The Icarus Agenda

'Christ, what kind of a world do those goddamned Arabs live in?'

'One in which the vast majority try to survive and make lives for themselves and their children. And we haven't helped, you bigoted bastard.'

Dennison cocked his head and frowned. 'I may have deserved that shot, Congressman, I'll have to think about it. Not so long ago it was fashionable not to like Jews, not to trust them, and now that's changed and the Arabs have taken their place in the scheme of our dislikes. Maybe it's all bullshit, who knows?… But what I want to know now is who sprung you out of the top secret woodwork. You figure it's someone from our ranks.'

'It has to be. Swann was approached—fraudulently approached, as it turns out—by a blond-haired man with a European accent who had in-depth data on me. That information could only have come from government files—my congressional background check probably. He tried to tie me in with the Oman situation but Swann firmly denied it, saying he had specifically turned me down. However, Frank had the impression that the man wasn't convinced.'

'We know about the blond spook,' broke in Dennison. 'We can't find him.'

'But he dug and found someone else, someone who confirmed either intentionally or unintentionally what he was tracking down. If we rule you out, and if we also rule out State, Defense and the Joint Chiefs, it has to be Crawford, Grayson or the Rashad woman.'

'Cross out the first two,' said the White House chief of staff. 'Early this morning I grilled Crawford right here in this office, and he was ready to challenge me to a game of Saigon roulette for even suggesting the possibility. As far as Grayson is concerned, I spoke to him in Bahrain five hours ago and he damned near had apoplexy thinking we even considered him the leak. He read the black-operations book to me as if I were the dumbest kid on the block who should be thrown into solitary for calling him on an unsecured line in foreign territory. Like Crawford, Grayson's an old line professional. Neither would risk throwing away his life's work over you, and neither could be tricked into doing it.'

Kendrick leaned forward in Dennison's chair, his elbows on the desk. He stared at the far wall of the office, a rush of conflicting thoughts racing through his mind. Khalehla, born Adrienne Rashad, had saved his life, but had she saved it only to sell him? She was also a close friend of Ahmat, who could be damaged by his association with her, and Evan had hurt the young sultan enough without adding a turned intelligence agent to the list. Yet Khalehla had understood him when he needed understanding; she was kind when he needed kindness because he was so afraid—both for his life and for his inadequacies. If she had been tricked into revealing him and he exposed her ineptness, she was finished in a job she intensely believed in… Yet if she had not been tricked, if for reasons of her own she had exposed him—then all he would expose was her betrayal. Which was the truth? Dupe or liar? Whichever it was, he had to find out for himself without the spectre of official scrutiny. Above all, dupe or liar, he had to know who she had contacted or who had contacted her. For only the 'who' could answer the 'why' he had been exposed as Evan of Oman. And that he had to learn! 'Then out of the seven of you, there's only one unaccounted for.'

'The woman,' agreed Dennison, nodding his head. ‘I’ll put her on a revolving spit over the hottest goddamn fire you ever saw.'

'No, you won't,' countered Kendrick. 'You and your people won't get near her until I give you the word—if I give it. And we're going to go one step farther. No one's to know you're flying her back here—under cover, I think is the term. Absolutely no one. Is that understood?'

'Who the hell are you—’

'We've been through this, Herbie. Remember next Tuesday in the Blue Room? With the Marine Band and all those reporters and television cameras? I'll have a great big platform to climb on if I want to and express a few opinions. Believe me, you'll be among the first targets, decked ass and all.'

'Shit! May the one being blackmailed be so bold as to ask why this female spook gets preferred treatment?'

'Sure,' replied Evan, his gaze settled on the chief of staff.

'That woman saved my life and you're not going to ruin hers by letting her own people know you've got her under your well-advertised White House shotgun. You've done enough of that around here.'

'All right, all right! But let's get one thing clear. If she's the sieve, you turn her over to me.'

'That'll depend,' said Kendrick, sitting back.

'On what, for Christ's sake?'

'On the how and the why.'

'More riddles, Congressman?'

'Not for me,' answered Evan, suddenly rising from the chair. 'Get me out of here, Dennison. Also, since I can't go home, either to my house in Virginia or even out to Colorado, without being swamped, can someone in this booby hatch rent me a lodge or a cabin in the country under another name? I'll pay for a month or whatever's necessary. I just want a few days to figure things out before I go back to the office.'

'It's been taken care of,' said the chief of staff abruptly. 'Actually, it was Jennings's idea—to put you on ice over the weekend in one of those sterile houses in Maryland.'

'What the hell is a sterile house? Please use language I can understand.'

'Let's put it this way. You're the guest of the President of the United States in a place no one can find that is reserved for people we don't want found. It dovetailed with my considered opinion that Langford Jennings should make the first public statements about you. You've been seen here, and as sure as rabbits have little rabbits the word'll get out.'

'You're the scenario writer. What do we say—what do you say, since I'm in isolation?'

'That's easy. Your safety. It's the President's primary concern after conferring with our counter-terrorist experts. Don't worry, our writers will come up with something that'll make the women cry into their handkerchiefs and the men want to go out and march in a parade. And since Jennings has the last word in these things, it'll probably include some whacked-up image of a powerful knight of the Round Table looking after a brave younger brother who carried out a joint, dangerous mission. Shit!'

'And if there's any truth to the reprisal theory,' added Kendrick, 'it'll make me a target.'

That'd be nice,' agreed Dennison, nodding again.

'Call me when you've made arrangements for the Rashad woman.'

Evan sat in a long leather chair in the study of the impressive sterile house on Maryland's Eastern Shore in the township of Cynwid Hollow. Outside, within the walls of the floodlit grounds, guards moved in and out of the lights as they patrolled every foot of the acreage, their rifles at the ready, their eyes alert.

Kendrick snapped off the third replay he had watched on television of President Langford Jennings's suddenly called press conference regarding one Congressman Evan Kendrick of Colorado. It was more outrageous than Dennison had projected, filled with gut-wrenching pauses accompanied by a constant series of well-rehearsed grins that so obviously conveyed the pride and the agony beneath the surface of the smile. The President once again said everything in general terms and nothing specific—except in one area: Until all proper security measures are in place I have asked Congressman Kendrick, a man we are all so proud of, to remain in protective seclusion. And with this request, I hereby give dire warning. Should cowardly terrorists anywhere make any attempt on the life of my good friend, my close colleague, someone I look upon no less than I would a younger brother, the full might of the United States will be employed by ground, sea and air against determined enclaves of those responsible. Determined? Oh, my God!

A telephone rang. Evan looked around trying to find out where it was. It was across the room on a desk; he swung his legs down and walked to the startlingly intrusive instrument.