The Icarus Agenda

'Yes. I was given a run-around, told he wasn't there, but I knew he was, my secretary had confirmed it. I guess I was pretty adamant. Finally, they let me go up to his office.'

'Then after you talked with him he made his decision to send you to Masqat.'

'So?'

'That tight little circle you spoke of wasn't very little or very tight, Evan. You did what anyone else would do under the circumstances—under the stress you felt. You left a number of impressions during that agitated journey from Lava Falls to Washington. You could easily be traced back through Phoenix to Flagstaff, your name and your loud insistence on fast transportation remembered by a lot of people, especially because of the time of night. Then you show up at the State Department, where you made more noises—incidentally, checking in with security but not checking out—until you were permitted to go up to Swann's office.'

'Yes, but—’

'Let me finish, please,' interrupted Khalehla again. 'You'll understand, and I want us both to have the full picture… You and Swann talk, make your agreement of anonymity, and as you said, you're off and running to Masqat. The first leg was made to your house with a driver who was not part of OHIO-Four-Zero any more than the guards in the lobby. The driver was simply assigned by a dispatcher and the guards on duty were merely doing their jobs. They're not in the rarefied circles; nobody up there brings them in on top secret agendas. But they're human; they go home and talk to their wives and their friends because something different happened in their normally dull jobs. They might also answer questions casually put to them by people they thought were government bureaucrats.'

'And one way or another they all knew who I was—’

'As did a lot of other people in Phoenix and Flagstaff, and one thing was clear to all of them. This important man's upset; this congressman's in a hell of a hurry; this big shot's got a problem. Do you see the trail you left?'

'Yes, I do, but who would look for it?'

'I don't know, and that troubles me more than I can tell you.'

'Troubles you? Whoever it was has blown my life apart! Who would do it?'

'Someone who found an opening, a gap that led to the rest of the trail from a remote campsite called Lava Falls to the terrorists in Masqat. Someone who picked up on something that made him want to look farther. Perhaps it was the calls your secretary made, or the commotion you caused at the State Department's security desk, or even something as crazy as hearing the rumour that an unknown American had interceded in Oman—it wasn't crazy at all; it was printed and squashed—but it could have started somebody thinking. Then the other things fell in place and you were there.'

Evan put his hand over hers on the dirt path. 'I have to know who it was, Khalehla, I have to know.'

'But we do know,' she said softly, correcting herself, her voice flat as if seeing something she should have seen before. 'A blond man with a European accent.'

'Why?' Kendrick removed his hand as the word exploded from his throat.

Khalehla looked at him, her gaze compassionate, yet beneath her concern was that cold analytical intelligence in her eyes. 'The answer to that has to be your overriding concern, Evan, but I have another problem and it's why I'm frightened.'

'I don't understand.'

'Whoever the blond man was, whoever he represents, he reached way down deep in our cellars and took out what he should never have been given. I'm stunned, Evan, petrified, and those words aren't strong enough for the way I feel. Not only by what's been done to you, but by what's been done to us. We've been compromised, penetrated where such penetration should have been impossible. If they—whoever they are—can dig you up out of the deepest, most secure archives we have, they can learn a lot of other things no one should have access to. Where people like me work that can cost a great many lives—very unpleasantly.'

Kendrick studied her taut, striking face, seeing the fear in her eyes. 'You mean that, don't you? You are frightened.'

'So would you be if you knew the men and women who help us, who trust us, who risk their lives to bring us information. Every day they wonder if something they did or didn't do will trip them up. A lot of them have committed suicide because they couldn't stand the strain, others have gone mad and disappeared into the deserts, preferring to die at peace with their Allah rather than go on. But most do go on because they believe in us, believe that we're fair and really want peace. They deal with gun-wielding lunatics at every turn, and bad as things are, it's only through them that they're not worse, with a great deal more blood in the streets… Yes, I'm frightened because many of those people are friends—of mine and my father and mother. The thought of their being betrayed, as you were betrayed—and that's what you were, Evan, betrayed— makes me want to crawl out on the sands and die like those we've driven mad. Because someone way down deep is opening our most secret files to others outside. All he or she needed in your case was a name, your name, and people are afraid for their lives in Masqat and Bahrain. How many other names can be fed? How many other secrets learned?'

Evan reached over, not covering her hand but now holding it, gripping it. 'If you believe that, why don't you help me?'

'Help you?'

'I have to know who's doing this to me, and you have to know who's over there, or down there, making it possible. I'd say our objectives dovetail, wouldn't you? I've got Dennison in a vice he can't squirm out of, and I can get you a quiet White House directive to stay over here. Actually, he'd jump at the chance to find a leak; it's an obsession with him.'

Khalehla frowned. 'It doesn't work that way. Besides, I'd be out of my class. I'm very good where I am, but out of my element, my Arab element, I'm not first rate.'

'Number one,' countered Kendrick firmly. 'I consider you first rate because you saved my life and I consider my life relatively important. And two, as I mentioned, you have expertise in areas I know nothing about. Procedures. “Covert avenues of referral”—I learned that one as a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, but I haven't the vaguest idea what it means. Hell, lady, you even know what the “cellars” are when I always thought they were the basements in a suburban development which, thank God, I never had to build. Please, you said in Bahrain that you wanted to help me. Help me now! Help yourself.'

Adrienne Rashad replied, her dark eyes searching his coldly. 'I could help, but there might be times when you'd have to do as I tell you. Could you do that?'

'I'm not wild about jumping off bridges or tall buildings—’

'It would be in the area of what you'd say, and to whom I'd want you to say it. There might also be times when I wouldn't be able to explain things to you. Could you accept that?'

'Yes. Because I've watched you, listened to you, and I trust you.'

'Thank you.' She squeezed his hand and released it. 'I'd have to bring someone with me.'

'Why?'

'First of all, it's necessary. I'd need a temporary transfer and he can get it for me without giving an explanation—forget the White House, it's too dangerous, too unstable. Second, he could be helpful in areas way beyond my reach.'

'Who is he?'

'Mitchell Payton. He's director of Special Projects—that's a euphemism for “Don't ask”.'

'Can you trust him? I mean totally, no doubts at all.'

'No doubts at all. He processed me into the Agency.'

'That's not exactly a reason.'

'The fact that I've called him “Uncle Mitch” since I was six years old in Cairo is, however. He was a young operations officer posing as an instructor at the university. He became a friend of my parents—my father was a professor there and my mother's an American from California; so was Mitch.'