Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Janson Option (Paul Janson) (6 page)

Hassan said, “It is more crowded than ever. Two million people are packed into Mogadishu. Hundreds of thousands are newcomers. Many are fleeing famine and war. But some smell opportunity. Global corporations want our oil and gas. Government agents scheme to shift East Africa’s balance of power. Mercenaries want to fight. All have reason to operate undercover in Somalia.”

Janson was more interested in how the “Italian” might connect to the pirates who held Allegra Helms. It was harder and harder to believe that assassins from Naples had pegged shots at Kingsman Helms by mistake.

“You say that Somali nicknames are always accurate. Does that mean he is actually from Italy?”

“We have a long history with Italy. Italians tried to colonize us. Italians modernized farming in the river valleys. What remains of our city architecture is Italian. And to this day we love marinara sauce on our ‘basta.’” He grinned, again. “We eat much more ‘basta’ than camel burgers.”

“What’s your best guess? Is the ‘Italian’ actually from Italy?” Janson pressed.

“Perhaps the ‘Italian’ is Italian. Perhaps he only is ‘Italian-like.’”

“What would be ‘Italian-like’?”

“Having a strong desire to own Somalia.”

Paul Janson stood up and offered his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Hassan.” He had learned all he could. It was time to get off the ground and work the phones. “When we meet in Mogadishu, feel free to bring along friends as knowledgeable as you are. They will be compensated.”

“May I ask you what you want from the youngsters, Isse and Ahmed?”

“Same thing I want from you. Information and contacts in the event we can’t simply ransom the hostages.”

“So we are your contingency you pray you won’t need?”

Janson said, “I was taught to never depend on options that I hoped I would think up at the last minute.”

As they shook hands, Janson drew the Somali close and asked in a low voice with a nod toward the cockpit, “What do you think of young Isse?”

“The hope of tomorrow. Educated Somali youth who come home will save our country.”

J
ANSON HANDED OUT
“shanzhai”
counterfeit smart phones, a type commonly purchased by young budget-conscious Third World businesspeople. “Numbers to reach us are programmed in.”

“Direct?” asked Ahmed.

“They’ll get you to people who can get to us. Use it like any mobile. You can store new contacts, set up your e-mail. But here’s the thing: there’s a panic Delete app if you get in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Use the panic button if you’re afraid you’re caught by people who might endanger your contacts. You can protect your friends and yourself by deleting everything potentially incriminating with one swipe. Contacts, e-mails, texts, GPS history, everything. Watch.”

He called up the app and held his finger over a red button that appeared on the screen.

“Touch and hold for two full seconds. Once it’s wiped, you can say you just bought a new phone and haven’t loaded it up, yet. Where’d you buy it? On the street. See, it’s a counterfeit…”

The Somalis looked sobered by the thought. He said, “Ninety-nine out of a hundred you won’t need it. But it’s there; you’ll be safe from everyone except Apple’s patent-infringement detectives.”

That got smiles. Janson gave Kincaid the nod. She walked Hassan and Ahmed down the boarding stairs.

Isse hung back. “Paul, could I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Should I maybe try to make contact with Abdullah al-Amriki?”

“The
cleric
? What for?”

“To ask if al-Amriki might help if we need help rescuing the woman.”

Janson said, “He hates Americans. Why would he help?”

“He hates pirates, too. He declared pirates
haram
.”

“So I’m told. But he’s tight with al-Shabaab.”

“But al-Shabaab is getting their asses kicked.”

“And you’re thinking al-Amriki may need new friends.”

The boy answered earnestly, “He may want to be part of a new government. He wouldn’t be the first fighter to beat his sword into a plow. Right?”

“All right, keep your ears open. He’s hiding in the bush, but he’ll have agents in Mog.”

“Maybe I should try to find him,” Isse ventured.

“No!”

“I wouldn’t mind trying. I mean, he doesn’t hate all Americans. Only ones who disrespect Muslims.”

“Stay away from him,” Janson said firmly.

“Why, if he would help?”

Janson slung an arm around the kid’s shoulder. “Isse, I appreciate your wanting to help. But Abdullah al-Amriki is hiding in a war zone. I do not want you to happen to be shaking his hand when AMISOM tanks open fire. What I want you to do, in addition to standing by to translate, is this: First thing, when you get to Mog, call on your parents’ friends at the Ministry of Health. You will be most helpful to me if you make government contacts.”

“Yeah, but they won’t know pirates.”

“You don’t know that. Doctors meet everyone.”

“I guess.”

“I want every door open,” Janson said. “Do you understand me? The more friends we make, the more options we have.”

T
ARANTULA
RAN FOR
the Puntland Coast, trailing a creamy wake.

Her cruising diesels were straining flat out, but the fastest they could drive the yacht was a frighteningly slow twenty knots while a frantic Maxammed and Boyah, his engineer, tried every trick they knew to start the high-speed turbines. Somehow, they concluded, the captain who had sabotaged the radar had also disabled the turbines. Only at dawn did they finally discover what the devil had done.

The fortified safe room that contained the circuit breakers he had manipulated to zap the electronics with a power surge was also astride the fuel lines that fed the high-speed turbines. Hidden behind a false cabinet were valves. Sabotage had been a simple matter of shutting them. Laughing with relief, they opened the valves and fired up the turbines.
Tarantula
’s speed leapt to thirty knots and her propellers churned the Indian Ocean white as snow.

43°31' N, 67°35' W
42,000 Feet Above the Gulf of Maine

W
e’re on our way. Thank everyone who got us the Somalis. Hassan was a good catch.”

Paul Janson’s Embraer was soaring through the night on a northeasterly course, bound for Hamburg, with a refueling stop in Newfoundland, and he was checking in with Quintisha Upchurch, who was Catspaw and Phoenix’s general operations manager. He instructed her to continue posting research reports to the cloud so he could read them on the fly and asked, “Any calls?”

The moment he had gone operational, calls to his regular cell and sat phone numbers were rerouted directly to her. Quintisha and Quintisha alone could find him anywhere in the world, night or day.

“The most interesting is from Mr. Douglas Case of ASC,” she answered in a honey-toned, musical voice. “Mr. Case asked if you could return his call when you have a moment.”

“Well, well, well.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

They went through the other messages—impatient queries from Helms, FBI agent Laughlin reporting he’d have something soon, and confirmation of their appointment at the Hamburg shipyard.

“Any word on Denny Chin?”

“Dr. Novicki reports he’s settling in.” The Phoenix doctor was their pilot Lynn’s husband.

“Any other ‘unauthorized self-checkouts’ I should know about?”

Quintisha replied that none of the Phoenix rehabilitation homes reported any patients lighting out for parts unknown. “But I did get a disturbing call from Daniel.”

“The kid in Corsica.” Former SEAL intelligence officer who had made an impressive comeback from an IED head injury. “Is he still OK?”

“Yes. I don’t have to bother you with it just now, as it doesn’t concern a Phoenix patient.”

“Go ahead.”

“Daniel caught wind of something in Sardinia.” The island lay just across the narrow Strait of Bonifacio from Corsica, where Daniel ran a dive shop. “Yousef is gone.”

“You’re kidding.”

Last they had heard, the dictator’s son whom Janson and Kincaid had rescued last year had ended up in a villa on Sardinia.

“When?”

“Daniel doesn’t know. He only found out by accident from some tourists who rented the villa. Apparently it had been empty for a while.”

As Janson got off the line and started to dial Case, he caught Kincaid’s eye. She was wearing her headset and was repeating words in Somali. Janson mouthed,
“Guess who wants me to call him back.”

“Doug Case,” she said aloud. She pulled off her headset to add, “I don’t trust him.”

“I’m keeping an eye on him. Guess who flew the coop?”

“Denny Chin?”

“Yousef.”

“Oh, man. That’s all we need. That little weasel going home to lead a counterrevolution courtesy of Catspaw.”

“If he is, we’ll have to go looking for him. I told Quintisha to put out feelers. Meantime, Mrs. Helms takes priority—OK, go back to your Somali. I’ll do Doug.”

Doug Case, American Synergy’s president of Global Security, was the first burned-out covert intelligence agent the Phoenix Foundation “rescued” from homelessness and addiction. Janson, Kincaid believed, had dangerously mixed feelings about the former assassin, who had been second only to the Machine at Consular Operations. Her own feelings were not at all mixed.

Case answered on the second ring, “Well, well, well.”

Janson pictured him. ASC’s president of security was a rugged man about Janson’s age, corporately smoothed over with a $200 haircut, a $4,000 suit, and English shoes like Kingsman Helms. But the soles of his shoes would remain forever shiny. Doug was stuck in a wheelchair—a tech-heavy six-wheel electric “superchair” with enough buttons and dials to launch a moon shot, and outriggers that extended when he used the hydraulic seat to lift him to eye level with a standing man—but still a wheelchair.

Case was a Cons Ops veteran too, of course, and they had been through the wars together. Janson knew that there wasn’t a covert officer, active or retired, himself included, who didn’t ask of that wheelchair, Why him? Why not me? When is my turn? That a failed suicide jump had put Doug in that chair was a relief only to those with little imagination.

“I had hoped,” Case said, “that you would make it down for the grand opening of my latest gangbanger haven.”

Whatever Janson’s misgivings, whatever his suspicions, the rehabilitation homes that the wheelchair-bound Case had set up for Houston teenagers crippled in gang shootings were unalloyed good work.

“I had hoped too,” said Janson. “How did it go?”

“Swimmingly, thank you.”

“How’d your operation go?”

“Better than the last. Docs popped in a new stimulator. Damned thing’s smaller than a dime and charges wirelessly.”

To alleviate the pain that radiated from his shattered spine, Doug had had numerous spinal-cord-stimulation implants, which consisted of a titanium-alloy-clad mini charging coil, battery, and electrodes. He replaced them repeatedly as they grew smaller and more sophisticated.

“How’s the pain?”

“Pretty good. When it hurts, I wave my magic control wand, all I feel is a tingle. Most of the time.”

“Congratulations.” This latest model, Janson knew, had doubled the number of electrodes; the “magic wand” let him adjust the intensity and frequency of the pulses via an inductively coupled controller.

“It beats heroin,” Doug said.

“You called. What’s up?”

“I understand that my least favorite rival at ASC hired you.”

“I don’t discuss clients.”

“Aren’t we prickly.”

“I’m going to need a good reason not to end this conversation,” said Janson.

“I’m not asking for information. I am merely stating that I know that Kingsman Helms hired you to rescue his stunningly gorgeous wife.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

“Professional courtesy. To let you know what I know. Which is to say that various people know everything going down. Including what transpired at your job interview.”

Janson was not surprised that Case had heard about the shooting. American Synergy’s PR department might have kept Helms’s name out of the news, but word would be flying around inside the company, spread by the same publicists who kept it from the media. That meant, Janson surmised, that Doug either did not know exactly what went down, or he did know what went down and wanted to hear what Janson knew about it. Or he feared that while Janson tried to rescue Helms’s wife, Helms might spill information that ASC Security didn’t want Janson to know.

The difficulty with trying to figure out what Doug Case wanted was that Case had been taught duplicity by the same Consular Operations instructors as Janson had. Case was as good a chameleon, as good an actor, and almost as good a liar.

“Thank you for that information.”

“Paul.”

“What?”

“Helms’s problem is not ASC’s problem.”

“That’s between him and ASC.”

“ASC will not pay you, you know.”

“I’m doing it pro bono.”

“What?”

“That was a joke.”

“Good one. Pro bono! I love it. What’s he paying you, if you don’t mind me asking you?”

“Good-bye.”

“Enjoy Somalia. And don’t forget, just because the poor woman is married to Helms doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to be rescued.”

“Any idea who would send a sniper after Helms?”

“Me.” Case laughed. “If I thought I could get away with it.”

Janson did not respond.

“Seriously?” asked Case.

“Seriously.”

“No one. Kingsman Helms is a jerk businessman. He’s not sniper bait.”

“What about me, Doug? Am I sniper bait?”

It took Case a moment to answer. The half breath that a top-notch liar would interject to indicate innocent shock at the suggestion. Exquisitely timed? Or genuine? Tough call, although Janson leaned toward exquisitely timed.

“What are you talking about?” More baffled than indignant.

“What if they weren’t aiming at Helms, mistakenly or otherwise, but at me and Kincaid?”

“Then you’d be dead.”

“What makes you think that?”

“If they were gunning for you, they wouldn’t send amateurs.”

“These weren’t amateurs.”

“They missed, didn’t they?”

Janson had reviewed the attack on the pier, repeatedly. It was tough to tell for sure about the sniper’s intentions at four hundred meters, but the strollers who came around the corner had murder in their eyes for Helms and Helms only. On the other hand, those store labels still basted to their jacket sleeves were an odd oversight.

“Interesting idea, Doug. A whole new wrinkle.”

“Glad to help. Watch your back. And if you need anything in Somalia, don’t hesitate to ask. We’ve got terrific access through Somali expat communities in Nairobi and Dubai.”

“Thanks,” said Janson, and hung up, saying to himself, “I’ll bet you do.”

Kincaid removed her headset. “What was that all about?”

“Doug sniffing out what Helms is up to.”

“Beyond trying to get his wife back?”

“He suggested the sniper was aiming at us, not Helms.”

“Bullshit—Paul, what was that about Isse connecting with Abdullah al-Amriki?”

“I told him not to.”

“Isse is troubled,” said Kincaid. “Didn’t you think?”

“Or just a romantic from the suburbs.”

“Something’s bugging him,” Kincaid insisted. “Troubled young Muslims turn to clerics. It could get him killed.”

“Let’s hope that when Isse sees Amriki face-to-face he’ll realize the imam is more murderous terrorist than holy cleric.”

Janson reached for his phone. “Quintisha? Would you put someone to work on Mrs. Helms’s background, please?…By the way, as soon as Mr. Helms sends you a photo of his wife, get it straight to me, please. Thank you.”

He rang off and looked at Kincaid.

Kincaid nodded. “She’s Italian.”

“A countess.”

“Some kind of a quote ‘Italian’ is shaking up things in Mogadishu. And Somalia was an Italian colony. And the shooter we nailed was Italian. I still say we file it under ‘Far-fetched.’”

Janson went back to the phone for a round of heads-up calls to people he knew personally in East Africa. He concentrated on Army officers from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia on the theory that the first contact should be made before help was needed. Then the panic call would not come out of the blue.

Quintisha broke in. A Navy lieutenant with whom Janson had spoken earlier—an old friend from a night landing on the Iranian coast—had news. “Looks like the yacht is heading for Eyl. It’s a pirate city at the southern end of Puntland.”

“Will they land in the harbor or anchor off?”

“If they make it, they’ll probably stand offshore. But if they follow pattern, they won’t anchor. They’ll keep her moving so we can’t sneak up on her with swimmers.”

A flat, distant note in his tone ratcheted Janson’s instincts to high alert. “What do you mean ‘if they make it’?”

“A guided-missile destroyer has them in her sights. She sent helos up with assault teams.”

“Do they know who they’re facing?”

“Affirmative. An aptly named Mad Max.”

“Good luck to them,” said Janson.

“Good luck to Mad Max.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not to mention the hostages.”

Janson sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s not our destroyer.”

“Who the hell’s is it?”

“PLAN’s.”

“
China?
Jeez-us!”

“The People’s Liberation Army Navy contributes ships to the international patrol. Not to mention waving the Chinese flag off the coast of East Africa.”

“Let’s hope their assault team knows what it’s doing.”

“Oh, they know what they’re doing, all right. It’s how they do it that worries me.”

Worried was putting it mildly, thought Janson. Dictatorships like China operated under cruel standards. Order was paramount. Pirate suppression trumped hostage health.

“What are you going to do, Paul?”

Janson glanced bleakly around his airborne study: Jessica curled up in her big red leather chair with her eyes closed, intently mouthing the Somali words she was hearing in her headset while repeatedly stripping and assembling a new mini pistol that had caught her fancy; he sprawled comfortably in his green chair, drinking in the information from the computers while the silver cocoon of the Embraer swept them in near silence 42,000 feet over the ocean and 8,000 miles too far away to do a goddamned thing to help.

M
AXAMMED STARED AHEAD
, desperate to make landfall before they were seen. Unlike southern Somalia’s monotonous coast of white sand and shifting dunes, the Puntland coast was backed by stone escarpments as the land reared westward toward the mountains of Ethiopia. He would see the foothills before he saw the beach, but at the moment all he saw was blue sky overhead and haze where the land should be.

One of the keen-eyed younger men he had stationed on the roof of the wheelhouse shouted that he saw a ship. Praying it was not a naval vessel, and cursing the captain again for blinding his radar, Maxammed scrambled up the stairs for a better look. Thirty knots covered distance quickly. The ship hardened up in the long, low silhouette of what could only be a warship.

They had started the turbines in the nick of time, Maxammed thought. With any luck, the powerful yacht could outrun the naval patrol. But in moments, helicopters were tearing through the sky.

“Get the women.”