The Janson Option (27 page)

The Vince Giordano Nightclub
New York City

D
ancing to hot jazz played by Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks, Jessica Kincaid looked as happy as Paul Janson had ever seen her. While he watched her from their table, the curly-haired brunette knockout who ran the nightclub stopped to say, “I've seen your friend before. First time for you?”

“First time,” Janson lied.

“Thought so. I never forget a face.”

“Glad I came. Great music.”

“Gotta go, people at the door.”

Giordano's band slid from “Railroad Man” into a slow arrangement of “Let's Face the Music.” Kincaid came back to their table and took Janson's hand. “Lou says I'm doing good.”

Lou was her dance instructor. “Sure looked good from here.”

“Let me ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“You never seem jealous of Lou. I mean, he's hot as hell. Definitely not gay. Do you ever wonder?”

Wondering where this had come from, and particularly where it was going, Janson said, “I'm not jealous.”

Up on the bandstand the drummer banged three sharp notes. Janson saw Kincaid falling backward in an abandoned fish factory eight thousand miles from New York. After a while, he heard her ask, “Hey, pal, still here?”

Janson dragged himself back into the club by reminding himself that she could not be dancing like Ginger Rogers if her leg had not completely healed. He squeezed her hand. “I'm here. I was just thinking. An old friend called about a job. You ever been to the Arctic?”

“Skied across Greenland, if that counts.”

“Close enough.”

She said, “Let me ask you something else.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you sleep with the colonel from MUST?”

“Petra Rasmusson?”

“Tall Swedish brunette spy? Violet eyes?”

“Not really.”

“What's ‘not really'?”

“Our cover getting me into Russia was a married couple on their honeymoon cruise. Basic tradecraft demands you assume the Russians wired the stateroom.”

“So you sat around making noises in the dark?”

Janson kept a straight face. “Unfortunately, we could not ignore the possibility of low-light cameras. Or even infrared.”

“How'd you get through it?”

“Sometimes you have to be tougher than the situation.”

They had moved their chairs close together, and everyone in the nightclub was listening to the Nighthawks and watching the dancers. No one saw Kincaid's fore and middle knuckles drill deep as an ax head into Janson's torso.

When he could breathe again, Janson said, “Would you dial 911?”

“Are you pressing charges?”

“Ambulance. I think you broke my rib.”

“If I'd meant to break your rib, I'd have hit you harder.”

Janson took some shallow breaths and said, “Jess. I never used to be a one-woman man.”

“What happened? Get old?”

“Not old,” he said. “Lucky.”

“Janson?”

“Why am I suddenly Janson?”

“Because I'm asking you something serious.”

“What?”

“I get jealous. Don't you ever get jealous?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Janson cupped her face gently in his big hands. “Jess? What is jealous, except being afraid you'll lose someone?”

“OK…?”

“Maybe I'd get jealous if we were in a different line of work.”

“What does our line of work have to do with it?”

“I'm already afraid I'll lose you.”

The pleasures of research include discovering wonderful nonfiction writers.

Jay Bahadur is a brave and hardy Canadian journalist who wrote in dazzling detail about Somali pirates in an exciting book called
Deadly Waters.

Equally brave and dedicated to specifics is Roberto Saviano, author of
Gomorrah,
about organized crime in Naples.

I also recommend every book written by my friend Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, a precise and patient guide through the mysteries of medicine.

Nuruddin Farah, the Somali novelist, depicts in
Crossbones
ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives while trapped in a thirty-year war. Once you have lived with his characters and experienced their dreams and pleasures, as well as their despair, reports of bombings and assassinations in far-off East Africa become as personal as if friends were attacked. Similarly, blogs and websites by Somalis from many walks of life, and the interviews they give to the
New York Times,
the
Guardian,
National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, and the BBC portray a benighted country still filled with hope that one day the good guys will win.

ROBERT LUDLUM
was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a
New York Times
bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of
The Scarlatti Inheritance,
The Chancellor Manuscript,
and the Jason Bourne series—
The Bourne Identity,
The Bourne Supremacy,
and
The Bourne Ultimatum
—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, visit www.Robert-Ludlum.com.
PAUL GARRISON
was born in New York and currently lives in Connecticut. He has spent a lot of time on boats and published five thrillers, mostly sea-oriented:
Fire and Ice
,
Red Sky at Morning
,
Buried at Sea
,
Sea Hunter
, and
The Ripple Effect
before writing the first of the new Janson novels. To learn more, visit www.justinscott-paulgarrison.com.

The Janson Directive

The Janson Command (by Paul Garrison)

Janson and Kincaid take on an assignment to investigate a murder in South Korea that may have been carried out by U.S. Cons Ops. But if they hope to prevent a multicountry war in Asia—and to escape with their own lives intact—they'd better figure out the truth quickly…

A preview follows

Joint Base Pearl Harbor—Hickam

Adjacent to Honolulu, Hawaii

Ten minutes after the Embraer Legacy 650 touched down at Hickam Field on the island of Oahu, Paul Janson stepped onto the warm tarmac and was immediately greeted by Lawrence Hammond, the senator's chief of staff.

“Thank you for coming,” Hammond said.

As the men shook hands, Janson breathed deeply of the fresh tropical air and savored the gentle touch of the Hawaiian sun on his face. After six months under Shanghai's polluted sky, smog as thick as tissue paper had become Janson's new normal. Only now, as he inhaled freely, did he fully realize the extent to which he'd spent the past half-year breathing poison.

Behind his Wayfarers, Janson closed his eyes for a moment and listened. Although Hickam buzzed with the typical sounds of an operational airfield, Janson instantly relished the relative tranquility. Vividly, he imagined the coastal white sand beaches and azure blue waters awaiting him and Jessie just beyond the confines of the U.S. Air Force base.

Hammond, a tall man with slicked-back hair the color of straw, directed Janson to an idling olive green Jeep driven by a private first class who couldn't possibly have been old enough to legally drink. As Janson belted himself into the passenger seat, Hammond leaned forward and said, “Air Force One landed on this runway not too long ago.”

“Is that right?” Janson said as the Jeep pulled away from the jet.

Hammond mistook Janson's politeness for genuine interest. “This past Christmas, as a matter of fact. The First Family vacations on the windward side of the island, in the small beach town of Kailua.”

The three remained silent for the rest of the ten-minute drive. Janson's original plan upon leaving Shanghai had been to land at nearby Honolulu International, where he'd meet Jessie and be driven to Waikiki for an evening of dinner and drinks and a steamy night at the iconic Pink Palace before boarding a puddle jumper to Maui the next day. But a phone call Janson received thirty thousand miles above the Pacific changed all that.

Janson had been resting in his cabin, on the verge of sleep, when his lone flight attendant, Kayla, buzzed him over the intercom and announced that he had a call from the mainland.

“It's a U.S. senator,” Kayla said. “I thought you might want to take it.”

“Which senator?” Janson asked groggily. He knew only a handful personally and liked even fewer.

“Senator James Wyckoff,” she said. “Of North Carolina.”

Wyckoff was neither one of the handful Janson knew personally nor one of the few that he liked. But before Janson could ask her to take a call-back number, Kayla told him that Wyckoff had been referred by his current client, Jeremy Beck, CEO of Edgerton-Gertz.

Grudgingly, Janson decided to take the call.

As the Jeep pulled into the parking lot of a small administrative building, Janson turned to Hammond and said, “The senator beat me here?”

The flight from Shanghai was just over nine hours and Janson had already been in the air two hours when Wyckoff phoned. From D.C., even under the best conditions, it was nearly a ten-hour flight to Honolulu, and Janson was fairly sure there was snow and ice on the ground in Washington this time of year.

“The senator actually called you from California,” Hammond said. “He'd been holding a fund-raiser at Exchange in downtown Los Angeles when he received the news about his son.”

Janson didn't say anything else. He stepped out of the Jeep and followed Hammond and the private first class to the building. The baby-faced PFC used a key to open the door then stepped aside as Janson and Hammond entered. The dissonant rumble of an ancient air conditioner emanated from overhead vents, and the sun's natural light was instantly replaced by the harsh glow of buzzing fluorescent bulbs.

Hammond ushered Janson down a bleak hallway of marred linoleum into a spacious yet utilitarian office in the rear of the building, then quietly excused himself, saying, “Senator Wyckoff will be right with you.”

Two minutes later a toilet flushed and the senator himself stepped out of a back room with his hand already extended.

“Paul Janson, I presume.”

“A pleasure, Senator.”

Janson removed his Wayfarers and took the proffered seat in front of the room's lone streaked and dented metal desk, while Senator Wyckoff situated himself on the opposite side, crossing his right leg over his left before taking a deep breath and launching into the facts.

“As I said over the phone, Mr. Janson, the details of my son's disappearance are still sketchy. What we do know is that Gregory's girlfriend of three years, a beautiful young lady named Lynell Yi, was found murdered in the
hanok
she and Gregory were staying at in central Seoul yesterday morning. She'd evidently been strangled.”

The senator appeared roughly fifty years old, well groomed, and dressed in an expensive, tailored suit, but the bags under his eyes told the story of someone who'd lived through hell over the past twenty-four hours.

“The Seoul Metropolitan Police,” Wyckoff continued, “have named Gregory their primary suspect in Lynell's death, which, if you knew my son, you'd know is preposterous. But of course my wife and I are concerned. Gregory's just a teenager. We don't know whether he's been kidnapped or is on the run because he's frightened. Being falsely accused of murder in a foreign country must be terrifying. Even though South Korea is our ally, it'll take time to get things sorted out through the proper channels.” The senator leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk. “I'd like for you to travel to Seoul and find him. That's our first priority. Second, and nearly as important, I'd like you to conduct an independent investigation into Lynell's murder. Now may be our only opportunity. I'm a former trial lawyer, and I can tell you from experience that evidence disappears fast. Witnesses vanish. Memories become fuzzy. If we don't clear Gregory's name in the next ninety-six hours, we may never be able to do so.”

Janson held up his hand. “Let me stop you right there, Senator. I sympathize with you, I do. I'm very sorry that your family is going through this. And I hope that your son turns up unharmed sooner rather than later. I'm sure you're right. I'm sure he's being wrongly accused, and I'm sincerely hopeful that you can prove it and bring him home to grieve for his girlfriend.
But
I'm afraid that I can't help you with this. I'm not a private investigator.”

“I'm not suggesting you are. But this is no ordinary investigation.”

“Please, Senator, let me continue. I'm here as a courtesy to my client Jeremy Beck. But as I attempted to tell you over the phone, this simply isn't something I can take on.” Janson reached into his jacket pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. “While I was in the air, I took the liberty of contacting a few old friends, and I have the names and telephone numbers of a handful of top-notch private investigators in Seoul. They know the city inside and out, and they can obtain information directly from the police without having to navigate through miles of red tape. According to my contacts, these men and women are the best investigators in all of South Korea.”

Wyckoff accepted the piece of paper and set it down on the desk without looking at it. He narrowed his eyes, confirming Janson's initial impression that the senator wasn't a man who was told
no
very often. And that he seldom accepted the word for an answer.

“Mr. Janson, do you have children?”

As Wyckoff said it there was a firm knock on the door. The senator pushed himself out of his chair and trudged toward the sound.

Meanwhile, Janson frowned. He didn't like to be asked personal questions. Not by clients and not by prospective clients. Certainly not after he'd already declined to take the job. And this was no innocuous question. It was a subject that burned Janson deep in his stomach. No, he did not have children. He did not have a family—only the memory of one. Only the stabbing recollection of a pregnant wife and the dashed dreams of their unborn child, their future obliterated by a terrorist's bomb. They'd perished almost a decade ago, yet it still felt like yesterday.

From behind, Janson heard Hammond's sonorous voice followed by a far softer one and the unmistakable sound of a woman's sobs.

“Mr. Janson,” the senator said, “I'd like you to meet my wife, Alicia. Gregory's mother.”

Janson stood and turned toward the couple as Hammond stepped out, closing the door gently behind him.

Alicia Wyckoff stood before Janson visibly trembling, her eyes wet with mascara tears. She appeared to be a few years younger than her husband, but her handling of the present crisis threatened to make her look his age in no time flat.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said, ignoring Janson's hand and instead gripping him in an awkward hug. He felt the warmth of her tears through his shirt, her long nails burrowing into his upper back.

If Janson were slightly more cynical, he'd have thought her entry had been meticulously timed in advance.

Wyckoff brushed some papers aside and sat on the front edge of the desk. “I know your professional history,” he said to Janson. “As soon as Jeremy gave me your name I contacted State and obtained a complete dossier. While a good many parts of the document were redacted, what I
was
able to read was very impressive. You are uniquely qualified for this job, Mr. Janson.” He paused for effect. “Please, don't turn us away.”

“Turn us away?” Alicia Wyckoff interjected. “What are you talking about?” She turned to Janson. “Are you seriously considering refusing to help us?”

Janson remained standing. “As I told your husband a few moments ago, I'm simply not the person you need.”

“But you
are
.” She spun toward her husband. “Haven't you
told
him?”

Wyckoff shook his head.

“Told me what?”

Janson couldn't imagine a scenario that might possibly change his mind. He'd just left Asia behind. He needed some downtime. Jessica needed some downtime. In the past couple years they'd taken on one mission after another, almost without pause. Following two successive missions off the coast of Africa, Janson and Kincaid had promised themselves a break. But when Jeremy Beck called about the perpetual cyber espionage being perpetrated by the Chinese government, Janson became intrigued. This was what his post–Cons Ops life was all about: changing the world, one mission at a time.

Wyckoff pushed off the desk and sighed deeply, as though he'd been hoping he wouldn't have to divulge what he was about to. At least not until
after
Janson had accepted the case.

“We don't think Lynell's murder was a crime of passion or a random killing,” Wyckoff said. “And we don't think the Seoul Metropolitan Police came to suspect our son by themselves; we think they were deliberately led there.”

Janson watched the senator's eyes and said, “By whom?”

Wyckoff pursed his lips. He looked as if he were about to sign a deal for his soul. Or something of even greater importance to a successful U.S. politician. “What I say next stays between us, Mr. Janson.”

“Of course.”

The senator placed his hands on his hips and exhaled. “We think Gregory was framed by your former employer.”

Janson hesitated. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“The victim, Lynell Yi, my son's girlfriend, is—
was
, I should say—a Korean-English translator. She'd been working on sensitive talks in the Korean demilitarized zone. Talks between the North and the South and other interested parties, namely the United States and China. We think she overheard something she shouldn't have. We think she shared it with our son, and that they were both subsequently targeted by someone in the U.S. government. Or to be more specific, someone in the U.S. State Department.”

“And you think this murder was carried out by Consular Operations?” Janson said.

Wyckoff bowed his head. “The murder and the subsequent frame—all of it is just too neat. Our son is not stupid. If he
were
somehow involved in Lynell's murder—an utter impossibility in and of itself—he would not have left behind a glaring trail of evidence pointing directly at him.”

“In a crime of passion,” Janson said, “by definition, the killer isn't thinking or acting rationally. His intellect would have little to do with what occurred during or immediately after the event.”

“Granted,” Wyckoff said. “But according to the information released by the Seoul police, this killer would have had plenty of time to clean up after himself.”

“Or time to get a running head start,” Janson countered.

Wyckoff ignored him. “Lynell's body wasn't found until morning. She was discovered by a maid. There wasn't even a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door. Whoever killed Lynell
wanted
her body to be found quickly.
Wanted
it to look like a crime of passion.”

Janson said nothing. He knew Wyckoff's alternative theory was based solely on a parent's wishful thinking. But what else could a father do under the circumstances? What would Janson himself be doing if the accused was
his
teenage son?

“Tell me, Paul,” Wyckoff said, dispensing with the formalities, “do you
honestly
believe that powers within the U.S. government aren't capable of something like this?”

Janson could say no such thing. He
knew
what his government was capable of. He'd carried out operations not so different from the one Wyckoff was describing. And he would be spending the rest of his life atoning for them.

“Before I became a U.S. senator,” Wyckoff continued, “I was a Charlotte trial lawyer. I specialized in mass torts. Made my fortune suing pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing and selling dangerous drugs that had been pre-approved by the FDA. I made tens of millions of dollars, and I would be willing to part with all of it if you would agree to take this case. Name your fee, Paul, and it's yours.”