Free Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation by Douglas Corleone Page B

don’t you come in?”
    “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
    She rolled her eyes and motioned inside. “It would be if you’re looking for Lord Wicked,” she said.

EIGHT
    T-Lound Nightclub
Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
    K incaid looked over her shoulder, scanning the mass of pulsating youths. Madonna’s “Ray of Light” emanated from all sides of the ultramodern club as she searched for the man who’d been following her since Dosan Park.
    Once she’d jumped into the taxi and realized that the gunman wasn’t going to be able to get off a shot, she felt around in the pockets of her overcoat for her phone. But it was gone. She must have dropped it while sprinting through the park, trying to evade her pursuer. She leaned forward and asked her driver whether she could borrow his cell phone. He responded in Korean by telling her that he didn’t speak any English, then closed the sliding partition that separated the front seat from the back.
    After ten minutes of driving around Gangnam, she had the taxi pull over. She didn’t want to travel too far, because she still hoped to make it back to the restaurant in time to catch Jonathan leaving.
    Clearly, she hadn’t traveled far enough. Because as she searched the streets for a public phone to call Janson, she caught sight of the tall Korean man who had aimed the gun at her.
    When his eyes fell on her she had no choice but to begin running again.
    He chased her up and down busy city streets, past narrow alleys, through the blinding cold. She attempted several evasive maneuvers she’d learned while in Cons Ops and a number of advanced tactics she’d been taught by Janson. But she simply couldn’t lose the man with the gun. He was fit. He was trained. He was professional. And he seemed pretty damn determined to catch her and kill her.
    Kincaid eventually ducked into a subway station in order to surround herself with people and catch a breath. When she realized the man had followed her into the station, she jumped into a subway car. She hopped off at the first stop only to spy him coming after her like a horror-movie monster when she finally surfaced again.
    Following failed attempts to hide in a department store and disguise herself, she finally lost her tail using a complex sequence of buses, subways, and taxis.
    She went almost an hour without seeing him.
    Relieved, she was about to enter a Korean Starbucks to look for a public phone when her would-be assassin’s visage materialized in the reflective window.
    Again she ran. Hard and fast and for what felt like forever. When she finally realized she was tiring and that it was just a matter of time until the killer caught up with her, she decided to try to turn the tide. As Janson was constantly telling her:
    “Turn the hunter into the hunted, the predator into the prey.”
    When she turned down what looked to be a quiet side road and spotted a massive glass-and-steel structure bleeding party­g oer s, she decided that was where she’d make her stand. She slipped the bouncer at the rope line a hundred dollars in American currency, checked her coat, and immediately lost herself in a horde of dancers.
    As she searched over her shoulder, her body still pumping madly with adrenaline, she hoped like hell her pursuer had followed.
    She wormed her way through the thick, sweaty crowds, watching for the killer while simultaneously trying to memorize the layout of the exotic four-level nightclub. Cher’s “Life After Love” gave way to an unfamiliar Korean pop song before the deejay spun a remixed cut of “Lose Yourself.” As the song ended, a catchy techno beat came over the speakers and the mood of the entire nightclub transformed at once. Energy levels rose to the roof; the dancing became faster and far more intense. The Vengaboys’ “We Like to Party” blasted from the speakers.
    Less than a minute into the song, Kincaid finally spotted her armed stalker.
    Only he won’t have a gun anymore, she thought. When