Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation (30 page)

Wailea Beach
Hawaiian Island of Maui

J
anson set the paperback down on his lap and gazed at the horizon through his Wayfarer sunglasses. Jessie stood in the shallows with one hand held over her brow to soften the glare of the sun off the water. She'd spotted a pair of humpback whales the day they'd touched down on Maui; she'd been searching the azure Pacific for more ever since.

Leaning over the side of his lounge chair, Janson dug into his duffel and fished out his phone. He'd been meaning to make this call since arriving in Hawaii, but it kept slipping his mind. He scrolled through his list of contacts and hit “Send.”

“Tell me why I shouldn't hang up.”

“No reason that I can think of anymore,” Janson said. “I'm just calling to tell you that your services are no longer needed. I have someone else.”

Janson hung up before Morton could reply.

“You didn't need to do that, you know,” Jessie said as she dropped into the lounge chair next to him. “You could have just stopped calling him.”

Janson laid a hand on her tanned wrist and dragged his fingers lightly up her forearm to the crook of her elbow. “Sometimes it's OK to do things just because they feel good.”

“You'll get no argument from me,” she said.

“Besides, after what Kang Jung—excuse me,
Lord Wicked
—pulled off with a borrowed laptop and General Han's cell phone, I don't think we'll need anyone else with her particular set of skills, ever.”

He smiled at the thought of the girl going straight at thirteen, with a legitimate role in CatsPaw. Now there
was
something out there for her. Not just a job but friends she could always count on. Friends who loved her. Friends who would give their lives for her.

A few minutes later Jessie picked up her new cell phone and dialed for her messages. When she hung up, she said, “Park Kwan called. He's getting major props from the department for his role in solving Lynell Yi's murder.”

“Good for him. Any further word about Mi-sook?”

“She's still in jail; the judge didn't grant bail. But Park Kwan said the lawyer you hired for her is the best in South Korea. Kwan thinks that given Nam Sei-hoon's involvement, the prosecutor will want to deal.”

“If she goes to trial,” Janson said, “I'll be first in line to testify.”

“How's Mi-sook's infant daughter?”

“Jina says she's doing great. Her mother's helping to take care of the baby and Jina's going through the necessary channels to facilitate an adoption. It should be no problem. Mi-sook consents and Jina and her mom have a luxurious brand-new home in one of the most prestigious areas of Seoul.”

Jessie smiled. “How much did that run you?”

Janson smiled back. “Don't ask. Next house I blow to pieces, I'm going to make sure the owner has adequate insurance first.”

“Who knows, maybe you won't have to blow up any more houses in the future.”

“Let's be realistic, Jessie, shall we?”

Jessie lifted a bottle of FIJI to her lips. “We know the usual suspects in government were behind this. But who do you think was financing Diophantus?”

Janson shook his head. “I don't know, and I'm not going to dig. If our client Jeremy Beck was involved, I don't want to know about it.”

“Shall I grab a shovel so you can bury your head in the sand?”

Janson sighed. “I know. I'm a bad man, Jessie.”

“The hell you are, Paul Janson. You are the kindest, most loving, most generous man I've ever met. You need to realize that sooner or later.”

Janson heard Heath Manningham's words in his head.

“Walked away, did you? Tell me. How many have you done since you ‘walked away'?”

Janson would always regret what happened in Daeseong-dong. Although Phoenix had no set place, the foundation was Janson's home; its graduates were his family. Yet he was ultimately responsible for Heath Manningham's death. Even though he'd intended for Manningham to survive the fall, he felt as though he'd killed one of his own.

But Janson knew damn well that the things he'd done couldn't be undone.

He closed his eyes, thinking how much he would have liked for Phoenix to help Sin Bae. But the assassin had vanished into the mist in the DMZ. Had he really, after all this time, gone back to Yodok to find his sister?

Su-ra.

Sadly, Janson was sure that as long as Kim Jong-un was in power, all Sin Bae was likely to find in North Korea was suffering and death.

Janson opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. “It's almost happy hour, Jessie. You still want to go dancing tonight?”

She bit down on her lower lip. “If only my dance partner hadn't stayed behind in Seoul.”

“I'd be happy to send the Embraer to pick him up if you'd like.”

She turned to him. “What about you, then? Who are you going to dance with, Paul?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe I'll have to give Kayla a whirl.”

Jessie smiled. “You
can
be a monster at times, Paul Janson.”

He smiled back at her. “So I've been told.”

To Henry Morrison and the estate of Robert Ludlum;
To Mitch Hoffman, Lindsey Rose, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing;
To Robin Rue, Beth Miller, and the entire team at Writers House;
To my readers, my wife and children, and my friends;
Thank you.

ROBERT LUDLUM
was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a
New York Times
bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of
The Scarlatti Inheritance
,
The Chancellor Manuscript
, and the Jason Bourne series—
The Bourne Identity
,
The Bourne Supremacy
, and
The Bourne Ultimatum
—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, you can visit Robert-Ludlum.com.

DOUGLAS CORLEONE
is the author of the acclaimed Simon Fisk series of international thrillers, including
Good as Gone
and
Payoff
. His debut novel,
One Man's Paradise
, was a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First Novel and won the 2009 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Douglas Corleone now lives in Hawaii with his wife and three children. You can visit him online at DouglasCorleone.com.

The Janson Directive

The Janson Command
(by Paul Garrison)

The Janson Option
(by Paul Garrison)

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