Timing would be everything, and Janson had very little to go by. Now! With all
his strength, Janson reared up and threw himself, shoulder first, against the
swinging door. It would be his weapon—a battering ram. The door moved too easily
at first, and then, with a thud, it connected, sending the person on the other
side of it sprawling.
It was indeed Marta Lang he saw as the door swung all the way open. The door had
slammed into her, knocking her against a Hepplewhite-style dining-room table.
The heavy automatic weapon in her hands had been sent flying, too, clattering to
the table just a few inches beyond her reach.
With catlike agility, Lang scrambled to her feet, rounded the table, and reached
for the black gleaming weapon.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jessica said.
Marta Lang glanced up to see Jessica in a perfect Weaver stance, holding her
pistol with both hands. Her shooting stance said that she would not miss. Her
face said that she would not hesitate.
Breathing hard, Lang said nothing and did nothing for a long moment, as if torn
by indecision. At last, she stood up straight, verifying the position of her
weapon with a sidelong glance. “You’re no fun,” she said. The lower part of her
face was reddened from where the door had slammed into her. “Don’t you want to
even up the odds a little? Make the game interesting?”
Janson advanced toward her, and at the moment when his body was interposed
between Marta Lang and Kincaid, Lang’s hand darted out to grab back her weapon.
Janson anticipated the move, and he immediately wrenched it from her hands. “A
Suomi burp gun. Impressive. You have a license for this toy?”
“You’ve broken into my house,” she said. “Caused grievous bodily injury to my
staff. I’d call it self-defense.”
Marta Lang ran her fingers through her perfectly coifed white hair, and Janson
tensed for a surprise, but her hands returned empty. There was something
different about her; her speech was flatter, her affect more casual. What did he
really know about this woman?
“Don’t waste our time and we’ll try not to waste yours,” Janson said, pressing
on. “You see, we already know the truth about Peter Novak. There’s no use in
trying to hold out. He’s a dead man. It’s over, dammit!”
“You poor muscle-bound idiot,” Marta Lang said. “You think you’ve got everything
figured out. But you thought that before, didn’t you? Doesn’t that make you
wonder?”
“Give him up, Marta,” Janson said with gritted teeth. “It’s your only chance.
They’ve pulled the plug on him. An executive directive from the President of the
United States himself.”
The white-haired woman’s contempt was magnificent. “Peter Novak is more powerful
than he is. The U.S. president is only the leader of the free world.” She paused
to let it sink in. “Getting the big picture, or are you waiting for it to come
out on video?”
“You’re deluded. He’s somehow brought you into his own madness. And if you can’t
break free, you’re lost.”
“Tough talk from a goddamn organization man. Look into my eyes, Janson—I want to
see if you even believe what you’re saying. Probably you do, worse for you. Hey,
like the fat lady sings, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
You think you’re some kind of hero, don’t you? I feel sorry for you, you know.
There’s no freedom for people like you. Somebody is always manipulating you, and
if it’s not me, it’ll just be someone else, someone a little less imaginative.”
She turned to Jessica. “It’s true. Your boyfriend here is like a piano. He’s
just a piece of furniture until someone plays him. And someone’s always playing
him.” Something between a grin and a grimace flashed on her face. “Has it never
struck you that he’s been three steps ahead of you all along? You’re so
wonderfully predictable—I suppose that’s what you call character. He knows just
what makes you tick, just what you’re capable of doing, and just what you’ll
decide to do. For all your derring-do in the Stone Palace, he was playing with
you like a kid with a goddamn action figure. We had remote surveillance rigged
up there, naturally. Kept tabs on everything you did, every move. We knew every
element of your plan and we’d prepared contingencies for every anticipated
variant. Of course Higgins—oh, that was the fellow you sprang—was going to
insist on saving the American girl. And of course you were going to give up your
seat to the lady. What a perfect gentleman you are. Perfectly predictable. The
craft was wired to blow by remote, needless to say. Peter Novak was practically
waving a baton—he could have been conducting the whole goddamn operation. You
see, Janson, he made you. You didn’t make him. He was calling the shots before,
and he’s calling the shots now. And he always will.”
“Permission to blow the bitch away, sir?” Jessica asked, raising her left hand
like an eager cadet.
“Ask again later,” Janson said. “You get only so many chances in this world,
Marta Lang. Is that your name, by the way?”
“What’s in a name?” she said, blase. “By the time he gets done with you, you’ll
think it’s your name. Now here’s a question for you: do you think that if the
hunt goes on long enough, the fox starts to imagine it’s chasing the hounds?”
“What’s your point?”
“It’s Peter Novak’s world. You’re just living in it.” She flashed a strangely
ethereal smile. When Janson had met her in Chicago, she seemed the very picture
of a highly educated foreigner. Her accent was now decidedly American; she could
have come from Darien.
“There is no Peter Novak,” Jessie said.
“Remember, dear, what they say about the Devil—that his greatest trick was
persuading people he didn’t exist. Believe what you like.”
A memory pricked at Janson. He looked at Marta Lang intently, alert to any
flicker of weakness. “Alan Demarest—where is he?”
“Here. There. Everywhere. You should call him Peter Novak, though. It’s rude not
to.”
“Where, goddammit!”
“Not telling,” she said lightly.
“What does he have over you?” Janson exploded.
“Sad to say, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He owns you somehow.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she replied witheringly. “Peter Novak owns the
future.”
Janson stared. “If you know where he is, then, God help me, I will extract the
information from you. Believe this: after a few hours on a Versed-scopolamine
drip, you won’t know the difference between your thoughts and your speech.
Whatever comes into your head will come out of your mouth. If it’s in your head,
we’ll extract it. We’ll extract a lot of garbage, too. I’d rather you came clean
without chemical assistance. But one way or another, you will tell us what we
want to know.”
“You’re so full of it,” she said, and turned to Jessica. “Hey, back me up here.
Can’t I get a little feminine solidarity on this one? Haven’t you
heard—sisterhood is powerful.” Then she leaned forward, putting her face only
inches from his. “Paul, I’m really sorry about your friends getting blown
sky-high off Anura.” She fluttered her fingers and, in a voice that was pure
vinegar, added, “I know you were all broken up about your Greek butt-boy.” She
loosed a short giggle. “What can I say? Shit happens.”
Janson felt a vein in his forehead throb painfully; he knew his face was mottled
with rage. He imagined smashing her face, imagined fracturing her facial bones,
a spear hand driving the bones of her nose into her brain. Just as swiftly, he
felt the fog of fury recede. He recognized that the point of her needling was to
get him to lose control. “I’m not presenting you with three choices,” he said.
“Only two. And if you don’t decide, I’ll decide for you.”
“Is this going to take long?” she said.
Janson grew aware of choral music in the background. Hildegard von Bingen. The
hairs on Janson’s neck stood erect. ” ‘The Canticles of Ecstasy,’ ” he said.
“The long shadow of Alan Demarest.”
“Huh? I turned him on to that,” she said, shrugging. “Back when we were growing
up.”
Janson stared at her, seeing her as if for the first time. Suddenly, a series of
small nagging details snapped into place. The movement of her head, her sudden,
bewildering shifts of affect and tone, her age, even certain lines and
locutions.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “You’re—”
“His twin sister. Told you sisterhood was powerful.” She started to massage the
loose skin beneath her left collarbone. “The fabulous Demarest twins. Double
trouble. Terrorized fucking Fairfield growing up. The Mobius morons never even
knew that Alan brought me into the picture.” As she spoke, her circular
movements became deeper, more insistent, seemingly responding to an itch deep
beneath the skin. “So if you think I’m going to ‘give him up,’ as you so