The Icarus Agenda

'Money. A convergence of interests. One party wants a spectacular kill with maximum exposure, while the other wants the spectacular target removed but must stay as far away from the kill as possible. Both objectives take a great deal of money. Follow the money is a maxim in our work. We're tracing it now.'

'Tracing it?'

'It will only be a matter of days. The Swiss banks are cooperative where drugs and terrorism are concerned. And our agents in the Baaka are forwarding descriptions of the teams. We've stopped them before and we'll stop them now. We'll find the San Diego connection. We simply thought you might have some ideas.'

'Ideas?' cried the stunned widow, crushing out the cigarette. 'I can't even think, it's all so incredible! Are you certain that some enormous, extraordinary error hasn't been made?'

'We don't make errors in these matters.'

'Well, I think that's pretty shit-kicking egotistical,' said Ardis, the Pennsylvanian of her youth overriding her carefully cultivated English. 'I mean, Miss Rashad, you're not infallible.'

'In some cases we have to be; we can't afford not to be.'

'Now, that's asinine!… I mean—I mean if there are these hit teams, and if there are communications with Zurich and Beirut from… from the San Diego area, anyone could have sent them, giving any names they wanted to! I mean they could have used my name, for Christ's sake!'

'We'd instantly discount anything like that.' Khalehla answered the unasked what-if question as she closed her notebook and replaced it in her bag. 'It would be a set-up, and far too obvious to be taken seriously.'

'Yes, that's what I mean, a set-up! Someone could be setting up one of Orson's friends, isn't that possible?'

'For the purpose of assassinating the Vice President?'

'Maybe the—what did you call it?—the target is somebody else, isn't that possible?'

'Somebody else?' asked the field agent, nearly wincing as the intense widow grabbed another cigarette.

'Yes. And by sending cablegrams from the San Diego area implicating an innocent Bollinger supporter! That is possible, Miss Rashad.'

'It's very interesting, Mrs. Vanvlanderen. I'll convey your thoughts to my superiors. We'll have to consider the possibility. A double omission with a false insert.'

'What?' The widow's scratching voice came straight from some long gone Pittsburgh saloon.

'Shop talk,' said Khalehla, rising from the chair. 'It simply means disguise the target, omit the source, and provide a false identity.'

'You people talk goddamned funny.'

'It serves a purpose… We'll stay in constant touch with you, and we have the Vice President's schedule. Our own people, all counter-terrorist experts, will quietly supplement Mr. Bollinger's security forces at every location.'

'Yeah—awright.' Mrs. Vanvlanderen, the cigarette in her hand, the handkerchief forgotten on the brocade sofa, escorted Rashad out of the living room and up to the door.

'Oh, about the double omission-insert theory,' said the intelligence officer in the marble foyer. 'It's interesting, and we'll use it to press the Swiss banks for quick action, but I don't think it really holds water.'

'What?'

'All numbered Swiss accounts have sealed—and therefore unscalable—codes leading to points of origin. They are often labyrinthine, but they can be traced. Even the greediest Mafia overlord or Saudi arms merchant knows he's mortal. He's not going to leave millions to the gnomes of Zurich… Good night, and, again, my deepest sympathies.'

Khalehla walked back to the closed door of the Vanvlanderen suite. She could hear a muted scream of panic wrapped in obscenities from within; the sole resident of the made-to-measure apartment was going over the edge. The scenario had worked. MJ was right! The negative circumstances of Andrew Vanvlanderen's death had been reversed. What had been a liability was now an asset. The contributor's widow was breaking.

Milos Varak stood in a dark shopfront thirty yards to the left of the entrance to the Westlake Hotel, ten yards from the corner where the service entrance was located on the intersecting street. It was 7:35 pm, California time; he had outraced every commercial flight across the country from Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. He was in place for the moment of revelation, and equally important, everything was arranged upstairs in the hotel. The cleaning staff of the management, a management genuinely concerned about the grieving widow's sorrow, included a new member, experienced and instructed by the Czech. Frequency-designed intercepts had been placed in every room; no conversation could take place without being recorded by Varak's voice-activated tapes in the adjoining suite.

Taxis drove up to the hotel on the average of one every three minutes and Milos studied each departing fare. He had seen twenty to thirty, losing count but not his concentration. Suddenly he was aware of the unusuaclass="underline" a cab stopped on his left, across the intersecting street at least a hundred feet away. A man got out and Varak moved farther back into the unlit recess.

'I heard it on the radio.'

'So did I.'

'She's a bitch!'

'And if they're alive, they have to get out of the country. Can they get out…?'

' What are your speculations?'

'It's not the biggest news story of the day.'

'And Bollinger?'

The man in the top coat, the lapels pulled up, covering his face, walked rapidly across the street towards the hotel's entrance. He passed within ten feet of Inver Brass's coordinator. The traitor was Eric Sundstrom, and he was a man in panic.

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 34

Ardis Vanvlanderen gasped. 'Good Christ, what are you doing here?' she cried, literally yanking the rotund Sundstrom through the door and slamming it shut. 'Are you out of your mind?'

I'm very much in it, but yours is out to lunch… Stupid, stupid, stupid! What did you and that horse's ass of a husband of yours think you were doing?'

'The Arabs? The hit teams?'

'Yes! Goddamned fools—’

'It's all preposterous'.' screamed the widow. 'It's a horrendous mix up. Why would we—why would Andy want to have Bollinger killed?'

'Bollinger…? It's Kendrick, you bitch! Palestinian terrorists attacked his houses in Virginia and Colorado. There's a blackout on the news but a lot of people were killed, not, however, the golden boy himself.'

'Kendrick?' whispered Ardis, panic in her large green eyes. 'Oh, my God… and they think the killers are coming out here to assassinate Bollinger. They've got it all backwards!'

'They?' Sundstrom froze, his face ashen. 'What are you talking about?'

'We'd both better sit down.' Mrs. Vanvlanderen walked out of the foyer and down into the living room, to the couch and her cigarettes. The pale scientist followed, then veered to a bar where there were bottles, decanters, glasses and an ice bucket. Without glancing at the labels he picked up a bottle at random and poured himself a drink.'

'Who is they?' he asked quietly, intensely, as he turned and watched Ardis on the couch lighting a cigarette.

'She left about an hour and a half ago—’

'She? Who?'

'A woman named Rashad, a counter-terrorist expert. She's with a cross-over unit, CIA joining up with State. She never mentioned Kendrick!'

'Jesus, they've put it together. Varak said they would and they did!'

'Who's Varak?'

'We call him our co-ordinator. He said they'd find out about your Middle East interests.'

'My what?' shouted the widow, her face contorted, her mouth gaping.

'That Off Shore company—’

'Offshore Investments,' completed Ardis, again stunned. 'It was eight months of my life but that's all it was!'

'And how you have contacts throughout the whole area—’

'I have no contacts!' screamed Mrs. Vanvlanderen. 'I left over ten years ago and never went back! The only Arabs I know are a few high rollers I met in London and Divonne.'