The Janson Directive - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,71

Elijah."

"You'll have to give me, what, an hour?"

"See you then."

Janson tried to sound reassuring; Agger's voice was nervous, even more nervous than usual, and that was not good. It would make him cautious in a counterproductive fashion, too attentive to incidentals, too indiscriminate in his vigilance.

Janson wandered past a hillside cafe - a cheerful-looking spot with lime-colored plastic chairs, peach tablecloths, a slate terrace. Nearby was a sculpture garden planted with marble figures of modern vintage. Wandering through was a pair of teenagers wearing white muscle shirts that draped loosely around their unmuscular chests, whipped this way and that by the breeze. An addled-looking woman clutching a bag filled with stale pita fed already overfed pigeons.

Now Janson stationed himself within a dense copse of Aleppo pine and took an inventory of the others in the area. On sweltering days, many Athenians sought refuge here from the heat and the smarting nephos. He saw a Japanese couple, one holding a tiny videocamera in his hand, the size of an old Instamatic, a testament to the ingenuity of consumer electronics. The man was posing his wife against the dramatic backdrop - all Athens at her feet.

As five minutes stretched into ten and then fifteen, more people came and went in a seemingly random procession. Yet not everything was random. Thirty yards below to his left, a man in a caftanlike shirt was sketching the landscape on a large pad; his hand moved over it in large, looping gestures. Janson focused his binoculars, zooming in on his strong, powerful hands. One hand loosely gripped a stick of charcoal and was filling the pad with random squiggles. Whatever he was interested in, it wasn't the landscape in front of him. Janson zoomed in on his face and felt a pang. This man was not like the Americans he had encountered earlier. The powerful neck straining at his collar, the dead eyes - this man was a professional killer, a gun for hire. Janson's scalp began to crawl.

Diagonally opposite, another man was reading the newspaper. He was dressed like a businessman, bespectacled, in a light gray suit. Janson zoomed in: his lips were moving. Nor was he reading out loud, for when his eyes darted off, he continued speaking. He was communicating - the microphone could have been in his tie or lapel - to a confederate, somebody with an earpiece.

Anyone else?

The redheaded woman in the green cotton dress? But no, ten young children were following her. She was a schoolteacher, taking the children on a field trip. No operative would expose herself to the chaos and unpredictability of a group of young children.

A hundred feet above the fountain where Agger and he had arranged to meet at four o'clock, Janson continued to scan the scene. His eyes roved over the gravel paths and the wild, unkempt expanse of grass and scrub.

Conclusion: an inexpert American tag team had been replaced with local talent, people who knew the terrain and could react quickly.

But what were their orders?

He continued to scan the figures on the sloping hill, alert to further anomalies. The businessman was now apparently napping, his chin resting on his chest, suggesting a postprandial siesta. Only the occasional movement of his mouth - murmured communications, if only to keep boredom at bay - betrayed the illusion.

The two figures he'd identified, the businessman with his newspaper and the artist with his sketchbook, were clearly Greek nationals, not American; that much was plain from their physiognomy, attire, even posture. And language, too: Janson was a poor lip-reader, but he could tell it was Greek, not English, that the man spoke.

But for God's sake, why the dragnet? The simple existence of incriminating evidence did not explain the willingness to accept its import. Janson had been an agent of one of America's most secretive intelligence branches for twenty-five years: his profile was as thoroughly scrutinized as anyone's. If he were after a big score, he could have arranged one long ago in a hundred different ways. Yet now, so it seemed, the worst had been assumed of him, no alternative interpretation of the evidence entertained.

What had changed - something he'd done or was believed to have done? Was it something he knew? One of those things made him a threat to the planners in Washington, half a world away from this ancient hill in the center of Athens.

Who else was there? The sun's slanting rays made it hard to see, but Janson scrutinized every patch of ground that was