The Icarus Agenda

The authorities will be here in minutes. You will lay down your weapons or you will be killed.'

'Hello there, garbage!’ yelled Emmanuel Weingrass, walking into the room with effort as old men do when their legs do not work as well as they once did, especially after a great deal of excitement. 'The system's not that good, not when you've sub-contracted five or six hundred.'

'You!'

'Who else? I should have blown you away years ago in Basrah. But I knew my boy would come back to find you, you scum of the earth. It was just a matter of time. Where is he?'

'My life for his.'

'You're in no position to bargain—’

'Perhaps I am,' broke in the Mahdi. 'He's on his way to an unmarked airfield where a plane will fly him out to sea. Destination—the shoals of Qatar.'

'The sharks,' said Weingrass quietly, in cold fury.

'Ever so. One of nature's conveniences. Now do we bargain? Only I can stop them.'

The old architect, his frail body trembling as he breathed deeply, stared at the tall, robed black man, his voice strained as he replied. 'We bargain,' he said. 'And by Almighty God you'd better deliver or I'll hunt you down with an army of mercenaries.'

'You were always such a melodramatic Jew, weren't you?' The Mahdi glanced at his watch. 'There's time. As is the custom on such flights, there can be no ground-to-air radio contact, no subsequent forensic examinations of a plane. They're scheduled to take off with the first light. Once outside I'll place the call; the aircraft will not leave, but you and your little army of whatever-they-are will.'

'Don't even think about any tricks, you scum ball… We deal.'

'No!' Code Grey whipped out his knife and lunged at the Mahdi, gripping his robes and throwing him over the desk. 'There are no bargains, no deals, no negotiations whatsoever. There's only your life at this moment!' Grey shoved the point of his blade into the flesh below the Chicagoan's left eye. The Mahdi screamed as the blood rolled down his cheek and into his open mouth. 'Make your call now or lose first this eye, then the other! After that it won't matter to you where my knife goes next; you won't see it.' The commando reached over, grabbed the phone on the desk and slammed it down beside the bleeding head. 'That's your bargain, scum! Give me the number. I'll dial it for you—just to make sure it's an airfield and not some private barracks. Give it to me!'

'No-no, I can't!'

'The blade goes in!'

'No, stop! There is no airfield, no plane!'

'Liar!'

'Not now. Later!'

'Lose your first eye, liar!'

'He's here! My God, stop! He's here!'

'Where?' roared Manny, rushing up to the desk.

'The west wing… there's a staircase in the hall on the right, a small storage area below the roof—'

Emmanuel Weingrass did not hear any more. He raced out of the room, screaming with all the breath that was in him. 'Evan! Evan…!'

He was hallucinating, thought Kendrick; a person dear to him from the past was calling to him, giving him courage. The singular privilege of a condemned man, he considered. He looked up from the cot at the window; the moon was moving away, its light fading. He would not see another moon. Soon there would be nothing but darkness.

'Evan! Evan!'

It was so like Manny. He had always been there when his young friend needed him. And here at the end he was there to give comfort. Oh, Lord, Manny, I hope you learn somehow that I came back! That finally I listened to you. I found him, Manny! Others will, too, I know it! Please be a little proud of me—

'Goddamn it, Kendrick! Where the hell are you?'

That voice was no hallucination! Nor were the pounding footsteps on the narrow staircase! And other footsteps! Jesus Christ, was he already dead? 'Manny…? Manny?' he screamed.

'Here it is! This is the room! Break it down, musclehead!'

The door of the small room crashed open like a deafening crack of thunder.

'Goddamn, boy!' cried Emmanuel Weingrass, seeing Kendrick stagger up from his cell cot. 'Is this any way for a respectable congressman to behave? I thought I taught you better!'

Tears in their eyes, father and son embraced.

They were all in Hassan's Westernized living room on the outskirts of the city. Ben-Ami had monopolized the telephone since Weingrass relinquished it after a lengthy call to Masqat and a spirited conversation with the young sultan, Ahmat. Fifteen feet away, around the large dining room table, sat seven officials representing the governments of Bahrain, Oman, France, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. As agreed, there was no representative from Washington, but there was nothing to fear in terms of America's clandestine interests where a certain congressman was concerned. Emmanuel Weingrass was at that table, sitting between the Israeli and the man from the PLO.

Evan was next to the wounded Yaakov, both in armchairs beside each other, a courtesy for the two most in pain. Code Blue spoke. 'I listened to your words at the Aradous,' he said softly. 'I've been thinking about them.'

'That's all I ask you to do.'

'It's hard, Kendrick. We've been through so much, not me, of course, but our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers—’

'And generations before them,' added Evan. 'No one with a grain of intelligence or sensitivity denies it. But in a way, so have they. The Palestinians weren't responsible for the pogroms or the Holocaust, but because the free world was filled with guilt—as it damn well should have been—they became the new victims without knowing why.'

'I know.' Yaakov nodded his head slowly. 'I've heard the zealots in the West Bank and the Gaza. I've listened to the Meir Kahanes and they frighten me so—’

'Frighten you?'

'Of course. They use the words that were used against us, for, as you say, generations… Yet still, they kill! They killed my two brothers and so many countless others!'

'It's got to stop sometime. It's all such a terrible waste.'

'I have to think.'

'It's a beginning.'

The men around the dining room table abruptly rose from their chairs. They nodded to one another and, one by one, walked through the living room to the front door and out to their staff cars without acknowledging the presence of anyone else in the house. The host, Hassan, came through the archway and addressed his last guests. At first it was difficult to hear his words, as Emmanuel Weingrass was doubled up with a coughing seizure in the dining room. Evan started to rise. Yaakov, shaking his head, gripped Kendrick's arm. Evan understood; he nodded and sat back.

'The American Embassy in Masqat will be relieved in three hours, the terrorists granted safe escort to a ship on the waterfront provided by Sahibe al Farrahkhaliffe.'

'What happens to him? asked Kendrick angrily.

'In this room, and only in this room, will that answer be given. I am instructed by the Royal House to inform you that it is to go no further. Is that understood and accepted?'

All heads nodded.

'Sahibe al Farrahkhaliffe, known to you as the Mahdi, will be executed without trial or sentence, for his crimes against humanity are so outrageous they do not deserve the dignity of jurisprudence. As the Americans say, we'll do it “our way”.'

'May I speak?' said Ben-Ami.

'Of course,' answered Hassan.

'Arrangements have been made for me and my colleagues to be flown back to Israel. Since none of us has passports or papers, a special plane and procedures have been provided by the Emir. We must be at the airport concourse within the hour. Forgive us for our abrupt departure. Come along, gentlemen.'

'Forgive us,' said Hassan, nodding. 'For not having the wherewithal to thank you.'

'Have you got any whisky?' asked code Red.

'Anything you wish.'