The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,217

as was usual with derelicts, were torn and filthy and unseasonably heavy - the clothing had to be thick enough to ward off the cold of a night spent in an alleyway, and the warming rays of the sun would not impel her to strip off a single layer, for her clothes and her sack filled with bottles and tin cans were all she had to her name. At her wrists and ankles, grime-gray thermal underwear showed beneath fraying, soiled denim. Her shoes were oversize sneakers, the rubber soles beginning to split, the laces broken and tied together again, in floppy schoolgirl knots. Pulled down low on her forehead was a nylon-mesh baseball cap, promoting not a sports team but a once-high-flying Silicon Alley "incubator" fund that went under the year before. She clutched the grungy satchel as if it contained treasure. Her grip expressed the primal urgency of possession: This is what I have in this world. It is mine. It is me. Time for such as her was meted out by nights she escaped unmolested, by the cans and bottles she collected and traded in for nickels, by the small serendipities she encountered - the intact sandwich, still soft and protected by plastic wrap, untouched by rodents. On her hands were cotton gloves, now gray and sooty, which might once have been a debutante's, and as she rummaged through the plastic bottles and skeins of cellophane and apple cores and banana peels and crumpled advertising flyers, the gloves grew even dirtier.

Yet Jessica Kincaid's eyes were not, in fact, on the refuse; they returned regularly to the small mirror that she had propped against the trash can and that allowed her to monitor those arriving at and departing from the Liberty Foundation offices across the street. After days of a fruitless watch, Janson's confederate, Cornelius Eaves, had called last night excitedly: Marta Lang seemed finally to have made an appearance.

It was not a mistaken sighting, Jessie now knew. A woman matching Janson's detailed description of Deputy Director Marta Lang had been among the arrivals that morning: a Lincoln Town Car with darkened windows had dropped her off at eight in the morning. In the ensuing hours, there was no sign of her, yet Jessica could not risk leaving her post. Attired as she was, Jessica herself attracted almost no attention, for the city had long since trained itself not to notice such unfortunates in its midst. At intervals, she shuttled between two other wire trash baskets that shared a sight line to the office building on Fortieth Street, but always returned to the one nearest it. About midday, a couple of grounds maintenance people in the bright red outfits of the Bryant Park Business Improvement District had tried to shoo her away, but only halfheartedly: their minimum wages inspired no great exertions on the park's behalf. Later, a Senegalese street merchant with a folding stand and a portfolio of fake Rolexes tried to set up shop near her. Twice, she "accidentally" stumbled over his display, bringing it crashing to the ground. After the second time he decided to relocate his business, though not before hurling a few choice epithets at her in his native tongue.

It was nearly six when the elegant, white-haired woman appeared again, striding through the revolving door of the lobby, her face a mask of unconcern. As the woman stepped into the backseat of the long Lincoln Town Car and purred off toward the intersection at Fifth Avenue, Jessica memorized the license, plate. Quietly, she radioed Cornelius Eaves, whose vehicle - a yellow taxicab with its off duty lights on - had been idling in front of a hotel toward the other end of the block.

Eaves did not know the larger purpose of his assignment; he did know enough not to ask whether it was an officially sanctioned job. Jessica Kincaid, for her part, had been stinting with explanation. Were she and Janson pursuing a private vendetta? Had they been assigned to an ultra-secret project requiring the ad hoc enlistment of irregular talent? Eaves, who had been retired from active duty for a few years and was eager to have something to occupy his time, did not know. The only authorization he required was Janson's personal entreaty - and the look on the young woman's face: it was the limpid confidence of somebody who was doing what had to be done.

Diving into the backseat of Eaves's cab, Jessica yanked off her cap, wriggled out of her