The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,145

again. To take her with him was madness, self-evident madness.

But maybe there was some sense in the madness.

"Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus!" Clayton Ackerley, the man from the CIA's Directorate of Operations, was practically keening, and the sterile phone line did nothing to diminish the immediacy of his terror. "They're fucking taking us out."

"What are you talking about?" Douglas Albright's voice was truculent but alarmed.

"You don't know?"

"I heard about Charlotte, yes. It's awful. A terrible accident - and a terrible blow."

"You don't know!"

"Slow down and tell it to me in English."

"Sandy Hildreth."

"No!"

"They fished up his limo. Goddamn armored limo. On the bottom of the Potomac. He was in the backseat. Drowned!"

A long silence. "Oh Jesus. It's not possible."

"I'm looking at the police report right now."

"Couldn't have been some sort of accident? Some horrible, horrible coincidence?"

"An accident? Oh sure, that's what they've got it down as. Driver was speeding, eyewitnesses saw the car as it skidded off the bridge. Like with Charlotte Ainsley - some cabdriver loses control of his car, does a hit-and-run. And now there's Onishi."

"What?"

"They found Kaz's body this morning."

"Dear God."

"Corner of Fourth and L Streets in the near Northeast."

"What the hell was he doing there?"

"According to the coroner's report, there was phencyclidine in his blood. That's PCP - angel dust. And a lot of other shit besides. Officially, he OD'd on the street corner, outside a crack house. 'We see this all the time,' is what one of the city cops said."

"Kaz? That's crazy!"

"Of course it's crazy. But that's how they did it. The fact is that these three key members of our program have been killed within twenty-four hours of one another."

"Christ, it's true - they're picking us off, one by one. So who's next? Me? You? Derek? The secretary of state? POTUS himself?"

"I've been on the phone with them. Everybody's trying not to panic and not doing the greatest job of it. Fact is, we're all marked. We just joined the goddamn endangered-species list."

"But it doesn't make any sense!" Albright exploded. "Nobody knows who we are. Nothing connects us! Nothing except the most tightly guarded secret in the United States government."

"Let's be a little more precise. Even if nobody who's not in the program knows, he knows.

"Now wait a minute ... "

"You know who I'm talking about."

"Christ. I mean, what have we done? What have we done?"

"He hasn't just cut his strings. He's killing everybody who ever pulled them."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The sun filtered through the mulberry trees and tall pines, which spread their boughs protectively over the cottage. It was remarkable how well it blended into its surroundings, Janson noted with satisfaction as he walked through the door. He had just returned from a stroll down the path to the tiny village, a few miles down the mountain, and carried groceries and an armload of newspapers: 17 Piccolo, Corriere delle Alpi, La Repubblica. Within the cottage, the austerity of the stone exterior was belied by the richly burnished boiserie and warm terra-cotta tiling throughout; the frescoes and ceiling paintings seemed to belong to another age and way of life altogether.

Now Janson entered the bedroom where the woman was still sleeping and prepared a cool, damp compress for her forehead. Her fever was subsiding; time and antibiotics had had their effect. And time had had its healing effect on him, too. The drive to the Lombardy redoubt had taken all night and some of the next morning. She was conscious for little of it, waking up for only the last few miles. It had been picture-perfect northern Italian countryside - the yellow fields of dried cornstalks, the groves of chestnut trees and poplars, the ancient churches with modern spires, the vineyards, Lombard castles perched on crags. Behind them, the gray-blue Alps stood over the horizon like a wall. Yet by the time they arrived, it was clear that the woman had been badly affected by her ordeal, much more so than she had realized.

The few times he had watched her sleep, he saw a woman tossing and turning, in the grip of powerful and disturbing dreams. She would whimper, occasionally lash out with an arm.

Now he draped a cloth drenched in cold water upon her forehead. She tossed feebly, a low moan of protest escaping her throat. After a few moments, she coughed and opened her eyes. He quickly poured water into a glass from the jug at her bedside, and had her drink from it. Before, once she'd taken a drink, she had sunk back into her