of democratization, and they are powerful enemies. In Eastern Europe, there's a whole cabal of moguls - former Communist officials who seized the plunder of 'privatized' industries. The anti-corruption campaigns spearheaded by the Liberty Foundation in their own backyards are their most direct threat, and they've sworn to take action.
As I say, one cannot perform good deeds without a few people feeling threatened by them - especially the ones who prosper from entrenched enmity and systematic corruption. You asked what I meant by 'they,' and that's as good a specification as any."
Janson could see Fielding struggle to sit up straighter, to rally, to keep a stiff upper lip. "You were part of his brain trust," said the operative. "How did that work?"
Fielding shrugged. "He'd solicit my opinions from time to time. Perhaps once a month, we'd talk on the phone. Perhaps once a year, we'd meet face-to-face. In truth, he could have taught me far more than I him. But he was a remarkable listener. There was never a shred of pretense, except, perhaps, the pretense of knowing less than he did. He was always concerned about unintended consequences of humanitarian intervention. He wanted to be sure that a humanitarian gift didn't ultimately lead to more suffering - that, say, helping refugees didn't prop up the regime that had produced those refugees. You can't always call it right, he knew. In fact, he always insisted that everything you know might be wrong. His one article of faith. Everything you know must be critically assessed at all times, and abandoned if necessary."
Long, indistinct shadows began to fall as the cloud-filtered late-morning sun hovered just over the college chapel. Janson had hoped to narrow the field of suspects; Fielding was showing how vast it really was.
"You say you met with him irregularly," Janson prompted.
"He wasn't a man of fixed habits. Not so much a recluse, I would have said, as a nomad. A man as peripatetic as Epicrates of Heraclea, that sage of classical antiquity."
"But the foundation's world headquarters is in Amsterdam."
"Prinsengracht eleven twenty-three. Where his staffers have a rueful saying: 'What's the difference between God and Novak? God is everywhere. Novak is everywhere but Amsterdam.' " He repeated the well-worn jest without humor.
Janson furrowed his brow. "Novak had other counselors, of course. There were those savants whose names were never mentioned in the media. Maybe one of them might know something significant - without even realizing the significance. The Foundation itself has raised the drawbridge as far as I'm concerned - I can't reach anybody, speak to anybody in a position to know. It's one of the reasons I'm here. I need to reach those people who worked closely with Novak, or who used to. Maybe someone
who used to be in the inner circle and fell out of it. I can't rule it out that Novak was done in by a person or persons close to him."
Fielding raised an eyebrow. "You might direct that same curiosity toward those who are, or were, close to you."
"What are you suggesting?"
"You were asking me about Peter Novak's enemies, and I said they were widely dispersed. Let me, then, broach an awkward subject. Are you so confident about your own government?" Fielding's tone combined steel and silk.
"You're not saying what I think you're saying," Janson replied sharply. He knew that Fielding, as an habitue of the fabled Tuesday Club, spoke of such matters with genuine worldliness.
"I only pose the question," Fielding said gingerly. "Is it even possible that your own former colleagues in Consular Operations have had some involvement here?"
Janson winced: the don's speculations had struck a nerve; the question, though seemingly far-fetched, had haunted him since Athens. "But why? How?" he demanded.
Was it possible?
Fielding shifted uneasily in his harp-backed chair, running his fingertips along its alligatored black lacquer. "I don't state. I don't even suggest. I ask. Yet consider. Peter Novak had become more powerful than many sovereign nations. And so he may have, wittingly or unwittingly, sabotaged some pet operation, cocked up some plan, threatened some bureaucratic turf, enraged some powerful player ... " Fielding waved a hand, gesturing vaguely at possibilities too hazy to pin down. "Might an American strategist have deemed him too powerful, too much of a threat, simply as an independent actor on the stage of world politics?"
Fielding's speculations were all too cogent for comfort. Marta Lang had met with high-powered people in the State Department and elsewhere. They had urged her to employ Janson; for all he knew,