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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

After a few hundred feet, he saw a crack of light. It was seeping beneath a paneled door to his left.

On examination, it appeared to be a simple swing door, unlocked and unalarmed. What kind of lair was this? Was it an office? A conference room?

Fear slithered through his bowels. Every animal instinct he had was signaling frantically.

Something was wrong.

Yet he could not turn back now, whatever the risks. He removed his pistol from a bellyband holster beneath his tunic and, holding it before him, strode into the room.

To eyes that had adjusted to the gloom, the space was dazzlingly bright, illuminated by floor lamps and desk lamps and a chandelier overhead—and Janson squinted involuntarily as an even deeper sense of dread came over him.

His eyes swept the room. He was in the middle of a magnificent drawing room, a textural array of damask and leather and richly burnished antique woods. And in the middle of it, eight men and women were seated, facing him.

Janson felt the blood drain from his face.

They had been waiting for him.

“What the heck took you so long, Mr. Janson?” The question was asked with a practiced show of affability. “Collins here told me you’d make it here by eight o’clock. It’s practically half past.”

Janson blinked hard at his questioner, but the evidence of his eyes remained unchanged.

He was staring at the President of the United States.

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-four

The President of the United States. The director of Consular Operations. And the others?

Janson felt flash frozen by the shock. As he stood rooted to the spot, his mind struggled fiercely with itself.

It couldn’t be. And yet it was.

Men in suits and ties had been waiting for him in the luxurious mansion, and Janson recognized most of them. There was the secretary of state, a hale man looking less hale than usual. The U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for international affairs, a plump, Princeton-trained economist. The sallow-faced chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, a burly man with a perpetual five o’clock shadow. There were also a few colorless but nervous-looking technicians : he knew the type immediately.

“Have a seat, Paul.” Yes, it was Derek Collins, his slate eyes cool behind his chunky black plastic glasses. “Make yourself at home.” He gestured around him wryly. “If you can call this a home.”

The room was both spacious and ornate, paneled and plastered in the seventeenth-century English style; burnished mahogany walls gleamed beneath a fine crystal chandelier. The floor marquetry was in an intricate pattern of lighter and darker woods, oak and ebony.

“Apologies for the programmed misdirection, Paul,” Collins went on.

Programmed misdirection?

“The courier was on your payroll,” Janson said, toneless.