in so many words. But I heard him making a joke to his little friend there about
playing baccarat—you do the math. Hey, you boys are supposed to be in
intelligence, so why don’t you try acting intelligent?”
She was lying to them.
Lying for him.
Janson returned his gun to his holster, and felt flooded, almost lightheaded,
with relief. The intensity of the emotion surprised and puzzled him. She had
been asked for his location, and she had lied to protect him. She had just
chosen sides.
“No,” she was saying, “don’t tell anybody I called in. This was a private chat,
all right? Just me and you, pookie. No, you can take all the credit, and that’ll
be fine with me. Tell ’em, I dunno, tell ’em I’m in a coma somewhere and the
Netherlands national health plan is paying for real expensive treatment, because
I didn’t have any identity papers on me. Tell ’em that and I bet they won’t be
in such a rush to bring me back to the States.”
A few moments later, she clicked off, turned around, and was startled to see
Janson in the doorway.
“Who’s ‘pookie’?” he asked, in a bored voice.
“God damn you,” she erupted. “You been spying on me? The famous Paul Janson
turns out to be some kind of goddamn Peeping Tom?”
“Came down for some milk,” he said.
“Shit,” she said in two syllables, glowering. Finally, she said, “He’s a fat-ass
desk jockey at State, Bureau of Research and Intelligence. Sweet guy, though. I
think he likes me, because when I’m around, his tongue comes out like Michael
Jordan doing a fadeaway. Stranger things, right? But what’s really strange is
what he told me about Puma.”
“Puma?”
“Shop name for Peter Novak. And before you ask, you’re Falcon. The Puma update
is what’s freaking me out, though. They don’t think he’s dead.”
“What, are they waiting for the obituary in The New York Times?”
“Story is that you took money to arrange his death. But you failed.”
“I saw him die,” Janson said sadly, shaking his head. “God, I wish it were
otherwise. I can’t tell you how much.”
“Whoa,” she said. “What, you trying to claim credit for the kill?”
“I’m afraid your contact is either putting you on or, more likely, just hasn’t
got a clue.” He rolled his eyes. “Your tax dollars at work.”
“Mentioned there was a news segment with him on CNN today. We got CNN here?
Probably still be showing on the early-morning Headline News retreads.”
She wandered over to the large-screen television set, and switched on CNN. Then
she located a blank videotape atop the connected VCR, popped it in, and hit
record.
A special report on the declining power of the Federal Reserve. Renewed tensions
between North and South Korea. The latest fashion craze among Japanese youth.
Protests against genetically modified foods in Britain. Forty minutes of
videotape had been recorded by now. Then came a three-minute segment about an
Indian woman who ran a clinic in Calcutta for her countrymen with AIDS. A
homegrown Mother Teresa, someone called her. And—the occasion for the
segment—the ceremony yesterday honoring the woman’s efforts. A
distinguished-looking man presenting her with a special humanitarian award. The
same man who had helped fund her clinic.
Peter Novak.
The late, great Peter Novak.
Janson watched the large-screen TV with a swirling sense of bewilderment. Either
this was some kind of technical trickery or, most likely, it had been filmed
earlier, much earlier.
Surely a closer inspection would make this clear.
Together, he and Jessie rewound the recording she had made. There was Peter
Novak, the familiar figure, unmistakably so. He was grinning and speaking into a
microphone, “There’s a favorite Hungarian proverb of mine: Sok kicsi sokra megy.
It means that many small things can add up to a big one. It’s a privilege to be
able to honor the remarkable woman who, through countless small acts of kindness
and compassion, has given the world something large indeed … ”
There had to be an easy explanation. There had to be.
Then they watched the segment again, frame by frame.
“Stop there,” Jessie said at one point. It was their third viewing. She pointed
toward a magazine, fleetingly glimpsed at a cluttered table where Novak was
interviewed after the ceremony. She ran to the kitchen and retrieved Janson’s
copy of The Economist, purchased at the newsstand earlier that day.
“Same issue,” she said.
The very same image appeared on the cover, which was dated to expire the
following Monday. It was not an old tape that had been broadcast. It was filmed,
had to have been filmed, after the catastrophe in Anura.
Yet if Peter Novak were alive, who had died in Anura?
And if Peter Novak was dead, who were they were watching?
Janson felt his head starting to swim.
It was madness!
What had they seen? A twin? An impostor?
Had Novak been murdered and … replaced with a double? It was diabolical, almost
beyond imagining. Who could do such a thing?
Who else knew? He reached for his cell phone, trying Novak’s staffers both in
New York and in Amsterdam. An urgent message for Peter Novak. Having to do with
matters involving his personal security.
He used every code-red word he knew—to no avail, yet again. The response was the
familiar one: bored, phlegmatic, unalarmed. A message would be conveyed; no
promises of whether it would be returned. No information would be divulged as to
Mr. Novak’s whereabouts. Marta Lang—if that was even her real name—remained
equally elusive.
A quarter of an hour later, Janson found himself clutching his head, trying to
order his whirling thoughts. What had happened to Peter Novak? What was
happening to Janson himself? When he looked up, he saw Jessie Kincaid staring
back at him with wounded eyes.
“I ask only one thing of you,” she said, “and I know it’s a biggie, but here it
is: do not lie to me. I’ve heard too many lies, hell, I’ve told too many lies,
as it is. As for what happened in Anura, I got your word for it, nobody else’s.
Tell me this, what I am supposed to believe?” Her eyes were moist, and she was
blinking hard. “Who am I supposed to believe?”
“I know what I saw,” Janson said softly.
“That makes two of us.” She jerked her head at the TV screen.
“What are you saying? That you don’t believe me?”
“I want to believe you.” She took a deep breath. “I want to believe somebody.”
Janson was silent for a long moment. “Fine,” he said. “I don’t blame you.
Listen, I’ll call for a cab, he’ll ferry you down to the Cons Op station in
Milan, and you can report back in. Trust me, a crack shot like you, they’ll be
relieved to have you back. And I’ll be long gone by the time you get the cleanup
crew here.”
“Hold it,” she said. “Slow down.”
“I think it’s best,” he said.
“For who?”
“Both of us.”
“You don’t speak for both of us. You speak for one of you.” She was silent for a
while, pacing. “All right, you goddamn son of a bitch,” she said abruptly. “You
saw what you saw. Christ on a raft, you saw what you saw. Shit, now this is what
I call a total mindfuck.” A mordant chuckle. “Shouldn’t do that on a first date,
or they won’t respect you in the morning.”
Janson was lost in his own whirring thoughts. Peter Novak: just who was this
living legend, this man who emerged from obscurity to global prominence in such
a meteoric blaze? Questions crowded his mind, but they were questions without
answers. His stomach churning, Janson threw his Deruta mug into the fireplace,
where it smashed against the heavy stones. He felt better for a moment, but only
a moment.
He returned to the scarred leather chair near the fireplace, settling one
battered hide against another. Jessie stood behind him, and began to rub his
aching shoulders.
“I hate to add to the tension,” she said, “but if we’re gonna figure out what
the hell’s going on, we have got to get out of here. How long do you think it’s
going to take Cons Ops before they find us? They’ve got all that eye-in-the-sky
data, and believe me, they got technicians working around the clock to identify
your car, alternate means of conveyance, whatever. From what my friend told me,
the cables so far are worthless, just a lot of false sightings—but there’ll be a
true one before long. They’ll be shaking down known contacts in Europe,
following thousands of dangling threads, reviewing video from highway tolls and
border crossings. All that cybergumshoe shit. And sooner or later, something’s
going to lead them here.”
She was right. He thought of the philanthropist’s motto: Sok kicsi sokra megy.
Hungarian folk wisdom. Would their own small efforts yield a larger result? Now