The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,243

him, holding an old-fashioned feather duster out in front of her, frozen, and her round face was contorted into a terrible grin - a rictus of fear?

"Paul, watch yourself!" It was Jessie's voice. He had not heard her descend, but she was a few feet behind him.

Suddenly the housekeeper's chest erupted in a spray of scarlet and she toppled forward onto the carpet, the sound muffled by the soft woven fabric.

Janson whirled around and saw the silenced gun in Jessie's hand, a wisp of cordite seeping from its perforated cylinder.

"Oh, Jesus," Janson breathed, gripped with horror. "Do you realize what you just did?"

"Do you?" Jessica strode over to the body and, with a foot, nudged the feather duster that remained in the housekeeper's outstretched hand.

It was not a device used for cleaning house, save in the bloodiest of senses: artfully concealed beneath the fan of brown feathers was a high-powered SIG Sauer, still affixed to the dead woman's hand by an elastic strap.

Jessie had been right to shoot. The safety was off on the powerful automatic handgun, a bullet chambered. He had been a split second from death.

Marta Lang was not alone. And she had not been unguarded.

Was it possible she was still unaware of their presence? At the end of the second parlor was another doorway with an ordinary swing door, evidently opening onto the formal dining room.

There was another sound of movement, coming from within.

Janson lurched to the wall to the left of the door frame and spun around, holding his Beretta chest high, preparing to squeeze the trigger or deliver a blow, as was required. A burly man holding a gun burst through, apparently having been sent to investigate. Janson smashed the butt of his Beretta on the back of the man's head. He went limp and Jessie caught him as he went down, gentling him to the carpet silently.

Janson stood still for a moment, composing himself and listening intently; the sudden violence had drained him, and he could not afford to be anything less than focused.

Suddenly, there was a series of loud blasts, and the swinging door was perforated by several magnum-force bullets, spraying splinters of wood and paint. Were they fired by Marta Lang herself? Somehow he suspected that they were. Janson looked at Kincaid, verifying that she, like him, was out of the line of fire, safely to the side of the doorway.

There was a beat of silence, and then the sound of quiet footfalls: Janson instantly knew what Marta Lang - or whoever it was - was doing, and what he had to do. She was going to peer through the bore holes her gun had drilled in the wooden door, assess the damage. She had established a line of fire: surely nobody would remain standing where bullets had just flown.

Timing would be everything, and Janson had very little to go by. Now! With all his strength, Janson reared up and threw himself, shoulder first, against the swinging door. It would be his weapon - a battering ram. The door moved too easily at first, and then, with a thud, it connected, sending the person on the other side of it sprawling.

It was indeed Marta Lang he saw as the door swung all the way open. The door had slammed into her, knocking her against a Hepplewhite-style dining-room table. The heavy automatic weapon in her hands had been sent flying, too, clattering to the table just a few inches beyond her reach.

With catlike agility, Lang scrambled to her feet, rounded the table, and reached for the black gleaming weapon.

"Don't even think about it," Jessica said.

Marta Lang glanced up to see Jessica in a perfect Weaver stance, holding her pistol with both hands. Her shooting stance said that she would not miss. Her face said that she would not hesitate.

Breathing hard, Lang said nothing and did nothing for a long moment, as if torn by indecision. At last, she stood up straight, verifying the position of her weapon with a sidelong glance. "You're no fun," she said. The lower part of her face was reddened from where the door had slammed into her. "Don't you want to even up the odds a little? Make the game interesting?"

Janson advanced toward her, and at the moment when his body was interposed between Marta Lang and Kincaid, Lang's hand darted out to grab back her weapon. Janson anticipated the move, and he immediately wrenched it from her hands. "A Suomi burp gun. Impressive. You have a license