to the soul, yet this man had no soul. Certainly not anymore.
Janson jammed the Ruger into his own shoulder holster. Using a small pocket
mirror, he adjusted his beard and kaffiyeh and made sure there were no visible
bloodstains on his person. Then he walked out of the chapel and into the General
Assembly Hall, where he stood near the back.
For years he had fantasized about killing the man who had killed his wife. Now
he had done so.
And all he felt was sick.
The black-haired man stood at the podium, giving a speech about the challenges
of a new century. Janson’s eyes searched every hollow and contour. He looked
like Peter Novak. He would be accepted as Novak. Yet he lacked the sense of
command associated with the legendary humanitarian. His voice was thin,
wavering; he seemed slightly nervous, out of his depth. Janson knew what the
consensus would be afterward: Very fine speech, of course. Yet poor Mr. Novak
was a bit under the weather, was he not?
“Half a century ago,” the man at the podium was saying, “the very ground under
our feet, the land of the entire United Nations complex, was donated to the U.N.
by the Rockefellers. The history of private assistance for this most public of
missions goes to the origins of the institution. If I can, in my own small way,
provide such assistance, I would be profoundly gratified. People talk about
‘giving back to the community’: my own community has always been the community
of nations. Help me to help you. Show me how I can be of greatest assistance. To
do so would be my pleasure, my honor—indeed, nothing less than my duty. The
world has been very good to me. My only hope is that I can return the favor.”
The words were vintage Novak, by turns charming and hard-edged, humble and
arrogant, and, in the end, nothing short of winning. Yet the delivery was
atypically hesitant and tentative.
And only Janson knew why.
The master of escape had escaped again. How could he ever have imagined that he
might trump his great mentor? Your arms are too short to box with God, Demarest
had once told him, half joking. Still, there was an uncomfortable truth there.
The protégé was pitting himself against his mentor; the student was testing his
wits against his teacher. Only vanity had prevented him from seeing that failure
was foreordained.
As the man at the podium finished his remarks, the audience rose in a standing
ovation. What his address lacked in style of delivery, it made up for in
rhetorical appeal. Besides, on such an occasion, who could begrudge the great
man his proper due? Janson, stone-faced, walked out of the hall, and the noise
of the resounding applause quieted only when the door closed behind him.
If Demarest wasn’t at the United Nations, where was he?
The secretary-general had walked off the dais together with the clamorously
applauded speaker, and now, as a twenty-minute recess began, both would repair
to the carpeted chamber behind the hall.
Janson realized that his earpiece had been dislodged by his recent struggle; he
repositioned it and, crackling, heard snippets of dialogue. He remembered the
hidden microphone on Mathieu Zinsou’s collar bar; it was transmitting.
“No, I thank you. But I would like to have that tête-à-tête you mentioned after
all.” The voice was fuzzy but audible.
“Certainly,” Zinsou answered. His voice was nearer to the microphone and
clearer.
“Why don’t we go to your office, in the Secretariat?”
“You mean now?”
“I’m rather pressed for time, I’m afraid. It’ll have to be now.”
Zinsou paused. “Then follow me. The thirty-eighth floor.” Janson wondered if the
secretary-general had added the specification for his sake.
Something was up. But what?
Janson made a dash for the eastern ramp of the General Assembly Building, and
then lumbered toward the looming Secretariat Building. His right knee twinged
with every step he took, and the bruises on his body were starting to swell and
smart—the Anuran’s blows had been not only forceful but well aimed. Yet he had
to put all of it out of his mind.
Inside the Secretariat lobby, he flashed the ID card that had been prepared for
him, and a guard waved him through. He pressed the button for the thirty-eighth
floor, and rode up. Mathieu Zinsou and Alan Demarest’s agent, whoever he was,
would be following him within minutes.
As he rode up to the top of the skyscraper, the transmission to his earpiece
fuzzed out. The metal of the elevator shaft was blocking off the signal.
A minute later, the elevator stopped at the thirty-eighth floor. Janson
remembered the floor plan: The elevator banks were in the midpoint of the long,
rectangular floor. The offices of the undersecretaries and special deputies were
lined against the west-facing wall; to the north were two large, windowless
conference rooms; to the south, a narrow, windowless library. The
secretary-general’s teak-lined office was along the east wall. Because of the
special meeting, the floor was almost entirely vacant; every staff member was
doing duty attending to the visiting delegations.
Now Janson removed his headdress and his beard and waited around the corner from
where the elevator banks opened. Sheltered by the recessed doorway leading to
the library, he would be able to monitor both the hallway to the
secretary-general’s office and the elevator banks.
He knew he would not be waiting long.
The elevator chimed.
“And this will be our floor,” said Mathieu Zinsou as the elevator doors opened.
He made an after-you-my-dear-Alphonse gesture to the man who looked, for all the
world, like Peter Novak.
Could Janson have been correct? Zinsou wondered. Or was the strain finally
getting to the American operative, a man whom circumstances had given
responsibilities far greater than any man should have to shoulder?
“You have to forgive us—almost everybody who normally staffs my office here is
in the General Assembly Building. Or somewhere else altogether. The annual
meeting of the General Assembly is like a bank holiday for some U.N. employees.”
“Yes, I’m aware of this,” his companion said tonelessly.
As Zinsou opened the door to his office, he startled as he saw the figure of a
man seated behind his own desk, silhouetted by the ebbing light.
What the hell was happening?
He turned to his companion: “I don’t know what to say. It seems we have an
unexpected visitor.”
The man at Zinsou’s desk rose and stepped toward him, and Zinsou gaped in
astonishment.
The helmet of thick black hair, only lightly flecked with gray, the high, almost
Asiatic cheekbones. A face the world knew as Peter Novak’s.
Zinsou turned to the man at his side.
The same face. Essentially indistinguishable.
Yet there were differences, Zinsou reflected, just not physical ones. Rather,
they were differences of affect and mien. There was something hesitant and
cautious about the man by his side: something implacable and imperious about the
man before him. The marionette and the marionette master. Zinsou’s whirling
sense of vertigo was lessened only by the recognition that Paul Janson had
guessed right.
Now the man at Zinsou’s side handed an envelope to the man who could have been
his mirror image.
A subtle nod: “Thank you, Laszlo,” said the man who had been waiting for them.
“You may go now.”
The impostor by Zinsou’s side turned and left without so much as a word.
“Mon cher Mathieu,” said the man who stayed behind. He held out a hand. “Mon
très cher frère.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Janson heard Zinsou’s voice distinctly in his earpiece: “My God.” At the same
time, he saw the Peter Novak who was not Peter Novak press the down elevator
button.
He was leaving.
In Janson’s earpiece, another man’s voice: “I must apologize for the confusion.”
Janson raced to the elevator and stepped in. The man who was not Peter Novak
wore an expression that was startled—but devoid of recognition.
“Who are you really?” Janson demanded.
The suited Iran’s response was glacial and dignified: “Have we met?”
“I simply don’t understand,” said the secretary-general.
The other man was magnetic, utterly confident, utterly relaxed. “You’ll have to
forgive me for taking very special precautions. That was my double, as you’ve no
doubt figured out by now.”
“You sent a double in your place?”
“You’re familiar with the role played by the ‘morning Stalin,’ are you not? The
Soviet dictator would send a look-alike to make certain public appearances—it
kept his enemies on their toes. I’m afraid that there had been rumors of an
assassination attempt in the General Assembly. Credible reports from my security
staff. I couldn’t risk it.”
“I see,” Zinsou said. “But you know, of course, that the Russian prime minister,
the premier of China, many others, also have enemies. And they’ve addressed the
General Assembly. The U.S. president himself has honored us with his presence
today. This institution has an unbroken record of security, at least on this