Read Online Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation by Douglas Corleone - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Douglas Corleone
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filled with images of men in fedoras and dark trench coats, with handguns hanging at their sides.
In the center of the park she spun around and spotted movement in a copse of trees. An animal? No. Unless a grizzly bear had escaped from the Seoul Zoo, this creature was too large to be anything but a human being.
She continued moving forward as though she’d seen nothing. But she heard a rustle and was suddenly sure that whoever was following her knew he’d been made. Which meant that he was probably a professional.
With no one else in sight and the cover of dusk protecting him, her attacker finally made his move and launched himself out of the shadows.
Kincaid didn’t hesitate, didn’t bother looking back, just took off in a sprint across the park in the direction of the river. Over the shrieking gusts of wind she heard her pursuer make contact with bushes and low tree branches as he cut a parallel course north toward the Han, attempting to overtake her.
But Kincaid was fast. Fastest of her class at Quantico, where her professional life began. In the time since she’d left Virginia to join the FBI’s National Security Division, she’d put on a few years but not a single extra pound. And her world hadn’t paused since she’d been stolen away by the State Department after catching the eyes of some spooks from Consular Operations.
It was times like this when brimming with confidence counted, and that was a trait she’d had in spades all the way back to her childhood in Red Creek, Kentucky. She’d taken that confidence with her when she boarded a Greyhound bus, leaving her daddy behind for the first time in her life. And over the years that confidence had been refined, first by the bureau, then by Cons Ops, and most recently by Paul Janson.
She charged through a row of bushes and found herself back on a street. She paused a moment to catch her breath, which was billowing in large white puffs before her eyes. Through the mist she eyed a taxi, and her arm shot up almost instinctively.
The orange taxi slowed and pulled to the curb and Kincaid opened the door and dove into the backseat, shouting, “Go, go, go .”
As the taxi peeled away Kincaid raised her head just in time to see a tall Korean man breaking through the bushes, stopping on a dime, then raising his arms with a gun in his hands. She watched him take aim and nervously waited for the sound of a gunshot, the shattering of window glass, the buzz of a bullet as it streaked by within inches of her face.
Mercifully, the assassin never fired.
SEVEN
Cheongwha Apartments
Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
F ull dark yet still no word from Nam Sei-hoon.
Fortunately, since the time he left Nam at the War Memorial, Janson had scored the aid of another old friend, this one going back to his days in Consular Operations.
Until roughly ninety minutes ago, Janson had assumed Grigori Berman was dead. Over the past couple of years all attempts to reach the bearlike Russian had failed. Given his longtime associations with the Russian mafiya , it would have served as no surprise for Janson to learn that Grigori Berman had met a violent end.
But that evidently wasn’t the case.
“Dead?” Berman had said in his thick Russian accent. “No, no, Paulie! I am very much alive, comrade. I was just, let’s say, on an extended vacation.”
Janson didn’t bother asking where Berman had been and Berman in turn didn’t utter another word on the subject. Janson could think of myriad reasons why the big man might have needed to remain off the radar for a while.
“Hearing from you, Paulie, is like hearing from an old girlfriend. It warms my heart, yet I cannot help but wonder what it is you want from me.”
Janson didn’t need to remind Berman that the Russian was still in his debt. Back when Janson worked for Cons Ops, Grigori Berman, who’d been trained as a number cruncher in the former Soviet Union, had been in the business of laundering millions for his Russian mob
In the center of the park she spun around and spotted movement in a copse of trees. An animal? No. Unless a grizzly bear had escaped from the Seoul Zoo, this creature was too large to be anything but a human being.
She continued moving forward as though she’d seen nothing. But she heard a rustle and was suddenly sure that whoever was following her knew he’d been made. Which meant that he was probably a professional.
With no one else in sight and the cover of dusk protecting him, her attacker finally made his move and launched himself out of the shadows.
Kincaid didn’t hesitate, didn’t bother looking back, just took off in a sprint across the park in the direction of the river. Over the shrieking gusts of wind she heard her pursuer make contact with bushes and low tree branches as he cut a parallel course north toward the Han, attempting to overtake her.
But Kincaid was fast. Fastest of her class at Quantico, where her professional life began. In the time since she’d left Virginia to join the FBI’s National Security Division, she’d put on a few years but not a single extra pound. And her world hadn’t paused since she’d been stolen away by the State Department after catching the eyes of some spooks from Consular Operations.
It was times like this when brimming with confidence counted, and that was a trait she’d had in spades all the way back to her childhood in Red Creek, Kentucky. She’d taken that confidence with her when she boarded a Greyhound bus, leaving her daddy behind for the first time in her life. And over the years that confidence had been refined, first by the bureau, then by Cons Ops, and most recently by Paul Janson.
She charged through a row of bushes and found herself back on a street. She paused a moment to catch her breath, which was billowing in large white puffs before her eyes. Through the mist she eyed a taxi, and her arm shot up almost instinctively.
The orange taxi slowed and pulled to the curb and Kincaid opened the door and dove into the backseat, shouting, “Go, go, go .”
As the taxi peeled away Kincaid raised her head just in time to see a tall Korean man breaking through the bushes, stopping on a dime, then raising his arms with a gun in his hands. She watched him take aim and nervously waited for the sound of a gunshot, the shattering of window glass, the buzz of a bullet as it streaked by within inches of her face.
Mercifully, the assassin never fired.
SEVEN
Cheongwha Apartments
Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
F ull dark yet still no word from Nam Sei-hoon.
Fortunately, since the time he left Nam at the War Memorial, Janson had scored the aid of another old friend, this one going back to his days in Consular Operations.
Until roughly ninety minutes ago, Janson had assumed Grigori Berman was dead. Over the past couple of years all attempts to reach the bearlike Russian had failed. Given his longtime associations with the Russian mafiya , it would have served as no surprise for Janson to learn that Grigori Berman had met a violent end.
But that evidently wasn’t the case.
“Dead?” Berman had said in his thick Russian accent. “No, no, Paulie! I am very much alive, comrade. I was just, let’s say, on an extended vacation.”
Janson didn’t bother asking where Berman had been and Berman in turn didn’t utter another word on the subject. Janson could think of myriad reasons why the big man might have needed to remain off the radar for a while.
“Hearing from you, Paulie, is like hearing from an old girlfriend. It warms my heart, yet I cannot help but wonder what it is you want from me.”
Janson didn’t need to remind Berman that the Russian was still in his debt. Back when Janson worked for Cons Ops, Grigori Berman, who’d been trained as a number cruncher in the former Soviet Union, had been in the business of laundering millions for his Russian mob
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