Текст книги "Robert Ludlum's The Janson Command"

Автор книги: Robert Ludlum

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TWENTY-SEVEN

Kincaid whirled after him. Janson had moved so swiftly that he was on top of the couple in an instant, chopping with his open hand, breaking the girl’s wrist before she could stab Flannigan again with the stiletto she had pulled from the bike’s hollow handlebar.

Kincaid smashed her cheekbone below her helmet with her elbow as she raced past Janson, frantically searching for the assassin’s backup. It would be a sniper. In a tree in the gardens seven hundred meters across the lake. Or by the museum on a spit of land jutting parallel to the one they were on. Paul knew that and was dragging Terry to the ground, hauling him behind the thin cover of a bush, and shouting at nearby walkers and bikers, “Get down on the ground. Get down!”

Kincaid saw a flash on the roof of the museum—sun on a scope, nine hundred meters.

“Roof!” Pointing to the sniper’s position, diving to the grass, she rolled toward Janson. They pulled Flannigan behind the brow of a low mound. The rifle fired, unheard. A slug thunked into the mound. Earth flew in their faces.

“How many?”

“One, so far.”

Less than five seconds had passed since Janson spotted the stiletto. The assassin was trying to mount her bicycle, but she was staggering from the impact of Kincaid’s elbow and in shock from her broken wrist. The bicycle got away from her and fell over. She tried to run. Suddenly the airholes of her helmet spewed blood as a rifle bullet dissolved her skull.

Janson and Kincaid traded looks. Stabbing Flannigan would have been the killers’ plan B, if they had not intervened. Plan A would have been the girl luring Flannigan into the sniper’s sights. And now, before abandoning weapons and melting into the museum crowd, the sniper had killed the injured backup assassin so she could not talk.

Janson dialed 000.

“Ambulance. Lake Burley Griffin. Garryowen Drive. Across the lake from the National Museum. Stab wound.”

“Tell ’em not to bother,” Flannigan whispered. His face was white, his lips blue

“You’ll be fine.”

“Don’t bullshit a surgeon—she got my celiac artery. I have about two minutes.

“Listen, you gotta know this– Amber Dawnwas disguised as an OSV. They Rube Goldberged a secret exploration vessel. The people shot by the rebels weren’t roustabouts. They were petroleum explorers.”

“What did they find?”

“They threw their computers and transmitters overboard—like they were done uploading confirmation data and keeping it secret. Christ, I can’t believe this is happening to me.” He shook his head. “No way rebels accidentally did the oil company a favor, keeping the discovery secret by killing everybody. They were sentto kill ’em.”

So much, thought Janson, for Doug Case’s story about burnishing ASC’s image with pro bono exploration for downtrodden nations. ASC had been exploring solely for itself behind a scrim of independent contractors.

“That’s why I thought they’d sent you to kill me. They were afraid I knew about the discovery– Hey, little Annie?”

“Me? What, Terry?”

“Annie– What’s your name? Oh, right, Jesse. Honey, I’m gone. I wonder if I could hold your hand? No offense, Paul, but I’d rather go out with a girl.”

Jessica Kincaid took Terry Flannigan’s hand in one of hers and laid her other hand on his brow. “Take it easy, Terry. You’ll be okay. Hear the ambulance? They’re coming.”

“Good-bye, Annie.… ” His eyes closed. Sirens grew loud.

“Terry,” said Janson. “ Terry!The guy who helped Iboga board the jump jet? You thought you recognized him.”

“He led the rebel unit that attacked the boat.”

How many sides was SR on?

“Take care of yourself, Jesse.”

Kincaid laid Flannigan’s hand across his chest, took the other, which had fallen to his side, and crossed it over the first. “Jesus H, Paul, did we fuck up.”

“If it was not a random attack, how did the rebels in a speedboat locate that one small OSV fifty miles from Isle de Foree on a foggy night?”

“This poor silly bastard was on to something. And we missed it. I missed it. I missed her goddamned knife.”

“Coincidence? The first blip on their radar led them to a victim that just happened to be Amber Dawnthrowing computers overboard?”

“Terry told me at the hospital that he gave up regular practice because amputations really got him. He said he’d lie awake afterward, wondering should he have done it different.”

Janson barely heard her. “Radar alone could not guide them to precisely that one boat. Unless someone attached a tracking device before Amber Dawnsailed from Nigeria. What if they signaled Amber Dawn’s coordinates traced by the scientists’ encrypted satellite uploads?”

Kincaid rubbed her eyes. “You tell me, Mr. Machine.”

“Whoever received the uploads could have betrayed the scientists who transmitted them—an ice-blooded way to ensure that no one on the boat would reveal the discovery.”

“Doug Case lied to you about Terry Flannigan working for ASC.”

“Apparently so.”

“So how can you believe Case’s story that gunrunners told him Terry had been kidnapped?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Rest assured, President Poe,” said Kingsman Helms. “American Synergy Corporation’s Petroleum Division doesn’t want a ‘BP’ in Isle de Foreen waters any more than you do.”

“Acting President,” Ferdinand Poe corrected him.

He was one tough old bird, Helms thought, considering that he had been tortured nearly to death only a month earlier. Helms had expected to call on a trembling old man in his hospital suite. Instead, Poe had received him in his working office adjacent to the ceremonial “throne room” in the Isle de Foree’s Presidential Palace, where President for Life Iboga used to accept ASC bribes.

“I’ve asked repeatedly,” said Poe, “for detailed contingency plans in the event of blowouts, pipeline breaks, tanker collisions, and groundings. I have received from ASC standard boilerplate responses riddled with gobbledygook pseudo-science that would embarrass even BP. In fact, one of my bright young aides informs me that parts of it appear plagiarized from discredited BP safety filings.”

Helms ran a powerful athlete’s hand through his wavy blond hair. Whoever back in Houston had prepared the latest report on Poe’s condition could consider himself fired. A perfunctory courtesy call by the president of the Petroleum Division on the president of this pissant island—a ceremonial state visit as it were—was devolving into a goddamned Spanish Inquisition.

“Mr. President—”

“Acting President!”

“Sir. You have my word that our latest, updated disaster contingency plans will be emailed to your petroleum minister by tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you. Now let’s get down to business.”

“I beg you pardon, Mr.– Sir. What business?”

“At the moment, we have an oil lease agreement—Isle de Foree and American Synergy Corporation.”

“At the moment?” Helms countered.

“The terms of our current agreement are excessively generous to American Synergy.”

“We have an agreement that gives ASC exclusive exploration rights for five years,” Kingsman Helms replied coldly. It was time to take off the gloves. If Poe wanted an Inquisition he would get one that would make the Spanish Inquisition seem benign.

“We have a further agreement that ASC retains development rights of all reserves that ASC discovers in these five years. Remember that we are not drilling for ‘easy oil’ in Isle de Foree’s ultradeep waters. Our up-front investment is huge. We are taking geological risks, engineering risks, and capital risks. If we are so fortunate as to drill down to a ‘commercial discovery,’ we will have earned our additional agreements that give ASC the exclusive right to develop a petroleum accessing and processing infrastructure on Isle de Foree and in her waters. In other words, Mr. Acting President, if we find it, we own it, and you get royalties.”

“It is the royalties that are troublesome,” Poe shot back. “Our percentage is too low and the means of auditing payments are opaque. In other words, Mr. President of ASC Petroleum Division, the agreement is not fair.”

“Surely you would not prefer to do business with extractors that have the scruples of China or Russia?”

Poe refused to rise to that bait. He said, “The Free Foree Movement accepted your terms at a time of desperate weakness. We appreciate the help you gave us at the time. But the situation has changed. We are no longer hiding in the jungle.”

“Are you threatening to renege?”

“Nations don’t renege. They renegotiate.”

Helms smiled. “I am glad to hear you speak of nations, as there are more than one involved.”

“What other nations are involved?”

“Nigeria is the strongest that comes to mind. When Isle de Foree broke away from Equatorial Guinea and became an independent nation, weren’t you backed by Nigeria?”

“That was many years ago. Nigeria imposed onerous oil-sharing deals on Isle de Foree in exchange for support—and Nigeria supported Iboga to protect those deals.” Poe glared angrily.

Helms interrupted before Poe could accuse ASC of playing both ends against the middle by supporting Iboga until they were sure the dictator had lost the war. “Nonetheless. You developed your existing fields in partnership with Nigeria.”

“Inshore!” Poe protested. “Inshore. Nowhere near the deepwater blocks that ASC is exploring for us.”

“Nigeria could easily claim that the fields that ASC is investing in so heavily to explore are on the toe thrust of the Porto Clarence fields. Nigerians are a grabby bunch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they argue that the Porto Clarence fields are a structural trend connected to the Niger Delta itself.”

“Nonsense. Our new fields would be hundreds of miles from the Niger Delta.”

“Seabed disputes are as much about geology as distance. But the sense or nonsense of the argument would be worked out in treaty negotiations. Failing that, the issue would move to the Chamber for Maritime Delimitation Disputes of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and then the Seabed Disputes Chamber—or is it the other way around? Seabed Disputes first. I can never remember. The lawyers can work it out.”

“Isle de Foree does not have time for a protracted legal battle with Nigeria. Whoever we permit to explore for us will continue to.”

“If you violate the international court orders to cease drilling and exploring until the dispute is resolved, I guarantee you that Nigeria will invade first and answer the world’s questions later.”

Ferdinand Poe rubbed his mouth, as if to prevent a doubt from passing his lips.

“And I wouldn’t be surprised if Gabon piled on to see what they could grab,” Kingsman Helms said, rising to his full height. “Mr. Acting President, we have a deal. ASC stands by its deals. We hope you do, because if you don’t, Isle de Foree will be the partner that ends up alone.”

Ferdinand Poe stood painfully from his chair. “Our nation—this island—has the minutest window open for the shortest instant. In this moment, we can speed the clock ahead of the past. We can erase the final memories of colonialism. We can blot out the memory of terror that Iboga visited on our people. We can use this gift found under the sea to build a homeland that welcomes prosperity, decency, and peace. In other words, Mr. Helms, I will resist your schemes with every breath in my body. This ruinous, larcenous contract will stand on my dead body. We will renegotiate it. Or break it.”

Kingsman Helms turned on his heel and walked out of Poe’s office. Margarido, Poe’s chief of staff, was standing in the hall and looked at him inquiringly. “I trust you had a good meeting, Mr. Helms?”

“An excellent meeting. Always a pleasure doing business in Isle de Foree—Excuse me; I have a call.”

He took out his satellite phone.

Mario Margarido went into Poe’s office. “Well?”

Poe was slumped behind his desk, his mouth working. He looked up wearily. “When I agreed to oil lease terms with American Synergy in exchange for their support in our war against Iboga, I truly believed that liberating our country from that monster would make Isle de Foree a better home for our people. I had a dream that I could be like another Nelson Mandela—free our nation and then step back and let the young build her anew. You warned me at the time that I was making a deal with the Devil.”

The chief of staff smiled, hoping to calm Poe, and said, “It was my job to be your Devil’s Advocate.”

“I explained how desperately we needed the help and you agreed. But it never occurred to me how determined the Devil is to remain the Devil.”

“What happened?”

“I asked for fairer terms.”

“And?”

“He told me to go to hell.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to.”

“He made it very clear he would embroil us with the Nigerians.”

“Yes, I wondered about that– So what do we do?”

“Same thing we did with Iboga. Resist.”

“Do you really want to wage war, again? So soon?”

Ferdinand Poe stood up and limped to a window that overlooked the seawall. He collected his thoughts. Then he repeated to his old comrade the essence of what he had told the oilman from Texas.

“Yes, I am ready to resist, again, if I must.” Poe turned around and faced Margarido. “And you, my friend?”

Mario Margarido bowed his head. “I would be a liar to say I was anxious to. But surely you don’t have to ask.”

* * *

KINGMAN HELMS TOOK his telephone outside. His Sikorsky VIP S-76C++ was waiting on the windswept terrace that served as the palace helipad. He twirled his hand in the air, gesturing impatiently for the pilots to crank her up, and bounded up the boarding steps.

“Out of here. Now.”

“Where to, Mr. Helms?”

“Vulcan Queen.”

The ultraluxury helicopter lifted off immediately. Its so-called Silencer cabin and QUIETZONE gearbox made it quiet enough to talk on the phone, but when Helms saw that it was Doug Case calling from an airplane he did not bother to answer. Fuck him.

The helicopter swept seaward, thundering low over the Black Sand Prison. Last time Helms had been in Porto Clarence, the prison had been full of Ferdinand Poe’s allies. Now the rebels were dancing in the streets and President for Life Iboga’s officer corps were festering inside. There, thought Helms, was Poe’s Achilles’ heel. If Poe had a brain in his head he would shoot the whole bunch. Like most fools, Poe picked the wrong fights. Instead of killing the army officers who truly meant him harm, he wanted to slug it out with American Synergy over some misguided issue of principle.

Twenty minutes later, fifty miles to the south, when Helms could see the Vulcan Queen’s immense double drill tower his phone rang again. The Buddha. The CEO and chairman of the board of American Synergy calling from Houston. Helms answered hastily. “Yes, sir. How are you today?”

“How are things in Isle de Foree?”

“Poe wants to renegotiate. I told him we’d fight him.”

“Will he fight back?”

“I’m not sure, sir. But I’m afraid it looks like he might.”

The Buddha said, “For the sake of your division of the American Synergy Corporation, you better hope like hell that he doesn’t,” and hung up.

“Fuck!” Helms threw his phone on the chair beside his. He jumped up and stared over the pilots’ shoulders at the Vulcan Queengrowing large beneath him. Ordinarily, the sight of the thousand-foot Vulcan-class drill ship bristling with derricks and deck cranes filled his heart. Vulcan Queenwas a completely self-contained explorer capable of steaming to the deepest imaginable oil fields in the world at fifteen knots and drilling two exploratory wells simultaneously in stormy seas when she got there. Satellite-directed one-hundred-ton tunnel thrusters and eight rotating propulsion pods could hold her in position as tightly as if she were welded to the distant sea bottom. Manned by two hundred employees and sending remote submersibles to forage miles below, the drill ship was in her complexity and her mission a thing of powerful beauty, and Kingsman Helms felt all of the pride of the captain of the ship. More, he thought. More like a king in his castle or the admiral of a battle fleet. Vulcan Queen’s mere captain worked for him. He could always fire the captain. Which, of course, was what the Buddha had just told him could be done to him, the mere president of one mere division of the American Synergy Corporation. His phone rang. Case again. Helms was too angry to pretend he didn’t hate the cripple’s guts.

“It would have been goddamned helpful had I been informed that doddering old President Poe is fully capable of reaming out a goddamned regiment.”

“Acting President Poe,” said Doug Case.

“Don’t fuck with me, Case.”

“Had you informed me you were calling on Acting President Poe, I would have filled you in with an up-to-the-minute dossier.”

“You should have known I was calling on him.”

“I do not spy on branch presidents,” Case replied blandly, making “branch presidents” sound like shopping mall bank managers. “When they inform me of their travel plans, I inform them exactly what’s waiting for them. In minute, accurate detail.”

“What are you calling about?”

“Paul Janson says come to Singapore.”

“I’m not going to Singapore. You deal with him.”

“I already tried. Janson said, and I quote, ‘Bring Helms. Tell him I’ll blow this thing sky-high if he doesn’t get his ass to Singapore in twenty-four hours.’ What ‘thing’ would this be, Kingsman?”

“I don’t know.”

“The man seems to think he has you by the short hairs. Anything to do with the fact that Dr. Terrence Flannigan was stabbed to death last week?”

“Have you paid Janson, yet?”

“He wouldn’t take the money,” answered Case. “I stay at the American Club in Singapore. Shall I book you a room?”

TWENTY-NINE

The city-state of Singapore, an equatorial island at the southern end of the Malacca Strait, was as hot and humid as Isle de Foree. But there were no mountains to escape to, only air-conditioned shopping malls. Singapore was flat, with a few low hills, and the city, which occupied much of the island, was densely populated. Development had erased the jungle; streams flowed in concrete ditches between high-rise apartment buildings and glittering hotels; swamps had been drained and dredged to serve commercial shipping with a concrete shoreline. The port was enormous, a transhipment colossus with one foot in the Indian Ocean and the other in the South Pacific.

“ Namaste,” Paul Janson greeted the Gurkha security officers guarding the entrance to the American Club with a folding-stock Remington shotgun, a Heckler & Koch MP5, pistols, and khukuriknives. I bow to the God in you.

He was glad to see good men getting paying work, but they had to wonder, as he did, whether their employment was overkill: Gurkhas were the fiercest, best-trained fighters in the world and Singapore the safest of nations. Janson’s own club up the street, the Tanglin, whose members were the elite Chinese, Malays, Indians, and English who ran Singapore, made do with doormen who kept the taxis from cluttering the driveway.

Doug Case had left word at the front desk that he was waiting in the Union Bar. It was decorated like a sports bar with a big TV. Janson assumed that homesick American businessmen huddled here Saturday afternoons. It was quiet this morning and Case had the place to himself. He had backed his wheelchair into a corner.

“Welcome to the exotic Orient. May I order you a cheeseburger and fries?”

“Where’s Kingsman Helms?”

“Running late. He’ll be here any minute. Good flight?”

“On time,” said Janson, sitting where he could watch the door. He had dressed for the climate in linen shirt and trousers with a jacket draped over his arm. Case wore a bespoke tropical suit of ultralight 300 wool.

“Where’s Ms. Kincaid?”

“Traveling.”

“I’m disappointed. I was looking forward to laying eyes on her again.”

“She asked you a good question last time: How did you know that the doctor had been kidnapped? You answered that the gunrunners told you.”

“Correct.”

“Still your answer?”

Case had hazel eyes. They offered up a glint of steel. “Why wouldn’t it be? What’s up, Paul? What’s eating you?”

“Did the gunrunners mention what the Amber Dawnwas doing south of Isle de Foree?”

“Not that I recall. Delivering or picking up something, I presume. That’s what service boats do. If you’re interested, I’m sure it’s in the company records.”

“I’ll wait for Helms. Maybe he knows. How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”

“There’s Helms!”

The tall blond executive bustled into the bar and crossed the room in several long strides. “What,” he demanded of Paul Janson, “were you going to ‘blow sky-high’ if I didn’t travel halfway around the world to humor you?”

“How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”

Kingsman Helms sank into a chair and said, “You could have asked that on the telephone.”

“I don’t think you would have answered it on the telephone. How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”

“Briefly.”

Janson looked at Doug Case. Had Doug known? Hard to tell.

“What do you mean, briefly?”

“He was let go for schtupping some VP’s wife.”

“I don’t understand. Why’d you hire me to save him if he no longer worked for ASC?”

“He had been one of our own. And he was taken from one of our boats. It was agreed that it would be good for company morale to see even a former employee rescued.”

“There’s a lot of fear in foreign oil patches,” Case chimed in. “It’s hard to get top people to work in them.”

Janson kept his focus on Helms. “What was the Amber Dawndoing south of Isle de Foree the night it sank?”

“That’s another I could have answered on the telephone. You’re batting two for two.”

“What was the offshore service vessel doing south of Isle de Foree where there were no oil rigs to service?”

“The Amber Dawnwas completing a secret three-D seismic program for the Isle de Foree deepwater blocks. We had contracted a small Dutch company to conduct a seismic acquisition project, and they jury-rigged the Amber Dawnas a streamer three-D seismic vessel.”

A surreptitious glance at Doug Case revealed a minute widening of the corporate security chief’s eyes.

Janson asked, “Why didn’t you just send a real one? What was the big secret?”

“I told you about our pro bono contractors two weeks ago,” Case interrupted.

“You did not tell me Amber Dawnserved an independent subcontractor.”

Case leveled an angry gaze at Kingsman Helms. “Apparently that loop was above my pay level.”

Janson said, “Why don’t we hear Mr. Helms’s version of the truth?”

Helms shrugged. “The truth is, secrecy is bred in the bone in the oil business. Has been from the start. We’re selling a mysterious commodity. How much oil there appears to be at any given time dictates price, from the gas pump all the way back to reserves imagined in the ground.”

“And how much you’ll pay the nation that owns that ground?”

“I see where you’re going with this and you are dead wrong. It’s not like we were hoodwinking Ferdinand Poe.”

“It’s not? Who were you hoodwinking?”

“Our rivals. Other oil companies. But primarily the Chinese. It behooves us when we’re guessing and hoping for a big find to keep it secret until we know for sure. Keep in mind, we are looking for oil where we are not likely to find it. But we never know. The petrological world is full of surprises.”

“You’re not guessingwhat’s in the Isle de Foree deepwater blocks. You know already.”

Helms shook his head. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I’ll admit—in confidence—we’ve got reason to hope. But nothing is in the bag.”

Paul Janson said, “It was enough in the bag for ASC to support both sides of the Isle de Foree civil war.”

Kingsman Helms did not deny the accusation. Instead, he looked Paul Janson straight in the face and said, “The problem with the supply side of oil is a problem of accessing the resources in the ground. But a purely logistic problem becomes a political problem when governments claim access.”

“That’s a common corporate complaint.”

“Complaining is useless until a corporation admits that governments force us to make choices in order to access the product our customers require.”

“What choices did ASC make to drill for Isle de Foree’s oil?”

“Survival choices,” Helms answered blandly. “We at ASC are on our own in an increasingly competitive and contentious world. Gone are the days that the mere existence of American military might covered our back. We’re a global corporation, but big as we are, we compete with companies that are fronts for the Chinese and Russian governments. They’re not afraid of us anymore.”

Helms fell silent.

Janson asked, “What survival choices did you make?”

“Everywhere we explore, the American Synergy Corporation is whipsawed between anarchistic locals and rapacious Chinese. ASC has no choice but to cover our own back. If our government won’t lead us—and I assure you they won’t—we will lead the government. They don’t mind taxing us, but they won’t protect us. Since our government won’t level the playing field, then ASC must meet the Chinese head-on by doing what we have to do to level the playing field.”

“In other words, if the U.S. government won’t help ASC, ASC will help itself.”

“Without apology!” Helms shot back. “It’s a new world, Janson. It’s passed you by.”

“Dr. Flannigan told me as much.”

Kingsman Helms smiled patiently, as if humoring Janson. “What did the good doctor tell you?”

“He told me that ASC did not know he was aboard the Amber Dawn. That’s why he fled. He thought you sent us to kill him.”

Kingsman Helms just stared. “That is ridiculous. The man was a lunatic.”

“He told me that Amber Dawnwas secretly exploring for oil.”

“I already admitted that to you.”

“Two minutes ago. But since the doctor was killed, I’ve spoken with people who were in the rebel camp. It seems that the FFM fighters who murdered her crew were executed by Ferdinand Poe’s son as punishment for going rogue.”

“The least they deserved.”

“But they swore with their dying breath they had been orderedto murder the crew.”

“That’s as bloody and contradictory a story as daily events in the Niger Delta.”

“But if it is also a true story,” said Paul Janson, “then the question is, if the FFM fighters were tricked into murdering your crew, who set them up?”

“Who’s to know?” Helms shrugged. “Poe’s son died in the final battle and our doctor was assassinated in Australia—on your watch. And now, if you’re done telling dead men’s tales, I’m going to bed. I’ve been flying all night.”

“Sleep tight,” said Doug Case.

Kingsman Helms strolled out of the Union Bar without another word.

Paul Janson said, “Doug, you look surprised.”

“I never heard it laid out quite that way before.”

It struck Janson that the last time he had seen Doug Case genuinely surprised—the only time—was in Ogden, Utah, when he kicked a Glock 34 out of his hand before Doug could shoot him. He studied Doug’s face, trying to read him. “You weren’t surprised that Flannigan no longer worked for ASC.”

“I learned it recently.”

“After you hired CatsPaw?”

“After.”

“What about Amber Dawn’s mission?”

“That came as fucking news.”

“No wonder you don’t look happy.”

Doug stared. Then he said, “Stop me if I’m wrong, but Helms essentially said, ‘No witness, no crime.’ ”

“That’s how I heard it—Hold on; he’s back.”

Helms rushed into the bar. “Almost forgot. Janson, we’re cutting CatsPaw a check for a million dollars. You didn’t exactly rescue the doctor in the end, but you tried hard. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” said Janson.

Again, Doug Case looked surprised. Janson explained, “It will help with expenses.”

Helms grinned. “Good. That way you won’t feel obliged to overcharge next time we hire you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Janson smiled back.

Helms said, “I wouldn’t want you to take what I said about the new world the wrong way.”

“Passing me by?”

“I may have stated it too forcefully. I’m passionate on the subject of the future. I learned when I was seven years old that leadership is not about now, it’s about then. Not about the present, but the future.”

“That’s a big lesson at seven.”

“I observed a failure of leadership when my dad took me to Greenan Oldsmobile to pick up a new car. Remember that little Olds called a Cutlass?”

“Inspired by an oil crisis.” Janson nodded.

“Dad was real excited. He ordered it specially built from all the best options in the brochure, including a powerful new V-six that Oldsmobile had borrowed from the new Cadillac. We get in for a test drive with old Harry Greenan—a cagey New England Yankee. Harry gets all tight-lipped and he grumps, ‘They won’t build any more of these.’

“My dad asked why not: ‘Wonderful car, feel this ride. Quiet, smooth, fast as heck.’

“Old Harry says, ‘But you bought a big car for little-car money.’

“It was like my father had disturbed the social order, the way things had always been done. Instead of selling the blazes out of it, Olds took all the options out of the brochure. To buy such a good car you had to spend more money on a German or Japanese import.

“Oldsmobile Cutlass had been the biggest-selling car in America. Sales plummeted. Now they’re out of business. It taught me that leadership is not about now; it’s about the future. The future was smiling on Oldsmobile and they turned around and looked at the past. I vowed I would never make that mistake.”

He turned on his heel and left.

Janson waited until he was sure Helms wasn’t coming back again and said to Doug Case, “You were listening like you knew the punch line.”

“Last time it was a Pontiac.”

“Tell me, what did you mean, you never heard it laid out that way? Never heard what laid out that way?”

“The global corporation as buccaneer. Don’t you love Helms’s ‘They don’t mind taxing us, but they won’t protect us’?”

“Gives him a lot of latitude.”

“Total.” Case covered his face with his hands. After a while he spread his fingers and stared between them. “A million people work in U.S. intelligence. Right?”

“Give or take.”

“Do you think there’s room for another?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you suppose that with my credentials and your help explaining my checkered past I could go back to government service?”

“ What?” said Janson. Now he was the one surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I’m thinking of going back to serving my country.”

“And kiss good-bye flying First Class in six-thousand-dollar suits?”

“That’s just stuff. I don’t care about stuff. I never have– Don’t get me wrong; I love my ‘superchair.’ ” He patted the wheelchair’s controls-studded arms with deep affection. “You have no idea what it means to bop around so freely when you can’t. But I’ll bet the Phoenix Foundation would keep me in wheelchairs if I weren’t earning ASC bucks.”