The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,220

fought his way through the thick jungle for two full days, straining the very fiber of his existence, and for what? So near and yet so far. For now it would begin all over again, but worse: to the compound's commander, the escape of a prisoner meant a loss of face. The officer would pummel him with bare hands until he had spent his fury. Whether Janson survived the encounter at all depended entirely on how energetic the commander happened to be feeling. Janson began to succumb to a vortex of despair, pulling him down like a powerful riverine current.

No! Not after all he had endured. Not while Demarest still lived. He would not cede him that victory.

Two VCs were marching Janson at gunpoint along a muddy path, one in front of him, one behind him, taking no chances. Villagers had gawked at him, perhaps wondering how someone so wasted, so gaunt, could still move. He wondered that himself. But he could not know the limits of his strength until he reached beyond those limits.

Perhaps he would not have rebelled if the VC behind him hadn't reached over and cuffed him around the neck, exasperated by his slow pace. It seemed the final indignity, and Janson snapped - he let himself snap, and let his trained instincts take over. Your mind does not have a mind of its own, Demarest had told them in their training days, and he meant to emphasize the ways in which they had to exert control over their own consciousness. Yet after sufficient training, learned reflexes took on the ingrained nature of basic instinct, joining the ropy fiber of one's being.

Janson turned around, his feet gliding along the path as if on ice, and cocked his hip to the right without turning his right shoulder, which would have alerted the guard to what was about to happen: an explosive lunge punch with the fingers of his hand tensed and straight, his thumb tucked down and close to his palm. The spear hand plunged into the guard's throat, smashing the cartilage of his trachea and whipping his head back. Then Janson glanced over his shoulder at the other guard, and gained strength from the man's expression of fear and dismay. He directed a powerful rear snap-kick toward his groin, hammering his heel up and back; the blow's strength came from its speed, and the guard's attempt to rush toward him made it twice as effective. Now, as the front guard doubled over, Janson followed with an arcing round kick, whipping into the side of his exposed head. As his foot connected to the man's skull, jolting vibration traveled up his leg, and he wondered briefly whether he had fractured one of his own bones. In truth, he was past caring. Now he grabbed the AK-47 that had been held by the VC behind him, and used it as a cudgel, beating the still-sprawled soldier until he lay limp.

"Xin loi," he grunted. Sorry about that.

He scrambled off, into the jungle and toward the next swell of land. He would struggle on until he reached the shore. This time he was not alone: he had a submachine gun, its buttstock slick with another man's blood. He would persevere, one foot in front of the other, and whoever tried to stop him he would kill. For his enemies there would be no mercy, only death.

And he would not be sorry about that.

One foot in front of the other.

Another hour passed before Janson climbed up the last rocky ledge and saw the Smith Mountain estate. Yes, it was what he had expected to find, yet the sight of it took his breath away.

It was a sudden plateau - encompassing perhaps a thousand acres of rolled Kentucky bluegrass, as emerald as golf-course turf. He got out his binoculars again. The land dipped a little from the ledge where Janson found himself, and extended in a series of ridges that lapped against the sheer stone face of the mountain's summit.

He saw what Maurice Hempel had seen, recognized what had made it irresistible to someone who was as reclusive as he was rich.

Tucked away, nearly inaccessible by ordinary means, was a brilliantly shimmering mansion, more compact than the Biltmore estate and yet, he could see, just as artfully designed. It was, however, the perimeter defenses that inspired Janson's awe. As if the natural impediments surrounding the site were not sufficient, a high-tech obstacle course made the house resistant to any form of intrusion.

Straight