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Back The Janson Directive
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

In just a few minutes, the man, this copy of a copy, this doubly ersatz Novak, would take his position before the green-marble podium.

And he would be shot dead.

That would not be Novak’s undoing. It would be their own undoing. Alan Demarest would have confirmed his most paranoid suspicions: he would have flushed out his enemies, would have discovered that the whole invitation had indeed been a plot.

At the same time, they would have destroyed their last direct link to Alan Demarest. Nell Pearson was dead. Márta Lang, as she’d called herself, was dead. Every human vessel that might lead to him had been severed—except the man in the executive suite. A man who must have given half a year of his life to recuperate from reconstructive surgery. A man who—willingly or unwillingly—had sacrificed his own identity to the brilliant maniac who held the future of the world in his hands. If he were killed, Janson would have lost his last remaining lead.

And if he mounted the podium, he would be killed.

The scheme they had set in motion could not be stopped. It was not in their control: that was its great recommendation—and, possibly, its lethal flaw.

Frantically, Janson flipped to the camera angle on the Mansur delegation. There was the aisle seat that had been occupied by the Caliph.

Empty.

Where was he?

Janson had to find him: it was their only chance to prevent catastrophe.

Now he activated his filament microphone and spoke, knowing his words would be relayed to the secretary-general’s earpiece.

“You have got to postpone Novak’s appearance. I need ten minutes.”

The secretary-general was seated at the high marble bench behind the dais, smiling and nodding. “That’s impossible,” he whispered, without altering his public expression.

“Do it!” Janson said. “You’re the secretary-general, goddammit! You figure it out.”

Then he raced down the carpeted stairs and toward the hallway that bounded the Assembly Hall. He had to find the fanatic from Anura. This assassination would not save the world; it would doom it.

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-one

Janson’s rubber-soled feet raced down the white-tiled hallway. The Caliph had disappeared from the Assembly Hall—which meant, presumably, that he was retrieving a weapon he or a confederate had somewhere managed to stow earlier. The South Lobby, brilliantly lit from the expansive glazed wall, was vacant. The giant escalator was empty. He bounded toward the delegates’ lounge. Seated on a white-leather sofa, two blond women were deep in conversation: from the looks of them, they were extras from a Scandinavian delegation who found that there was no room for them in the Assembly Hall. Otherwise, nothing.

Where could he be? Janson’s mind desperately sorted through possibilities.

Ask it differently: where would you be, Janson?