The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,163

shoulder: a sheepish grin, and everyone would assume that the guest had simply imbibed too much Zwack Unicum, the spirit of choice at the Palace Hotel.

Janson bowed deeply, placing his forehead against the marble tiled wall. Then he turned, his stooped body signaling boozy exhaustion. Suddenly, explosively, he surged upward and to the right, and as the guard reeled back from the impact, he smashed his knee into his groin. The man grunted and reared up, throwing his looped cord against Janson's shoulders, and frantically trying to slide it upward, around his vulnerable neck. Janson felt the cord digging into his flesh, searing like a band of heat. There was no way but forward: instead of retreating, Janson pressed closer to his assailant, and dug his chin into his opponent's chest. He thrust a hand into the man's shoulder holster and removed the long, silenced handgun: his assailant could not free up his own hands and maintain the pressure on the cord. He had to choose. Now the man dropped the garrote and struck Janson's hand with an underhand blow, sending the gun skidding along the marble floor.

Suddenly, Janson thrust the top of his head against the man's lower jaw. He heard the clicking sound of the man's teeth banging together as the impact of the head butt traveled from jaw to cranium. Simultaneously, he wrapped his right leg around the man's facing leg and drove forward with all his might until the burly man toppled backward to the marble floor. The guard was well trained, though, and swept his leg toward Janson's feet, knocking him to the floor as well. His spine jangling from the impact, Janson scrambled to his feet again and stepped forward, delivering a powerful kick to the man's groin and keeping his leg planted between his thighs. With his right hand, he pulled out the guard's left leg as, with his left hand, he bent the man's other leg at the knee, folding it so that the ankle went over his other knee. There was a look of fury and fear on the man's face as he thrashed violently against Janson's grip, battering him with his hands: he knew what Janson was attempting, and would do anything to prevent it. Yet Janson would not be deterred. Coldly following method when every instinct called for the simplicities of collision or retreat, he lifted the man's straightened leg up and over his own knee for leverage, and wrenched it with all his strength until he heard the joint break. From beneath the wet sheaths of muscle, the sound was not like a piece of wood snapping; it was a quiet popping sound, accompanied by the tactile sense, the sudden give as the ligament of a complicated joint tore irremediably.

The man opened his mouth as if to scream, the excruciating pain reinforced by his awareness that he had just been maimed for life. The knee was broken and would never work quite properly again. Combat injuries usually produced their greatest pain afterward; endorphins and stress hormones dampened much of the acute agony at the time the injuries were inflicted. But the figure-four leg lock had its intended consequence, and the agony of the break was, Janson knew, often sufficient to induce unconsciousness by itself. The guard was no ordinary specimen, however, and his powerful arms were forming grapple hooks even as the pain convulsed him. Janson dropped abruptly, pitching forward so that his knees hit the man's face with the weight of his body. It was an anvil blow. Janson heard the man's quick expulsion of breath as unconsciousness overtook him.

He picked up the silenced revolver - it was, he now saw, a CZ-75, a highly effective handgun of Czech manufacture - and shoved it awkwardly into his deep breast pocket.

There was a knock on the door - dimly, he realized there had been such knocks earlier, which the focus of his mind had not permitted to register - and there were urgent Magyar mutterings as well: guests in need of relief. Janson lifted the burly guard and carefully positioned him on one of the toilets, pulling his trousers down around his ankles. The upper body lolled against the wall, but only his lower extremities would be visible to the guests. He latched the door from the inside, slid underneath the partition, and retracted the dead bolt of the rest room. He walked out to the baleful glares of four florid-faced diners and shrugged apologetically.

The bulky revolver was