“No. That’s still in Amsterdam. Don’t you remember?”
“We put a ‘bumper beeper’ on it,” she explained. Her eyes roamed across the ceiling, which was covered by an elaborate baroque painting of cherubim gamboling among clouds.
“I figured,” Janson said.
“Don’t want them to find us,” she whispered.
Janson touched her cheek gently. “Remind me how come.”
For a few moments she said nothing. Then she slowly sat up in the bed. Anger settled onto her bruised countenance. “They lied,” she said softly. “They lied,” she repeated, and this time there was steel in her voice.
“There will always be lies,” Janson said.
“The bastards set me up,” she said, and now she was trembling, with cold, or with fury.
“No, I think I was the one being set up,” Janson said levelly.
He refilled her glass, watched her raise it to her cracked lips, drink the water in a single swallow.
“Comes to the same thing,” she said. Her voice was distant. “When it’s your own team does it to you, there’s only one word for it. Betrayal.”
“You feel betrayed,” Janson said.
She covered her face with her hand, and words came out in a rush. “They set me up to kill you, but I don’t feel guilty, somehow. Mostly, I just feel … so pissed off. So angry.” Her voice broke. “And so damn ashamed. Like a goddamn dupe. And I’m starting to wonder about everything I think I know—what’s real, what isn’t. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“Yes,” Janson said, simply.
She fell silent for a while. “You look at me like I’m some kind of wounded animal,” she finally said.
“Maybe we both are,” Janson said gently. “And there’s nothing more dangerous.”
While the woman rested, Janson was downstairs, in the room that the house’s owner, Alasdair Swift, used as a study. Before him was a stack of articles he had downloaded from online electronic databases of newspapers and periodicals. These were the lives of Peter Novak—hundreds of stories about the life and times of the great philanthropist.
Janson pored over them obsessively, hunting for something that he knew he would probably not find: a key, a clue, an incidental bit of data with larger significance. Something—anything—that would tell him why the great man had been killed. Something that would narrow the field. He was looking for a rhyme—a detail that would be meaningless to most people, yet would resonate with something that his subconscious mind had stowed away. We know more than we know, as Demarest liked to say: our mind stores the impress of facts that we cannot consciously retrieve. Janson read in a zone of receptivity: not trying to puzzle out a problem but hoping simply to take in what could be taken in, without preconception or expectations. Would there be a fleeting allusion to an embittered business rival? To a particular current of buried animus in the financial or international community? To a conflict involving his forebears? Some other enemy as yet unsuspected? He could not know the kind of thing he was looking for, and to imagine that he did would only blind him to the thing he must see.
Novak’s enemies—was he flattering himself to think this?—were his enemies. If that were so, what else might they have in common? We know more than we know. Yet as Janson read on ceaselessly, his eyes beginning to burn, he felt as if he knew less and less. Occasionally he underlined a detail, though what was striking was how little the details varied. There were countless renditions of Peter Novak’s financial exploits, countless evocations of his childhood in war-torn Hungary, countless tributes to his humanitarian passions. In the Far Eastern Economic Review, he read:
In December of 1992, he announced another ambitious program, donating $100 million in support of scientists of the former Soviet Union. His program was designed to slow down that country’s brain drain—and prevent Soviet scientists from taking up more lucrative employment in places like Iraq, Syria, and Libya. There’s no better example of Novak in action. Even while Europe and the United States were wringing their hands and wondering what to do about the dispersal of scientific talent from the former superpower, Novak was actually doing something about it.
“I find it easier to make money than to spend it, to tell you the truth,” says Novak with a big grin. He remains a man of simple tastes. Every day starts with a spartan breakfast of kasha, and he pointedly eschews the luxury resorts and high-living ways favored by the plutocratic set.
Even Novak’s small, homey eccentricities—like that unvarying daily breakfast of kasha—cycled from one piece to another: a permanent residue of personal “color,” PCBs in the journalistic riverbed. Once in a while, there was a reference to the investigation of Novak’s activities after Great Britain’s “Black Wednesday,” and the conclusion, as summarized by the head of MI6, in the line that Fielding had quoted: “The only law this fellow has broken is the law of averages.” In another widely repeated quote, Peter Novak had explained his relative reticence with the press: “Dealing with a journalist is like dancing with a Doberman,” he had quipped. “You never know if it’s going to lick your face or rip your throat out.” Testimonials from elder statesmen about his role in rebuilding civil society and promoting conflict resolution were woven through every profile. Soon, paragraphs of journalistic prose seemed to blend into one another; quotes recurred with only minor variations, as if struck from boilerplate. Thus, the London Guardian:
‘Time was you could dismiss Peter Novak,’ says Walter Horowitz, the former United States Ambassador to Russia. ‘Now he’s become a player and a major one. He’s very much his own man. He gets in there and does it, and he has very little patience with government. He’s the only private citizen who has his own foreign policy—and who can implement it.’ Horowitz voices a perspective that seems increasingly common in the foreign-policy establishment: that governments no longer have the resources or the will to execute certain kinds of initiatives, and that this vacuum is being filled by private-sector potentates like Peter Novak.
The U.N. Under Secretary-General for Political and Security Council Affairs, Jaako Torvalds, says, ‘It’s like working with a friendly, peaceable, independent entity, if not a government. At the U.N., we try to coordinate our approach to troubled regions with Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia—and with Peter Novak.’
In Newsweek, similar tributes echoed:
What sets the Magyar mogul apart? Start with his immense sense of assurance, an absolute certainty that you see in both his bearing and his speech. “I don’t deal with affairs of state for the thrill of it,” says Novak, whose exquisitely tailored wardrobe doesn’t distract from his physical vigor. Yet by now he has matched himself against the world markets and won so frequently that the game must not feel like much of a challenge. Helping rebuild civil society in unstable regions such as Bosnia or the Central Asian republics, however, provides as much challenge as any man could hope for, even Peter Novak.
Hours later, he heard quiet footsteps, bare feet on terra-cotta tile. The woman, wearing a terry-cotton robe, had finally emerged from the bedroom. Janson stood up, his head still a blur of names and dates, a fog of facts as yet undistilled into the urgent truths he sought.
“Pretty swank place,” she said.
Janson was grateful for the interruption. “Three centuries ago, there was a mountainside monastery here. Almost all of it was destroyed, then overgrown by the forest. My friend bought the property and sank a lot of money into turning the remnants into a cottage.”
For Janson, what appealed wasn’t so much the house as the location, rustic and isolated. Through the front windows, a craggy mountain peak was visible, rising from the nearby forest. Streaks of gray, naked stone interrupted its green textures—the distance made the trees look like clinging moss—and the whole was outlined against the azure sky, where small black birds wheeled and circled and plunged, their movements coordinated but seemingly aimless. An iron pergola, draped in vines, stood in the back not far from a centuries-old campani
le, one of the few vestiges of the old monastery.
“Where I come from,” she said, “this isn’t a cottage.”
“Well, he discovered a lot of frescoes in the course of renovation. He also installed a number of trompe l’oeil paintings taken from other villas. Went a little wild with the ceiling art.”
“Damn bat babies got into my dreams.”
“They’re meant to be little angels. Think of them that way. It’s more soothing.”
“Who’s this friend anyway?”
“A Montreal businessman. ‘Friend’ is an exaggeration. If it really belonged to a friend, I wouldn’t go near it—the risk would be too great. Alasdair Swift is someone I did a few favors once. Always urged me to stay at his place if I were ever in northern Italy. He spends a few weeks here in July, otherwise, it’s pretty much vacant. I figure it’ll serve a turn. There’s also a fair amount of high-tech communication equipment here. A satellite dish, high-bandwidth Internet connection. Everything a modern businessman might need.”
“Everything but a pot of joe,” she said.
“There’s a sack of coffee in the kitchen. Why don’t you make us a pot?”
“Trust me,” she said. “That’s a real bad idea.”
“I’m not fussy,” he said.
She held his gaze sullenly. “I don’t cook and I don’t make coffee. I’d say it was out of feminist principle. Truth is, I don’t know how. No big whoop. Something to do with my mom dying when I was a little girl.”
“Wouldn’t that turn you into a cook?”
“You didn’t know my dad. He didn’t like me messing around in the kitchen. Like it was disrespecting my mom’s memory, or something. Taught me how to microwave a Hungry-Man dinner, though, and scrape the gunk out of the foil sections and onto a plate.”
He shrugged. “Hot water. Coffee grounds. Figure it out.”
“On the other hand,” she went on, her cheeks aflame, “I am crazy good with a rifle. And I’m generally considered hot shit at field tactics, E and E, surveillance, you name it. So if you had a mind to, you probably could put me to good use. Instead, you’re acting like you got nothing in your head but boogers and a peanut shell.”
Janson burst out laughing.
It was not the reaction she had expected. “That’s something my dad used to say,” the young woman explained, sheepishly. “But I meant what I told you. Don’t sell me short. Like I say, I can come in real handy. You know it.”
“I don’t even know who you are.” His eyes came to rest on her strong, regular features, her high cheekbones and full lips. He had almost stopped noticing the angry welts.
“The name’s Jessica Kincaid,” she said, and extended a hand. “Make us some joe, why don’t you, and we’ll sit down and talk proper.”
As a pot of coffee made its way into mugs, and into their bellies, accompanied by a few fried eggs and pieces of coarse bread torn from a round loaf, Janson learned a few things about his would-be executioner. She grew up in Red Creek, Kentucky, a hamlet nestled in the Cumberland Mountains, where her father owned the town’s only gas station and spent more of his money at the local hunting supply store than was good for them. “He always wanted a boy,” she explained, “and half the time he kinda forgot I wasn’t one. Took me hunting with him first time when I wasn’t any more’n five or six. Thought I should be able to play sports, fix cars, and take down a duck with a bullet, not a cartridge full of shot.”
“Little Annie Oakley.”
“Shit,” she said, grinning. “That’s what the boys in high school called me. Guess I had a tendency to scare ’em off.”
“I’m getting the picture. Car would break down, boyfriend would start hoofing it for a roadside phone box, and meanwhile you’d be communing with the carburetor. A few minutes after they set off, the motor roars to life.”
“Something like that,” she said, apparently smiling at a memory his words brought back.
“I hope you don’t take offense if I say you’re not standard-issue Cons Ops.”
“I wasn’t standard-issue Red Creek, either. I was sixteen when I finished high school. Next day, I lift a thick handful from the gas station cash register, get on a bus, and keep going. Got a knapsack filled with paperback novels from the wire racks, and they’re all about FBI agents and shit. I don’t get off until I’m in Lexington. Can you believe, I’d never been there before. Never went anywhere—my daddy wouldn’t stand for it. Biggest town I’d ever seen. Go straight to the FBI office there. There’s a fat-mama secretary at the front desk. Sweet-talked her into giving me an application form. Now, I’m just a gawky teenager, all skin and bones, mostly bones, but when this young Fed happens by, I’m batting my eyes at him like crazy. He’s like, ‘Somebody got you in for questioning?’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you take me in for some questioning, ’cause you hire me, it’ll be the best decision you ever made.’” She blushed at the recollection. “Well, I was young. Didn’t even know you had to have a college degree to be an agent. And he and another guy in a navy suit are, like, joshing around with me, since it’s a slow day, and I tell ’em I can pretty much hit whatever I aim at. And one of them, as a lark, takes me to the shooting range they got in the basement. He’s calling my bluff, kinda, but mostly just foolin’ with me. So I’m on the shooting range, and they’re like, Be sure you got the safety goggles on, and the ear muffles, and you sure you’ve handled a twenty-two before?”
“Don’t tell me. You hit in the X-ring.”
“Shit. One shot, one bull’s-eye. Four shots, four bull’s-eyes. No scatter. That hushed their mouths, all right. They kept punching up new targets, I kept hittin’ ’em. They went long-distance, gave me a rifle, I showed ’em what I could do.”
“So the sharpshooter got the job.”
“Not exactly. I got a position as a trainee. Had to get a college-equivalency certificate in the meantime. A pile of book learning. Wasn’t all that hard.”
“Not for a bright-eyed girl with engine grease beneath her nails and cordite in her hair.”
“And Quantico was a piece of cake. I could skedaddle up a rope faster than almost anybody in my class. Hand-over-hand climbing, second-story entrances, first-over-fence, whatever. Buncha football clods, they couldn’t keep up with me. I apply for a job at the Bureau’s National Security Division, and they take me. So a few years later, I’m on a special NSD assignment, and I catch the eye of some Cons Op spooks, and that’s that.”
“Like Lana Turner getting discovered on a fountain stool at Schwab’s drugstore,” Janson said. “So why do I think you’re skipping over the most interesting part?”
“Yeah, well, the details are messy,” she said. “I’m in sniper position, in Chicago. A stakeout. It’s a funny case, corporate espionage, only the spy actually works for the People’s Republic of China. It’s Cons Ops’ baby, but the Feds are providing local backup and support. My job’s pretty much just to keep watch. Things get a little out of hand, though. The guy slips the net. He’s got a whole mess of microfiche on him, we know, so we definitely don’t want him to escape. Somehow he slipped the lobby cordon, and he’s racing down the street to his car. If he gets in the car, he’s gone, because we don’t have vehicular coverage. Nobody expected him to get that far, see. So I request permission to blow the handle off the car door. Slow him down. Operation manager says no—they think it’s too dangerous, that I’ll hit the subject, risk an international incident. Shit, the manager’s covering his ass. I know what I can hit. The risk’s zero. Manager doesn’t know me, and he’s saying, Hold fire. Stand down. Red light. Desist.”
“You squeeze off a shot anyway.”
“Pop in a steel-jacketed round, blast off the door handle. Now he can’t get into the car, and he’s scared shitless to boot, I mean he just freezes, saying his prayers to the Chairman, and our guys end up hauling him off. Fellow has beaucoup microfiche on him, technical specs on every kind of telecom device you could name.”
“So you save the day.”
&nbs
p; “And get shit-canned for my troubles. ‘Acting in contravention of orders,’ that kind of bullshit. Sixtyday suspension followed by disciplinary proceedings. Except these spooks swoop in and say they like my style, and how’d I like a life of travel and adventure?”
“I think I’ve got the general idea,” Janson said, and he did. In all likelihood, he knew from his own experience as a recruiter, the Consular Operations team first checked out her scores and field reports. Those had to have been startlingly impressive, for Cons Ops had a generally low estimation of the Feds. Once she was identified as a serious talent, someone in Cons Ops probably pulled strings with a contact at the Bureau and arranged for her suspension—simply to facilitate the transfer. If Cons Ops wanted her, they would get her. Hence they’d take steps to ensure that their offer of employment was accepted with alacrity. The scenario Jessica Kincaid had described sounded accurate, but incomplete.
“That’s not all,” she said, a little shyly. “I went through heavy-duty training when I joined up Cons Ops, and everyone in my class had to prepare a history paper on something or somebody.”
“Ah, yes, the Spy Bio paper. And who’d you pick for Spy Bio—Mata Hari?”
“Nope. A legendary field officer by the name of Paul Janson. Did a whole analysis of his techniques and tactics.”
“You’re kidding.” Janson built a fire in the stone fireplace, stacking the logs and crumpling sections of the Italian newspapers beneath them. The dry logs caught on quickly and burned with a steady flame.
“You’re an impressive guy, what can I say? But I also identified certain mistakes you were liable to make. A certain … weakness.” Her eyes were playful, but her voice was not.
Janson took a long sip of the hot, strong java. “Shortly before Rick Frazier’s 1986 match with Michael Spinks, Frazier’s coach announced to the boxing world that he’d identified a ‘weakness’ in Spinks’s position. There was a lot of discussion and speculation at the time. Then Rick Frazier got into the ring. Two rounds later, he was knocked out.” He smiled. “Now, what were you saying about this weakness?”