The Icarus Agenda

'How can I be sure of that?'

'How can you doubt it? Could the Vice President, could any of us tolerate the association?… We deeply regret what's happened to Mr. Weingrass, but we had absolutely nothing to do with it. I repeat, the doctor and the Vanvlanderens are gone. It's all a closed book, can you accept that?'

'Was it necessary to drug me and bring me out here to convince me?'

'We couldn't very well leave you in San Diego saying the things you were saying.'

'Then what are we talking about now?'

'Another book,' replied Grinell, leaning forward in the chair. 'We want it back, and in exchange you're free. You'll be returned to your hotel in your own clothes and nothing's changed. It's daytime in Zurich; a line of credit to the amount of fifty million dollars has been established in your name.'

Stunned, Evan tried not to show his astonishment. 'Another book?… I'm not sure I follow you.'

'Varak stole it.'

'Who?'

'Milos Varak!'

'The European…?' His sudden recognition of the name unconsciously slipped out. It was the Milos.

'Inver Brass's very professional, very dead lackey!'

'Inver who?'

'Your would-be promoters, Congressman. You don't think you got where you are by yourself, do you?'

'I knew someone was pushing me—'

'Pushing? Catapulting is more like it… Meddling lunatics! They didn't realize that one of them was also one of us.'

'What makes you think the European… that this Varak's dead?' asked Evan, if only to gain moments to adjust to revelations that were coming too fast.

'It was in the paper—not listing him by name, of course, but unmistakable. But before he died, he was somewhere else, with someone else who worked for us. He had to be or he never would have come to the airport… He stole it.'

'This other book?' said Kendrick, hesitantly.

'An industrially coded ledger, meaningless to any but a selected few.'

'And you think I have it.' A statement.

'I think you know where it is.'

'Why?'

'Because in his zeal Varak would have mistakenly believed it should be in your hands. He couldn't trust Inver Brass any longer.'

'Because he learned that one of them was also one of you.'

'Essentially, yes,' said Grinell. 'I'm hypothesizing, of course. It's a professional habit, but it's served me well over the years.'

'Not this time. I don't know anything about it.'

'I wouldn't lie if I were you, Congressman. It would be futile in any event. There are so many ways of loosening minds and mouths these days.'

He couldn't allow drugs! Under them he would reveal everything, signing Khalehla's death warrant as well as giving the contributors all the information they needed to mount their individual smoke screens and in other cases disappear. The dying Manny deserved better than that! If ever he needed credibility it was now. He was back in another compound, not in Masqat but on an island in the waters of Mexico. He had to be every bit as convincing as he was among the terrorists, for these men, these killers from the boardrooms, were no less than terrorists themselves.

'Listen to me,' said Evan firmly, leaning back and crossing his legs, his eyes levelled on Grinell. 'You can think whatever the hell you care to think, but I don't want the vice presidency, I want a fifty-million-dollar line of credit in Zurich. Do I make myself clear?'

'Clear and recorded, naturally.'

'Good, fine! Run a full scam on me and put it on videotape—’

'But you see, it is,' interrupted the attorney.

'Excellent! Then we're both in the same hot tub, aren't we?'

'Same tub, Congressman. So where's the ledger?'

'I haven't the vaguest idea, but if this Varak sent it to me, I know how you can get it… I'll call my office in Washington and tell my secretary, Annie O'Reilly, to express it out overnight to wherever you like.'

The two negotiators stared at each other, neither wavering for an instant. 'That's a fair solution,' said Grinell, finally.

'If you can think of a better one, use it.'

'That's even fairer.'

'Am I on board?'

'On board and on your way to Zurich,' replied Grinell, smiling. 'Once you settle certain items on our agenda, like Chicago.'

'The telegram will go out in the morning. I'll have O'Reilly send it from the office.'

'With a copy to our esteemed Vice President, of course.'

'Of course.'

The chairman of the contributors' board of directors sighed audibly, pleasantly. 'Oh, how venal we all are,' he said. 'You, for instance, Congressman, you're a bundle of contradictions.

Your public persona would never accept our accommodation.'

'If this is for the benefit of your videotape, let me make a statement. I was burned and did my best to put out the fires in Oman because they had burned me, killing a great many friends. I see no contradiction of issues.'

'So recorded, Representative Kendrick.'

Suddenly, without any indication whatsoever, the quiet conference was broken apart by a combination of signals. A bright red light started flashing from the console of the radio telephone on the desk, and a muted siren came from somewhere in the stuccoed walls, probably from the mouth of a dead animal. The door crashed open and the tall figure of the deeply tanned captain of the boat, the laconic angry weed from the Town of Corruption, burst into the room.

'What are you doing?' roared Grinell.

'Get that fart out of here,' the yachtsman yelled. 'I thought he was a trap from the beginning and I was right! There are government people dispatched by Washington all over Bollinger's place looking for him, questioning everyone as if they were in a police line-up.'

'What?'

'We're handling that but we've got a bigger problem. The ledger! Bollinger got a call. It's with the bitch's own lawyer!'

'Shut up!' commanded Grinell.

'He's talking ten million which she told him her Andy-boy promised her. Now he wants it!'

'I told you to shut up!… What did you mean that the federal men were questioning everyone?'

'Just what I said. They're not only grilling them, they got search warrants. They won't find anything, but not for lack of trying.'

'In the Vice President's house? It's unheard of!'

'They're playing it smart. They're telling Bollinger that they're protecting him from his subordinates. But no one's going to convince me.' The yachtsman turned on Evan. 'That son of a bitch was sent in to trap us. The hero's word against everybody else's!'

Grinell stared at Kendrick. 'There can't be a hero's word if there's no hero… Adiós, Congressman.' Grinell touched a button on the side of his desk and the door to the huge room of dead animals opened once again. The Mafioso's automatic waved back and forth as he entered cautiously. 'Take him out,' ordered the attorney. 'The Mexicans will tell you where… You really fooled me, Congressman. I'll remember the lesson. Beware the persuasive philosophical turncoat.'

The sound of the waves crashing against the island's rockbound coastline below grew louder as they walked down the amber lit path. Ahead the ground lights came to an end, and a white barrier was starkly in place between the final domed lamps, the amber wash illuminating the letters of the two signs on the white obstruction. The left was again in Spanish, the right in English.

¡Pellagra!… Danger!

Beyond the barrier was a promontory overlooking the sea, the angry waters churning in the erratic moonlight, the sound of the crashing waves now deafening. Kendrick was being led to his execution.

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 41

Pockets of swirling vapour spewed up from the rocks of the promontory above the Pacific. Evan suppressed his panic, remembering his covenant with himself: he would not die passively; he would not be killed without a struggle, no matter how futile. Yet even last-ditch efforts presumed the outside possibility of survival, and he had spent his adult life studying the complexities of specifics. There were tropical vines all around him, thick and strong from the moisture and the winds constantly assaulting their trunks. There was lush undergrowth on both sides of the string of amber bulbs and loose wet dirt within that twisted foliage, mud that never knew a dry moment. The Mexican who had directed the Mafioso to the killing ground was a reluctant partner to murder. His voice grew fainter as they approached the final steps towards the white barrier.