Two uniformed women were standing behind a counter as he entered the Platinum Club lounge of Pacifica Airlines. The uniforms and the counter were both the same blue-gray hue. The women’s jackets featured the sort of epaulets to which the major airlines were so devoted. In another place and time, Janson reflected, they would have rewarded extensive battlefield experience.
One of the women had been speaking to a jowly, heavyset man who wore an open blue blazer and a beeper clipped to his belt. A glint of badge metal from his inside coat pocket told Janson that he was an FAA inspector, no doubt taking his break where there was human scenery to be enjoyed. They broke off when Janson stepped forward.
“Your boarding card, please,” the woman said, turning to him. She had a powdery tan that ended somewhere below her chin, and the kind of brassy hair that came from an applicator tip.
Janson flashed his ticket and the plastic card with which Pacifica rewarded its extremely frequent fliers.
“Welcome to the Pacifica Platinum Club, Mr. Janson,” the woman twinkled.
“We’ll let you know when your plane is about to board,” the other attendant—chestnut bangs, eye shadow that matched the blue piping on her jacket—told him in a low, confiding voice. She gestured toward the entrance to the lounge area as if it were the pearly gates. “Meantime, enjoy our hospitality facilities and relax.” An encouraging nod and a broad smile; Saint Peter’s could not have held more promise.
Carved out between the structural girders and beams of an overloaded airport, venues like Pacifica’s Platinum Club were where the modern airline tried to cater to the carriage trade. Small bowls were filled not with the salted peanuts purveyed to les misérables in coach but with the somewhat more expensive tree nuts: cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans. At a granite-topped beverage station, there were crystal jugs sticky with peach nectar and fresh-squeezed orange juice. The carpeting was microfiber swank, the airline’s signature blue-gray adorned with trellises of white and navy. On round tables interspersed among large armchairs were neatly folded copies of the International Herald Tribune , USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. A Bloomberg terminal flickered with meaningless numbers and images, shadow puppets of the global economy. Through louvered blinds, the tarmac was only just visible.
Janson flipped through the papers with little interest. When he turned to the Journal’s “Market Watch,” he found his eyes sliding down column inches of familiarly bellicose metaphors: bloodshed on Wall Street as a wave of profit takers launched an onslaught against the Dow. A sports column in USA Today was taken up with the collapse of the Raiders’ offense in the face of the rampaging blitzes of the Vikings’ linemen. Meanwhile, invisible speakers piped in a song by the pop diva du jour, from the soundtrack of a blockbuster movie about a legendary Second World War battle. An expense of blood and sweat had been honored by an expense of studio money and computergraphics technology.
Janson settled heavily into one of the clothupholstered armchairs, his eyes drifting toward the dataport stations where brand managers and account executives plugged in their laptops and collected e-mail from clients, employers, prospects, underlings, and lovers, in an endless search for action items. Peeking from attaché cases were the spines of books purporting to offer marketing advice from the likes of Sun Tzu, the art of war repurposed for the packaged-goods industry. A sleek, self-satisfied, unthreatened folk, Janson mused of the managers and professionals who surrounded him. How these people loved peace, yet how they loved the imagery of war! For them, military regalia could safely be romanticized, the way animals of prey became adornments after the taxidermist’s art.
There were moments when Janson almost felt that he, too, had been stuffed and mounted. Nearly every raptor was now on the endangered-species list, not least the bald eagle, and Janson recognized that he himself had once been a raptor—a force of aggression against forces of aggression. Janson had known exwarriors who had become addicted to a diet of adrenaline and danger, and who, when their services were no longer required, had effectively turned themselves into toy soldiers. They spent their time stalking opponents in the Sierre Madre with paintball guns or, worse, pimping themselves out to unsavory firms with unsavory needs, usually in parts of the world where baksheesh was the law of the land. Janson’s contempt for these people was profound. And yet he sometimes asked himself whether the highly specialized assistance he offered American businesses was not merely a respectable version of the same thing.
He was lonely, that was the truth of it, and his loneliness was never more acute than in the odd interstices of his overscheduled life—the time spent after checking in and before takeoff, the time spent waiting in overdesigned venues meant, simply, for waiting. At the end of his next flight, nobody was anticipating his arrival except another visored limo driver who would have misspelled his name on a white cardboard sign, and then another corporate client, an anxious division head of a Los Angeles–based light industrial firm. It was a tour of duty that took Janson from one corner office to another. There was no wife and no children, though once there had been a wife and at least hopes for a child, for Helene had been pregnant when she died. “To make God laugh, tell him your plans,” she used to quote her grandfather as saying, and the maxim had been borne out, horribly.
Janson eyed the amber bottles behind the bar, their crowded labels an alibi for the forgetfulness they held inside. He kept himself in fighting trim, trained obsessively, but even when he was in active deployment he was never above a slug or two. Where was the harm?
“Paging Richard Alexander,” a nasal voice called through the public announcement system. “Passenger Richard Alexander. Please report to any Pacifica counter.”
It was the background noise of any airport, but it jolted Janson out of his reverie. Richard Alexander was an operational alias he had often used in bygone days. Reflexively, he craned his head around him. A minor coincidence, he thought, and then he realized that, simultaneously, his cell phone was purring, deep in his breast pocket. He inserted the earphone of the Nokia tri-band and pressed SND. “Yes?”
“Mr. Janson? Or should I say, Mr. Alexander?” A woman’s voice, sounding strained, desperate.
“Who is this?” Janson spoke quietly. Stress numbed him, at least at first—made him calmer, not more agitated.
“Please, Mr. Janson. It’s urgent that we meet at once.” The vowels and consonants had the precision that was peculiar to those who were both foreign-born and well educated. And the ambient noise in the background was even more suggestive.
“Say more.”
There was a pause. “When we meet.”
Janson pressed END, terminating the call. He felt a prickling on the back of his neck. The coincidence of the page and the call, the specification that a meeting take place immediately: the putative supplicant was obviously in close proximity. The call’s background acoustics had merely cinched his suspicions. Now his eyes darted from person to person, even as he tried to figure out who would seek him out this way.
Was it a trap, set by an old, unforgiving adversary? There were many who would feel avenged by his death; for a few, possibly, the thirst for vengeance would not be entirely unjustified. And yet the prospect seemed unlikely. He was not in the field; he was not spiriting a less-than-willing VKR “defector” from the Dardanelles through Athens to a waiting frigate, bypassing every legal channel of border control. He was in O’Hare Airport, for God’s sake. Which may have been why this rendezvous was chosen. People tended to feel safe at an airport, moated by metal detectors and uniformed security guards. It would be a cunning act to take advantage of that illusion of security. And, in an airport that handled nearly two hundred thousand travelers each day, security was indeed an illusion.
Possibilities were considered and swiftly discarded. By the thick plate glass overlooking the tarmac, sitting in slats of sunlight, a blond woman was apparently studying a spreadsheet on her laptop; her cell phone was at her side, Janson verified, and unconnected t
o any earpiece. Another woman, closer to the entrance, was engaged in spirited conversation with a man whose wedding ring was visible only as a band of pale skin on an otherwise bronzed hand. Janson’s eyes kept roaming until, seconds later, he saw her, the one who had just called.
Sitting with deceptive placidity in a dim corner of the lounge was an elegant, middle-aged woman holding a cell phone to her ear. Her hair was white, worn up, and she was attired in a navy Chanel suit with discreet mother-of-pearl buttons. Yes, she was the one: he was certain of it. What he could not be certain of were her intentions. Was she an assassin, or part of a kidnapping team? These were among a hundred possibilities that, however remote, he had to rule out. Standard tactical protocol, ingrained from years in the field, demanded it.
Janson sprang to his feet. He had to change his location: that rule was basic. It’s urgent that we meet at once, the caller had said; if so, they would meet on his terms. Now he started to make his way out of the VIP lounge, grabbing a paper cup from a water cooler he passed. He approached the greeting counter with the paper cup held in front of him, as if it were full. Then he yawned, squeezing his eyes shut, and walked straight into the heavyset FAA inspector, who staggered back a few feet.
“I am so sorry,” Janson blurted, looking mortified. “Oh, Christ, I didn’t spill anything on you, did I?” Janson’s hands moved rapidly over the man’s blazer. “Did I get you wet? God, I’m really, really sorry.”
“No harm done,” he replied with a trace of impatience. “Just, you know, watch where you’re going, OK? There’s lots of people in this airport.”
“It’s one thing not to know what time zone you’re in, but—Jesus, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Janson said, the very picture of a flustered and jetlagged passenger. “I’m a wreck.”
As Janson made his way out of the VIP lounge and down the pedestrian corridor that led toward Concourse B, his cell phone buzzed again, as he knew it would.
“I don’t think you quite understand the urgency,” the caller began.
“That’s correct,” Janson snapped. “I don’t. Why don’t you let me know what this is about?” In an angled stretch of the pedestrian corridor, he saw a recessed area, about three feet deep, and then the expected steel door to a room that was off-limits to travelers. UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT was emblazoned on a plaque above it.
“I can’t,” the caller said after a beat. “Not over the phone, I’m afraid. But I’m in the airport and could meet you—”
“In that case, call me back in one minute,” Janson interjected, ending the conversation. Now he hit the door’s horizontal push bar with the heel of his hand and made his way inside. It turned out to be a narrow room that was lined with electrical panels; LCD displays measured outputs from the airport’s heat and refrigeration plant, which was just to the east of the terminal. A rack of pegs held caps and windbreakers for outdoor work.
Three airline employees in navy-blue twill uniforms were seated around a small steel-and-Formica table, drinking coffee. He had obviously interrupted their conversation.
“What do you think you’re doing?” one of them yelled at Janson as the door banged closed behind him. “You can’t be here.”
“This ain’t the fucking john,” another one said under his breath.
Janson smiled without warmth. “You’re going to hate me, boys. But guess what?” He pulled out an FAA badge, the item he had lifted from the heavyset man in the lounge. “Another drug-abatement initiative. Random testing for a drug-free air-transport workforce—to quote the administrator’s latest memorandum on the subject. Time to fill those cups. Sorry for the inconvenience, but that’s why you make the big bucks, right?”
“This is bullshit!” the third man yowled in disgust. He was nearly bald, save for a graying fringe around the back, and he kept a short pencil behind an ear.
“Haul ass, guys,” Janson barked. “We’re following a whole new procedure this time. My team’s assembled over at gate two in Concourse A. Don’t make them wait. When they get impatient, sometimes they make mistakes with the samples, if you get my drift.”
“This is bullshit,” the bald man repeated.
“Want me to file a report saying that an Air Transport Association member protested and/or sought to evade the drug audit? Your test comes in positive, better start combing the want ads.” Janson folded his arms on his chest. “Get the hell out of here, now.”
“I’m going,” the bald man grumbled, sounding less sure of himself. “I’m there.” With expressions of exasperation and disgruntlement, all three men hastened out of the room, leaving clipboards and coffee cups behind. It would take them a good ten minutes before they reached Concourse A, Janson knew. He glanced at his watch and counted the few remaining seconds until his cell phone buzzed; the caller had waited one minute exactly.
“There’s a food court near the ticketing pavilion,” Janson said. “I’ll meet you there. The table on the far left, all the way to the back. See you in a few.” He removed his jacket, put on a dark blue windbreaker and cap, and waited in the recessed area. Thirty seconds later, he saw the white-haired woman walking past.
“Hey, honey!” he called out as, in one continuous movement, he reached an arm around her waist, clamped a hand over her mouth, and hustled her into the now-abandoned service room. There was, Janson had verified, nobody around to see the three-second maneuver; if there had been, his actions, coupled with his words, would have been taken for a romantic embrace.
The woman was startled, and rigid with fear, but she did not even try to scream, displaying a measure of professional composure that Janson found not the least reassuring. Once the door had closed behind them, Janson brusquely gestured her to take a seat at the Formica table. “Take a load off,” he said.
The woman, looking incongruously elegant in the utilitarian space, sat down on one of the metal folding chairs. Janson remained standing.
“You’re not exactly the way I’d pictured you,” she said. “You don’t look like a …” Conscious of his frankly hostile stare, she decided against finishing the sentence. “Mr. Janson, we really don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t look like a what?” he said, biting off the words. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I’m not even going to list the infractions of protocol here. I’m not going to ask how you got my cell phone number or how you learned whatever you think you’ve learned. But by the time we’re finished here, I’d better know everything I want to know.” Even if she were a private citizen legitimately seeking his services, the public nature of the contact was completely inappropriate. And the use of a field legend of his, albeit a long-disused one, was a cardinal violation.
“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 bored 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.”
Chapter Two
As Janson followed her up the grip-textured aluminum steps to Novak’s Gulfstream V, his eye was caught by a legend that was painted on its side, the white cursive letters in shimmering contrast to the jet’s indigo enamel: Sok kicsi sokra megy. Hungarian, and meaningless to him.
The runway was a wall of noise, the scream of air intakes layered over the bass-heavy roar of the exhausts. Once the cabin door was closed, however, silence reigned supreme, as if they had stepped into a soundproof booth.