his next step. One foot in front of the other: that was the only way forward. At
the same time, he tried to make his own movements as quiet as possible,
preferring rocky outcroppings whenever possible to the crackle of the forest
floor. The car was long gone, of course, and he already had a good notion of
where the narrow drive would lead, but there was no substitute for direct
observation. One foot in front of the other: soon his movements became
automatic, and despite everything, his thoughts drifted.
One foot in front of the other.
The skeletal American bowed his head as he surrendered to his new captors. Word
of the POW’s escape had obviously made it into the surrounding countryside, for
the Montagnards and other villagers knew just who he was and where he was to be
returned.
He had fought his way through the thick jungle for two full days, straining the
very fiber of his existence, and for what? So near and yet so far. For now it
would begin all over again, but worse: to the compound’s commander, the escape
of a prisoner meant a loss of face. The officer would pummel him with bare hands
until he had spent his fury. Whether Janson survived the encounter at all
depended entirely on how energetic the commander happened to be feeling. Janson
began to succumb to a vortex of despair, pulling him down like a powerful
riverine current.
No! Not after all he had endured. Not while Demarest still lived. He would not
cede him that victory.
Two VCs were marching Janson at gunpoint along a muddy path, one in front of
him, one behind him, taking no chances. Villagers had gawked at him, perhaps
wondering how someone so wasted, so gaunt, could still move. He wondered that
himself. But he could not know the limits of his strength until he reached
beyond those limits.
Perhaps he would not have rebelled if the VC behind him hadn’t reached over and
cuffed him around the neck, exasperated by his slow pace. It seemed the final
indignity, and Janson snapped—he let himself snap, and let his trained instincts
take over. Your mind does not have a mind of its own, Demarest had told them in
their training days, and he meant to emphasize the ways in which they had to
exert control over their own consciousness. Yet after sufficient training,
learned reflexes took on the ingrained nature of basic instinct, joining the
ropy fiber of one’s being.
Janson turned around, his feet gliding along the path as if on ice, and cocked
his hip to the right without turning his right shoulder, which would have
alerted the guard to what was about to happen: an explosive lunge punch with the
fingers of his hand tensed and straight, his thumb tucked down and close to his
palm. The spear hand plunged into the guard’s throat, smashing the cartilage of
his trachea and whipping his head back. Then Janson glanced over his shoulder at
the other guard, and gained strength from the man’s expression of fear and
dismay. He directed a powerful rear snap-kick toward his groin, hammering his
heel up and back; the blow’s strength came from its speed, and the guard’s
attempt to rush toward him made it twice as effective. Now, as the front guard
doubled over, Janson followed with an arcing round kick, whipping into the side
of his exposed head. As his foot connected to the man’s skull, jolting vibration
traveled up his leg, and he wondered briefly whether he had fractured one of his
own bones. In truth, he was past caring. Now he grabbed the AK-47 that had been
held by the VC behind him, and used it as a cudgel, beating the still-sprawled
soldier until he lay limp.
“Xin loi,” he grunted. Sorry about that.
He scrambled off, into the jungle and toward the next swell of land. He would
struggle on until he reached the shore. This time he was not alone: he had a
submachine gun, its buttstock slick with another man’s blood. He would
persevere, one foot in front of the other, and whoever tried to stop him he
would kill. For his enemies there would be no mercy, only death.
And he would not be sorry about that.
One foot in front of the other.
Another hour passed before Janson climbed up the last rocky ledge and saw the
Smith Mountain estate. Yes, it was what he had expected to find, yet the sight
of it took his breath away.
It was a sudden plateau—encompassing perhaps a thousand acres of rolled Kentucky
bluegrass, as emerald as golf-course turf. He got out his binoculars again. The
land dipped a little from the ledge where Janson found himself, and extended in
a series of ridges that lapped against the sheer stone face of the mountain’s
summit.
He saw what Maurice Hempel had seen, recognized what had made it irresistible to
someone who was as reclusive as he was rich.
Tucked away, nearly inaccessible by ordinary means, was a brilliantly shimmering
mansion, more compact than the Biltmore estate and yet, he could see, just as
artfully designed. It was, however, the perimeter defenses that inspired
Janson’s awe. As if the natural impediments surrounding the site were not
sufficient, a high-tech obstacle course made the house resistant to any form of
intrusion.
Straight ahead of him was a nine-foot chain-link fence, and no ordinary one. The
simple existence of the object would discourage the casual hikers. Yet Janson
could also see the cunning array of pressure detectors built into the fence: it
would repel even a highly skilled burglar. Tensioned wire threaded its way
through the chain links, connecting to a series of boxes. Here were two systems
in one: a taut wire intrusion-detection system reinforced with vibration
detectors. His heart plummeted; fences equipped with vibration detectors alone
could often be penetrated with a pair of nippers and a little patience. The
taut-wire system made that approach impossible.
Beyond the chain-link barricade, he saw a series of stanchions. These were, at
first glance, four-foot-high poles with nothing between them. A closer look
revealed them for what they were. Each received and transmitted a microwave
flux. In simpler systems, it was possible to clamp a rod on top of a pole and
simply climb over it, dodging the invisible beams. Unfortunately, these were
staggered, with overlapping beams that protected the stanchions themselves.
There was simply no physical way to avoid the microwave flux.
And in the grassy fairway beyond the stanchions? There were no visible
impediments, and Janson scanned the grounds until, with a sharp pang, he
identified the small box near the graveled driveway with the logo of TriStar
Security on it. There, beneath the ground, was the most formidable obstacle of
all: a buried-cable pressure sensor. It could not be bypassed; it could not be
reached. Even if he somehow surmounted the other obstacles, the pressure sensors
would remain.
Infiltration was surely impossible. Logic told him as much. He put down his
binoculars, rolled back over the rocky ledge, and sat there in silence for a
long moment. A wave of resignation and despair overcame him. So near and yet so
far.
It was almost dusk by the time he found his way back to the maroon Taurus. His
clothing flecked with bits of leaves and many small burrs, he drove back toward
Millington and then north on Route 58, keeping a vigilant eye on the rearview
mirror.
With the little time he had left, he had to make a number of stops, a number of
acquisitions. At a roadside flea market, he bought an electric eggbeater, though
all he wanted was the solenoid motor. A strip-mall Radio Shack sufficed for a
cheap cell phone and a few inexpensive add-ons. At the Millington grocery store,
he bought a large round container of butter cookies, though all he wanted was
the steel can. Next was the hardware store on Main Street, where he bought glue,
a canister of artist’s powdered charcoal, a roll of electrical tape, a pair of
heavy-duty scissors, a compressed-air atomizer, and a locking extensible curtain
rod. “A handyman, are you?” asked the blonde in denim cutoffs as she rang up his
purchase. “My kinda guy.” She gave him an inviting smile. He could imagine the
counterman across the street glowering.
His final stop was farther down Route 58, and he arrived at Sipperly’s car lot
just shortly before it closed. From his face, he could tell the salesman was not
pleased to see him. The big mutt’s ears pricked up, but when he saw who it was,
he returned his attentions to his saliva-slick rag doll.
Sipperly took a long drag on a cigarette and walked toward Janson. “You know all
sales are ‘as is,’ don’t you?” he said warily.
Janson took five dollars out of his billfold. “For the dog,” he said.
“Come again?”
“You said I could have the dog for a fiver,” Janson said. “Here’s a fiver.”