The Icarus Agenda

'What?'

'Sixteen!'

'Where's the radio?'

'On the right of the wheel. The switch is on the left. Pronto!'

'How do I call them?'

'Take out the microfono and press the button. Say you are premero de mayo!'

'May Day?'

'¡Si!… Madre de Dios…'  Emilio collapsed on the bridge deck, unconscious or dead.

Kendrick lifted the plastic-coiled microphone out of its cradle, snapped on the radio and studied the digital readout below the console. Unable to think, the boat battered by swells he could not see, he kept tapping the keyboard until the number 16 appeared and then pressed the button.

'This is Congressman Evan Kendrick!' he screamed. 'Am I reaching anyone?' He released the button.

This is Coast Guard, San Diego,' came the flat reply.

'Can you patch me into a telephone line at the Westlake Hotel? It's an emergency!'

'Anybody can say anything, sir. We're not a phone service.'

'I repeat. I'm Congressman Evan Kendrick from the ninth district of Colorado and this is an emergency. I'm lost at sea somewhere west or south of Tijuana!'

'Those are Mexican waters—’

'Call the White House! Repeat what I've just told you… Kendrick of Colorado!'

'You're the guy who went to that Oman…?'

'Get your orders from the White House!'

'Keep your radio open, I'll take your co-ordinates for the RDF-'

'I don't have time and I don't know what you're talking about.'

'It's the radio directional finder—'

'For Christ's sake, Coast Guard, patch me through to the Westlake and get your orders! I have to reach that hotel.'

'Yes, sir, Commando Kendrick!'

'Whatever works,' mumbled Evan to himself as the sounds from the console speaker erupted in different tones until there was the hum of a telephone ringing. The switchboard answered. 'Room Fifty-One! Hurry, please.'

'Yes?' cried the strained voice of Khalehla.

'It's me!' shouted Kendrick, pressing the button for transmission, then instantly releasing it.

'For God's sake, where are you?'

'In the ocean somewhere, forget it! There's an attorney, a lawyer Ardis used for herself, and he's got a ledger that spells out everything! Find him! Get it!'

'Yes, of course, I'll reach MJ right away. But what about you? Are you—’

Another voice intruded, the deep commanding tones unmistakable. 'This is the President of the United States. Find that boat, find that man, or all your asses are in a sling!'

The swells tossed the boat like an insignificant bauble in a furious sea. Evan could no longer hold on to the wheel. The mists returned and he collapsed over the body of the fisherman from El Descanso.

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 43

He was aware of violently swaying weightlessness, then of hands grabbing him, and a harsh wind buffeting him, finally of a deafening roar above him. He opened his eyes to blurred figures frantically moving around him, unbuckling straps… then a sharp puncture in his flesh, on his arm. He tried to rise but was restrained as men carried him to a flat, padded surface inside a huge, vibrating metal cage.

'Easy, Congressman!' shouted a man in a white Navy uniform that gradually came into focus. 'I'm a doctor and you're pretty bashed up. Don't make things more difficult for me because the President himself will officiate at my court martial if I don't do my job.'

Another puncture. He could not take any more pain. 'Where am I?'

'A logical question,' replied the medical officer, emptying a syringe into Kendrick's shoulder. 'You're in a big whirly-bird ninety miles off the coast of Mexico. You were on your way to China, man, and those seas are rugged.'

'That's it!’ Evan tried to raise his voice, but could barely hear himself.

'What's “it”?' The doctor leaned down as a medical aide above him held a bottle of plasma.

'Passage to China—an island called Passage to China! Seal it off!'

'I'm a doctor, not a member of the Seals—’

'Do as I tell you!… Radio San Diego, get planes out there, boats out there! Take everyone!'

'Hey man, I'm no expert, but these are Mexican waters—'

'Goddamn it, call the White House!… No! Contact a man named Payton at the CIA… Mitchell Payton, CIA! Tell him what I just told you. Say the name Grinell!'

'Wow, this is heavy,' said the young doctor, looking up at a third man at the foot of Kendrick's padded resting place. 'You heard the congressman, Ensign. Go up to the pilot. An island called Passage to China, and a man named Payton at Langley, and someone else called Grinell! Hop to it, guy, this is the President's boy!… Hey, is this anything like what you did to the Arabs?'

'Emilio?' asked Evan, dismissing the question. 'How is he?"

The Mex?'

'My friend… the man who saved my life.'

'He's here right beside you; we just got him up.'

'How is he?'

'Worse off than you—much worse. At best it's sixty-forty against him, Congressman. We're flying back to the base hospital as fast as we can.'

Kendrick elbowed himself up and looked at the prone, unconscious figure of Emilio, barely two feet away behind the doctor. The Mexican's arm was on the deck of the helicopter, his face ashen, close to a mask of death. 'Give me his hand,' ordered Evan. 'Give it to me!'

'Yes, sir,' said the doctor, reaching over and pulling Emilio's hand up so Kendrick could grasp it.

'El Descanso!' roared Evan. 'El Descanso and your family—your wife and the nifios! You goddamned son of a bitch, don't die on me! You fucking know-nothing fisherman put some juice in your stomach!'

'¿Como?' The Mexican's head thrashed back and forth as Kendrick tightened his grip.

'That's better, amigo. Remember, we're angry! We stay angry. You hang in there, you bastard, or I'll kill you myself. Comprende?'

His head turned towards Evan, Emilio partially opened his eyes, a smile creasing his lips. 'You think you could kill this strong fisherman?'

'Try me!… Well, maybe I couldn't, but I can get you a big boat.'

'You are loco, señor,' coughed the Mexican. '… Still, there is El Descanso.'

'Three ranches,' said Kendrick, his hand falling away under the effect of the Navy doctor's hypodermic needle.

One by one the graceful limousines drove through the dark streets of Cynwid Hollow to the big house on Chesapeake Bay. Whereas on previous occasions there had been four such vehicles, on this night there were but three. One was missing; it belonged to a company founded by Eric Sundstrom, traitor of Inver Brass.

The members sat around the large circular table in the extraordinary library, a brass lamp in front of each. All the lamps on the table were lit but one, and that was the one in front of a fifth empty chair. Four pools of light shone down on the polished wood; the fifth source was extinguished, implying no honour in death, instead, perhaps, a reminder of human frailty in an all too human world. On this night there was no humorous small talk, no badinage to remind them that they were mortal and not above the common touch despite their awesome wealth and influence. The empty chair was enough.

'You have the facts,' said Samuel Winters, his aquiline features in the flow of light. 'Now I ask you for your comments.'

'I have only one,' Gideon Logan stated firmly, his large black head in shadows. 'We can't stop, the alternative is too devastating. The unleashed wolves will take over the government—what they haven't usurped already.'

'But there's nothing to stop, Gid,' corrected Margaret Lowell. 'Poor Milos set everything in motion in Chicago.'

'He hadn't finished, Margaret,' said Jacob Mandel, his gaunt face and frame in his accustomed chair next to Winters. 'There's Kendrick himself. He must accept the nomination, be convinced that he should take it. If you recall, the subject was brought up by Eric, and now I wonder why. He might have left well enough alone, for it could be our Achilles' heel.'