The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,13

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?"

Marta 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. Helens opening the bedroom windows wide, inviting in the tropical morning air, scented with cinnamon and mango and frangipani. The radiance of her face, retrousse 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