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Chapters (54)
  1. Title Page
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Prologue
  4. PART ONE
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. PART TWO
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. PART THREE
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-one
  28. Chapter Twenty-two
  29. Chapter Twenty-three
  30. Chapter Twenty-four
  31. Chapter Twenty-five
  32. Chapter Twenty-six
  33. Chapter Twenty-seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-one
  38. PART FOUR
  39. Chapter Thirty-two
  40. Chapter Thirty-three
  41. Chapter Thirty-four
  42. Chapter Thirty-five
  43. Chapter Thirty-six
  44. Chapter Thirty-seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-one
  49. Chapter Forty-two
  50. Chapter Forty-three
  51. Epilogue
  52. ALSO BY ROBERT LUDLUM
  53. Critical Praise for Robert Ludlum
  54. Copyright Page

“Let me break it down for you. I report in to my operations director, I’d be taken out of the field for at least a year, maybe forever. And I’d be the subject of a very lengthy ‘interview.’ I know how the system works. That’s what would be in store for me, and don’t try to tell me otherwise. But that’s not even the bigger problem. The bigger problem is, how I am supposed to rejoin this world where I don’t know what can be trusted and what can’t be. It’s like, I know too much and I don’t know enough, and for both reasons, I can’t go back. I can only go forward. Only way I can live with myself.”

“Live with yourself? You don’t increase your odds of living by hanging around me. You know that. I’ve told you that.”

“Lookit, everything’s got a price,” she said quietly. “If you let me, I’ma tag along with you. If you don’t, I’ma do my darnedest to tail you.”

“You don’t even know where I’m off to.”

“Sugar bear, it don’t really matter.” Jessie stretched her lean, loosely jointed body. “Where you off to?”

He hesitated but a moment. “Hungary. Where it all began.”

“Where it all began,” she repeated softly.

Janson stood up. “You want to come along, you can. But remember, try to make contact with Cons Ops, and you’re as good as deactivated—and not by me. If you’re along for the ride, you follow the rules of the road. And I set those rules. Otherwise—”

“Done,” she said, cutting him off. “Quit drilling, you struck oil.”

He looked at her coolly, appraising her as a soldier and an operative. The truth was, he needed the backup. What would await them was beyond knowing. If she was half as deadly working with him as she had been working against him, she’d prove a formidable weapon indeed.

He had many phone calls to make before he slept, many legends to resurrect. The path had to be prepared.

Where it would lead, of course, was impossible to say. Yet what choice was there? Whatever the risks, it was the only way they could ever penetrate the mystery that was Peter Novak.

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-two

He was baiting a trap.

The thought did little to calm Janson’s nerves, for he knew how often traps caught those who set them. In this phase, his principal weapon would be his own composure. He thus had to steer clear of the pitfalls of anxiety and overconfidence. One could lead to paralysis, the other to stupidity.