The Icarus Agenda

'The committees came before the medal—’

'Don't interrupt. After a couple of months the sequence of things blurs—anyway, you just made it stronger. This hero takes on the Pentagon brass over national television before he's a hero and damn near indicts the whole damned bunch of them as well as all those big industrial complexes who supply the machine. Then what does he do? He demands accountability. Terrific word, accountability—the bastards all hate it. They've got to start sweating, kid. They've got to figure that maybe this joker-hero will get more powerful, maybe chair one of those committees, or even get elected to the Senate where he could do some real damage.'

'You're exaggerating.'

'Your girlfriend wasn't!' countered Weingrass loudly, staring into Kendrick's eyes. 'She told us that her elite group may have tapped into a nerve centre higher up in the government than they want to think about… Doesn't all this present a blueprint to you, although I admit you were never the hottest shot with a blueprint I ever knew?'

'Of course it does,' answered Evan, nodding slowly. 'There's no nation in the world that doesn't have its degrees of corruption, and I doubt there ever will be.'

'Oh, corruption?' intoned Manny, eyes rolling, as if the word were part of a Talmudic chant. 'Like in one guy stealing a buck's worth of paper clips from the office and another taking a million with a cost overrun, is that what you mean?'

'Basically, yes. Or ten million, if you like.'

'Insignificant peanuts!' shouted Weingrass. 'Such people do not deal with Palestinian terrorists thousands of miles away for the sole purpose of positively removing themselves from a kill. They wouldn't know howl Also, you didn't look into that lovely girl's eyes, or maybe you don't know what to look for. You've never been there.'

'She says she knows where you're coming from because you have been there. All right, I haven't, so what are you talking about?'

'When you're there, you're scared,' said the old man. 'You're walking towards a black curtain that you're going to pull down. You're excited; the curiosity's killing you and so is the fear. All of those things. You try like hell to suppress them, even hide some from yourself, and that's part of it because you can't afford to lose an ounce of control. But it's all there. Because once that curtain is yanked away you know you'll be looking at something so nuts you wonder if anyone will believe it.'

'You saw all that in her eyes?'

'Enough, yes.'

'Why?'

'She's getting near the edge, kid.'

'Why?'

'Because we're not dealing—she's not dealing—with simple corruption, even terrific corruption. What's behind that black curtain is a government within the government, a bunch of servants running the master's house.' The old architect suddenly went into a spasm of coughing, his whole body trembling, his eyes shut tight. Kendrick grabbed his arms; in moments the convulsion was over and Manny blinked again, breathing deeply. 'Listen to me, my dumb son,' he whispered. 'Help her, really help her, and help Payton. Find the bastards and rip them out!'

'Of course I will, you know that.'

'I hate them! That youngster under chemicals, that Ahbyahd you knew in Masqat—we might have been friends in another time. But that time won't ever come as long as there are bastards who pit ourselves against ourselves because they make billions out of hatred.'

'It's not that simple, Manny—’

'It's a larger part of it than you think! I've seen it!… “They have more than you do, so we'll sell you more than they have”—that's one of the come-ons. Or “They'll kill you unless you kill them first, so here's the firepower… for a price.” It goes right up the goddamned ladder: “They spent twenty million on a missile, we'll spend forty million!” Do we really want to blow up the fucking planet? Or is everyone listening to lunatics who listen to men who sell hatred and peddle fear?'

'On that level, it's that simple,' said Evan, smiling. 'I may even have mentioned it myself.'

'Keep mentioning it, kid. Don't walk away from that platform we talked about—mainly regarding a certain Herbert Dennison we also talked about whom you scared the shit out of. Remember, you got listening credentials like me. Use 'em.'

‘I’ll have to think about it, Manny.'

'Well, while you're thinking,' coughed Weingrass, his right hand on his chest, 'why don't you think about why you had to lie to me? You and the doctors, that is.'

'What?'

'It's back, Evan. It's back and it's worse because it never went away.'

'What's back?'

'“Big casino”, I think is the gentle phrase. The cancer's running rampant.'

'No, it isn't. We ran you through a dozen tests. They got it—you're clean.'

'Tell that to these little suckers who are choking off my air.'

‘I'm no doctor, Manny, but I don't think that's a symptom. During the last thirty-six hours you've been through a couple of wars. It's a wonder you can breathe at all.'

'Yeah, but while they're patching me up at the hospital you have them run one of those little checks, and don't lie to me. There are some people in Paris I've got to take care of, some things I've got locked away they should have. So don't lie to me, understand?'

'I won't lie to you,' said Kendrick as the aircraft started its descent into Denver.

Crayton Grinell was a slender man of medium height and a perpetually grey face made prominent by sharp features. When greeting someone, for the first time or the fiftieth, whether a waiter or a board chairman, the forty-eight-year-old attorney who specialized in international law greeted that person with a shy smile that conveyed warmth. The warmth and the modesty were accepted readily until one looked into Grinell's eyes. It was not that they were cold, for they were not, yet neither were they particularly friendly; they were expressionless, neutral, the eyes of a cautiously curious cat. 'Ardis, my dear Ardis,' said the lawyer, walking into the foyer and holding the widow, gently patting her shoulder as one might console a faintly disagreeable aunt who had lost a far more agreeable husband. 'What can I say? What can anyone say? Such a loss for us all, but how much more so for you.'

'It was sudden, Cray. Too sudden.'

'Of course it was, but we must all look for something positive in our sorrows, mustn't we? You and he were spared a prolonged and agonizing illness. Since the end must come, it's better if it's quick, isn't it?'

'I suppose you're right. Thank you for reminding me.'

'Not at all.' Disengaging himself, Grinell looked over at Sundstrom, who was standing in the large sunken living room. 'Eric, how good to see you,' he said solemnly, walking across the foyer and down the marble steps to shake hands with the scientist. 'Somehow it's right that we both should be with Ardis at a time like this. Incidentally, my men are outside in the hallway.'

'Fucking bitch!' Sundstrom mouthed the words, his breath a whisper as the grieving Mrs. Vanvlanderen closed the door, the sound of the closing and the noise of her heels on the marble covering the mumble uttered by her former lover.

'Would you care for a drink, Cray?'

'Oh, no thank you.'

'I think I will,' said Ardis, heading for the bar.

'I think you should,' agreed the attorney.

'Is there anything I can do? At the legal end here, or with arrangements, anything at all?'

'I imagine you'll be doing it, the legal things, I mean. Andy-boy had lawyers all over the place, but I gathered you were his main man.'

'Yes, I was, and we've all been in touch during the day. New York, Washington, London, Paris, Marseilles, Oslo, Stockholm, Bern, Zurich, West Berlin—I'm handling everything personally, of course.'

The widow stood motionless, a decanter halfway to her glass, staring at Grinell. 'When I said all over the place, I didn't think that far all over the place.'

'His interests were extensive.'