Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation Read online

  Janson refused to believe him. He could heal, he knew. He could be saved. First, Janson had to admit to himself that he’d been a frozen-hearted assassin. Once he was able to admit that, he vowed to atone for his transgressions. He couldn’t alter the past, couldn’t change what he’d done. But he could change what he was.

  * * *

  HOURS LATER, AS KINCAID SLEPT, Paul Janson continued poring through the thousands of online articles that made mention of Senator James Wyckoff of North Carolina. He’d started by combining the senator’s name with keywords such as “Seoul” and “Pyongyang” and “Beijing,” then branched out by identifying the words most likely associated with the current talks between North and South Korea. Recurring issues among the four parties involved in the talks included North Korea’s nuclear program; the sanctions put in place against North Korea’s hermit regime for its human rights abuses and its defiance in the face of international law; and of course the possible (albeit improbable) negotiation of an actual peace treaty to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War six decades ago.

  Wyckoff’s votes on Korean issues seemed to ebb and flow with popular opinion. No surprise there, since Wyckoff was expected to seek his party’s nomination for president of the United States during the next primary season. He’d voted multiple times for sanctions against the North but certainly wasn’t a hard-liner. In fact, it was difficult to discern where he stood on the most vital Korean issues. He was a smart politician. With his votes, he was giving himself room to maneuver to the right or the left depending on which way the wind happened to be blowing in an election year. The way things stood now, the American people saw the rogue regime in Pyongyang as a definite foe, but they had no appetite for military action following the long and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supporting harsh sanctions against the North continued to be the most prudent stance, politically speaking.

  Janson figured he could all but rule out the possibility that Gregory Wyckoff was framed for murder in Seoul because of his father’s political positions on Korea.

  What continued to nag Janson, however, was the question of why Gregory Wyckoff and Lynell Yi were staying at a hanok in central Seoul when Gregory Wyckoff was renting an apartment just across the Han River. When he’d asked the senator and his wife, they’d dismissed the paid stay at the traditional Korean house as irrelevant.

  “The low-rent apartments in Seoul can be gloomy,” the senator suggested, “especially in winter. I saw pictures of Gregory’s flat. From the outside it looked like the DC projects. The interior was clean, maybe even quaint, but nothing spectacular. Three or four rooms separated by sliding doors, a kitchen–dining room combination. If they couldn’t travel far because of Lynell’s work, it would have made perfect sense for them to stay a night or two in a traditional hanok.”

  Janson disagreed, though his opinion was actually favorable to the senator’s theory of his son’s innocence. If Lynell Yi had indeed overheard something during the sensitive North-South talks in the demilitarized zone and then passed it on to her boyfriend, it was possible that both she and Gregory were frightened enough to abandon Gregory’s apartment until things cooled off. Or at least until the couple decided what to do with the information.

  The question then would be What had Lynell Yi overheard?

  “Something to drink, Mr. Janson?”

  The words were spoken in a slow, sensual voice and Janson nearly turned to remind Kayla to call him Paul. But he caught himself. Instead he grinned and said, “I admit I’m a bit foggy, Jessie. But I’m not that foggy.”

  Kincaid gracefully lowered herself into the deep leather seat next to Janson. Clearly she was still in character. The real Jessica Kincaid didn’t do much gracefully—unless you counted taking out a human target with a .50-caliber M82 from 1,600 meters.

  Janson looked into her pale-green eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Kayla now.”

  Kincaid scrunched up her features and rolled her eyes. “Jealous? Sorry, Charlie, but I don’t get jealous.”

  Definitely jealous, Janson thought. The more Jessie’s get sounded like git, the more anxious he knew she was. Tension drew out her Southern drawl, her Appalachian backcountry twang.

  “You know,” Janson said, gently brushing her smooth face with the back of his fingers, “you’re beautiful when you’re jealous.”

  Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed, the way they had just before they first made love in a sparsely decorated hotel room in the Hungarian town of Sarospatak soon after they met.

  “I see the way you look at me,” she’d said that evening.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he’d lied.

  Complicating things, then as now, was Janson’s reluctance to place Jessica Kincaid in harm’s way. He knew more clearly than anyone that Jessie could handle herself better than most soldiers on the planet. Yet the thought of losing her to violence was never very far from his mind.

  She’d recognized that fear in him from the very first and never once hesitated to call him on it. Jessie had insisted on taking risks—putting her life on the line—in nearly every mission since. And Janson often felt helpless to stop her.

  “So,” he said, “were you able to get some sleep?”

  “Some,” she said. “But I’m wired. Those eight days in Waikiki really rejuvenated me. Tropical vacations do that; you should try one sometime.”

  He smiled and dropped his chin to his chest.

  “Now who’s jealous?” she said, leaning over to deliver a tender kiss on his lips.

  As with every kiss, he relished it. If life had taught him anything about love, it was that any single kiss—even the most routine, the most perfunctory—could be the last.

  A few minutes later Janson closed his laptop. “I’ve made a strategic decision,” he said. “Since we have two distinct tasks and not a hell of a lot of time to accomplish them, when we get to Seoul, we’re going to split up.”

  “You think that’s a good idea if Cons Ops is involved in this? They already tried to kill you once.”

  Janson smirked. “You already tried to kill me once. But do I hold it against you?”

  “Sure seems that way, considering how often you bring it up.”

  Janson rested his hand on her knee and gave it a tender squeeze. “Anyway,” he said, “the odds of Cons Ops being involved in this are astronomical. Senator Wyckoff based his assertions purely on paranoia. Unless he knows something he’s not telling us, there’s not a single fact implicating State. We don’t know who Lynell Yi overheard, or what she overheard—if she overheard anything at all. Even if she was killed by one of the parties to the talks, it’s more likely to be China or North Korea—or even South Korea—than it is to be the United States. Remember, whoever did this didn’t place just anyone in the frame; they placed the son of a sitting US senator. That’s assuming Gregory Wyckoff is innocent to begin with. And that’s a fairly large—and probably false—assumption.”

  “All right,” Kincaid said, after taking it all in. “So we split up. Who does what?”

  “I’m going to start by searching Seoul for the senator’s son. By the time we arrive the kid will already have a roughly forty-eight-hour head start. But given the geography, chances are he won’t make it out of South Korea.”

  “So then, why the hurry?”

  “Because if Gregory Wyckoff’s going to have any chance at all of beating these charges, we’re going to need to find him before the police do.”

  Kincaid nodded. “So while you’re searching for the kid…”

  “You’re going to start the independent investigation into Lynell Yi’s murder. The first thing you’ll need to do in order for you to gain any ground with the locals is obtain some cooperation. So you’re going to pay a visit to a man named Owen Young.”

  “Owen Young?” Kincaid said. “His name sounds familiar.”

  “It should. He’s the US ambassador to South Korea.”

  THREE

 
Embassy of the United States

  Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea

  Jessica Kincaid wasn’t happy. As far as she was concerned Janson was sending her directly into the lion’s den without so much as a whip.

  Her taxi pulled to the curb across from the massive embassy compound. She reached forward to pay the driver in South Korean won then opened the rear door and braced herself against the hard afternoon wind.

  Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Honolulu anymore.

  Kincaid stuffed her hands into the pockets of her long black overcoat as the orange Hyundai Sonata pulled back into traffic. Turning a full 360 degrees, she took in her surroundings. Kincaid always delighted in discovering new cities, particularly those, like Seoul, that wrestled with striking the proper balance between tradition and modernity.

  Head down against the bitter chill, she marched to the end of the block, wishing she were back in the warmth of Incheon International, which also happened to be the most dazzling airport she’d ever been in. Although she didn’t have time to enjoy the amenities, she’d seen signs directing passengers to a casino and a spa, a theater with live performances, a cultural museum, even a Zen garden. There were ice-skating rinks and designer shops and world-class restaurants to be explored. For Kincaid, a lengthy layover at Incheon International would have served as a perfectly acceptable substitute for a luxury Hawaiian vacation in and of itself.

  When she reached the intersection she stopped and surveyed the imposing US embassy. Unlike the architectural masterpiece that served as Seoul’s futuristic air hub, the embassy possessed the doomed look of a maximum-security prison. In a city crowded with modern skyscrapers, the embassy stood alone, like a schoolyard brute that no one else wanted anything to do with.

  As she moved closer to the monstrosity, the hordes of South Korean officers stationed behind the embassy’s tall, spiked fences came into sharper focus. Several of the uniformed guards were gathered around a civilian vehicle that had just entered the compound. The Caucasian driver stood off to the side, arms folded across his broad chest, as the guards opened the trunk and the hood, inspecting every last detail. Kincaid suddenly wondered if she’d be subject to a strip search. Hell, from the looks of things, she worried that security protocols for former State employees might also require a cavity search—especially for disgruntled snipers like herself.

  She glanced longingly over her shoulder at the countless galleries and performing arts centers, stole a cursory look at the lone snowcapped mountain in the distance. Kincaid was about to step foot on US soil, yet she felt as though she was sneaking behind enemy lines.

  An odd feeling given that Jessica Kincaid rightly considered herself a lifelong American patriot.

  When she finally reached the outer entrance she produced her US passport. “I have an appointment with Ambassador Young.”

  The guard’s head-to-toe leer was almost as invasive as a strip search would have been.

  Nearly an hour later she was seated outside the ambassador’s office door, having been relieved of her smartphone and all other electronic devices. Her overcoat hung on a coatrack against the wall opposite her. As she waited, she crossed her legs and kept her head down. There was nothing particularly intimidating about being inside a US embassy, except that it was the turf of her former employer. Not just the US government but the US State Department.

  Just a few years ago, Jessica Kincaid had been a member of Consular Operations, the State Department’s clandestine intelligence unit. She’d served not only as a field agent but as a crucial component of Cons Ops’s elite Sniper Lambda Team. In fact, she was the best they’d had. Kincaid was the crème de la crème, which was why she had been sent to Regent’s Park in London to carry out the beyond-salvage order on Paul Janson. Because of her extraordinary skills (and because she’d chosen Janson as the subject of an extensive paper she’d been required to write during training), she had personally been given the directive to terminate Paul Janson.

  Terminate with extreme prejudice.

  Of course, she didn’t know it then but she’d been lied to. Janson wasn’t the enemy; he hadn’t deserved to die. Once she finally realized that, she couldn’t help but wonder how many other men and women she had executed were innocent. How many others had been betrayed by their own government? How many had children, loving husbands or wives?

  Given their respective histories with Cons Ops, Kincaid didn’t understand why Janson had sent her to the embassy immediately upon arriving in Seoul. How could he, of all people, trust anyone in the US State Department?

  But then, Paul Janson was the smartest man she’d ever known. Even if he wasn’t entirely forthcoming about them, he’d certainly had his reasons. And it wasn’t her place to question his orders, regardless of how intimate their relationship was when they weren’t in the field.

  Still, a shiver ran down her spine just sitting in what she considered to be hostile territory. As far as she was concerned, Cons Ops and State were the enemy, and they always would be, regardless of any lingering ties Paul Janson might share with them.

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER a well-dressed young man with close-cropped blond hair finally stepped out of the office and announced, “The ambassador will see you now.”

  Kincaid rose and steeled herself for what she expected to be a confrontation.

  Ambassador Owen Young was standing stiffly in front of his desk, arms at his sides, when Kincaid entered his office. The Korean American statesman thanked his chief aide with a barely perceptible nod, then took Kincaid’s hand in his and offered her a seat and a superficial smile.

  During the flight, Janson had briefed Kincaid on Korean etiquette. Although he had grown up in San Francisco and attended the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell Law School, Owen Young had been born in Seoul and served at the US embassy—first as chief of political military affairs then as ambassador—for the past eleven years. Like most Koreans, he’d be eyeing Kincaid’s body language, watching for demonstrations of knowledge of (and respect for) Korean culture.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Ambassador,” she said with a slight bow before taking her seat.

  “Of course,” he said. “Who of us can turn down a request made by the legendary Paul Janson?”

  Kincaid wasn’t exactly sure how she was meant to take the ambassador’s statement, but she wasn’t about to ask.

  “So,” the ambassador said from behind his desk, “I understand you are in Seoul on behalf of Senator Wyckoff. I, of course, am aware of his son’s situation and greatly concerned. But, as I told Mr. Janson, any assistance I might be able to provide is extremely limited. I may be able to seek the most perfunctory of professional courtesies, but I’m afraid the investigation itself will have to play out with the metropolitan police, and the legal process will move forward in accordance with its normal routine. Once Mr. Wyckoff is apprehended, he will be afforded a fair trial, rest assured. I, however, have no influence with law enforcement or with the South Korean courts.”

  The ambassador’s speech was every bit as rigid as his posture. Kincaid had read Young’s online bio on the plane and wondered how he could have been effective as an assistant US attorney in Washington, DC. Maybe he’d been more dynamic in his youth, but these days he’d no doubt lull his juries to sleep.

  “I’m sure both the senator and Mr. Janson perfectly understand your professional limitations under these circumstances, Ambassador. What they’re more interested in is whether you would be able to tell us anything about Lynell Yi that might aid in our investigation.”

  Young, whose shiny black hair was streaked with silver, leaned back in his chair and looked up toward the ceiling as though searching for something to say. The corners of his lips finally turned down in a frown. “I am afraid there is not much I can tell you about Ms. Yi. I knew her for only a brief period of time.”

  Kincaid maintained her poker face. Janson had explained to her that Koreans often preferred to hedge their response to a qu
estion rather than providing a blunt no. This cultural etiquette was apparently a defense mechanism, designed to save face.

  “You may learn more from what the ambassador doesn’t say than from what he does,” Janson had cautioned her.

  “From my understanding,” Kincaid replied, “Ms. Yi worked here as a translator for the past six or seven months.”

  “I would have to see her personnel records,” he said. “I don’t believe she was with us quite that long.”

  Kincaid didn’t attempt to mask her incredulity. “She was hired specifically for the four-party talks, wasn’t she?”

  The ambassador gave no response.

  “The negotiations being held in the demilitarized zone,” she prodded.

  “Yes, I know which talks you are referring to. I simply fail to see the connection. Ms. Yi was the unfortunate victim of a domestic dispute, from what I have been told. All the evidence I’ve read about in the news points to her being murdered in a fit of rage.”

  Kincaid tilted her head to the side and took a different tack in an attempt to keep the ambassador off balance. “Was Lynell Yi an effective translator, Ambassador?”

  Young shrugged. “As effective as any translator I’ve worked with, I suppose.”

  “Did she discuss her personal life at all?”

  The ambassador shook his head. “She was a quiet girl. I never discussed anything with her aside from her translations.”

  “These are the translations that were made during the ongoing talks in the demilitarized zone,” Kincaid said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Who are the parties to these talks?”

  “The North and the South, of course. Us, by which I mean the United States; we’re South Korea’s chief ally. And the Chinese. But surely you already know that; it’s public knowledge, Ms. Kincaid.”

  “Sure,” she said, “but I’m still unclear about what is being discussed during these talks.”