The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,213

limited effectiveness, was essentially undetectable. So at intervals, Janson changed his vehicle. If anyone was attempting to keep tabs on his movements, it would make a difficult task even more so.

A 120-pound dog lunged repeatedly at a heavy-gauge Cyclone fence as Janson got out of his Altima and made his way toward the low trailerlike office. all offers considered read a sign in the window. The large animal - he was a mongrel, whose ancestors seemed to include a pit bull and a Doberman, and possibly a mastiff - was penned into one corner of the lot and once more threw himself against the unyielding Cyclone fence. Aside from his size, the wretched mutt was a perfect contrast to the old crone's noble white-coated Kuvasz, Janson mused. But perhaps the animals were only as different as the masters they served.

A thirtyish man with a cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth sauntered out of the trailer. He thrust out a hand toward Janson, a bit too abruptly. For a split instinctual second, Janson readied himself to deliver a crushing blow to his neck; then he reached out and clasped the man's hand. It bothered him that those reflexes signaled themselves in perfectly civil contexts, but they were the same reflexes that had saved his life on countless occasions. Violence, when it appeared, so often was inappropriate, out of context. What mattered was that such impulses were under Janson's control. He would not be leaving the younger man sprawled on the pavement, howling in pain. He would be leaving him pleased at an advantageous trade-in supplemented with a pocketful of cash.

"I'm Jed Sipperly," the man said, with a showily firm handshake; somebody must have told him that a firm handshake inspired confidence. His face was fleshy but firm beneath a thatch of straw-colored hair; the sun had burned a ruddy crease that started near the bridge of his nose and curved beneath his eyes. Perhaps it was because he had driven for too many hours straight, but Janson suddenly had a vision of what the salesman would look like in a few decades. The meaty lips and padded cheeks would grow loose; the sun-exposed contours of his face would turn into furrows, ravines. What now passed for healthy ruddiness would coarsen into a webbing of capillaries, like cross-hatchings on an engraving. The yellow hair would whiten and retrench to a zone around his nape and temples, the usual follicular fallback.

On the fake-wood table in the shadowed office, Janson could make out an open brown Budweiser bottle and a nearly full ashtray. These things, too, would speed the transformation, doubtless already had started to.

"Now, what kin I do you for?" Jed's breath was faintly beery, and as he stepped closer, the sun picked out his crow's-feet.

There was another cage-rattling lunge from the dog.

"Don't you mind Butch," the man said. "I think he enjoys it. You excuse me for a moment?" Jed Sipperly walked outside to the pavement near the chain-link enclosure and stooped down to pick up a small Raggedy Ann-style cloth doll. He tossed it into the enclosed area. It turned out to be what the mammoth dog was pining for: he bounded over to it, and began to cradle it between huge paws. With a few laps of his floppy pink tongue he cleaned the dust from the rag doll's button-and-yarn features.

Jed returned to his customer with an apologetic shrug. "Look at him slobber on it - dog's so attached to that doll, it ain't wholesome," he said. "I guess everybody's got a somebody. A real good guard dog, 'cept he won't bark. Which is sometimes a saving grace." A professional smile: his lips curved up in an isolated movement; the eyes remained watchful and without warmth. It was the kind of smile that bureaucrats shared with shopkeepers. "That your Nissan Altima?"

"Thinking of a trade," Janson said.

Jed looked slightly pained, a merchant asked to give to charity. "We get a lot of those cars. I like 'em. Got a weakness for 'em. Be my undoing. Lots of people don't particularly care for those Japan cars, especially hereabouts. How many miles you got on it?"

"Fifty thou," Janson said. "A little more."

Another wince. "Good time for a trade, then. Because those Nissan transmissions start making trouble once you reach sixty. Give you that for nothing. Anybody'll tell you the same thing."

"Thanks for the tip," Janson said, nodding at the patent lies of a used-car salesman. There was something almost endearing about