The Icarus Agenda

'Then they got Grinell.'

Khalehla looked down at Evan; she paused, then shook her head. 'No. I'm sorry, darling.'

'How…?' Kendrick started to rise, wincing at the pain in his stitched and bandaged shoulder. Again gently, Rashad held him, lowering him down on the pillow. 'He couldn't have got away! They didn't look!'

They didn't have to. The Mexicans told them.'

'What? How?'

'A seaplane flew out and picked up the hombrepatron.'

'I don't understand. All communications were out!'

'Not all. What you didn't know—couldn't know—was that Grinell had small auxiliary generators in the cellar of the main house with enough power to reach his people at an airfield in San Felipe—we've learned that much from the Mexican transmission authorities; not who but where. He can run and even disappear, but he can't hide forever; we've got the tail of a trail.'

'Very alliterative, as my executioner might say.'

'What?'

'Forget it—'

'I wish you'd stop saying that.'

'Sorry, I mean it. What about Ardis's lawyer and the ledger I told you about?'

'Again, we're closing in but we're not there yet. He's taken a hike somewhere, but where no one knows. All his phones are monitored and sooner or later he'll have to call one of them. When he does, we'll have him.'

'Could he have any idea that you're after him?'

'It's the big question. Grinell was able to reach the mainland, and through San Felipe he could have sent word to Ardis's lawyer. We simply don't know.'

'Manny?' asked Evan hesitantly. 'Then again you didn't have time—’

'Wrong, I had nothing but time, desperation time, to be exact. I called the hospital in Denver last night, but all the floor nurse could tell me was that he was stable… and, I gather, something of a nuisance.'

'The understatement of the week.' Kendrick closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. 'He's dying, Khalehla. He's dying and there's nothing anyone can do about it.'

'We're all dying, Evan. Every day is one day less of life. That's not much help, but Manny's over eighty and the verdict's not in until it's in.'

'I know,' said Kendrick, looking at their entwined hands then up at her face. 'You're a beautiful lady, aren't you?'

'It's not something I dwell on, but I suppose I'll pass for okay-plus. You're not exactly Quasimodo yourself.'

'No, I just walk like him… It's not very modest but our kids have a fair chance of being decent looking little bastards.'

'I'm all for the first part but somewhat dubious about the second.'

'You understand that you just agreed to marry me, don't you?'

'Try getting away from me and you'll find out how really good I am with a gun.'

'That's nice. “… Oh, Mrs. Jones, have you met my wife, the gunslinger? If anyone's crashed your party, she'll nail him right between the eyes.”'

'I'm also black belt, first class, in case a weapon makes too much noise.'

'Hey, terrific. Nobody's going to push me around any more. Pick a fight with me, I'll let her off the leash.'

'Grrrr,' growled Khalehla, baring her bright lovely teeth, then composing her face, looking down as if studying him, her dark eyes soft, floating. 'I do love you. God knows what we two misfits think we're doing, but I guess we're going to give it a try.'

'No, not a try,' said Evan, reaching for her with his right hand. 'A lifetime,' he added. She bent down and they kissed, holding each other like two people who had nearly lost each other. And the telephone rang.

'Damn!' cried Khalehla, springing up.

'Am I that irresistible?'

'Hell, no, not you. It's not supposed to ring in here, those were my instructions!' She picked up the phone and spoke harshly. 'Yes, and whoever you are I'd like an explanation. How did you get through to this room?'

'The explanation, Officer Rashad,' said Mitchell Payton in Langley, Virginia, 'is comparatively simple. I countermanded a subordinate's order.'

'MJ, you haven't seen this man! He looks like a nuked Godzilla!'

'For a grown-up woman, Adrienne, one who has admitted in my presence that she's over thirty, you have an untidy habit of frequently talking like an adolescent… And I've also spoken to the doctors. Evan needs some rest and must keep his ankle strapped and his leg quiet for a day or so and his shoulder wound periodically checked, but beyond these minor inconveniences, he could go right back into the field.'

'You are one frozen fish, Uncle Mitch! He can barely talk.'

'Then why have you been talking to him?'

'How did you know…?'

'I didn't. You just told me… May we please deal with realities, my dear?'

'What's Evan? Unreal?'

'Give me that phone,' said Kendrick, awkwardly taking the instrument from Khalehla's hand. 'It's me, Mitch. What's happening?'

'How are you, Evan?… I suppose that's a foolish question.'

'Very. Answer mine.'

'Ardis Vanvlanderen's lawyer is at his summer house in the Sanjacinto Mountains. He called his office for messages and we got an area fix. A unit is on its way there now to evaluate. They should be there in a matter of minutes.'

'Evaluate? What the hell is there to evaluate? He's got the book! Go in and get it! It obviously spells out their whole global structure, every rotten arms merchant they've used in the world! Grinell can run to any of them and be hidden. Grab it!'

'You're forgetting about Grinell's own sense of survival. I assume Adrienne… Khalehla told you.'

'Yes, a seaplane picked him up. So what?'

'He wants that ledger as much as we do, and he's no doubt reached Mrs. Vanvlanderen's man by now. Grinell won't risk coming up himself, but he'll send someone he can trust to retrieve it. If he knows we're closing in, and all it would take is another pair of eyes on the lawyer's house, what do you suppose the instructions will be to his trusted courier who must, after all, get that book into Mexico?'

'Where he could be stopped at the border or in an airport—’

'With us in attendance. What do you think he'll tell that person?'

'To burn the damn thing,' said Kendrick quietly.

'Precisely.'

'I hope your men are good at what they do.'

'Two men, and one is just about the best we have. His name is Gingerbread; ask your friend about him.'

'Gingerbread? What kind of dumb name is that?'

'Later, Evan,' interrupted Payton. 'I've got something to tell you. I'm flying out to San Diego this afternoon and we have to talk. I hope you'll be up to it because it's urgent.'

'I'll be up to it, but why can't we talk now?'

'Because I wouldn't know what to say… I'm not sure I will later, but at least I'll have learned more. You see, I'm meeting with a man an hour from now, an influential man who's intensely interested in you—has been for the past year.'

Kendrick closed his eyes, feeling weak as he sank back into the pillows. 'He's with a group or a committee that calls itself… Inver Brass.'

'You know?'

'Only that much. I've no idea who they are or what they are, just that they've screwed up my life.'

The tan car, its coded government plates signifying the Central Intelligence Agency, drove through the imposing gates of the estate on Chesapeake Bay and up the circular drive to the smooth stone steps of the entrance. The tall man in an open raincoat that revealed a rumpled suit and shirt—evidence of nearly seventy-two hours' continuous wear—got out of the back seat and walked wearily up the steps towards the large, stately front door. He shivered briefly in the cold morning air of the overcast day that promised snow—snow for Christmas, reflected Payton. It was Christmas Eve, simply another day for the director of Special Projects, yet a day he dreaded, the impending meeting one he would trade several years of his life not to have insisted upon. Throughout his long career he had done many things that caused the bile to erupt in his stomach, but none more so than the destruction of good and moral men. He would destroy such a man this morning and he loathed himself for it, yet there was no alternative. For there was a higher good, a higher morality, and it was found in the reasonable laws of a nation of decent people. To abuse those laws was to deny the decency; accountability was paramount and constant. He rang the bell.