The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,231

Doug Albright. "He's erasing the program. Erasing Mobius."

"And exactly who is the cast of characters?"

"You're looking at 'em. All in this room."

Janson stared around the room. "There had to have been somebody from the NSA," he objected.

"Killed."

"Who designed the basic systems architecture?"

"A real wizard, from the CIA. Killed."

"And the - oh Jesus ... "

"Yes, the president's National Security Advisor," said Albright. "Charlotte made the wire services today, didn't she? Clayton Ackerley didn't - officially, he's a suicide, found in his car with the engine running and the garage door closed. Oh, Demarest doesn't like loose ends. He's making a list, he's checking it twice ... "

"At this point, most of the people who know the truth about Peter Novak have been eliminated," the secretary of state said, his voice raspy with anxiety.

"Everyone ... but the men and women in this room," Collins said.

Janson nodded slowly. A global cataclysm loomed, but so did a far more immediate threat to the assembled. As long as Alan Demarest remained in charge of the Novak empire, everyone in this room would be in fear for his life.

"Sorry, Paul. It's too late to get into the dead pool," Collins said wanly.

"Christ, Derek," Janson said, turning to the undersecretary with undisguised outrage, "you knew what kind of man Demarest was!"

"We had every reason to think we could control him!"

"Now he has every reason to think he can control you," Janson replied.

"It's become apparent that Demarest has been planning his coup d'etat for years," the secretary of state said. "As the recent killings have revealed, Demarest has assembled a private militia, recruited dozens of his former colleagues to use as his personal enforcers and protectors. These are operatives who know the codes and procedures of our most advanced field strategies. And the corrupt moguls of the former Communist states - the ones who pretend to be opposed to him - are actually in league with the guy. They've made their own centurions available to him."

"You called it a coup d'etat," Janson said to him. "A term usually reserved for toppling and supplanting a head of state."

"In its own way, the Liberty Foundation is as powerful as any state," the secretary replied. "It may soon become more so."

"The fact is," the president said, cutting to the heart of the matter, "Demarest has absolute proof of everything we did. He can blackmail us into doing whatever he demands. I mean, Jesus." The president exhaled heavily. "If the world ever found out that the U.S. had been surreptitiously manipulating global events - not to mention using Echelon to bet against the currencies of other countries - it would be an absolutely devastating blow. Congress would go berserk, of course, but that's the least of it. You'd get Khomeini-style revolutions all over the Third World. We'd lose every ally we have - would instantly become a pariah among nations. NATO itself would fall apart ... "

"So long, Pax Americana," muttered Janson. It was true: here was a secret so explosive that history would have to be rewritten if it ever were to come out.

The president spoke again: "He's now sent us a message demanding that we turn control of Echelon over to him. And that's just for starters. For all we know, nuclear codes could be next."

"What did you tell him, Mr. President?"

"We refused, naturally." Glances were exchanged with the secretary of state. "I refused, dammit. Against the wisdom of all my advisers. I will not go down in history as the person who handed the United States over to a maniac!"

"So now he's given us a deadline along with the ultimatum," Collins said. "And the clock is ticking."

"And you can't take him out?"

"Oh, what a nifty idea," Collins said dryly. "Get a bunch of angry brothers with a blowtorch and some pliers and get medieval on his ass. Now why didn't we think of that? Wait a minute - we did. Goddammit, Janson, if we could find the son of a bitch, he'd be dead meat, no matter how well protected he is. I'd plug him myself. But we can't."

"We've tried everything," said the chairman of the National Intelligence Council. "Tried to lure him, trap him, smoke him out - but no go. He's become like the man who wasn't there."

"Which shouldn't be a surprise," Collins said. "Demarest has become a master at playing the reclusive plutocrat, and at this point he's got greater resources than we have. Plus, any person we bring in represents a risk, another potential blackmail