Using the first car for cover, two aimed rocket launchers at the gates. Others flitted through the trees to fire from flanking positions. Kincaid could see Iboga’s plan clearly in her mind. It was neat, clean, and ballsy. Freddy and four operators and Poe’s old men were now trapped between a potent assault force outside the prison and a mob of army officers inside who were primed to attack their jailors at the sound of rocket fire.
FORTY-FOUR
Doug Case’s phone vibrated. He checked the screen: Paul Janson, enabling his phone to prompt caller ID—the sort of thing you would do if you were calling for help from an Italian jail.
“I better answer this,” Case said.
“Don’t roll off,” said the Buddha. “Stay right here.”
“Hello, Paul. How is sunny Italy?”
“Bring the reporters up to the bridge to meet President Poe.”
“What bridge— What? Are you on this ship?”
“Bring the press up here to meet President Poe or I will disable the dynamic positioning units. Both of them. Do you understand what that means?”
Case had trouble catching his breath. “Yes.”
“Do you also understand what a blood-soaked catastrophe it would be if you brought your shooters?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that I feel betrayed?”
Case steadied himself. This situation could be dealt with. “Yeah,” he said. “I understand you feel betrayed, but you don’t know by whom.”
“No witness, no crime?”
“I’m not the villain.”
“Is Helms there?”
“Right here.”
“Put him on.”
Doug Case did not bother covering the phone as he whispered, “It’s Paul Janson. He’s here! On the Vulcan Queen, demanding we bring the press up to the bridge—of this ship—to meet Ferdinand Poe.”
“The bridge? The DP is up there.”
“He figured that out. Here!” He offered the phone. “Try not to piss him off.”
“Janson,” Helms said smoothly. “I hope you are in your right mind and not about to do anything rash.”
“I’m staying alive by threatening rash. I am not sure who is behind all this. I will find out. In the meantime, I have stopped you cold.”
“Surely we can work something out.”
“Is the Buddha there?”
Kingsman Helms pressed the phone into the CEO’s wrinkled hand.
* * *
BRUCE DANFORTH HAD heard a helicopter land a minute ago and had wondered who was on it. Now he knew. He put a smile on his face for the benefit of the reporters and executives and muttered so they could not hear, “Bruce Danforth here, Janson. You know I always wanted to shake your hand back in the day. But your old boss, Derek Collins, informed me that the lawyers said that we were better off never shaking hands in the event I had to deny your existence.”
“I learned to trust Derek,” Janson said coldly.
“I was Derek’s boss.”
“That’s news to me.”
“Way back in the day. By the time you came along I had retired into the private sector. But I keep up with the top people, the best. Perhaps I’ll get my wish tonight.”
“I can’t shake your hand. I’m holding a weapon.”
“You could put it down.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You could name a price to leave quietly.”
“You could name who murdered my pilots and Dr. Terry Flannigan.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“You could also tell me who called in the Reaper attack on Pico Clarence.”
“Now I’m truly baffled,” the Buddha said smoothly.
* * *
PAUL JANSON KNEW that he was beaten, for the moment, in his desire to connect crimes perpetrated by faceless minions to the masterminds on high. He had just proven that private jets, fleets of helicopters, and giant ships made corporation men feel safe, even when they weren’t. But the sense of entitlement bestowed by those layers upon layers upon layers of separation from ordinary people empowered the corporation with the mighty strength of bland denial. Janson could rail at ASC’s CEO until he was blue in the face, but Bruce Danforth and Kingsman Helms and Doug Case could shelter for years in a castle built of layers and layers and layers of hidden truths, half-truths, and unknowable lies. For years. But not forever, Janson promised himself. To attack the masterminds on high, he would have to dismantle their castle stone by stone.
“Bring the media,” he told Danforth. “You, Helms, Case, and the reporters only. No one else.”
* * *
KINCAID RESTED HER cheek against the M110’s stock and searched for Iboga in the night scope’s circle of fire.
The commandos had crept within a hundred yards of the prison gates. Iboga was in the lead. She wondered why they were waiting so long to fire their rockets. Iboga signaled with his, waving them ahead, urging them even closer, and Kincaid realized that he wanted them so close that they could storm the gates the instant they blew them open.
Iboga commanded like a born leader. For what had to be a quickly thrown-together unit, their discipline was impressive. Only if they saw him dead would they give up the attack.
Iboga crouched behind a palm tree eighty yards from the gates.
He had finally stopped moving.
Nine hundred meters was a very long shot.
Kincaid aligned her rifle on him. She moved her heels to lie straight with the gun. She held her head upright. She peered with her right eye directly behind the night scope. She closed both eyes, took several measured breaths. She opened her eyes. The crosshairs were on the tree an inch from Iboga’s head. She moved her heels a quarter inch, lined up, and lay still. She found her point of aim three inches below the agal cord that tied his kaffiyeh to his skull.
She inhaled. She exhaled. She touched the trigger. The crosshairs drifted right. She released pressure on the trigger, inhaled, exhaled, and regained her point of aim. She touched the trigger and pulled it steadily back, back, back, back—
The clock tower bell pealed the first stroke of midnight. It clanged thunderously and shook the stone floor.
Miss!
She could hear her daddy laughing like he was sitting on her shoulder. Eight years old, practicing and practicing to show him she could shoot as good as any damned son he never had. Lookit, Didder. She hadn’t yet overcome the speech impediment that made her mispronounce certain words, so she made up words, “Didder” for “Daddy.” “Squirrel” was “skizzy.” Skizzy up a seventy-foot oak tree. Lookit, Didder!
The damn squirrel zigged when it should have zagged.
Miss. Didder laughed.
She’d practiced loading, too—loading quick and firing fast till her shoulder ached from the recoils. Bolt-action .22. She popped a fresh round in the chamber faster than that little sucker could climb and at least on that one day won her father’s heart. “The second shot,” he told her proudly that night, scrambling eggs and squirrel brains for their supper, “the shot after you missed, that shot separated the men from the boys.”
Iboga must have felt the bullet pass. But he didn’t know from where, assumed it came from the prison instead of half a mile in back of him, and stayed behind his tree while the parliament clock boomed twelve strokes and Kincaid lined up her second shot.
* * *
PAUL JANSON CROUCHED in shadow at the front of the bridge with his back to a steel bulkhead and his eyes raking the doors and windows in case someone in ASC security planned to be stupid. The Vulcan Queen’s DP controllers that flanked the helm were so critical to the deepwater drilling operation that there were redundant units in the event of system failure. Janson aimed his MP5 at the one on the left, which was currently offline. Swiveling the barrel would take out the one on the right.
Kingsman Helms came first, bounding up the stairs. The captain intercepted him, as Janson had instructed, and kept him by the elevators. Both elevator
doors opened simultaneously and an old man who had to be Bruce Danforth stepped out of the first one, followed by Doug Case in his wheelchair, which he immediately raised to full height. The other elevator delivered the reporters. Janson counted three men and two women, one of whom he recognized as a brave and beautiful NPR correspondent he had slept with years ago in Afghanistan.
Those wielding mini video cameras for their Web sites suddenly focused on Ferdinand Poe, who walked slowly in from the bridge wing. He looked tired and weary and too old to be cradling an FN P90 personal defense weapon.
“There you are, Mr. Acting President. Everyone wants to meet you, sir.”
Helms reached out to sling a comradely arm around Ferdinand Poe. The old man eluded him and stood aloof for his introduction. Helms uttered the bare minimum.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a brave patriot: Acting President of Isle de Foree Ferdinand Poe.”
“Good evening,” said Poe. “Or night. It’s late. I know you all traveled a long, long way to our island nation and I will make two brief remarks. One, a splendid commercial oil discovery is being confirmed in Isle de Foreen waters by this drill ship on which we stand—good news for the people of Isle de Foree and good news for consuming nations dependent on Nigeria’s dwindling reserves.”
He stared past them as though collecting his thoughts, but he was looking into the shadow where Janson hid, waiting for news about Iboga. One of the reporters, a tall man in a white shirt, followed Poe’s gaze.
Tsk.
Janson had his earpiece plugged into his sat phone. He brought the phone to his lips. “Go ahead.”
“It’s over.” She sounded utterly wiped out.
“Good job.”
“Can we go home now?”
Paul Janson stood and flashed Poe the thumbs-up.
As he did, the reporter in the white shirt dropped his camera. Stooping as if to pick it up, the reporter slid a pistol from an ankle holster and charged straight at Janson, cocking the gun with the practiced grace of a trained professional. Janson barely had time to raise the MP5 and thumb the fire selector off AUTO. But the real reporters were directly behind the imposter, and he couldn’t fire—even on semiautomatic—without risking killing an innocent.
Janson dropped his weapon and stepped forward, raising his hands.
“No prisoners,” the gunman said, and Janson could see in his eyes that he meant to kill him. A woman screamed. Men shouted and dove to the deck. But by then Janson’s step forward had brought the gunman within range of his combat boots. The sound of a knee breaking was almost as loud as the shot the gunman managed to squeeze off as he fell.
The bullet burned across Janson’s leg and pierced the online DP unit. An alarm shrilled and the backup cut in automatically.
Janson kicked his fallen attacker twice more and the man lay still. “Case!” Janson shouted. “Call your boys off. You’ve only got one DP left.”
Bruce Danforth raised his voice before Case could speak. “Security, stand down. No one move. No one.” With a tight smile, he added, “Excepting the masked operator with the gun. Your call, sir. What do you want?”
Paul Janson stepped back into the shadows. “I want President Poe to complete his remarks. I want the reporters to listen carefully. Continue, please, President Poe.”
“Two,” said Ferdinand Poe. “I am gratified to announce that a clumsy attempt to overthrow my government by former dictator Iboga has been put down. Bloodshed was minimal. I stand before you alive and well, and the former dictator has been captured.”
“Killed,” Janson interrupted.
“Killed,” Poe echoed. He stooped to lay his machine gun on the deck and stood displaying empty hands.
Janson smiled. He had backed a winner.
“I say to my soldiers and their officers—all their officers—the brutal days of Iboga are done forever. Iboga is gone forever. I am also pleased to announce that a sizable portion of the treasury Iboga stole has been recovered. It is a good day in Isle de Foree.… Do you have any questions?”
The reporters looked over their shoulders to where Janson had stood, looked at the fallen security man with one leg twisted at a terrible angle, and turned around again to look agape at Poe. The woman Janson remembered from Afghanistan recovered first.
“Would you call it a fortunate coincidence, or did you just happen to be aboard the Vulcan Queen when the coup was launched?”
“Fortunate, in that I was not present to be killed.”
The bridge rang with laugher.
“And a happy coincidence,” said Poe. “Because when the good news came of Iboga’s surrender we were already celebrating negotiating new terms of our royalty contract with the fine people of the American Synergy Corporation who have agreed to allow other oil companies to participate in developing Isle de Foree’s spectacular new reserves. A consortium will be formed. Its board of directors will include Isle de Foreen government ministers.”
Ferdinand Poe thrust his scarred hand at Kingsman Helms.
Helms shook it with a ghastly smile.
Janson watched Doug Case’s face as the journalists pushed past his wheelchair to get close to Poe and Helms. For the life of him, he could not read what Doug was thinking.
* * *
THE EMBRAER HELD too many ghosts. They flew commercial to Lisbon, slept round the clock in a fine hotel, then boarded a plane to New York. Janson read about Czar Alexander’s defeat of Napoléon. Kincaid watched movies, stared out the window, and paced the aisles. They caught a cab into Midtown and walked the sidewalks, working out the travel kinks.
“You still don’t believe in revenge?” Kincaid asked.
Janson hesitated. “Generally that is still true. I wish I could say never, but not this time.”
“But you didn’t kill them.”
“I don’t know which one to kill. I do not know which of them is the bad guy. One of them? Two of them? All of them? But at least I took away what they wanted.”
“You took away Isle de Foree.”
“And left them alive to live with their defeat.”
“What makes you think they won’t try again?”
Paul Janson grinned, suddenly optimistic, hoping that he could fix what was broken. “What makes them think I won’t stop them again?”
“Why do you have such an Achilles’ heel for Doug Case?”
Taken aback, Janson asked, “In what way? What do you mean?”
“You’re so quick to believe him. The story you told me about how he shot the operator who was torturing an asset? How do you know it’s true? Who knows what really happened and why he shot the guy?”
“Doug’s story is true.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“I was there.”
“You were there? You were there? I didn’t realize that.… I’m surprised you didn’t shoot the guy yourself.”
“It wasn’t an option.”
“Why not?”
“My hands were tied.”
Kincaid looked at him, her big eyes growing bigger. “You were the asset being tortured by the agent Doug Case shot?”
“The agent was a sadistic lunatic—one of those people who look for an excuse to feel righteous causing pain. He convinced himself I was a traitor. I wasn’t. Doug intervened on my behalf. But it was traumatic. He knew the guy well, had been through the wars with him. It pretty much destroyed him.”
Kincaid nodded her head for a long time. At last, she said, “Wow.”
Janson said, “The experience left me with warm feelings toward Doug.”
They crossed Broadway and walked a half block through tourists and crowds of people getting out of the theaters. Somewhere a loudspeaker was blaring “Shake That Thing.”
Kincaid asked, “Can we agree on something?”
“Anything.”
“Can we agree that you are not entirely clearheaded on the subject of American Synergy Corporation’s president of security?”
“Agreed,”
said Paul Janson.
They walked into the Hotel Edison and down a steep flight of stairs.
The Nighthawks were playing “Blue Skies.”
The curly-haired brunette knockout who took the cover charge never forgot a face. “Welcome back,” she said to Kincaid. “Good to see you, again.”
Paul Janson got the dazzling smile reserved for new customers.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my old shipmate Hunt Hatch; my old schoolmate Mike Coligny; my generous cockpit host Ed Daugherty; and Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome “mechanician” Christopher Ford for helping me understand airplanes. And thank you Alasdair Lyon and Ken Pike for showing me what astonishing machines helicopters are.
Afterword
For a young writer starting out in New York, few pleasures equaled being hailed across a crowded publishing party by Robert Ludlum. He would burst from a circle of admirers, his big, cheery face alight with a welcoming smile, throw an arm around my shoulders, hug hard with astonishing strength, and announce to the scores of literary kings and queens within range of his mighty voice, “Meet the best writer I know.” This style of introduction was pure Bob Ludlum. That it was typical of his generous support and boundless enthusiasm toward new writers in no way diminished the thrill.
When, years later, I was invited to create a new series based on Consular Operations “Machine” Paul Janson, the haunted hero of one of Bob’s later novels, the first thing I remembered was basking in the affectionate glow of his enthusiasm. I remembered, too, the upbeat ending of The Janson Directive—a finely plotted thriller of betrayal that was a stylistic throwback to the taut novels he was writing way back when he and I first met.
I recalled that the end of the novel reflected the Robert Ludlum I knew—the big fellow with his arms wide, a scotch in one hand, a smoke in the other, flashing the hope-filled smile of a man who celebrated everyone’s dreams.
I reread The Janson Directive to see what, if anything, I could bring to it. It was good. It was exciting. It had some dauntingly gorgeous writing, and some equally daunting research, and the end was even better than I remembered.
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command Page 32