revere and a former pupil to whom he had once been devoted. That much, at least,
Janson could read from the old man’s etched, stricken face.
“May God have mercy on your soul,” Fielding said at last, lowering his side arm.
The words were something between a benediction and a curse.
Four men and one woman sat around the table at the Meridian Center. Their own
secretaries had them down for various out-of-office engagements: they were
having their hair cut, going to a child’s piano recital, keeping a
long-postponed dental appointment. A subsequent inspection of logs and calendars
would reveal only the humdrum, commonplace tasks of personal and family
maintenance to which even the highest-ranking officials of the executive branch
and its allied bureaus must attend. The crisis was carved out of the invisible
interstices of overscheduled lives. It had to be. The Mobius Program had changed
the world; its discovery, by those of malign intention, could destroy the world.
“We can’t assume the worst-case scenario,” said the National Security Advisor,
an immaculately attired, round-faced black woman with large, probing eyes. It
was the first such meeting Charlotte Ainsley had attended since the crisis
began, but the deputy director of the NSA, Sanford Hil-dreth, had kept her
up-to-date.
“A week ago, I would have argued the same thing,” Kazuo Onishi, the systems
engineer, said. In the formal world of Washington bureaucracy, people like the
chairman of the National Security Council were many tiers above the CIA computer
whiz. But the absolutely covert nature of the Mobius Program, compounded by its
current crisis, had created a small, artificial democracy, the democracy of the
lifeboat. No one’s opinion mattered more than anyone else’s by virtue of rank;
power lay in persuasion.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave … ,” Sanford Hildreth, the NSA man, began.
“Spare us,” said the DIA’s deputy director, Douglas Albright, resting his
hamlike forearms on the table. “What do we know? What have we heard?”
“He’s disappeared,” the NSA man said, massaging his high forehead with thumb and
forefinger. “We had him, and then we didn’t.”
“That’s not possible,” the DIA man said, scowling.
“You don’t know Janson,” said Derek Collins, undersecretary of state and the
director of Consular Operations.
“Thank God for small blessings, Derek,” Albright returned. “He’s a fucking
golem—you know what that is? My grandmother used to talk about them. It’s like a
doll you make out of clay and evil spirits, and it turns into a monster. The
shtetl version of the Frankenstein story.”
“A golem,” Collins echoed. “Interesting. We are dealing with a golem here, but
we all know it isn’t Janson.”
Silence settled over the agitated spymasters.
“With respect,” Sandy Hildreth said, “I think we need to return to basics. Is
the program in jeopardy of exposure? Will Janson be the cause of that exposure?”
“And how did we allow ourselves to get into this situation?” Albright exhaled
heavily.
“It’s always the same story,” the National Security Advisor said. “We thought we
were getting laid, when we were really getting screwed.” Her brown eyes roamed
across the faces in the room. “Maybe we’re missing something—let’s review your
man’s records again,” she said to the undersecretary. “Just the high points.”
“Paul Elie Janson,” Collins said, his eyes veiled behind his black plastic
glasses. “Grew up in Norfolk, Connecticut, educated at the Kent School. His
mother was born Anna Klima—an émigré from what was then Czechoslovakia. She’d
been a literary translator in the old country, became too closely associated
with dissident writers, paid a visit to a cousin in New Haven, and never
returned. Wrote poems in Czech and English, published a couple of them in The
New Yorker. Alec Janson was an insurance executive, a senior vice president at
the Dalkey Group before he died. In 1969, hot-to-trot Paul leaves U-Michigan
just before graduating and joins the navy. Turns out he’s got this gift for
tactics and combat, gets himself transferred to the SEALs, the youngest person
ever to have received SEAL training. Assigned to a counterintelligence division.
We’re talking about a learning curve like a rocket.”
“Wait a minute,” the DIA man said. “A hothouse flower like that—what’s he doing
joining up with the Dirty Dozen? Profile mismatch.”
“His whole life is a ‘profile mismatch,’ ” Derek Collins replied, with a trace
of asperity. “You really want to get the shrink reports? Maybe he’s rebelling
against his dad—the two weren’t close. Maybe he’d heard too many stories about a
Czech uncle who was a hero of the resistance, a partisan who picked off Nazis
through the ravines and forests of Sumava. Dad wasn’t exactly a wuss, either.
During the Second World War, old Alec was in the marines himself, a Semper Fi
leatherneck before he became a business executive. Let’s just say Paul’s got the
bloodlines, preppy or no. Besides, you know what they say—the Battle of Waterloo
was won on the playing fields of Eton. Or was that a ‘profile mismatch,’ too,
Doug?”
The DIA analyst colored slightly. “I’m just trying to get a handle on somebody
who seems to have walked out of a full-force, all-hands CIA stakeout like the
Invisible Man.”
“We had very little warning—the whole operation was spur-of-the-moment, our boys
had minutes to prepare and mobilize,” said Clayton Ackerley, the man from the
CIA’s Directorate of Operations. He had wispy red hair, watery blue eyes, and a
fading tan. “Under the circumstances, I’m sure they did the best they could.”
“There’s always time for recriminations,” said Charlotte Ainsley with a severe,
over-the-glasses pedagogic look. “Just not now. Go ahead, Derek. I’m still not
getting the picture.”
“Served in SEAL Team Four, picked up a goddamn Navy Cross in his first tour of
duty,” said the undersecretary of state. His eyes fell on a yellowing slip from
the file, and he passed it around.
Officer Fitness Report Remarks 20 November 1970
Lieutenant Junior Grade Janson’s performance in Joint SEAL/Special Force
Detachment A-8 has been outstanding. His able judgment, tactical knowledge,
creativity, and imagination has allowed him to plan Swift Strike operations
against enemy units, guerrilla personnel, and hostile installations that were
accomplished with minimal losses. Lt. j.g. Janson has demonstrated extraordinary
ability to adapt and to respond to rapidly changing circumstances, and is
unaffected by the hardships of living under the toughest field conditions. As an
officer, he demonstrates natural leadership skills: he does not merely demand
respect, he commands it.
Lieutenant Harold Brady, Rating Officer
Lt. j.g. Janson demonstrates potential of the highest caliber: his field skills
and ability to improvise in conditions of adversity are nothing short of
stellar. I will personally be keeping a close watch to see whether his potential
is fully realized.
Lieutenant Commander blbalblalbalblab Endorsing Officer
“There’s dozens just like it. Guy serves one tour after another, continuous
combat exposure, no breaks. Then a big gap. Hard to build your resume as a POW.
Captured in the spring of 1971 by the Viet Cong. Held for eighteen months, in
pretty abysmal conditions.”
“Care to specify?” Charlotte Ainsley asked.
“Tortured, repeatedly. Starved. Part of the time, he was kept in a cage—not a
cell, a cage, like a big birdcage, six feet high, maybe four feet around. When
we found him, he weighed eighty-three pounds. He grew so skeletal that the
manacles slid off his feet one day. Made about three escape attempts. The last
one succeeded.”
“Was treatment like that typical?”
“No,” the undersecretary said. “But trying so relentlessly and resourcefully to
escape wasn’t typical, either. They knew he was part of a coun-terintelligence
division, so they tried pumping him pretty hard. Got frustrated when it went
nowhere. He was lucky he survived. Damn lucky.”
“Not lucky he got captured,” the National Security Advisor said.
“Well, that’s where things get complicated, of course. Janson believed that he’d
been set up. That the VC had been given information about him and he’d been
deliberately led into an ambush.”
“Set up? By whom?” Ainsley’s voice was sharp.
“His commanding officer.”
“Whose own opinion of his darling protégé seemed to have cooled a little.” She
flipped to the final sheet headed officer fitness report remarks and read out
loud:
Although Lt. Janson’s own standards of professionalism remain impressive,
difficulties have begun to emerge in his concept of leadership: in both training
exercises and duty, he has failed to demand from his subordinates a similar
level of competence, while overlooking obvious shortcomings. He appears to be
more concerned with the welfare of his subordinates than with their ability to
help execute mission objectives. His loyalty to his men overrides his commitment
to broader military goals, as specified and set out by his commanding officers.
“There’s more going on there than meets the eye,” said Collins. “The chill was
inevitable.”
“Why?”
“Because, it seems, he’d threatened to report him to the high command. Crimes of
war.”
“Forgive me, I should know this. But what was going on here? The warrior
wunderkind had a psychotic break?”
“No. Janson’s suspicions were correct. And once he’d returned stateside, and got