The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,254
said. "There's nothing."
The heavy, soundproofed door closed behind them, cutting off the noises of the lobby.
"What would it matter?" the Caliph said. "You have no weapon. You'd be helpless against an assassin!"
The Secret Service man grinned and opened his navy jacket, putting his hands on his waist, allowing the long-barreled revolver to show from his shoulder holster.
"Apologies," the Caliph said. He turned around, his back to the American, seemingly captivated by the mural. Then he took a step back.
"You're wasting my time," the American said.
Abruptly, the Caliph whipped his head back, cracking into the American's chin. As the burly agent reeled, the Caliph's hands snaked toward his shoulder holster and pulled out the .357 Magnum revolver, a Ruger SP101 equipped with a four-inch barrel for enhanced accuracy. He slammed the butt down on the agent's head, ensuring that smug infidel would be unconscious for many hours.
Now he secreted the Ruger inside his small valise of tooled leather and dragged the muscle-bound American behind the ebonized light box, where he would be invisible to a casual visitor.
It was time to reenter the Assembly Hall. Time to avenge indignities. Time to make history.
He would prove himself worthy of the title that his followers had bestowed upon him. He was the Caliph indeed.
And he would not fail.
In the executive suite, the light on the black slimline phone started to glow: it was the speaker's "ready in five" notification - standard procedure, alerting him a few minutes before he would be asked to step out in front of the assembled leadership of the planet.
Novak reached for the phone, listened, said, "Thank you."
And as he watched, Janson felt a jolt of foreboding.
Something was wrong.
Urgently, desperately, he jammed on the rewind button and replayed the last ten seconds of video feed.
The light glowing on the glowing phone. Peter Novak reaching for it, bringing it to his ear ...
Something was wrong.
But what? Janson's unconscious mind was like a tocsin, wildly tolling its alarm, but he was tired, so very tired, and the fog of exhaustion closed in.
He replayed the last ten seconds once again.
The glowing light of a purring internal phone.
Peter Novak, protected by a battery of security guards but, for the moment, alone in the executive suite, reaching for the handset, for the instructions to prepare himself for his moment in the world's spotlight.
Reaching with his right hand.
Peter Novak holding the handset to his ear.
His right ear.
Janson felt as if his very skin had been coated with a layer of ice. A terrible, painful clarity now commanded his mind as it filled with a cascade of images. It was maddening, faces and voices intermingling. Demarest at a desk in Khe Sanh, reaching for a phone. These H&I reports are worse than useless! Holding the phone tight against his ear for a long while. Finally, speaking again: A lot of things can happen in a free-fire zone. Demarest in the swampy terrain near Ham Luong reaching for the radiophone, listening intently, barking a series of commands. Reaching with his left hand, holding the phone to his left ear.
Alan Demarest was left-handed. Invariably so. Exclusively so.
The man in the executive suite was not Alan Demarest.
Christ almighty! Janson felt the blood rush to his head, his temples throbbing.
He had sent a double. An impostor. Janson had been the one to warn the others about the danger of underestimating their opponent. Yet he had done just that.
And the stratagem made perfect sense. If your enemy has a good idea, steal it, Demarest had told him in the killing fields of Vietnam. The Mobius programmers were now Demarest's enemies. He gained his freedom by destroying his own duplicates, but then he had been planning his takeover for years. During that time he had not only been accumulating assets and allies: he had created a duplicate of his own - one who was under his power.
Why hadn't Janson thought of it?
The impostor who sat in the executive suite was not Peter Novak; he was working for him. Yes, this was precisely what Demarest would have done. He would have ... reversed the angle. See the two white swans instead of the one black one. See the slice of pie instead of the pie with the slice missing. Flip the Necker cube outward instead of inward. Master the gestalt.
The man who was on his way to address the General Assembly was the Judas goat, leading them to their slaughter. He was the cat's paw, drawing out their fire.