The Icarus Agenda

'Yes.'

'Which one?'

'Mine,' answered the new congressman.

'Yours?'

'That's right.'

The deputy stared at his visitor, then lowered his eyes to the name he had written repeatedly on the pad in front of him. 'Good Lord,' he said softly. 'The Kendrick Group! That's the connection, but I didn't see it. I haven't heard your name in four or five years—maybe six.'

'You were right the first time. Four to be exact.'

'I knew there was something. I said so—’

'Yes, you did, but we never met.'

'You people built everything from water systems to bridges—race tracks, housing projects, country clubs, airfields—the whole thing.'

'We built what we were contracted to build.'

'I remember. It was ten or twelve years ago. You were the American wonder boys in the Emirates—and I do mean boys. Dozens of you in your twenties and thirties and filled with high tech, piss and vinegar.'

'Not all of us were that young—’

'No,' interrupted Swann, frowning in thought. 'You had a late-blooming secret weapon, an old Israeli, a whiz of an architect. An Israeli, for heaven's sake, who could design things in the Islamic style and broke bread with every rich Arab in the neighbourhood.

'His name was Emmanuel Weingrass—is Manny Weingrass—and he's from Garden Street in the Bronx in New York. He went to Israel to avoid legal entanglements with his second or third wife. He's close to eighty now and living in Paris. Pretty well, I gather, from his phone calls.'

'That's right,' said the deputy director. 'You sold out to Bechtel or somebody For thirty or forty million.'

'Not to Bechtel. It was Trans-International, and it wasn't thirty or forty, it was twenty-five. They got a bargain and I got out. Everything was fine.'

Swann studied Kendrick's face, especially the light blue eyes that held within them circles of enigmatic reserve the longer one stared at them. 'No, it wasn't,' he said softly, even gently, his hostility gone. 'I do remember now. There was an accident at one of your sites outside Riyadh—a cave-in caused when a faulty gas line exploded—more than seventy people were killed including your partners, all your employees, and some kids.'

'Their kids,' added Evan quietly. 'All of them, all their wives and children. We were celebrating the completion of the third phase. We were all there. The crew, my partners—everyone's wife and child. The whole shell collapsed while they were inside, and Manny and I were outside—putting on some ridiculous clown costumes.'

'But there was an investigation that cleared the Kendrick Group completely. The utility firm that serviced the site had installed inferior conduit falsely labelled as certified.'

'Essentially, yes.'

'That's when you packed it all in, wasn't it?'

'This isn't pertinent,' said the congressman simply. 'We're wasting time. Since you know who I am, or at least who I was, is there anything I can do?'

'Do you mind if I ask you a question? I don't think it's a waste of time and I think it is pertinent. Clearances are part of the territory and judgments have to be made. I meant what I said before. A lot of people on the Hill continuously try to make political mileage out of us over here.'

'What's the question?'

'Why are you a congressman, Mr. Kendrick? With your money and professional reputation, you don't need it. And I can't imagine how you'd benefit, certainly not compared to what you could do in the private sector.'

'Do all people seeking elective office do so solely for personal gain?'

'No, of course not.' Swann paused, then shook his head. 'Sorry, that's too glib. It's a stock answer to a loaded stock question… Yes, Congressman, in my biased opinion, most ambitious men—and women—who run for such offices do so because of the exposure and, if they win, the clout. Combined, it all makes them very marketable. Sorry again, this is a cynic talking. But then I've been in this city for a long time and I see no reason to alter that judgment. And you confuse me. I know where you come from, and I've never heard of Colorado's ninth district. It sure as hell isn't Denver.'

'It's barely on the map,' said Kendrick, his voice noncommittal. 'It's at the base of the southwest Rockies, doing pretty much its own thing. That's why I built there. It's off the beaten track.'

'But why? Why politics? Did the boy-wonder of the Arab Emirates find a district he could carve out for his own base, a political launching pad maybe?'

'Nothing could have been farther from my mind.'

'That's a statement, Congressman. Not an answer.'

Evan Kendrick was momentarily silent, returning Swann's gaze. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Swann sensed a certain embarrassment. 'All right,' he said firmly. 'Let's call it an aberration that won't happen again. There was a vacuous, overbearing incumbent who was lining his pockets in a district that wasn't paying attention. I had time on my hands and a big mouth. I also had the money to bury him. I'm not necessarily proud of what I did or how I did it, but he's gone and I'll be out in two years or less. By then I'll have found someone better qualified to take my place.'

'Two years?' asked Swann. 'Come November it'll be a year since your election, correct?'

'That's right.'

'And you started serving last January?'

'So?'

'Well, I hate to disabuse you, but your term of office is for two years. You've either got one more year or three, but not two or less.'

'There's no real opposition party in the ninth, but to make sure the seat doesn't go to the old political machine, I agreed to stand for re-election—then resign.'

'That's some agreement.'

'It's binding as far as I'm concerned. I want out.'

'That's blunt enough, but it doesn't take into account a possible side effect.'

'I don't understand you.'

'Suppose during the next twenty-odd months you decide you like it here? What happens then?'

'It's not possible and it couldn't happen, Mr. Swann. Let's get back to Masqat. It's a goddamned mess, or do I have sufficient “clearance” to make that observation?'

'You're cleared because I'm the one who clears.' The deputy director shook his grey head. 'A goddamned mess, Congressman, and we're convinced it's externally programmed.'

'I don't think there's any question about it,' agreed Kendrick.

'Do you have any ideas?'

'A few,' answered the visitor. 'Wholesale destabilization's at the top of the list. Shut the country down and don't let anyone in.'

'A takeover?' asked Swann. 'A Khomeini-style Putsch?… It wouldn't work; the situation's different. There's no Peacock, no festering resentments, no SAVAK.' Swann paused, adding pensively, 'No Shah with an army of thieves and no Ayatollah with an army of fanatics. It's not the same.'

'I didn't mean to imply that it was. Oman's only the beginning. Whoever it is doesn't want to take over the country, he—or they—simply want to stop others from taking the money.'

'What? What money?'

'Billions. Long-range projects that are on drafting boards everywhere in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and all of Southwest Asia, the only stable areas in that part of the world. What's happening over there now isn't much different from tying up the transport and the construction trades over here, or shutting down the piers in New York and New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Nothing's legitimized by strikes or collective bargaining—there's just terror and the threats of more terror provided by whipped-up fanatics. And everything stops. The people at the drafting boards and those in the field on surveying teams and in equipment compounds just want to get out as fast as they can.'

'And once they're out,' added Swann quickly, ‘those behind the terrorists move in and the terror stops. It just goes away. Christ, it sounds like a waterfront Mafia operation!'

'Arabic style,' said Kendrick. 'To use your words, it wouldn't be the first time.'

'You know that for a fact?'

'Yes. Our company was threatened a number of times, but to quote you again, we had a secret weapon. Emmanuel Weingrass.'