The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,56

He was only half bluffing. The plan he had specified would work, but it was not an eventuality he had foreseen.

Now Donna Hedderman, gasping and sputtering, was brought on board the aircraft. Her face was flushed, her clothes drenched from the spray of the ocean.

"Mr. Janson?" The Hungarian's voice was reedy and clear, even through the pulsing rumble of the nacelles. "You're a very brave man. You humble me, and I'm not easily humbled." He clasped Janson's upper arm. "I won't forget this."

Janson bowed his head, then looked straight into Peter Novak's brown eyes. "Please do. In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to do so, for reasons of my security, and that of my team." It was the professional response. And Janson was a professional.

A long pause. "You're a good man," the humanitarian said. Katsaris helped Peter Novak up the ramp and into the aircraft and then walked back down it.

The Greek's face was stern as he faced Janson. "I stay. You go."

"No, my friend," Janson said.

"Please," Katsaris said. "You're needed there. Mission control, yes? In case things go wrong."

"Nothing can go wrong at this point," Janson said. "Novak's in capable hands."

"Alone on the open sea in an inflatable boat - that's no joke," Katsaris said stonily.

"You're saying I'm too old for a little sailing?"

Katsaris shook his head, unsmiling. "Please, Paul. I should be the one." His black hair gleamed in the dawn light.

"Goddammit, no!" Janson said, in a burst of anger. "My call, my screw-up, my foul. No member of my team takes a risk that should be mine. This conversation is over." It was a point of pride - of what passed for manhood or honor in the shadowy world of secret ops. Katsaris swallowed hard, and did as he was instructed. But he could not erase the worry from his face.

Janson downshifted the RIB's motor: fuel efficiency would be increased at a more moderate speed. Next he verified his direction with the compass on his watch face.

It would take him three or four hours to reach the coastal plains of southeastern Sri Lanka. There, he had a contact who could put him on a fast lorry to Colombo International Airport, assuming that the place wasn't in the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam again. It wasn't the ideal; only, once again, the best of the available alternatives.

He watched the small turquoise-bodied aircraft rise into the air, describing something like a ziggurat pattern as it started its ascent to an altitude suited to extended flight, taking advantage of the prevailing winds for the long trip to Katchall.

The early-morning sky was now a beautiful azure, almost matching the resin skin of the rotorcraft, and Janson was filled with a sense of growing calm and relief as the craft glided through the sky.

He allowed himself a brief moment of pride. It had been a triumph against nearly impossible odds. Peter Novak was free. The murderous fanatics would be bereft of their glorious captive and would have gained nothing but humiliation. Janson leaned back in the boat and watched as the aircraft rose a little higher, its three-axis movement making it look almost like a thing of nature, a darting insect.

In the small boat, the approach toward the coastal plains of Sri Lanka would call for some care on his part; there were sometimes unexpected sandbars that made things treacherous. But from Colombo, there was a direct flight to Bombay, and from there the return stateside would be straightforward. He had committed Marta Lang's private telephone number to memory, and so had Katsaris; it would reach her wherever she was. Though the RIB lacked the requisite telecommunications, he knew that Katsaris would assume command. In a few minutes, Katsaris would notify Novak's deputy that the mission had been accomplished. It was a call that Janson had hoped to be able to make, but Katsaris had every bit as much a right to it: he had been extraordinary, and absolutely integral to the long-odds triumph.

If Janson knew the Liberty Foundation, they would probably have assembled an aerial flotilla by the time the BA609 had returned to Katchall. Janson continued to watch as the aircraft climbed, soaring and magnificent.

And then - no! it couldn't be, it had to be a trick of the light! - he saw the flash, the dazzling, fiery blast and plume of a midair explosion. A pulse of white bleached the early-morning sky, followed immediately by a vast secondary flare, the yellow-white of combusted