The Icarus Agenda

'Are you crazy?' cried Ardis, bouncing forward in the chair.

'Not at all. To begin with, he'll be on the ticket or he'll just disappear… like former vice presidents usually do.'

'Oh, my,' said Ardis, drawing out the word my in admiration. 'You're my kind of fella, Andy-boy. You think so clearly, so succinctly.'

'Long years of learning, babe.'

'Now, what did mixed-up old dimples have to say? Who's after his sensitive skin now?'

'Not his, ours—'

'Which is his and don't you forget it. It's why I'm here, lover, why he introduced us and brought us together.'

'He wants us to know that the little group of deluded super people are moving into high gear. During the next three months their congressman will start getting editorials in progressively stronger papers. The theme will be “examining his positions” and he'll pass all the exams. The point, of course, is to create a ground swell. Our Cupid is worried, very worried. And to tell you the truth I'm sweating a few bullets myself. Those benevolent lunatics know what they're doing; this whole thing could get out of control. Ardis, we've got millions riding on the next five years. I'm goddamned worried!'

'Over nothing,' said his perfectly coiffed wife, getting out of her chair. She stood for a moment and looked at Vanvlanderen, her wide green eyes only partially amused. 'Since you figure to save ten million on Bollinger one way or the other—and my way is better, certainly safer, than any alternative—I think it's only reasonable that you bank an equal amount for me, don't you, darling?'

'Somehow I fail to see the overpowering reason.'

'It could be your undying love for me… or perhaps one of the more extraordinary coincidences of my career floating among the rich, the beautiful, the powerful and the politically ambitious, especially in the area of government largess.'

'How's that again?'

'I won't recite the litany of why we're all doing what we're doing, or even why I've cast my not inconsiderable talents with you, but I will now let you in on a little secret I've kept all to myself for, lo, these many weeks.'

'I'm fascinated,' said Vanvlanderen, putting his drink down on a marble table and closely observing his fourth wife. 'What is it?'

'I know Evan Kendrick.'

'You what?'

'Our brief association goes back a number of years, more than I care to dwell on, frankly, but for a few weeks we had something in common.'

'Outside the obvious, what?'

'Oh, the sex was pleasant enough but immaterial… to both of us. We were young people in a hurry with no time for attachments. Do you remember Off Shore Investments?'

'If he was part of that outfit, we can nail him with fraud! Certainly enough to take him out if he climbs on board. Was he?'

'He was, but you can't. He pulled out in loud moral indignation, which was the start of that house-of-cards collapse. And I wouldn't be too anxious to nail Off Shore's principals unless you're tired of me, sweetie.'

'You?'

'I was the main missionary. I recruited the components.'

‘I’ll be damned.' Vanvlanderen laughed as he picked up his drink and raised the glass to his wife. 'Those thieves sure as hell knew whom to hire for the right jobs… Wait a minute? You knew Kendrick well enough to sleep with the son of a bitch and you never said anything?'

'I had my reasons—’

'They better be damned good!' exploded the President's heavy contributor. 'Because if they're not, I may just break your ass, you bitch! Suppose he saw you, recognized you, remembered Off Shore and put two and two together and got four! I don't take those kinds of chances!'

'It's my turn to say “Relax”, Andy,' countered the contributor's wife. 'The people around a vice president aren't news or even newsworthy. When's the last time you can recall the name of any individual on a vice president's staff? They're a grey, amorphous group—presidents won't have it any other way. Besides, I don't think my name's even been in the papers except as “Mr. and Mrs. Vanvlanderen, guests at the White House.” Kendrick still thinks I'm Frazier-Pyke, a banker's wife living in London, and if you remember, although both of us were invited to the Medal of Freedom ceremony, you went alone. I begged off.'

'Those aren't reasons! Why didn't you tell me?'

'Because I knew what your reaction would be—take her out of the picture—when I realized I could be far more useful to you in it.'

'How, for Christ's sake?'

'Because I knew him. I also knew I had to get up to date on him, but not with some private investigating firm that could end up burning us later, so I took the official high road. The Federal Bureau of Investigation.'

'The threats against Bollinger?'

'They'll stop tomorrow. Except for one man who'll continue here on a special basis, the unit will be recalled to Washington. Those mocked-up threats were the paranoid fantasies of a harmless lunatic I invented who supposedly fled the country. You see, sweetie, I found out what I had to know.'

'Which is?'

'There's an old Israeli Jew named Weingrass whom Kendrick worships. He's the father Evan never had, and when there was the Kendrick Group he was called the company's “secret weapon”.'

'Munitions?'

'Hardly, darling,' laughed Ardis Vanvlanderen. 'He was an architect, a damned good one, and did pretty spectacular work for the Arabs.'

'What about him?'

'He's supposed to be in Paris, but he's not. He's living in Kendrick's house in Colorado, with no passport entry or any official immigration status.'

'So?'

'The soon-to-be-anointed congressman brought the old man back for an operation that saved his life.'

'So?'

'Emmanuel Weingrass is going to have a medical relapse that will kill him. Kendrick won't leave his side, and when it's over it'll be too late. I want the ten million, Andy-boy.'

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 27

Varak studied the members of Inver Brass, each face around the table reflected in the light of the brass lamp in front of him… or her. The Czech's concentration was strained to the limit because he had to focus on two levels.

The first was the information he delivered; the second was on the immediate reaction of each face to certain facts within that information. He had to find one pair of eyes that were suspect and he could not find them. That was to say, there were no momentary flashes of astonishment or fear on the faces of the members as he gradually, logically approached the subject of the current Vice President of the United States and his staff, touching ever so lightly on the 'innocuous' details he had learned from a Mafia plant in the Secret Service. There was nothing, only blank riveted stares. So while he spoke with conviction and conveyed roughly 80 per cent of the truth, he kept watching their eyes, the second level of his mind recalling the salient facts of the life behind each face reflected in the light.

And as he looked at each face, its features heightened by the chiaroscuro wash from the lamps, he felt, as he always did, that he was in the presence of very formidable people. Yet one was not; one had revealed the existence of Emmanuel Weingrass in Mesa Verde, Colorado, a secret unknown to the most clandestine departments in Washington. One of those shadowed faces in front of him was a traitor to Inver Brass. Who?

Samuel Winters? Old money from an American dynasty going back to the railroad and oil barons of the late American nineteenth century. An honoured scholar satisfied with his privileged life; an adviser to presidents regardless of party. A great man at peace with himself. Or was he?

Jacob Mandel? A venerated financial genius who had designed and implemented reforms that revitalized the Securities and Exchange Commission into a viable and far more honorable asset to Wall Street. From Lower East Side Yiddish poverty to the halls of merchant princes, and it was said that no decent man who knew him could call him an enemy. Like Winters, he wore his honors well and there were few he had not attained. Or were there others he strove for secretly?