The Icarus Agenda

'Amal Bahrudi speaks?' asked the unknown man, reaching out with his hand. 'Let him up.'

'No!' roared the sergeant-terrorist, plunging down and pinning Kendrick's shoulders. 'There's no sense in what you say! He is who he says he is because of a scar that does not exist? Where's the sense in that, I ask you?'

'I will know if he lies,' replied the figure above, slowly coming into focus for Kendrick. The gaunt face was that of a man in his early twenties, with high cheekbones and intense, dark, intelligent eyes flanking a sharp, straight nose. The body was slender, bordering on thin, but there was a supple strength in the way he crouched and held his head. The muscles of his neck stood out. 'Let him up,' repeated the younger terrorist, his voice casual but no less a command for that. 'And instruct the others to gradually stop their chanting—gradually, you understand—but then keep talking among themselves. All must appear normal, including the incessant arguing, which you don't have to encourage.'

The angry subordinate gave Evan a last shove into the floor, widening the cut in his shoulder so severely that new blood burst out on to the concrete. Then the surly man got to his feet, turning to the crowd to carry out his orders.

'Thank you,' said Evan, breathless, trembling and getting to his knees, wincing at the pain he felt everywhere, conscious of the bruises on his face and body, aware of the hot lacerations where his flesh had been punctured—again seemingly everywhere. 'I would have joined Allah in a minute.'

'You still may, which is why I won't bother to stem your bleeding.' The young Palestinian shoved Kendrick against the wall, into a sitting position, his legs stretched out on the floor. 'You see, I have no idea whether you're really Amal Bahrudi or not. I acted on instinct. From the descriptions I've heard, you could be he, and you speak an educated Arabic, which also fits. In addition, you withstood extreme punishment when a gesture of submission on your part would have meant you were prepared to deliver the information demanded of you. Instead, you reacted with defiance, and you must have known that at any moment you could have been strangled… That is not the way of an infiltrator who values his life here on earth. It is the way of one of us who will not harm the cause for, as you remarked, it's a holy cause. And it is. Most holy.'

Good God! thought Kendrick, assuming the cold expression of a dedicated partisan. How wrong you are! If I had thought—if I'd been able to think… Forget it! 'What will finally convince you? I tell you now I shall not reveal things I shouldn't.' Evan paused, his hand covering the swallow in his throat. 'Even to the point where you may resume the punishment and strangle me, if you like.'

'Both are statements I would expect,' said the intense slender terrorist, lowering himself to crouch in front of Evan. 'You can, however, tell me what it is you came here for. Why were you sent to Masqat? Whom were you told to find? Your life depends on your answers, Amal Bahrudi, and I'm the only one who can make that decision.'

He had been right. In spite of the odds he had been right!

Escape. He had to escape with this young killer in a holy cause.

The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 7

Kendrick stared at the Palestinian as if, indeed, the eyes held the meaning of a man's soul, although Evan's own eyes were too swollen to betray anything other than overwhelming physical pain… The remaining taps are in the flushing mechanisms of the toilets: Dr Amal Faisal, contact to the sultan.

'I was sent here to tell you that among your people in the embassy there are traitors.'

'Traitors?' The terrorist remained motionless in his crouching position in front of Evan; beyond a slight frown there was no reaction whatsoever. 'That's impossible,' he said after several moments of intensely studying 'Amal Bahrudi's' face.

'I'm afraid it's not,' contradicted Kendrick. 'I saw the proof.'

'Consisting of what?'

Evan suddenly winced, grabbing his wounded shoulder, his hand instantly covered with blood. 'If you won't stop this bleeding, I will!' He started to push himself up against the stone wall.

'Stay put!' commanded the young killer.

'Why? Why should I? How do I know you're not part of the treason—making money out of our work?'

'Money…? What money?'

'You won't know that until I know you have the right to be told.' Again Evan pressed himself against the wall, his hands on the floor, trying to rise. 'You talk like a man but you're a boy.'

'I grew up quickly,' said the terrorist, shoving his strange prisoner down again. 'Most of us have over here.'

'Grow up now. My bleeding to death will tell neither of us anything.' Kendrick ripped the blood-soaked shirt away from his shoulder. 'It's filthy,' he said, nodding at the wound. 'It's filled with dirt and slime, thanks to your animal friends.'

'They're not animals and they're not friends. They are my brothers.'

'Write poetry in your own time, mine's too valuable. Is there any water in here—clean water?'

'The toilets,' answered the Palestinian. 'There's a sink on the right.'

'Help me up.'

'No. What proof? Who were you sent to find?'

'Fool!' exploded Evan. 'All right. Where is Nassir? Everyone asks, Where is Nassir?'

'Dead,' replied the young man, his expression without comment.

'What?'

'A marine guard jumped him, took his weapon and shot him. The marine was killed instantly.'

'Nothing was said—'

'What could be said that was productive?' countered the terrorist. 'Make a martyr out of a single American guard? Show one of our own to have been overcome? We don't parade weakness.'

'Nassir?' asked Kendrick, hearing a rueful note in the young killer's voice. 'Nassir was weak?'

'He was a theoretician and not suited to this work.'

'A theoretician?' Evan arched his brows. 'Our student is an analyst?'

'This student can determine those moments when active involvement must replace passive debate, when force takes over from words. Nassir talked too much, justified too much.'

'And you don't?'

'I'm not the issue, you are. What proof of treason do you have?'

'The woman, Yateem,' replied Kendrick, answering the former question not the current one. 'Zaya Yateem. I was told she was—’

'Yateem a traitor?' cried the terrorist, his eyes furious.

'I didn't say that—’

'What did you say?'

'She was reliable—'

'Far more than that, Amal Bahrudi!' The young man grabbed the remaining cloth of Evan's shirt. 'She is devoted to our cause, a tireless worker who exhausts herself beyond any of us at the embassy!'

'She also speaks English,' said Kendrick, hearing still another note in the terrorist's voice.

'So do I!' shot back the angry, self-proclaimed student, releasing his prisoner within their prison.

'I do, too,' said Evan quietly, glancing over at the numerous groups of inmates, many of whom were looking at them. 'May we speak English now?' he asked, once more studying his bleeding shoulder. 'You say you want proof, which, of course, is beyond my providing, but I can tell you what I've seen with my own eyes—in Berlin. You yourself can determine whether or not I'm telling you the truth—since you're so adept at determining things. But I don't want any of your brother animals understanding what I say.'

'You're an arrogant man under circumstances that do not call for arrogance.'

'I am who I am—’

'You've said that.' The terrorist nodded. 'English,' he agreed, switching from Arabic. 'You spoke of Yateem. What about her?'

'You assumed I meant she was the traitor.'

'Who dares—’

'I meant quite the opposite,' insisted Kendrick, wincing, and gripping his shoulder with greater force. 'She's trusted, even extolled; she's doing her job brilliantly. After Nassir, she was the one I was to find.' Evan gasped in pain, an all too easy reflex, and coughed out his next words. 'If she had been killed… I was to look for a man who's called Azra—if he was gone, another with grey streaks in his hair known as Ahbyahd.'