The Icarus Agenda

For the first time, Kendrick saw the garment bag draped across the chair at the left of the double doors. Beneath it, on the floor, was a bulky black case commonly referred to as a medical bag. Evan stared at it; he had seen it before. The inner screen of his mind was jolted, fragments of images replacing one another like successive explosions! Stone walls in another hallway, another door; a tall, slender man with a ready smile—too ready, too ingratiating for a stranger in a strange house—a doctor casually, amusingly stating that he would merely thump a chest and take a sample of blood for analysis.

'If you don't mind,' said Kendrick, somehow through the mists, realizing that he could barely be heard, 'please open the door.'

'I've got to knock first, Congressman—’

'No, please!… Please do as I say.'

'The Vipe—the Vice President—won't appreciate that, sir. We're always to knock first.'

'Open that door,' ordered Evan, his rasping voice a whisper, his eyes wide, fixed briefly on the Secret Service man. 'I'll take full responsibility.'

'Sure, sure. If anyone's entitled I guess you are.'

The heavy door on the right swung silently back, the words hissed by a tight-throated Bollinger clearly heard. 'What you're saying is preposterous, insane!… Yes, what is it?'

Kendrick walked through the terrible space and stared at the shocked, panic-stricken face of 'Dr. Eugene Lyons'.

'You!' screamed Evan, the isolated world inside his head going mad as he lunged, racing across the room, his two hands the claws of a maniacal animal intent only on the kill—the kill! 'He's going to die because of you—because of all of you!'

In a blur of violence, arms gripped him; hands chopped into his head, and knees crashed up into his groin and his stomach, his eyes bruised by experienced fingers. Despite the agonizing pain, he heard the muted screams—one after another.

'I've got him! He's not going to move.'

'Close the door!'

'Get me my bag!'

'Keep everyone out!'

'Oh, Jesus, he knows everything!'

'What do we do?

'… I know people who can handle this.'

'Who the hell are you?

'Someone who should introduce himself… Viper.'

I've heard that name. It's an insult! Who are you?'

'For the moment I'm in charge, that's who I am.'

'Oh, Christ…!'

Darkness—the oblivion that comes with the deepest shock. All was black; nothing.

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 40

He felt the wind and the spray first, then the motion of the sea, and finally the wide cloth straps that constricted him, binding him to the metal chair bolted into the deck of the pitching boat. He opened his eyes in the moving darkness; he was in the stern, the foaming wake receding in front of him, and was suddenly aware of cabin lights behind. He turned, craning his neck to see, to understand. Abruptly, he was face to face with the dark-haired, swarthy Secret Service guard whose mother in New York thought he should be Pope… and whose voice he had heard proclaiming himself to be in charge. The man sat in an adjacent deep sea fighting chair, a single strap across his waist.

'Waking up, Congressman?' he asked politely.

'What the hell have you done?' roared Kendrick, struggling against the restricting straps.

'Sorry about those, but we didn't want you falling over the side. The water's a little rough; we were just protecting you while you got some air.'

'“Protecting…?” Goddamn you, you bastards drugged me and carried me out of there against my will! You've kidnapped me! My office knows where I went tonight… you're going to draw twenty years for this, all of you! And that son of a bitch Bollinger will be impeached and spend—’

'Hold it, hold it,' broke in the man, raising his hands, calmly protesting. 'You've got it all wrong, Congressman. Nobody drugged you, you were sedated. You went crazy back there. You attacked a guest of the Vice President; you might have killed him—’

'I would have, I will kill him! Where's that doctor, where is he?'

'What doctor?'

'You lying shit!' yelled Kendrick into the wind, straining at the cloth straps. Then he was struck by a thought. 'My car, the driver! He knows I didn't leave.'

'But you did. You weren't feeling too well, so you didn't say much and you wore your tinted glasses, but you were very generous with your tip.'

As the boat lurched in the water, Evan suddenly looked down at the clothes he was wearing, squinting in the dim wash of light coming from the cabin behind him. The trousers were a thick corduroy and the shirt a coarse black denim… not his clothes. 'Bastards!' he roared again, and again another thought. 'Then they saw me get out at the hotel!'

'Sorry, but you didn't go to the hotel. About the only thing you said to the driver was to drop you off at Balboa Park, that you had to meet someone and you'd take a cab home.'

'You covered yourselves right down to my clothes. You're all garbage, you hired killers!'

'You keep getting it wrong, Congressman. We were covering for you, not anybody else. We didn't know what you'd been snorting or shooting into your veins, but as my excitable grandfather would say, we saw you go pazzo, crazy, you know what I mean?'

'I know exactly what you mean.'

'So naturally we couldn't let you be seen in public, you can understand that, can't you?'

'Va bene, you Mafia prick. I heard you—“I'm in charge,” you said. “I know people who can handle this,” you said that, too.'

'You know, Congressman, although I admire you a great deal, I'm very offended by anti-Italian generalizations.'

'Tell that to the federal prosecutor in New York,' replied Kendrick as the boat dipped sharply, then rose with a heavy wave. 'Giuliani's been putting you away by the truckload.'

'Yes, well, talking about things that go bump in the night, which we weren't but we could have been in this water, a number of people in Balboa Park saw a man who could easily fit your description—I mean dressed like you when you left the hotel and then in the limo—going into The Balthazar.'

The what?'

'It's a coffeehouse in Balboa. You know we've got a lot of students down here; they come from all over, and there's a large contingent from the Mediterranean. You know, kids from families who lived in Iran and Saudi Arabia and Egypt… even what some still call Palestine, I guess. Sometimes the coffee gets out of hand, politically, that is, and the police have to quiet things and confiscate items like guns and knives. Those people are very emotional.'

'And “I” was seen going inside, and naturally there'll be those inside who'll confirm “I” was there.'

'Your bravery has never been questioned, Congressman. You go into the most dangerous places looking for solutions, don't you? Oman, Bahrain… even the house of the Vice President of the United States.'

'Add bribery to your list, garbageman.'

'Now just a minute! I haven't anything to do with whatever you came to see Viper about, get that straight. I'm just providing a service beyond my official duties, that's all.'

'Because you “know people who can handle this,” like someone wearing my clothes and using my car and walking in Balboa Park. And maybe a couple of others who were able to get me out of Bollinger's place with no one recognizing me.'

'A private ambulance service is very convenient and discreet when guests become ill or over-indulge.'

'And, no doubt, one or two others to divert whatever press or maintenance people might be around.'

'My nongovernment associates are on call for emergencies, sir. We're happy to provide assistance wherever we can.'

'For a price, of course.'

'Definitely… They pay, Congressman. They pay in lots of ways, now more than ever.'

'For also including a fast boat and an experienced captain?'

'Oh, we can't take credit where it isn't due,' protested the man from the Mafia, enjoying himself. 'This is their equipment, their skipper. There are just some things people do better for themselves, especially if one of them is going into the heavily patrolled waters between the US and Mexico. There's clout and then again there's different clout, if you know what I'm saying.'