"Ludlum, Robert - THE JANSON DIRECTIVE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

As ownership changed hands, new construction work was required, and narrowly
focused firms like the Harnett Corporation had come into their own.
"To see Ross Harnett," the man told the receptionist. "The name's Paul Janson."
The receptionist, a young man with freckles and red hair, nodded, and notified
the chairman's office. He glanced at the visitor without interest. Another
middle-aged white guy with a yellow tie. What was there to see?
For Janson, it was a point of pride that he seldom got a second look. Though he
was athletic and solidly built, his appearance was unremarkable, utterly
nondescript. With his creased forehead and short-cropped steel-gray hair, he
looked his five decades. Whether on Wall Street or the Bourse, he knew how to
make himself all but invisible. Even his expensively tailored suit, of gray
nailhead worsted, was perfect camouflage, as appropriate to the corporate jungle
as the green and black face paint he once wore in Vietnam was to the real
jungle. One would have to be a trained observer to detect that it was the man's
shoulders, not the customary shoulder pads, that filled out the suit. And one
would have to have spent some time with him to notice the way his slate eyes
took everything in, or his quietly ironic air.
"It's going to be just a couple of minutes," the receptionist told him blandly,
and Janson drifted off to look at the gallery of photographs in the reception
area. They showed that the Harnett Corporation was currently working on water
and wastewater networks in Bolivia, dams in Venezuela, bridges in Saskatchewan,
power stations in Egypt. These were the images of a prosperous construction
company. And it was indeed prosperingЧor had been until recently.
The company's vice president of operations, Steven Burt, believed it ought to be
doing much better. There were aspects of the recent downturn that aroused his
suspicions, and he had prevailed upon Paul Janson to meet with Ross Harnett, the
firm's chairman and CEO. Janson had reservations about taking on another client:
though he had been a corporate-security consultant for only the past five years,
he had immediately established a reputation for being unusually effective and
discreet, which meant that the demand for his services exceeded both his time
and his interest. He would not have considered this job if Steven Burt had not
been a friend from way back. Like him, Burt had had another life, one that he'd
left far behind once he entered the civilian world. Janson was reluctant to
disappoint him. He would, at least, take the meeting.
Harnett's executive assistant, a cordial thirtyish woman, strode through the
reception area and escorted him to Harnett's office. The space was modern and
spare, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing south and east. Filtered through the
building's polarized glass skin, the afternoon sunlight was reduced to a cool
glow. Harnett was sitting behind his desk, talking on the telephone, and the
woman paused in the doorway with a questioning look. Harnett gestured for Janson
to have a seat, with a hand movement that looked almost summoning. "Then we're
just going to have to renegotiate all the contracts with Ingersoll-Rand,"
Harnett was saying. He was wearing a pale blue monogrammed shirt with a white
collar; the sleeves were rolled up around thick forearms. "If they're not going
to match the price points they promised, our position has to be that we're free
to go elsewhere for the parts. Screw 'em. Contract's void."
Janson sat down on the black leather chair opposite, which was a couple of
inches lower than Harnett's chairЧa crude bit of stagecraft that, to Janson,
signaled insecurity rather than authority. Janson glanced at his watch openly,
swallowed a gorge of annoyance, and looked around. Twenty-seven stories up,