Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation, page 28
She stared into the assassin’s eyes with a hatred reserved for a select few.
She stepped aside to the right and walked past him. She entered the kitchen and found Jina Jeon filling a bucket of water from the tap.
When Jina Jeon saw her, she shut off the faucet.
“I don’t trust him,” Kincaid said, touching her fingers to her throbbing cheek.
Jina Jeon tilted her head and looked at Kincaid with sympathetic eyes. Finally, she sighed. “Your presence has been requested in the second bedroom,” she said, lifting the heavy bucket out of the sink.
Kincaid bit down on her lower lip. She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Jina Jeon either.
Silently she moved to the back of the apartment, tapped on the door to the second bedroom, and entered without waiting for a response.
The second Cons Ops agent, tied up to a similar chair as the first, was just beginning to stir. He lifted his head groggily before it fell forward against his chest.
This agent was Caucasian, young, with olive-colored skin that Kincaid guessed was either Greek or southern Italian.
He lifted his head again. This time his eyelids fluttered open. He stared up at the man standing before him.
With the croak of a lifelong smoker he said, “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Janson said nothing.
* * *
AFTER TWENTY MINUTES of interrogating the two dazed Cons Ops agents, the four of them—Kincaid, Jina Jeon, Sin Bae, and Janson—regrouped in the living room to discuss a new strategy.
Sin Bae was the first to speak. “We know their training. They will tell us nothing unless we break them.”
Jina Jeon said, “I prepared a bucket. It’s in the kitchen.”
Kincaid swallowed hard and turned to Janson.
“No way,” Janson said. “No torture.”
Kincaid’s eyes fell on the cuts around Janson’s throat. Following Sin Bae’s attack in the coatroom she’d suffered similar lacerations, but fortunately she’d been spared the sight of them until they had sufficient time to scab over.
Jina Jeon said, “Paul, they’re leaving us no choice.”
Janson shook his head. “There’s always a choice.”
Kincaid glanced at Jina Jeon. Was she really going to protest against the Janson Rules? She was a Phoenix Foundation graduate. She should know better.
Sin Bae stepped away from the conversation. Kincaid remained unclear as to just how Janson had turned him. Janson had only told her, “He’s a lot more like you and me than either of us could have imagined.”
Jina Jeon said, “What about protecting Seoul? What about the greater good? We know the what. But it does us no good without knowing when and how and precisely where.”
“No civilian casualties,” Janson said. “No killing anyone who doesn’t try to kill us. No torture. No exceptions.”
Janson folded his arms across his chest. A sure sign, Kincaid knew, that he wasn’t about to budge on this issue. Although she understood him, probably understood him better than anyone else in the world—at least as well as anyone could understand Paul Janson—she had to admit, their options were few and time was fast running out.
“Maybe they don’t even know the details of Diophantus.”
Janson shook his head again. “One of them does. Probably Vik Pawar. I know Clarke. He’s not going to have trusted Nam Sei-hoon well enough to leave the entire operation in his hands, especially if he was allowing Nam to control some of his agents. Believe me, Clarke isn’t unrepresented here in South Korea.”
“What about Sin Bae?” Kincaid said. “They haven’t seen his face. They don’t know you turned him.”
Janson gave her a sideways glance that said, We can’t trust them alone together.
Kincaid understood. Sin Bae may have turned but he was fragile. With the right psychological pressure, an experienced agent like Vik Pawar could turn him back.
No one spoke for several minutes. Finally, Janson unfolded his arms and turned to Jina Jeon.
“Get me the bucket,” he said.
* * *
JANSON DIDN’T SO MUCH AS glance in Vik Pawar’s direction as he stepped into the room and set the bucket down on the floor. His body language, however, exuded reticence. Any objective observer could see that Janson was uncomfortable with what he was doing. Disgusted, even. There was a self-loathing in his eyes, an inwardly directed anger evident on his face.
His sluggish movements as he tossed the double mattress aside betrayed the turmoil in his mind. As he separated the plywood from the rest of the bed frame, he mouthed a silent curse at himself. Shook his head like a drenched dog, as though he were attempting to free himself from whatever was weighing him down.
After testing its strength, Janson arranged the plywood lengthwise at a moderate angle, then lifted the heavy bucket of water and set it down next to the plywood’s lower edge. He took a step back to appraise his work, a tear plainly forming in the corner of his left eye, his mouth set in a severe frown.
“I’m not going to lie, Vik,” he said quietly without looking at his prisoner. “I’m not going to pretend you have this coming in order to appease my own conscience. No one has this coming.”
Janson finally gazed up at Vik Pawar. He looked at him as he’d looked at so many others during his years in Consular Operations. Expressionless. Not like a human being beholds another. But like a machine.
Janson said, “But I’m also not going to pretend that I have all the time in the world to convince you to talk. Because I don’t. You know that at least as well as I do.”
Janson stepped over to the bedroom door and rapped on it three times. “My conscience,” he said to Vik, “will just have to accept that I’m doing this for the greater good.”
Jina Jeon entered the room and handed Janson a stack of clean forest-green towels. Janson thanked her and said, “In two minutes, bring in Sin Bae and the rope and cords. This is a three-person job. If we do it right, Vik lives. If we do it wrong, he dies. Let’s agree to try to do it right.”
When Jina left the bedroom, Janson turned to Vik with something close to compassion in his eyes. “Ever do this before?”
Vik’s head moved to the side ever so slightly.
“Ever have it done to you?”
Again, Vik’s head twitched almost imperceptibly. But he refused to look at Janson. His eyes instead remained fixed on the door.
“Me neither,” Janson said. “This will be a first for both of us. Like two virgins on prom night. Only I bet we both wish our dates were a hell of a lot prettier.”
Vik Pawar said nothing.
“I’ve seen it done, though,” Janson continued. “I know enough not to buy into the official lie. That it merely ‘simulates’ drowning. That’s complete bullshit. You’ll only feel like you’re drowning because I’ll be drowning you. I won’t be simulating jackshit. CIA lawyers can argue the point until they’re blue. But there’s no truth to it. Not a shred. I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said, ‘If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.’”
Their eyes finally met.
Janson said, “See these cuts around my neck? They’re from just a few hours ago. I was sitting right there in the chair you’re sitting in now. Sin Bae had a garrote around my throat. He was strangling me to death.” Janson paused. “Want to know what changed his mind?”
Vik Pawar said nothing, so Janson answered for him.
“Sure you do. I told him what little I knew about Diophantus. About how many innocent civilians are going to die. On both sides of the demarcation line.”
Vik’s gaze moved back to the door.
Janson followed it. “That son of a bitch out there is a monster,” he said. “He was going to kill me, he was going to kill Kincaid. He was even going to kill a thirteen-year-old girl. But Diophantus, that was too much for him to stand. Even he had to draw a line.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Thirty seconds,” Janson called out.
He turned back to Vik Pawar and lowered his voice again. He spoke as softly as he would in a church or a library. “That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing here. With you, I mean. Because you know the consequences of Diophantus. And of the ten million people in this city, you’re the only one with the power to stop it. That you won’t makes you even more of a monster than Sin Bae. And that’s why I can set aside my convictions tonight and pour water down your throat and nostrils, maybe until you drown.”
Vik finally looked Janson directly in the eyes. But there was nothing in those eyes. Certainly no life, no humanity. Janson’s eyes appeared completely dead.
“I’m sorry for what’s about to happen, Vik,” he said in a mechanical voice. “I truly am, no matter how much of a monster you are.”
Another rap on the door.
“Ten seconds,” Janson called out.
He looked back at Vik. “I’m sorry that I am about to torture you. And I’m sorry that you’re going to die tonight. Because as much as I’d like to con myself into believing otherwise, I know that’s the only way this night ends. In five seconds, once Sin Bae steps through that door and allows you to see his face, I know there is no way in hell he’s going to let you leave this room alive. That’s something I’m just going to have to live with. Tonight and every night until I die.”
Janson shrugged and hung his head. “So what, right? It’s no secret that I already live with a whole hell of a lot worse.”
FIFTY-TWO
Several minutes later Janson emerged from the bedroom. “We have to move. Quickly.”
Kincaid said, “Where to?”
He took a deep breath. “The demilitarized zone.” Turning to Jina Jeon, he said, “But first we have a stop to make.”
Jina Jeon looked at him, a question mark on her face.
“Chuncheon,” he said.
After finishing with Vik Pawar and Max Kolovos, they “borrowed” two vehicles from Seoul residents, crossed the Dongho Bridge, and took the Seoul-Yangyang Expressway north toward Chuncheon.
Janson drove with Kincaid seated next to him. Jina Jeon traveled with Sin Bae.
The drive would take roughly forty minutes.
As Janson maneuvered to pass a slow-moving vehicle, he turned to Kincaid. He’d wanted to talk to her ever since they’d reconnected at the Gangnam safe house. But he hadn’t had the chance to be alone with her until now.
“It’s not what you think,” Janson said.
Kincaid turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“With Vik. It’s not what you think.”
“You did what you had to do,” she said.
Janson glanced at her. “There are no exceptions to the rules,” he said. “Not for you, not for me, not for anybody.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me, Paul.”
“Jessie, listen to me. I did not torture Vik Pawar.”
Kincaid said nothing.
“I used the threat of torture,” he added softly. “But I wouldn’t have gone through with it if he didn’t talk.”
The taillights of the vehicles in front of him became red blurs as water welled before his eyes.
“Even that was farther than I’d wanted to go,” he said. “But it worked. Vik knew me back in the day. He didn’t think for a second that I wouldn’t go through with it. Even after he cooperated, when I was dosing him with carfentanil citrate, he was convinced I was poisoning him. Even then he begged for his life.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?”
“More than I would’ve ever thought.”
Why it was troubling him though, Janson couldn’t quite put his finger on. He knew what he’d been when he worked for Consular Operations. He knew his reputation as the Machine. Tonight he’d simply used it to his advantage.
“What bothers me, I think, is that Vik had heard the rumors about me, about Phoenix. But he didn’t believe them. Vik didn’t believe I could have changed all that much.”
“But you have,” Kincaid said. “Completely, totally.”
Janson kept his eyes on the road. He envisioned the two North Korean soldiers he’d encountered in the demilitarized zone. The one who had fried on the electrified fence. The one he’d shot through the head. His greatest concern at the time was how badly he’d damaged the windshield on the jeep.
He heard Heath Manningham’s voice in his head.
“Walked away, did you? Tell me. How many have you done since you ‘walked away’?”
“Sometimes I wonder just how much,” he said.
* * *
IT WAS 3 AM when they finally reached Chuncheon. Janson pulled the car into the gravel lot in front of Cal Auster’s place, with Jina Jeon directly behind him.
Janson got out of the car. “Stay here,” he told Kincaid. “This should only take a few minutes.”
As he started up the drive, Jina Jeon fell in beside him. “What’s the plan?” she said.
“Well, the equipment we bought from Cal was defective, so I’m going to ask him nicely to replace it.”
“How was it defective?”
“Cons Ops took it all after they blew up your house. Or were you holding out on me when you told me that?”
“No, they took every last thing you’d stashed in the barn. In hindsight, I’m very sorry I made you keep your equipment out there.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Cal insured me against theft.”
“And if he disagrees? If he refuses to replace anything?”
Janson lifted a shoulder. “I’m confident he’ll eventually come around.”
Janson pressed the doorbell several times; the chime was good and loud.
“By the way,” he said to Jina as they waited, “what were you and Cal discussing in private when I went topside? You two have a thing together?”
“God, no. He asked me if I’d reconsider.”
“Reconsider him?”
“Reconsider working for him.”
When the door opened, Cal Auster stood in its frame, with his arms out. He wore an open terry bathrobe over flowery-patterned boxer shorts. Salt-and-pepper chest hairs poked out over a badly stained white tank top.
“What the fuck is this?” he barked. “Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?”
“Time to open the store,” Janson said, pushing past him.
“Hey,” Cal Auster shouted. He reached into the side pocket of his bathrobe and came out with a subcompact 9mm, what some referred to as a pocket pistol.
With his back to Cal, Janson swung his left leg around in a wide arc, the heel of his combat boot connecting with Cal Auster’s knuckles. The pocket pistol flew in the direction of the front door and Jina Jeon swiped it from the air. She tossed it underhand to Janson.
“Fuck,” Cal Auster cried, baring his yellowed teeth. “You broke my fucking fingers.”
“You should have thought of that before you pulled a gun on me, Cal.”
“What do you want, anyway? What are you here for, Paul?”
“The equipment I purchased from you, it was stolen from me.”
“How is that my problem?”
“It’s not your problem,” Janson said calmly. “I’m your problem.”
Janson raised the gun. “You gonna help me, Cal?”
Cal Auster cackled. He looked from Janson to Jina and back again. “What are you going to do, kill me? You’re not going to kill me, Paul. Maybe ten years ago. But now? Now I’ve got your number. You’re a fucking Boy Scout. Hell, you’re a goddamn Brownie.”
“I don’t have much time,” Janson said. “Which means you have even less. Take me to your stash, or I promise you, I’ll make you regret ever being born.”
Cal Auster grinned. “Make me regret being born, huh? And how exactly are you going to do that, Paul? Don’t you remember your own rules?” He raised his left hand, which had its fingers still intact, and began counting off. “No killing civilians. No torture. No killing anyone who doesn’t first take a shot at you.”
Auster took a step forward. “According to your own code, Janson, Uncle Cal is fucking bulletproof.”
“Tell me, Uncle Cal. Have you sold Chinese-manufactured AK-47s to the North Koreans recently?”
“What the hell business is that of yours?”
“Come on, Cal. You know I have a soft spot for weapons dealers. Don’t make me do this.”
“Fuuuck you, Paul,” Auster said, lowering two of his three fingers.
Janson drew a breath, narrowed his right eye, and aimed at the last finger standing.
He squeezed the trigger.
Cal Auster screamed, louder and longer than the soldier who’d fried on the electrified fence in the DMZ. Blood spurted uncontrollably from Auster’s hand.
Janson’s eyes fell on the middle finger sitting on the floor.
“Jina,” Janson said, “you want to help him with all that blood?”
As she ran into the kitchen for towels, Auster cried, “What the fuck did you go and do that for?”
“Your weapons fired on me in the DMZ. Your AK-47s tried to kill me, Cal. Therefore, the Janson Rules don’t apply.” Janson took a step toward him, placed a hand on Auster’s stooped shoulder. “Now, when Jina comes back, she’s going to help stanch the bleeding. Then you and I are going straight to your stash. Or else.”
Tears streamed down both sides of Auster’s face. “Or else what? You gonna shoot another finger?”
“No,” Janson said evenly. “Next time I’m going to aim substantially lower, at something slightly skinnier and a whole lot shorter.”
FIFTY-THREE
On the drive north toward the DMZ, Jina Jeon’s cell phone rang from the backseat. Janson looked in the rearview. All four of them were traveling in Cal Auster’s black Cadillac Escalade.
After a few moments, Jina Jeon held her hand over the phone and said, “It’s Mi-sook.”
“Tell her to get back to the hotel,” Janson said. “She can’t abandon her baby. She can’t abandon Jin-ho’s child.”
Jina Jeon repeated Janson’s words verbatim. She listened a moment then said, “Me? No. No, I can’t take care of your baby, I’m sorry. No. No, my mother can’t either. She’s seventy-four years old. What about your parents?”
She stepped aside to the right and walked past him. She entered the kitchen and found Jina Jeon filling a bucket of water from the tap.
When Jina Jeon saw her, she shut off the faucet.
“I don’t trust him,” Kincaid said, touching her fingers to her throbbing cheek.
Jina Jeon tilted her head and looked at Kincaid with sympathetic eyes. Finally, she sighed. “Your presence has been requested in the second bedroom,” she said, lifting the heavy bucket out of the sink.
Kincaid bit down on her lower lip. She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Jina Jeon either.
Silently she moved to the back of the apartment, tapped on the door to the second bedroom, and entered without waiting for a response.
The second Cons Ops agent, tied up to a similar chair as the first, was just beginning to stir. He lifted his head groggily before it fell forward against his chest.
This agent was Caucasian, young, with olive-colored skin that Kincaid guessed was either Greek or southern Italian.
He lifted his head again. This time his eyelids fluttered open. He stared up at the man standing before him.
With the croak of a lifelong smoker he said, “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Janson said nothing.
* * *
AFTER TWENTY MINUTES of interrogating the two dazed Cons Ops agents, the four of them—Kincaid, Jina Jeon, Sin Bae, and Janson—regrouped in the living room to discuss a new strategy.
Sin Bae was the first to speak. “We know their training. They will tell us nothing unless we break them.”
Jina Jeon said, “I prepared a bucket. It’s in the kitchen.”
Kincaid swallowed hard and turned to Janson.
“No way,” Janson said. “No torture.”
Kincaid’s eyes fell on the cuts around Janson’s throat. Following Sin Bae’s attack in the coatroom she’d suffered similar lacerations, but fortunately she’d been spared the sight of them until they had sufficient time to scab over.
Jina Jeon said, “Paul, they’re leaving us no choice.”
Janson shook his head. “There’s always a choice.”
Kincaid glanced at Jina Jeon. Was she really going to protest against the Janson Rules? She was a Phoenix Foundation graduate. She should know better.
Sin Bae stepped away from the conversation. Kincaid remained unclear as to just how Janson had turned him. Janson had only told her, “He’s a lot more like you and me than either of us could have imagined.”
Jina Jeon said, “What about protecting Seoul? What about the greater good? We know the what. But it does us no good without knowing when and how and precisely where.”
“No civilian casualties,” Janson said. “No killing anyone who doesn’t try to kill us. No torture. No exceptions.”
Janson folded his arms across his chest. A sure sign, Kincaid knew, that he wasn’t about to budge on this issue. Although she understood him, probably understood him better than anyone else in the world—at least as well as anyone could understand Paul Janson—she had to admit, their options were few and time was fast running out.
“Maybe they don’t even know the details of Diophantus.”
Janson shook his head again. “One of them does. Probably Vik Pawar. I know Clarke. He’s not going to have trusted Nam Sei-hoon well enough to leave the entire operation in his hands, especially if he was allowing Nam to control some of his agents. Believe me, Clarke isn’t unrepresented here in South Korea.”
“What about Sin Bae?” Kincaid said. “They haven’t seen his face. They don’t know you turned him.”
Janson gave her a sideways glance that said, We can’t trust them alone together.
Kincaid understood. Sin Bae may have turned but he was fragile. With the right psychological pressure, an experienced agent like Vik Pawar could turn him back.
No one spoke for several minutes. Finally, Janson unfolded his arms and turned to Jina Jeon.
“Get me the bucket,” he said.
* * *
JANSON DIDN’T SO MUCH AS glance in Vik Pawar’s direction as he stepped into the room and set the bucket down on the floor. His body language, however, exuded reticence. Any objective observer could see that Janson was uncomfortable with what he was doing. Disgusted, even. There was a self-loathing in his eyes, an inwardly directed anger evident on his face.
His sluggish movements as he tossed the double mattress aside betrayed the turmoil in his mind. As he separated the plywood from the rest of the bed frame, he mouthed a silent curse at himself. Shook his head like a drenched dog, as though he were attempting to free himself from whatever was weighing him down.
After testing its strength, Janson arranged the plywood lengthwise at a moderate angle, then lifted the heavy bucket of water and set it down next to the plywood’s lower edge. He took a step back to appraise his work, a tear plainly forming in the corner of his left eye, his mouth set in a severe frown.
“I’m not going to lie, Vik,” he said quietly without looking at his prisoner. “I’m not going to pretend you have this coming in order to appease my own conscience. No one has this coming.”
Janson finally gazed up at Vik Pawar. He looked at him as he’d looked at so many others during his years in Consular Operations. Expressionless. Not like a human being beholds another. But like a machine.
Janson said, “But I’m also not going to pretend that I have all the time in the world to convince you to talk. Because I don’t. You know that at least as well as I do.”
Janson stepped over to the bedroom door and rapped on it three times. “My conscience,” he said to Vik, “will just have to accept that I’m doing this for the greater good.”
Jina Jeon entered the room and handed Janson a stack of clean forest-green towels. Janson thanked her and said, “In two minutes, bring in Sin Bae and the rope and cords. This is a three-person job. If we do it right, Vik lives. If we do it wrong, he dies. Let’s agree to try to do it right.”
When Jina left the bedroom, Janson turned to Vik with something close to compassion in his eyes. “Ever do this before?”
Vik’s head moved to the side ever so slightly.
“Ever have it done to you?”
Again, Vik’s head twitched almost imperceptibly. But he refused to look at Janson. His eyes instead remained fixed on the door.
“Me neither,” Janson said. “This will be a first for both of us. Like two virgins on prom night. Only I bet we both wish our dates were a hell of a lot prettier.”
Vik Pawar said nothing.
“I’ve seen it done, though,” Janson continued. “I know enough not to buy into the official lie. That it merely ‘simulates’ drowning. That’s complete bullshit. You’ll only feel like you’re drowning because I’ll be drowning you. I won’t be simulating jackshit. CIA lawyers can argue the point until they’re blue. But there’s no truth to it. Not a shred. I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said, ‘If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.’”
Their eyes finally met.
Janson said, “See these cuts around my neck? They’re from just a few hours ago. I was sitting right there in the chair you’re sitting in now. Sin Bae had a garrote around my throat. He was strangling me to death.” Janson paused. “Want to know what changed his mind?”
Vik Pawar said nothing, so Janson answered for him.
“Sure you do. I told him what little I knew about Diophantus. About how many innocent civilians are going to die. On both sides of the demarcation line.”
Vik’s gaze moved back to the door.
Janson followed it. “That son of a bitch out there is a monster,” he said. “He was going to kill me, he was going to kill Kincaid. He was even going to kill a thirteen-year-old girl. But Diophantus, that was too much for him to stand. Even he had to draw a line.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Thirty seconds,” Janson called out.
He turned back to Vik Pawar and lowered his voice again. He spoke as softly as he would in a church or a library. “That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing here. With you, I mean. Because you know the consequences of Diophantus. And of the ten million people in this city, you’re the only one with the power to stop it. That you won’t makes you even more of a monster than Sin Bae. And that’s why I can set aside my convictions tonight and pour water down your throat and nostrils, maybe until you drown.”
Vik finally looked Janson directly in the eyes. But there was nothing in those eyes. Certainly no life, no humanity. Janson’s eyes appeared completely dead.
“I’m sorry for what’s about to happen, Vik,” he said in a mechanical voice. “I truly am, no matter how much of a monster you are.”
Another rap on the door.
“Ten seconds,” Janson called out.
He looked back at Vik. “I’m sorry that I am about to torture you. And I’m sorry that you’re going to die tonight. Because as much as I’d like to con myself into believing otherwise, I know that’s the only way this night ends. In five seconds, once Sin Bae steps through that door and allows you to see his face, I know there is no way in hell he’s going to let you leave this room alive. That’s something I’m just going to have to live with. Tonight and every night until I die.”
Janson shrugged and hung his head. “So what, right? It’s no secret that I already live with a whole hell of a lot worse.”
FIFTY-TWO
Several minutes later Janson emerged from the bedroom. “We have to move. Quickly.”
Kincaid said, “Where to?”
He took a deep breath. “The demilitarized zone.” Turning to Jina Jeon, he said, “But first we have a stop to make.”
Jina Jeon looked at him, a question mark on her face.
“Chuncheon,” he said.
After finishing with Vik Pawar and Max Kolovos, they “borrowed” two vehicles from Seoul residents, crossed the Dongho Bridge, and took the Seoul-Yangyang Expressway north toward Chuncheon.
Janson drove with Kincaid seated next to him. Jina Jeon traveled with Sin Bae.
The drive would take roughly forty minutes.
As Janson maneuvered to pass a slow-moving vehicle, he turned to Kincaid. He’d wanted to talk to her ever since they’d reconnected at the Gangnam safe house. But he hadn’t had the chance to be alone with her until now.
“It’s not what you think,” Janson said.
Kincaid turned to him. “What do you mean?”
“With Vik. It’s not what you think.”
“You did what you had to do,” she said.
Janson glanced at her. “There are no exceptions to the rules,” he said. “Not for you, not for me, not for anybody.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me, Paul.”
“Jessie, listen to me. I did not torture Vik Pawar.”
Kincaid said nothing.
“I used the threat of torture,” he added softly. “But I wouldn’t have gone through with it if he didn’t talk.”
The taillights of the vehicles in front of him became red blurs as water welled before his eyes.
“Even that was farther than I’d wanted to go,” he said. “But it worked. Vik knew me back in the day. He didn’t think for a second that I wouldn’t go through with it. Even after he cooperated, when I was dosing him with carfentanil citrate, he was convinced I was poisoning him. Even then he begged for his life.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?”
“More than I would’ve ever thought.”
Why it was troubling him though, Janson couldn’t quite put his finger on. He knew what he’d been when he worked for Consular Operations. He knew his reputation as the Machine. Tonight he’d simply used it to his advantage.
“What bothers me, I think, is that Vik had heard the rumors about me, about Phoenix. But he didn’t believe them. Vik didn’t believe I could have changed all that much.”
“But you have,” Kincaid said. “Completely, totally.”
Janson kept his eyes on the road. He envisioned the two North Korean soldiers he’d encountered in the demilitarized zone. The one who had fried on the electrified fence. The one he’d shot through the head. His greatest concern at the time was how badly he’d damaged the windshield on the jeep.
He heard Heath Manningham’s voice in his head.
“Walked away, did you? Tell me. How many have you done since you ‘walked away’?”
“Sometimes I wonder just how much,” he said.
* * *
IT WAS 3 AM when they finally reached Chuncheon. Janson pulled the car into the gravel lot in front of Cal Auster’s place, with Jina Jeon directly behind him.
Janson got out of the car. “Stay here,” he told Kincaid. “This should only take a few minutes.”
As he started up the drive, Jina Jeon fell in beside him. “What’s the plan?” she said.
“Well, the equipment we bought from Cal was defective, so I’m going to ask him nicely to replace it.”
“How was it defective?”
“Cons Ops took it all after they blew up your house. Or were you holding out on me when you told me that?”
“No, they took every last thing you’d stashed in the barn. In hindsight, I’m very sorry I made you keep your equipment out there.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Cal insured me against theft.”
“And if he disagrees? If he refuses to replace anything?”
Janson lifted a shoulder. “I’m confident he’ll eventually come around.”
Janson pressed the doorbell several times; the chime was good and loud.
“By the way,” he said to Jina as they waited, “what were you and Cal discussing in private when I went topside? You two have a thing together?”
“God, no. He asked me if I’d reconsider.”
“Reconsider him?”
“Reconsider working for him.”
When the door opened, Cal Auster stood in its frame, with his arms out. He wore an open terry bathrobe over flowery-patterned boxer shorts. Salt-and-pepper chest hairs poked out over a badly stained white tank top.
“What the fuck is this?” he barked. “Do you have any fucking idea what time it is?”
“Time to open the store,” Janson said, pushing past him.
“Hey,” Cal Auster shouted. He reached into the side pocket of his bathrobe and came out with a subcompact 9mm, what some referred to as a pocket pistol.
With his back to Cal, Janson swung his left leg around in a wide arc, the heel of his combat boot connecting with Cal Auster’s knuckles. The pocket pistol flew in the direction of the front door and Jina Jeon swiped it from the air. She tossed it underhand to Janson.
“Fuck,” Cal Auster cried, baring his yellowed teeth. “You broke my fucking fingers.”
“You should have thought of that before you pulled a gun on me, Cal.”
“What do you want, anyway? What are you here for, Paul?”
“The equipment I purchased from you, it was stolen from me.”
“How is that my problem?”
“It’s not your problem,” Janson said calmly. “I’m your problem.”
Janson raised the gun. “You gonna help me, Cal?”
Cal Auster cackled. He looked from Janson to Jina and back again. “What are you going to do, kill me? You’re not going to kill me, Paul. Maybe ten years ago. But now? Now I’ve got your number. You’re a fucking Boy Scout. Hell, you’re a goddamn Brownie.”
“I don’t have much time,” Janson said. “Which means you have even less. Take me to your stash, or I promise you, I’ll make you regret ever being born.”
Cal Auster grinned. “Make me regret being born, huh? And how exactly are you going to do that, Paul? Don’t you remember your own rules?” He raised his left hand, which had its fingers still intact, and began counting off. “No killing civilians. No torture. No killing anyone who doesn’t first take a shot at you.”
Auster took a step forward. “According to your own code, Janson, Uncle Cal is fucking bulletproof.”
“Tell me, Uncle Cal. Have you sold Chinese-manufactured AK-47s to the North Koreans recently?”
“What the hell business is that of yours?”
“Come on, Cal. You know I have a soft spot for weapons dealers. Don’t make me do this.”
“Fuuuck you, Paul,” Auster said, lowering two of his three fingers.
Janson drew a breath, narrowed his right eye, and aimed at the last finger standing.
He squeezed the trigger.
Cal Auster screamed, louder and longer than the soldier who’d fried on the electrified fence in the DMZ. Blood spurted uncontrollably from Auster’s hand.
Janson’s eyes fell on the middle finger sitting on the floor.
“Jina,” Janson said, “you want to help him with all that blood?”
As she ran into the kitchen for towels, Auster cried, “What the fuck did you go and do that for?”
“Your weapons fired on me in the DMZ. Your AK-47s tried to kill me, Cal. Therefore, the Janson Rules don’t apply.” Janson took a step toward him, placed a hand on Auster’s stooped shoulder. “Now, when Jina comes back, she’s going to help stanch the bleeding. Then you and I are going straight to your stash. Or else.”
Tears streamed down both sides of Auster’s face. “Or else what? You gonna shoot another finger?”
“No,” Janson said evenly. “Next time I’m going to aim substantially lower, at something slightly skinnier and a whole lot shorter.”
FIFTY-THREE
On the drive north toward the DMZ, Jina Jeon’s cell phone rang from the backseat. Janson looked in the rearview. All four of them were traveling in Cal Auster’s black Cadillac Escalade.
After a few moments, Jina Jeon held her hand over the phone and said, “It’s Mi-sook.”
“Tell her to get back to the hotel,” Janson said. “She can’t abandon her baby. She can’t abandon Jin-ho’s child.”
Jina Jeon repeated Janson’s words verbatim. She listened a moment then said, “Me? No. No, I can’t take care of your baby, I’m sorry. No. No, my mother can’t either. She’s seventy-four years old. What about your parents?”
