“You’ve made your point, Mr. Janson,” she said. “My approach was, let’s agree, ill advised. You’ll have to forgive me—”
“I will? That’s a presumption.” He inhaled, detected a faint fragrance about her: Penhaligon’s Jubilee. Their eyes met, and Janson’s anger diminished somewhat when he saw her expression, mouth drawn with anxiety, gray-green eyes filled with grim determination.
“As I say, we have very little time.”
“I have all the time in the world.”
“Peter Novak doesn’t.”
Peter Novak.
The name delivered a jolt, as it was meant to. A legendary Hungarian financier and philanthropist, Novak had received a Nobel Peace Prize the previous year for his role in conflict resolution around the world. Novak was the founder and director of the Liberty Foundation, which was devoted to “directed democracy”—Novak’s great passion—and had offices in regional capitals through Eastern Europe and other parts of the less developed world. But then Janson had reasons of his own to remember Peter Novak. And those reasons constituted a debt to the man so immense that Janson had occasionally experienced his gratitude as a burden.
“Who are you?” Janson demanded.
The woman’s gray-green eyes bore into him. “My name is Márta Lang, and I work for Peter Novak. I could show you a business card, if you thought that would be helpful.”
Janson shook his head slowly. Her business card would provide a meaningless title, identifying her as some sort of high-ranking employee of the Liberty Foundation. I work for Peter Novak, she had said, and simply from the way she spoke the words, Janson recognized her type. She was the factotum, the point person, the lieutenant; every great man had one. People like her preferred the shadows yet wielded great, if derivative, power. From her name and the barest trace of an accent, it was evident she was Hungarian, like her employer.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Janson said. His eyes narrowed.
“Only that he needs help. As you once did. In Baaqlina.” Márta Lang pronounced the name of that dusty town as if it were a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter. For Janson, it was.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said quietly. “Then all you have to know right now is that Peter Novak requires your assistance.”
She had spoken few words, but they were the right ones. Janson held her gaze for a long moment.
“Where to?”
“You can throw out your boarding card. Our jet is on the runway, cleared for immediate departure.” She stood, her desperation somehow giving her strength and a sense of command. “We must go now. At the risk of repeating myself, there’s no time.”
“Let me risk repeating myself: Where to?”
“That, Mr. Janson, will be our question to you.”
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