The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,19

what had once been a colonial governor general's compound and, before that, a fortress - the building on Adam's Hill known by the Dutch as the Steenpaleis, the Stone Palace.

Again and again he stared at the elevation mappings of Adam's Hill and of the Stone Palace, moving back and forth between overhead views and structural blueprints. One conclusion was inescapable. If the U.S. government had declined to send in the SEALs, political considerations were only part of the story. The other part was that any exfiltration operation had an extremely remote probability of success.

Lang's associates knew it. He could see it in their faces: they were asking him to conduct a mission that was essentially doomed from the start. But perhaps nobody was willing to tell Marta Lang. Or she had been told and refused to accede. It was clear that she regarded Peter Novak as somebody worth dying for. She would give her life for him; and people like her were always willing to give the lives of others as well. Yet could he say that she was wrong? American lives had frequently been lost in pursuit of derisory gains - putting up a bridge over the Dak Nghe, for the tenth time, that would be destroyed, for the tenth time, before morning came. Peter Novak was a great man. Many owed their lives to him. And, though he tried to put it out of his mind, Janson knew he was among them.

If people were unwilling to put themselves at risk to save such an apostle of enlightenment, what did it say about the ideals of peace and democracy to which Novak had devoted his own life? Extremists scoffed at Westerners and their lightly held beliefs, yet was extremism in pursuit of moderation not itself a moral contradiction? Wasn't Janson's recognition of that fact what had driven him to retire?

Abruptly, Janson sat up straight. There was a way - perhaps.

"We'll need aircraft, boats, and most of all, the right operatives," he told Lang. His voice had subtly shifted, from the mode of gathering information to that of issuing orders. He stood and paced silently. The make-or-break factor was going to be the men, not the machinery.

Marta Lang looked at the others expectantly; for the moment, anyway, the look of grim resignation had lifted.

"I'm talking about a crack team of specialists," he said. "Best of breed in every case. There's no time for training exercises - it's going to have to be people who have worked together before, people I've worked with and can trust." He pictured a succession effaces, flashing in his mind like so many file photos, and mentally culled the list according to essential criteria until four remained. Each was someone he had worked with in his past career. Each was someone he felt he could trust with his life; indeed, each was someone who owed him his life, and who, temperamentally, would respect a debt of honor. And none of them, as it happened, were American nationals. The State Department could breathe easy. He gave Lang the list. Four men from four different countries.

Suddenly Janson slapped the bolted table. "Christ!" he half shouted. "What was I thinking? You're going to have to scratch the last name, Sean Hennessy."

"He's dead?"

"Not dead. Behind bars. Her Majesty's Prison Service. HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Got embroiled on a weapons charge a few months ago. Suspected of being IRA."

"Was he?"

"As it happens, no. Hadn't been since he was sixteen, but the military police kept his name in its Provo files all the same. In point of fact, he was doing a job for Sandline Ltd. - keeping the Democratic Republic of Congo safe for coltan extraction."

"Is he the best person for the job you want him to do?"

"I'd be lying if I told you otherwise."

Lang punched a series of numbers on what looked like a flat telephone console, and brought the handset to her ear.

"This is Marta Lang," she said, speaking with clipped precision. "Marta Lang. Please verify."

Sixty long seconds elapsed. Finally she spoke again. "Sir Richard, please." The number dialed was obviously not one that was in general circulation; it was unnecessary to specify to whomever had answered that it was an emergency, for that assumption would be automatic. Verification no doubt involved both voice print analysis and a telephony trace to the ANSI signature unique to every North American telephone line, including those that used a sat-com uplink.

"Sir Richard," she said, her voice defrosting slightly. "I have the name of