The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,192

Janson said, tossing her the shotgun.

Jessie shrugged. "I never liked him."

"Eagle Scout," Czerny said. "Collecting your merit badges while the world burns."

"I'll ask you one more time: Who are you working for?" Janson demanded.

"The same person you are."

"Don't talk in riddles."

"Everybody works for him now. It's just that only some of us know it." He laughed, a dry, unpleasant laugh. "You think you've got the upper hand. You don't."

"Try me," Janson said. He placed his boot on Czerny's neck, not yet applying any pressure, but making it clear that he could crush him at any moment.

"You fool! He's got the whole U.S. government under his thumb. He's calling the shots now! You're just too ignorant to see it."

"What the hell are you trying to say?"

"You know what they always called you: the machine. Like you weren't human. But there's something else about machines. They do what they're programmed to do."

Janson kicked him in the ribs, hard. "Get one thing straight. We're not playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. We're playing Truth or Consequences."

"You're like one of those Japanese soldiers in the Philippine caves who doesn't know the war's over and they've lost," Czerny said. "It's over, OK? You've lost."

Now Janson bent down and pressed the point of the combat knife to Czerny's face, drawing a jagged line under his left cheek. "Who. Do. You. Work. For."

Czerny blinked hard, his eyes watering with pain and with the realization that nobody would save him.

"Grip it and rip it, baby," Jessie said.

"You'll tell us, sooner or later," Janson said. "You know that. What's up to you is whether you ... lose face over it."

Czerny closed his eyes and a look of resolve settled itself on his face. In a sudden movement, he reached for the hilt of the knife and, with one powerful twist, wrested control of it. Janson pulled back, away from the blade's range, and Jessie stepped forward with the gun, but neither anticipated the man's next move.

He forced the blade down with shaking muscles and, carving deeply, drew it across his own neck. In less than two seconds, he had sliced through the veins and arteries that sustained consciousness. Blood geysered up half a foot, then ebbed as the shock stilled the pumping organ itself.

Czerny had killed himself, had sliced his own throat, rather than expose himself to interrogation.

For the first time in the past hour, the hard ball of rage within Janson subsided, giving way to dismay and disbelief. He recognized the significance of the spectacle before him. Death had been deemed preferable to whatever Czerny knew was in store for him if he were compromised. It suggested a truly fearsome discipline among these marauders: a leadership that ruled, in no small part, through terror.

Millions in a Cayman Islands bank account. A beyond-sanction order from Consular Operations. A Peter Novak who never was, who died and who came back. Like some grotesque parody of the Messiah. Like some Magyar Christ.

Or Antichrist.

And these men, these former members of Consular Operations. Janson had known them only dimly, but something nagged at his memory. Who were these assailants? Were they truly former Cons Op agents? Or were they active ones?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The drive to Sarospatak took only two hours, but they were two hours racked with tension. Janson kept a careful eye out for anyone who might be following them. In town, they made their way past the vast Arpad Gimnazium, part of a local college, with its intricate, curving facade. Finally, they pulled up to a kastely szalloda, or mansion hotel, which had been converted from the property of the former landed gentry.

The clerk at the front desk - a middle-aged man with a sunken chest and an overbite - barely glanced at them or their documents. "We have one vacancy," he said. "Two beds will be suitable?"

"Perfectly," Janson said.

The clerk handed him an old-style hotel key with a rubber-ringed brass weight attached. "Breakfast is served from seven to nine," he said. "Enjoy Sarospatak."

"Your country is so beautiful," Jessie said.

"We think so," the clerk said, smiling perfunctorily without showing teeth. "How long will you be staying?"

"Just one night," Janson said.

"You'll want to visit the Sarospatak castle, Mrs. Pimsleur," he said, as if noticing her for the first time. "The fortifications are most impressive."

"We noticed that, passing through," Janson said.

"It's different up close," the clerk said.

"A lot of things are," Janson replied.

In the sparsely decorated room, Jessie spent twenty minutes on his cell phone. She held a piece of paper on which