The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,130

minister, having been in The Hague to meet with members of the government, was visiting Amsterdam. There he would meet members of the stock exchange and leading figures of its financial community, to discuss Dutch-Czech cooperative ventures. Another inconsequential trip, by someone whose job it was to make such trips, hoping to raise the level of foreign investment in a country that was pining for it. Holland was rich; the Czech Republic was not. It was the same sort of trip that might have taken place a century ago, or two centuries ago, or three, and probably had. It would, one could safely hazard, solve no problems for the Czech Republic. But it just might solve a problem for Janson.

"Let's go shopping," Janson said, standing up.

Cooper was not taken aback by the sudden change of topic; his cannabis haze made the world as aleatory as a roll of the dice. "Cool," he said. "Munchies?"

"Clothes shopping. Fancy stuff. Top of the line."

"Oh," he said, disappointed. "Well, there's a place I never go, but I know it's real expensive. On Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, just off the Dam, a few blocks away.

"Excellent," Janson said. "Why don't you come along? I might need a translator." More to the point, if anybody was keeping an eye out for him, they would not be expecting him to be traveling with a companion.

"Happy to," Cooper said. "But everybody understands 'MasterCard.' "

The building that housed the Magna Plaza was erected a hundred years ago as a post office, though, with its ornate stonework, vaulted ceilings, pilasters, string courses, and little round-arched galleries, it seemed overdressed for the purpose. Only after it was converted into a shopping mall did its excesses come to seem appropriate. Now forty stores lined its gallery walkway. At an upscale men's clothing store, Janson tried on a suit, a size 53. It was Ungaro, and its price tag came to the equivalent of two thousand dollars. The regularity of Janson's frame meant that off-the-rack clothing tended to look bespoke on him. This suit did.

A salesman with a stiffly gelled comb-over glided across the floor and attached himself like a remora to his American customer.

"If I may say, the fit is excellent," the salesman said. He was smarmy and solicitous, as no doubt he always was around price tags with commas. "And the fabric is superb on you. It's a beautiful suit. Very elegant. Dashing yet understated." Like many Dutch, he spoke English with only a trace of an accent.

Janson turned to Cooper. His bloodshot, unfocused eyes suggested that his mental fog had not entirely dispersed. "He's saying he thinks it looks good on you," Cooper said.

"When they're talking in English, Barry, you actually don't need to translate," Janson said. He turned to the salesman. "I assume you take cash. If you can do up the cuffs right now, you've got a sale. If not, not."

"Well, we have a fitter here. But the tailoring is normally done elsewhere. I could have it sent by courier to you tomorrow ... "

"Sorry," Janson said, and turned to leave.

"Wait," the salesman said, seeing his commission on a substantial sale evaporate. "We can do it. Just let me have a talk with the fitter, and give us ten minutes. If I have to walk it across the street, I'll see that it's done. Because, how do you say it in the States, the customer is always right."

"Words to gladden a Yank's heart," Janson said.

"Indeed, we know this about you Americans," the salesman said carefully. "Everywhere we know this."

Washington, D.C.

The large man with the maroon tie flagged the taxicab at the corner of Eighteenth and M Streets, near a bar-and-grill with a neon sign in the window advertising a carbonated beverage. The cabdriver wore a turban and favored public radio. His new passenger was a well-dressed man, a little wide around the waist, thick around the haunches. He could bench-press three hundred pounds, but he also liked his beer and his beef, and didn't see why he needed to change his habits. He was good at what he did, had never had any complaints, and it wasn't as if he moonlighted as a catalog model.

"Take me to Cleveland Park," he said. "Four thirty Macomb Street."

The Sikh driver repeated the address, jotted it down on his clipboard, and they set off. The address turned out to be an out-of-business supermarket, boarded up and bleak.

"Are you sure this is it?" the driver asked.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Actually, would you mind driving into the