The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,114

removed a cartridge. He gave out a low whistle.

A mystery solved. It was a 458 Whisper, a cartridge made by SSK Industries, which propelled a custom six-hundred-grain very-low-drag Winchester magnum. The VLD bullets lost velocity slowly, retaining a great deal of energy even at distances exceeding a mile. But the feature that had made it irresistible was that it launched the bullet at subsonic velocities. It eliminated the cracking noise of the supersonic bullet, while the small amount of powder diminished the internal detonation. Hence the name: Whisper. Someone just a few yards away would hear nothing.

"OK, sport," Janson said, impressed despite himself by her cool. "I need to know the location of the others. And don't bullshit me." With a few quick movements, he stripped the M40A1 of its magazine, and threw it high into the tree's tangled branches, where it lodged, once more a branch among branches to the casual viewer. Then he leveled the Beretta at her head.

She glared at him for a few long moments. He returned her look with complete impassivity: he would kill her, without compunction. Only luck had prevented her from killing him.

"There's one other guy," she started.

Janson looked at her appraisingly. She was an antagonist, but with luck, she could be turned into an asset, someone he could use as a shield and as a source of information. She knew where the fortified positions were, where the members of the sniper team were nested.

She was also a glib and effortless liar.

With his gun hand, he reached over and cuffed her hard on the side of the head.

"Let's not begin this relationship with lies, sweetheart," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, you're just a killer. You almost shot me, and you endangered lives of noncombatants in the effort."

"Bullshit," she drawled. "I knew just what the margin of error was at all times. Four feet in any direction from your torso midline. None of my shots exceeded that error margin, and the field of fire was clean before each trigger pull. Nobody was in jeopardy. Except you."

The geometry she described was consistent with what he had observed: that much was probably the truth. But to achieve that tight a cluster from more than five hundred yards away made her an off-the-charts marksman.

A phenomenon.

"OK. Axial formation. It would be a waste of manpower to station another marksman within fifty yards of you. But I also know there are at least three others spread out in the vicinity. Not to mention whoever's on the Wilmut-Dixon crane ... Plus at least two others using tree cover."

"If you say so."

"I admire your discretion," Janson said. "But if you're not any use to me alive, I really can't afford to keep you around." He cocked the Beretta, his forefinger curling around the trigger, testing its resistance.

"OK, OK," she blurted. "I'll deal."

The concession came too quickly. "Forget it, baby. There's no trust." He flipped back the safety once more and placed his finger on the trigger, flexing the hardened steel. "Ready for your close-up?"

"No, wait," she said. Any vestige of bravado had evaporated. "I'll tell you what you want to know. If I'm lying, you'll find out and you can kill me then."

"My game, my rules. You give me the location of the nearest sniper. We approach. If you're wrong, you die. If the sniper repositioned himself without notifying the team, too bad. You die. If you give me away, you die. Remember, I know the systems, the protocols, and the procedures. I probably wrote half of them."

She stood up shakily. "All right, man. Your game, your rules. First thing you gotta know is, we're all working as singletons - camouflage requirements ruled out partners, so we're all doing our own range finding. Second thing is, we've got somebody stationed on the roof over Hanover Terrace."

He flashed on the majestic neoclassical villa facing the park, where many of England's grandest citizens made their homes. The blue and white frieze over the architrave. The white pillars and cream-colored walls. The marksmen would have to be perched behind the balusters. True? No, another lie. He would have been dead by now.

"You're not using your head, sport," he said. "A sniper on the balustrade would have already taken me out. He'd also be visually exposed to the crew repairing the roofs on Cumberland Terrace. You considered the position, and rejected it." Once more, he cuffed her hard, and she staggered back a few steps. "Two strikes. One more, I kill you."

She lowered

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