The Icarus Agenda

Evan closed his eyes. 'I might have,' he said softly, nodding. 'If we'd got into an argument.'

'An argument was unavoidable, which is why I got us out and came down here.'

'Everyone up there is on our side!' protested Kendrick. I'm sure they are,' agreed Adrienne, 'but we don't know the strengths or the weaknesses of people we've never met and can't see, do we?'

'You're paranoid.'

'It goes with the territory, Congressman. Furthermore, you are a damn fool, as I think I've amply demonstrated by your lack of knowledge about safe houses. I'll skip the question as to who gives orders to whom because it's irrelevant, and go back to your first point. In all likelihood I did not save your life in Bahrain, but instead, because of that bastard Swann, put you in an untenable position we and certain pilots call the point of no return. You were not expected to survive, Mr. Kendrick, and I did object to that.'

'Why?'

'Because I cared.'

'Because u>e—'

'That, too, is irrelevant. You were a decent man trying to do a decent thing for which you weren't equipped. As it turned out, there were others who helped you far more than I ever could. I sat in Jimmy Grayson's office and we were both relieved when we got word you were airborne out of Bahrain.'

'Gray son? He was one of the seven who knew I was there.'

'Not until the last hours, he didn't,' said Rashad. 'Even I wouldn't tell him. It had to come from Washington.'

'In White House language, he was put on the spit yesterday morning.'

'For what?'

'To see if he was the one who leaked my name.'

'Jimmy? That's even more stupid than thinking it was me. Grayson wants a directorship so badly he can taste it. Also, he doesn't care to have his throat slit and his body mutilated any more than I do.'

'You say those words very easily. They come quickly to you, maybe too quickly.'

'About Jimmy?'

'No. About yourself.'

'I see.' The woman who had called herself Khalehla moved away from the rock. 'You think I've rehearsed all this—with myself, of course, because I damn well couldn't reach anyone else. And, of course, I'm half Arab—'

'You walked into the room up there as if you expected to see me. I wasn't any surprise to you.'

'I did, and you weren't.'

'Why and why not? On both counts?'

'Process of elimination, I suppose—and an arrangement, a man I know who protects me from real surprises. For the last day and a half, you've been hot news throughout the Mediterranean, Congressman, and a lot of people are shaking, including myself. Not only for myself but for many others I used and misused to keep you in sight. Someone like me builds a network based on trust, and right now that trust, my most vital commodity, has been called into question. So you see, Mr. Kendrick, you've wasted not only my time and my concentration but a great deal of the taxpayers' money to bring me back here for a question any experienced intelligence officer could answer.'

'You could have sold me, sold my name for a price.'

'For what? My life? For the lives of those I used to track you, men who are important to me and the work I do—work I think has real value which I tried to explain to you in Bahrain? You really believe that?'

'Oh, Jesus, I don't know what to believe!' admitted Evan, expelling his breath and shaking his head. 'Everything I wanted to do, everything I'd planned, has been thrown out in the garbage. Ahmat doesn't want to see me again, I can't go back—there or anywhere else in the Emirates or the Gulfs. He'll see to it.'

'You wanted to go back?'

'More than anything. I wanted to take up my life again where I did my best work. But first I had to find and get rid of a son of a bitch who'd crippled everything, killed for the sake of killing—so many.'

'The Mahdi,' interrupted Rashad, nodding. 'Ahmat told me. You did it. Ahmat's young and he'll change. In time he'll understand what you did for everyone over there and be grateful… But you just answered a question. You see, I thought that you might have blown the story yourself, but you didn't, did you?'

'Me? You're out of your mind! I'm getting out of here in six months!'

'There's no political ambition, then?'

'Christ, no! I'm packing it in, I'm leaving! Only now I have nowhere to go. Someone's trying to stop me, making me into something I'm not. What the hell is happening to me?'

'Offhand I'd say you were being exhumed.'

'Being what? By whom?

'By someone who thinks you were slighted. Someone who believes you deserve public acclaim, prominence.'

'Which I don't want! And the President isn't helping. He's awarding me the Medal of Freedom next Tuesday in the goddamned Blue Room with the whole Marine Band! I told him I didn't want it, and the son of a bitch said I had to show up because he refused to look like a “chintzy bastard”. What kind of reasoning is that?

'Very presidential…' Rashad suddenly stopped. 'Let's walk,' she said quickly as two white-suited members of the staff appeared at the base of the dock. 'Don't look around. Be casual. We'll just stroll down this poor excuse for a beach.'

'May I talk?' asked Kendrick as he fell in step.

'Not anything germane. Wait till we get around the bend.'

'Why? Can they hear us?'

'Possibly. I'm not really sure.' They followed the curve of the shoreline until the trees obscured the two men on the dock. 'The Japanese have developed directional relays, although I've never seen one,' continued Rashad aimlessly. Then she stopped again and looked up at Evan, her intelligent eyes questioning. 'You spoke to Ahmat?' she asked.

'Yesterday. He told me to go to hell but not to go back to Oman. Ever.'

'You understand that I'll check with him, don't you?'

Evan was suddenly astonished, then angry. She was questioning him, accusing him, checking up on him. 'I don't give  damn what you do, my only concern is what you may have done. You're convincing, Kahlehla—excuse me, Miss Rashad—and you may believe what you say, but the six men who knew about me had everything to lose and not a goddamned thing to gain by saying that I was in Masqat last year.'

'And I had nothing to lose but my life and the lives of those I've cultivated throughout the sector, some of whom, incidentally, are very dear to me? Stop that tired old argument, Congressman, you sound ridiculous. You're not only an amateur, you're insufferable.'

'You know, it's possible you could have made a mistake!.' cried Kendrick, exasperated. 'I'd almost be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I implied as much to Dennison and told him I wouldn't let him hang you for it.'

'Oh, you're too kind, sir.'

'No, I meant it. You did save my life, and if you made a slip and dropped my name—'

'Don't compound your asininity,' Rashad broke in. 'It's far, far more likely that any five of the others might have made a slip like that than either Grayson or myself. We live in the field; we don't make that kind of mistake.'

'Let's walk,' said Evan, no guards in sight, only his doubts and his confusion forcing him to move. His problem was that he believed her, believed what Manny Weingrass said about her:… she had nothing to do with exposing you… it would only add to her shame and further inflame the crazy world she lives in. And when Kendrick protested that the others couldn't have, Manny had added: Then there are others beyond others… They came to a rough track that led up through the trees apparently to the stone wall bordering the estate. 'Shall we explore?' asked Evan.

'Why not?' said Adrienne coldly.

'Look,' he continued as they climbed the wooded slope side by side, 'say I believe you—'

'Thank you so much.'

'All right, I do believe you! And because I do I'm going to tell you something that only Swann and Dennison know; the others don't, at least I don't think they do.'