society could be rebuilt in the parts of the world where totalitarianism and strife had eviscerated it. Fifteen years ago, people laughed when he spoke of his dream. Who is laughing now? Nobody would help him—not the United States, not the U.N.—but it didn’t matter. He changed the world.”
“No argument,” Janson said soberly.
“Your State Department analysts had endless reports about ‘ancient ethnic enmities,’ about conflicts and border disputes that could never be settled, and about how nobody should try. But he tried. And time and again, he succeeded. He’s brought peace to regions that had never experienced a moment of it for as long as anyone could remember.” Márta Lang choked up, and she stopped speaking.
She was obviously unaccustomed to such displays of emotion, and Janson did her the favor of talking while she regained her composure. “I’d be the last person to disagree with anything you’ve said. Your employer is a man who seeks peace for the sake of peace, democracy for the sake of democracy. That’s all true. It’s also true that his personal fortune rivals the GDP of many of the countries he has dealings with.”
Lang nodded. “Orwell said that saints should be judged guilty until proven innocent. Novak’s proved who he really is, again and again. A man for all seasons, and a man for all peoples. It has become difficult to imagine the world without him.” Now she looked at him, and her eyes were red-rimmed.
“Talk to me,” Janson said. “Why am I here? Where’s Peter Novak?”
Márta Lang took a deep breath, as if what she had to say was going to be physically painful. “He’s a captive of the Kagama rebels. We need you to set him free. An ‘exfiltration’ is what I gather you people call it. Otherwise, he will die where he is, in Anura.”
Anura. A captive of the Kagama Liberation Front. One more reason—the main reason, no doubt—that they wanted him for the job. Anura. A place he thought about nearly every day and had for the past five years. His own private hell.
“I’m starting to understand,” Janson said, his mouth dry.
“A few days ago, Peter Novak arrived on the island, trying to broker a peace between the rebels and the government. There had been many hopeful signs. The KLF said they regarded Peter Novak as an honest broker, and a meeting place in the Kenna province was agreed upon. A rebel delegation agreed to many things they had flatly rejected in the past. And a lasting accord in Anura—an end to the terror—would be a very great thing. I think you understand that as well as anyone.”
Janson said nothing, but his heart began to pound.
Their home, furnished by the embassy, was in Cinnamon Gardens, in the capital city of Caligo, and the area was still interspersed with the trees that once forested the land. In the morning breeze, leaves rustled and birds cawed. What roused him from his light sleep, though, was a soft coughing noise from the bathroom, then the running of the faucet. Helene came back from the bathroom, brushing her teeth vigorously. “Maybe you should stay home from work today,” he’d said drowsily. Helene shook her head. “It’s called morning sickness for a reason, my darling,” she told him with a smile. “It vanishes like the morning dew.” She started dressing for work at the embassy. When she smiled, she smiled with her whole face: with her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes—especially her eyes … . The images flooded his mind—Helene laying out her clothes for a day at the office, proofreading State Department reports. A blue linen skirt. A white silk blouse. Helene opening the bedroom windows wide, inviting in the tropical morning air, scented with cinnamon and mango and frangipani. The radiance of her face, retroussé nose and limpid blue eyes. When the nights at Caligo were hot, Helene was cool against his body. How callused and rough his battered hide always felt next to the velvet of her skin. “Take the day off, my dearest,” he’d told her, and she’d said, “Better not, my darling. Either they’ll miss me or they won’t miss me at all, and either way that’s not good.” She kissed him on the forehead as she left. If only she had stayed with him. If only.
Public acts, private lives—the bloodiest of crossroads.
Anura, an island in the Indian Ocean the size of West Virginia, had a population of twelve million, and was blessed with rare natural beauty and a rich cultural legacy. Janson had been posted there for eighteen months, charged with directing an intelligence-gathering task force to make an independent assessment of the island’s volatile political situation and to help trace whatever outside forces were helping to foment unrest. For during the past decade and a half, Paradise had been disrupted by one of the deadliest terror organizations in the world, the Kagama Liberation Front. Thousands of young men, in thrall to the man they called the Caliph, wore leather pendants with a cyanide capsule at the end; it symbolized their readiness to give their lives for the cause. The Caliph had a particular fondness for suicide bombings. At a political rally for Anura’s prime minister several years ago, one suicide bomber, a young girl whose sari bloused over an enormous quantity of explosives packed with ball bearings, left her mark on the island’s history. The prime minister was killed along with more than a hundred bystanders. And then there were the truck bombings in downtown Calig
o. One destroyed the Anura International Trade Center. Another, packed into an express courier and freight service truck, had delivered death to a dozen staff members in the U.S. embassy in Anura.
Among those dozen was Helene. One more victim of the mindless violence. Or was it two: what of the child they were to have had together?
Almost paralyzed with grief, Janson had demanded access to the NSA intercepts, including those of the satphone transmissions among the guerrilla leaders. The transcripts, hurriedly translated into English, gave little sense of vocal intonations and context; rapid dialogue was reduced to black type on white paper. But there was no mistaking the exultant tones. The embassy bombing was one of the Caliph’s proudest moments.
Helene, you were my sun.
In the jet, Márta placed a hand on Janson’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Mr. Janson. I appreciate the anguish this must bring back.”
“Of course you do,” Janson said in a level tone. “It’s part of why you chose me.”
Márta did not avert her gaze. “Peter Novak is about to die. The conference in the province of Kenna was nothing less than a trap.”
“It was insanity to begin with,” Janson snapped.
“Was it? Naturally, the rest of the world has given up, save for those who are furtively promoting the violence. But nothing offends Peter more than defeatism.”
Janson flushed angrily. “The KLF has called for the destruction of the Republic of Anura. The KLF says it believes in the inherent nobility of revolutionary violence. How do you negotiate with such fanatics?”
“The details are banal. They always are. Ultimately, the plan was to move Anura toward a federated government that would grant more autonomy to the provinces. Redress Kagama grievances through a meaningful version of self-rule while offering Anurans genuine civil protections. It was in the interests of both parties. It represented sanity. And sometimes sanity prevails: Peter has proved that again and again.”
“I don’t know what to credit you people with—heroism or arrogance.”
“Are the two so easily distinguished?”
Janson was silent for a moment. “Just give the bastards what they want,” he said at last, his voice muffled.
“They don’t want anything,” Lang said softly. “We’ve invited them to name their price, as long as Peter is released alive. They’ve refused even to consider it. I don’t need to tell you how rare that is. These are fanatics. The answer we keep getting is the same: Peter Novak has been sentenced to death for crimes against the colonized, and the execution decree is ‘irrevocable.’ Are you familiar with the traditional Sunni holy day of Id ul-Kebir?”
“It commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham.”
Lang nodded. “The ram in the thistles. The Caliph says that this year it will be celebrated by the sacrifice of Peter Novak. He will be beheaded on Id ul-Kebir. That’s this Friday.”
“Why? For God’s sakes, why?”
“Because,” Lang said. “Because he’s a sinister agent of neocolonialism—that’s what the KLF says. Because doing so will put the KLF on the map, gain them greater notoriety than they’ve achieved in fifteen years of bombings. Because the man they call the Caliph was toilet-trained too soon—who the hell knows why? The question implies a level of rationality that these terrorists do not possess.”
“Dear Christ,” Janson said. “But if he’s trying to aggrandize himself this way, whatever the logic, why hasn’t he publicized it yet? Why hasn’t the media got hold of it?”
“He’s canny. By waiting until the deed is done to publicize it, he staves off any international pressure to intervene. Meanwhile, he knows we don’t dare publicize it, because it would foreclose even the possibility of a negotiated solution, however remote.”
“Why would a major government need any pressure to intervene? The fact is, I still don’t understand why you’re talking to me. You said it yourself, he’s a man of all peoples. Accept that America’s the last superpower—why not turn to Washington to help?”
“It’s the first thing we did. They provided information. And they were profusely apologetic when they explained that they could offer no official assistance whatsoever.”
“That’s baffling. Novak’s death could be profoundly destabilizing for dozens of regions, and one thing Washington does like is stability.”
“It also likes to keep American nationals alive. The State Department believes that any U.S.-identified intervention right now would endanger the lives of dozens of American citizens who are now in rebeloccupied territory.”
Janson was silent. He knew how such calculations were arrived at; he had been part of the process often enough.
“As they explained, there are also other … complications .” Márta spoke the word with obvious distaste. “America’s Saudi allies, for example, have been quiet supporters of the KLF over the years. They’re not particularly enthusiastic about their approach, but if they don’t support oppressed Muslims in that Muslim lake called the Indian Ocean, they lose face with the rest of the Islamic world. And then there’s the matter of Donna Hedderman.”
Janson nodded. “A Columbia grad student in anthropology. Doing fieldwork in northeast Anura. Which was both foolish and brave. Captured by the Kagama rebels, who accused her of being a CIA agent. Which was both foolish and evil.”
“She’s been held by them for two months, incommunicado. Lip service aside, the United States hasn’t done a damn thing. Didn’t want to ‘complicate an already complicated situation.’”
“I’m getting the picture. If the United States refuses to intervene on behalf of an American national—”
“—how will it look if it turns around and sends a rescue team for the Hungarian billionaire? Yes. They didn’t put it so bluntly, but that’s the point they made. The phrase ‘politically untenable’ got a real workout.”
“And then you made all the obvious counterarguments … .”
“And some not-so-obvious ones. We pulled out all the stops. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to say that we usually get our way. Not this time. Then the other shoe dropped.”
“Let me guess. You had what they call the ‘terribly quiet chat,’” Janson said. “And my name came up.”
“Repeatedly. Several highly placed officials in State and Central Intelligence all strongly recommended you. You’re not part of the government anymore. You’re a free agent with international connections to others in your line of work, or what used to be your line of work. According to your former colleagues at Consular Operations, Paul Janson is ‘the best there is at what he does.’ I believe those were the exact words.”
“The present tense is misleading. They told you I retired. I wonder whether they told you why.”
“The point is, you’re a free agent now,” she said. “You parted ways with Consular Operations five years ago.”
Janson tilted his head. “With the awkwardness of saying good-bye to somebody on the street and then discovering you’re walking in the same direction.”
Disengaging from Consular Operations had involved more than a dozen exit interviews, some decorous, some frankly uncomfortable, and some outright stormy. The one he remembered best was with Undersecretary Derek Collins. On paper, he was the director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; in reality, he was the director of its covert branch, Consular Operations. Even now, he could see Collins wearily removing his black-framed glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose. “I think I pity you, Janson,” Collins had said. “Never thought I’d hear myself say it. You were ‘the machine,’ Janson. You were the guy with a slab of granite where your heart’s supposed to be. Now you say you’re repulsed by the thing you’re best at. What goddamn sense does that make? You’re like a master pastry chef announcing he’s lost his sweet tooth. You’re a pianist who’s decided he can’t stand the sound of music. Janson, violence is something you’re very, very, very good at. Now you’re telling me you’ve lost the stomach for it.”
“I don
’t expect you to understand, Collins,” he had replied. “Let’s just say I’ve had a change of heart.”
“You don’t have a heart, Janson.” The undersecretary’s eyes were like ice. “It’s why you do what you do. Goddammit, it’s why you are who you are.”
“Maybe. And maybe I’m not who you think I am.”
A short, bark-like laugh. “I can’t climb a hawser, Janson. I can’t pilot a blessed PBR, and looking through an infrared scope makes me seasick. But I know people, Janson. That’s what I do. You tell me you’re sickened by the killing. I’m going to tell you what you’ll discover one day for yourself: that’s the only way you’ll ever feel alive.”
Janson shook his head. The implication made him shudder and reminded him why he had to leave, why he should have done so long before. “What kind of man—” he started, and then halted, overcome with revulsion. He took a deep breath. “What kind of man has to kill to feel alive?”
Collins’s gaze seemed to burrow through his flesh. “I guess I’d ask you the same thing, Janson.”
Now, in Novak’s private jet, Janson pressed the point. “How much do you know about me?”
“Yes, Mr. Janson, as you supposed, your former employers explained that you had unfinished business with the Kagama.”
“Was that the phrase they used? ‘Unfinished business’?”
She nodded.
Shreds of clothing, bone fragments, a few severed limbs that had been thrown clear. They were what remained of his beloved. The rest: “collectivized,” in the grim words of a U.S. forensic technician. A communion of death and destruction, the blood and body parts of the victims impalpable and indistinguishable. And for what?
And for what?
“So be it,” Janson said after a pause. “These aren’t men with poetry in their souls.”
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