The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,105

with the distaste he reserved for older financial instruments, directives and stipulations that could not be reduced to strings of ones and zeros.

"This makes no sense."

"Makes dollars!" Herman said merrily. "If somebody put sixteen million dollars in Grigori account, Grigori not insist on dental examination of gift horse." He held out his hands. "I wish I could tell you more."

Had Peter Novak been betrayed by somebody near and dear to him? If so, by whom? A high-ranking member of his organization? Marta Lang herself? She spoke of him, it seemed, with genuine affection and respect. Yet what did that prove, aside from that she might have been an accomplished actress? What now seemed irrefutable was that whoever had betrayed Novak was in a position to have earned his trust. And that meant the agent was a master of deception, a virtuoso of the patient arts of craft and deceit and waiting. But to what end?

"You come with me," Berman said. "I show you house." He put an arm around Janson's shoulder and propelled him up the stairs, down the magnificent hallways of the estate, and into the airy, light-filled kitchen. He pressed a finger to his lip. "Mr. French not want us in kitchen. But Russians know that heart of house is kitchen."

Berman stepped toward the glittering stainless-steel sink, where the casement windows looked onto a beautifully tended rose garden. Beyond it stretched Regent's Park. "Take a look - twenty-four hundred acres in the middle of London, like my backyard." He pulled out the sink spray nozzle and held it to his mouth like microphone. "Someone left the scones out in the rain," he sang in a thick Russian basso. "I don't think that I can take it ... " He pulled Janson closer, trying to form a duet. He raised an expressive hand high in the air, like an opera singer on the stage.

There was a tinkle of glass, and Berman broke off with a sharp expulsion of breath. A moment later, he slumped to the floor.

A small red hole was just visible on the front of his hand. On the upper left quadrant of his shirtfront was another puncture wound, just slightly rimmed with red.

"Jesus Christ!" Janson shouted.

Time slowed.

Janson looked down at Berman, stunned and motionless on the gray tiled kitchen, and then out of the window. Outside, there was no sign of disturbance whatever. The afternoon sun nuzzled well-tended rosebushes, their small pink and white blossoms radiantly emerging from the tight-clustered leaves. The sky was blue, dappled with sparse wisps of white.

It seemed impossible, but it had happened, and his brain raced to make sense of it, even as he heard the approaching footsteps of the butler, obviously roused by his exclamation. On arrival, the butler immediately pulled Berman's supine body out of range of the window, sliding it along the floor. It was the correct response. He, too, scanned the view from the window, holding a P7 sentry pistol in a hand as he did so. An amateur might have fired a shot out of the window for show: the butler did not do so. He had seen what Janson had seen; an exchange of glances revealed his bafflement. Just a few seconds elapsed before the two retreated to the hallway, safely away from the window. From the floor, Berman made rasping, wet noises, as breath forced its way through his injured airway, and his fingers began to scrabble at his chest wound. "Motherfucker," he said in a strangled voice. "Tvoyu mat'!"

The fingers of his intact right hand trembled with exertion, as the Russian probed his wound with remarkable single-mindedness. He was fishing for the bullet, and gasping for breath, he yanked a crumpled mass of brass and lead from his chest.

"Look," Janson said to the butler. "I know this has to be a shock to you, but I'm going to need you to stay calm and collected, Mr ... "

"Thwaite. And I've had fifteen years in the SAS. This isn't a perimeter breach, we both know that. We're looking at something else."

"SAS, huh?"

"Mr. Berman may be crazy, but he's not a fool. A man like that's got enemies. We've prepared for the usual exigencies. But that shot came out of the clear blue. I can't explain it."

How had it happened?

Janson's mind emptied, and then filled with elliptic curves and right angles. The horrific scene of bloodshed he had just witnessed dissolved into a shifting geometrical schema.

He'd need every fact that was available to him. He