Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command

by Robert Ludlum; Paul Garrison

  “I used to ride bikes,” he said, hoping her picnic included a blanket. “Where do I rent?”

  She told him where and gave him directions to pedal along the lake to a more private place they could meet, as if understanding and not minding that his thing with the senator might be longer term than a picnic.

  Flannigan took a taxi from the senator’s charming flat in a row of town houses—she was chairing a committee hearing until late afternoon—and walked down a short slope into the park to the rental place where they gave him a bike, a helmet, and a map.

  It turned out to be true that one did not forget how to ride a bike. After a wobbly hundred yards, he was pedaling along just fine. The spot she said she’d meet him was only a half mile away, and by then he was actually enjoying himself. The pleasure of the warm sun, the crisp breeze, the truly attractive park with its sparkling lakes, lawn, and trees and the delicious sight of numerous good-looking women pedaling bicycles in short skirts and tight jeans ceased abruptly when he turned onto a path that ran closer to the water.

  Out of nowhere, swooping down like wolves, Annie Oakley and The Wall blocked his way. They put firm hands on him before he could run. The Wall didn’t seem quite so big out of his jungle fatigues but was big enough to make mincemeat of him. Little Annie looked like she’d been in a bar fight, with sunglasses over a black eye, a Band-Aid parting her hair, and raw scrapes on her wrists.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “We’re on your side.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he lied. He was so scared his face felt cold, as if the blood had drained from it.

  The Wall noticed and said soothingly, “We are not the ones trying to kill you. We will protect you.”

  That would be wonderful news, if he was fool enough to believe them. “How did you find me?”

  “Your fellow tourists noticed the senator take a shine to you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We want to deliver you safe and sound to ASC headquarters in Houston. As soon as your employer sees that you are alive and well, you’ll be free to go. No one will hurt you.”

  “Either you’re lying to me,” Flannigan said, “or someone is lying to you.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the woman.

  “I don’t work for ASC.”

  The two of them exchanged looks.

  “I haven’t worked for them in five years.”

  The woman said, “That is not true. You were aboard Amber Dawn when the FFM rebels attacked.”

  “Well, that answers that,” said Flannigan, feeling a tentative glimmer of hope.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now I know that you two aren’t lying.”

  The man stepped closer. “Can you explain— By the way, Doctor, we’ve been through a bunch together, but we’ve never exchanged names. We know you’re Terry. I’m Paul. This is Jesse.”

  Paul thrust out his hand. Flannigan took it and saw a degree of warmth in Janson’s watchful eyes.

  “You were on the boat, weren’t you?”

  “I was on the boat. But ASC didn’t know I was on the boat.”

  “What?” The looks they exchanged this time were like clashing laser beams.

  “No one knew I was on the boat.”

  “What are you saying?” Jesse snapped. “You stowed away?”

  “I hitched a ride. I had a little trouble in Port Harcourt. I had to get out of town. Amber Dawn’s captain was a friend of mine. She smuggled me aboard and hid me in her cabin. No one knew I was on the boat.”

  “No one?”

  “She’d have been fired. It was strictly against company policy.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

  “They killed everybody on the boat. How could I trust you? How could I trust anybody?”

  A bicycle bell chimed merrily. Flannigan looked up the path from the lake. There was his little friend, even prettier than he remembered and frighteningly young. Wondering how dirty an old man Jesse and Paul thought he was, he said, “Can you excuse me a second? I’ll be right back. A lady I have to say hello to.”

  They shot sharp glances at the blonde, took in the picnic basket attached to her handlebars and her shy smile. “Wait,” said Paul, moving between him and the girl.

  Jesse walked over to her and smiled. “Hello. We are responsible for that gentleman’s safety. Would you mind if I frisked you for weapons?”

  “Weapons? Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. We’re just making sure that he stays that way. This will just take a moment, with your permission.”

  Kincaid checked her clothing, with gentle apologies, and the picnic in her basket. The forks and knives were plastic disposables. Kincaid nodded to Janson. Janson told Flannigan, “You’re going to have to ask her for a rain check, Terry.”

  * * *

  “YOU’RE A WOMAN,” Janson said to Kincaid while they watched the doctor explaining the situation just out of earshot.

  “Yes, I am, Paul.”

  “Can you explain how a guy who looks like that has women falling all over him? The purser’s wife, the flight attendant, the senator, not to mention the poor tugboat captain. And now this little knockout. Okay, she’s a hick kid, but a woman like the senator should know better, don’t you think? I mean do you find him attractive?”

  “Depends upon what you mean by ‘attractive.’ ”

  “Attractive enough to run off with the guy.”

  “Watch how he talks to her. It’s like his eyes, his ears, every pore is with her—appreciating her. When a guy like him wants to be with a woman he’s totally there.”

  “So women want concentration?”

  “It’s in short supply—but there’s something else likable about Terry. Way underneath, he’s solid. And kind of sad— What?”

  Paul Janson exploded into motion.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Kincaid whirled after him. Janson had moved so swiftly that he was on top of the couple in an instant, chopping with his open hand, breaking the girl’s wrist before she could stab Flannigan again with the stiletto she had pulled from the bike’s hollow handlebar.

  Kincaid smashed her cheekbone below her helmet with her elbow as she raced past Janson, frantically searching for the assassin’s backup. It would be a sniper. In a tree in the gardens seven hundred meters across the lake. Or by the museum on a spit of land jutting parallel to the one they were on. Paul knew that and was dragging Terry to the ground, hauling him behind the thin cover of a bush, and shouting at nearby walkers and bikers, “Get down on the ground. Get down!”

  Kincaid saw a flash on the roof of the museum—sun on a scope, nine hundred meters.

  “Roof!” Pointing to the sniper’s position, diving to the grass, she rolled toward Janson. They pulled Flannigan behind the brow of a low mound. The rifle fired, unheard. A slug thunked into the mound. Earth flew in their faces.

  “How many?”

  “One, so far.”

  Less than five seconds had passed since Janson spotted the stiletto. The assassin was trying to mount her bicycle, but she was staggering from the impact of Kincaid’s elbow and in shock from her broken wrist. The bicycle got away from her and fell over. She tried to run. Suddenly the airholes of her helmet spewed blood as a rifle bullet dissolved her skull.

  Janson and Kincaid traded looks. Stabbing Flannigan would have been the killers’ plan B, if they had not intervened. Plan A would have been the girl luring Flannigan into the sniper’s sights. And now, before abandoning weapons and melting into the museum crowd, the sniper had killed the injured backup assassin so she could not talk.

  Janson dialed 000.

  “Ambulance. Lake Burley Griffin. Garryowen Drive. Across the lake from the National Museum. Stab wound.”

  “Tell ’em not to bother,” Flannigan whispered. His face was white, his lips blue

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t bullshit a surgeon—she got my celiac artery. I have about two minutes.

  �
��Listen, you gotta know this—Amber Dawn was disguised as an OSV. They Rube Goldberged a secret exploration vessel. The people shot by the rebels weren’t roustabouts. They were petroleum explorers.”

  “What did they find?”

  “They threw their computers and transmitters overboard—like they were done uploading confirmation data and keeping it secret. Christ, I can’t believe this is happening to me.” He shook his head. “No way rebels accidentally did the oil company a favor, keeping the discovery secret by killing everybody. They were sent to kill ’em.”

  So much, thought Janson, for Doug Case’s story about burnishing ASC’s image with pro bono exploration for downtrodden nations. ASC had been exploring solely for itself behind a scrim of independent contractors.

  “That’s why I thought they’d sent you to kill me. They were afraid I knew about the discovery— Hey, little Annie?”

  “Me? What, Terry?”

  “Annie— What’s your name? Oh, right, Jesse. Honey, I’m gone. I wonder if I could hold your hand? No offense, Paul, but I’d rather go out with a girl.”

  Jessica Kincaid took Terry Flannigan’s hand in one of hers and laid her other hand on his brow. “Take it easy, Terry. You’ll be okay. Hear the ambulance? They’re coming.”

  “Good-bye, Annie.… ” His eyes closed. Sirens grew loud.

  “Terry,” said Janson. “Terry! The guy who helped Iboga board the jump jet? You thought you recognized him.”

  “He led the rebel unit that attacked the boat.”

  How many sides was SR on?

  “Take care of yourself, Jesse.”

  Kincaid laid Flannigan’s hand across his chest, took the other, which had fallen to his side, and crossed it over the first. “Jesus H, Paul, did we fuck up.”

  “If it was not a random attack, how did the rebels in a speedboat locate that one small OSV fifty miles from Isle de Foree on a foggy night?”

  “This poor silly bastard was on to something. And we missed it. I missed it. I missed her goddamned knife.”

  “Coincidence? The first blip on their radar led them to a victim that just happened to be Amber Dawn throwing computers overboard?”

  “Terry told me at the hospital that he gave up regular practice because amputations really got him. He said he’d lie awake afterward, wondering should he have done it different.”

  Janson barely heard her. “Radar alone could not guide them to precisely that one boat. Unless someone attached a tracking device before Amber Dawn sailed from Nigeria. What if they signaled Amber Dawn’s coordinates traced by the scientists’ encrypted satellite uploads?”

  Kincaid rubbed her eyes. “You tell me, Mr. Machine.”

  “Whoever received the uploads could have betrayed the scientists who transmitted them—an ice-blooded way to ensure that no one on the boat would reveal the discovery.”

  “Doug Case lied to you about Terry Flannigan working for ASC.”

  “Apparently so.”

  “So how can you believe Case’s story that gunrunners told him Terry had been kidnapped?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rest assured, President Poe,” said Kingsman Helms. “American Synergy Corporation’s Petroleum Division doesn’t want a ‘BP’ in Isle de Foreen waters any more than you do.”

  “Acting President,” Ferdinand Poe corrected him.

  He was one tough old bird, Helms thought, considering that he had been tortured nearly to death only a month earlier. Helms had expected to call on a trembling old man in his hospital suite. Instead, Poe had received him in his working office adjacent to the ceremonial “throne room” in the Isle de Foree’s Presidential Palace, where President for Life Iboga used to accept ASC bribes.

  “I’ve asked repeatedly,” said Poe, “for detailed contingency plans in the event of blowouts, pipeline breaks, tanker collisions, and groundings. I have received from ASC standard boilerplate responses riddled with gobbledygook pseudo-science that would embarrass even BP. In fact, one of my bright young aides informs me that parts of it appear plagiarized from discredited BP safety filings.”

  Helms ran a powerful athlete’s hand through his wavy blond hair. Whoever back in Houston had prepared the latest report on Poe’s condition could consider himself fired. A perfunctory courtesy call by the president of the Petroleum Division on the president of this pissant island—a ceremonial state visit as it were—was devolving into a goddamned Spanish Inquisition.

  “Mr. President—”

  “Acting President!”

  “Sir. You have my word that our latest, updated disaster contingency plans will be emailed to your petroleum minister by tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you. Now let’s get down to business.”

  “I beg you pardon, Mr.— Sir. What business?”

  “At the moment, we have an oil lease agreement—Isle de Foree and American Synergy Corporation.”

  “At the moment?” Helms countered.

  “The terms of our current agreement are excessively generous to American Synergy.”

  “We have an agreement that gives ASC exclusive exploration rights for five years,” Kingsman Helms replied coldly. It was time to take off the gloves. If Poe wanted an Inquisition he would get one that would make the Spanish Inquisition seem benign.

  “We have a further agreement that ASC retains development rights of all reserves that ASC discovers in these five years. Remember that we are not drilling for ‘easy oil’ in Isle de Foree’s ultradeep waters. Our up-front investment is huge. We are taking geological risks, engineering risks, and capital risks. If we are so fortunate as to drill down to a ‘commercial discovery,’ we will have earned our additional agreements that give ASC the exclusive right to develop a petroleum accessing and processing infrastructure on Isle de Foree and in her waters. In other words, Mr. Acting President, if we find it, we own it, and you get royalties.”

  “It is the royalties that are troublesome,” Poe shot back. “Our percentage is too low and the means of auditing payments are opaque. In other words, Mr. President of ASC Petroleum Division, the agreement is not fair.”

  “Surely you would not prefer to do business with extractors that have the scruples of China or Russia?”

  Poe refused to rise to that bait. He said, “The Free Foree Movement accepted your terms at a time of desperate weakness. We appreciate the help you gave us at the time. But the situation has changed. We are no longer hiding in the jungle.”

  “Are you threatening to renege?”

  “Nations don’t renege. They renegotiate.”

  Helms smiled. “I am glad to hear you speak of nations, as there are more than one involved.”

  “What other nations are involved?”

  “Nigeria is the strongest that comes to mind. When Isle de Foree broke away from Equatorial Guinea and became an independent nation, weren’t you backed by Nigeria?”

  “That was many years ago. Nigeria imposed onerous oil-sharing deals on Isle de Foree in exchange for support—and Nigeria supported Iboga to protect those deals.” Poe glared angrily.

  Helms interrupted before Poe could accuse ASC of playing both ends against the middle by supporting Iboga until they were sure the dictator had lost the war. “Nonetheless. You developed your existing fields in partnership with Nigeria.”

  “Inshore!” Poe protested. “Inshore. Nowhere near the deepwater blocks that ASC is exploring for us.”

  “Nigeria could easily claim that the fields that ASC is investing in so heavily to explore are on the toe thrust of the Porto Clarence fields. Nigerians are a grabby bunch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they argue that the Porto Clarence fields are a structural trend connected to the Niger Delta itself.”

  “Nonsense. Our new fields would be hundreds of miles from the Niger Delta.”

  “Seabed disputes are as much about geology as distance. But the sense or nonsense of the argument would be worked out in treaty negotiations. Failing that, the issue would move to the Chamber for Maritime Delimitation Disputes
of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and then the Seabed Disputes Chamber—or is it the other way around? Seabed Disputes first. I can never remember. The lawyers can work it out.”

  “Isle de Foree does not have time for a protracted legal battle with Nigeria. Whoever we permit to explore for us will continue to.”

  “If you violate the international court orders to cease drilling and exploring until the dispute is resolved, I guarantee you that Nigeria will invade first and answer the world’s questions later.”

  Ferdinand Poe rubbed his mouth, as if to prevent a doubt from passing his lips.

  “And I wouldn’t be surprised if Gabon piled on to see what they could grab,” Kingsman Helms said, rising to his full height. “Mr. Acting President, we have a deal. ASC stands by its deals. We hope you do, because if you don’t, Isle de Foree will be the partner that ends up alone.”

  Ferdinand Poe stood painfully from his chair. “Our nation—this island—has the minutest window open for the shortest instant. In this moment, we can speed the clock ahead of the past. We can erase the final memories of colonialism. We can blot out the memory of terror that Iboga visited on our people. We can use this gift found under the sea to build a homeland that welcomes prosperity, decency, and peace. In other words, Mr. Helms, I will resist your schemes with every breath in my body. This ruinous, larcenous contract will stand on my dead body. We will renegotiate it. Or break it.”

  Kingsman Helms turned on his heel and walked out of Poe’s office. Margarido, Poe’s chief of staff, was standing in the hall and looked at him inquiringly. “I trust you had a good meeting, Mr. Helms?”

  “An excellent meeting. Always a pleasure doing business in Isle de Foree—Excuse me; I have a call.”

  He took out his satellite phone.

  Mario Margarido went into Poe’s office. “Well?”

  Poe was slumped behind his desk, his mouth working. He looked up wearily. “When I agreed to oil lease terms with American Synergy in exchange for their support in our war against Iboga, I truly believed that liberating our country from that monster would make Isle de Foree a better home for our people. I had a dream that I could be like another Nelson Mandela—free our nation and then step back and let the young build her anew. You warned me at the time that I was making a deal with the Devil.”