The Icarus Agenda

by Ludlum, Robert

  'By Christ, I don't believe it. You sold your firm and went back to America! I was told you'd become a politician of sorts!'

  'With the Mahdi's help I might even become president.'

  'Oh, my God!'

  'Smile, Tony. This man doesn't like what he's doing and I wouldn't want him to think we're ungrateful. Smile, you fat son of a bitch!'

  Khalehla, in tan slacks, a flight jacket and a visored officer's cap, stood by the tail of the Harrier jet watching the proceedings a hundred feet away. The young Palestinian killer called Blue had been ushered out; the American congressman and the incredible MacDonald were leaving with another uniformed man, who conveyed them through a maze of cargo alleyways that eluded immigration. This Kendrick, this apparent conformist with some terrible cause, was better than she thought. Not only had he survived the horrors of the embassy, something she had believed impossible nine hours ago and over which she had panicked, but he had now separated terrorist from terrorists' agent. What was on his mind? What was he doing?

  'Hurry up!' she called to the pilot, who was talking to a mechanic by the starboard wing. 'Let's go!'

  The pilot nodded, briefly throwing his arms up in despair, and the two of them headed towards the exit reserved for flight personnel. Ahmat, the youthful sultan of Oman, had pushed all the buttons at his considerable command. The three passengers on the jet were to be led to a stretch of the airport's lower-level concourse far behind the main terminal's taxi line where temporary taxi signs had been mounted on the pavement, each cab driven by a member of the Bahrainian secret police. None had been given any information, only a single order: Report the destination of each passenger.

  Khalehla and the pilot said their brief goodbyes and both went their separate ways, he to the Flight Control Centre for his return-to-Masqat instructions, she to the designated area of the concourse where she would pick up the American and follow him. It would call for all the skill she had to stay out of sight while she followed Kendrick and MacDonald. Tony would spot her in an instant, and the obviously alert American might look twice and remember a dark, filthy street in the el Shari el Mish kwayis and a woman who held a gun in her hand. The fact that it had not been pointed at him but, instead, at four people in that street of garbage who had tried to rob her or worse, would not be readily believed by a man living on the edge of very real peril. Purpose and paranoia converged in the infinite reaches of a mind under severe stress. He was armed, and one exploding image could trigger a violent response. Khalehla did not fear for her life; eight years of training, including four years in the violent Middle East, had taught her to anticipate, to kill before she was killed. What saddened her was not only that this decent man should have to die for what he was doing but it was entirely possible that she could be his executioner. It was growing more possible by the minute.

  She reached the area before the passengers from the Oman jet. The traffic on the Arrivals level was horrendous: cars with tinted windows; taxis; ordinary, nondescript vehicles; pickup trucks of all descriptions. The noise and the fumes were overpowering, the cacophony deafening under the low concrete ceiling. Khalehla found a shadowed enclave between two cargo bins and waited.

  The first to emerge was the terrorist called Azra, accompanied by a uniformed official. The latter flagged a taxi, which sped up to the coarsely-dressed young man at the curb. He stepped inside and read from a piece of paper in his hand, giving the driver instructions.

  Several minutes later the strange American and the unbelievable Anthony MacDonald walked out on the pavement.

  Something was wrong! thought Khalehla instantly, without really thinking, merely observing. Tony was behaving like his once and former Cairo self! There was agitation in every movement of his huge body, wasted energy craving attention, his eyes bulging, his constantly changing facial expressions those of a drunk pleading for respect—all in counterpoint to the superb control necessary to a deep cover operator with a network of informers in a world-class volatile situation. It was all wrong!

  And then it happened! As the taxi sped up to the curb, MacDonald suddenly rammed his enormous torso against the American, sending him out into the covered street in front of the rushing cab. Kendrick bounced off the bonnet, his body flung in mid-air into the racing traffic of the tunnel-like concourse. Brakes screeched, whistles blew, and the congressman from the ninth district of Colorado was impaled, curved around the shattered windscreen of a small Japanese car. Good God, he's dead! thought Khalehla, running out on the pavement. And then he moved—both arms moved as the American tried to push himself up, collapsing as he did so.

  Khalehla raced to the car, surging through a knot of police and Bahrain's secret police who had converged on the scene, rupturing one immovable man's spleen with a vicious, accurate fist. She threw her body over the spastically moving Kendrick while removing the gun from her flight jacket. She spoke to the nearest uniformed man, the weapon angled at his head.

  'My name is Khalehla and that's all you have to know. This man is my property and he goes with me. Pass the word and get us out of here or I'll kill you.'

  The figure raced into the sterile room so agitated that he slammed the door behind him, nearly tripping in the darkness on his way to his equipment. Hands trembling, he brought his appliance to life.

  Ultra Maximum Secure

  No Existing Intercepts

  Proceed

  Something's happened! Breakthrough or breakdown, the hunter or the hunted. The last report speaks of Bahrain but without specifics, only that the subject was in a state of extreme anxiety demanding to be flown there immediately. Of course that assumes he either escaped from the embassy, was taken out by subterfuge or never went inside at all. But why Bahrain? Everything is too incomplete, as if the subject's shadow was obscuring events for his own reasons—a not unlikely possibility considering everything that's happened during the past few years and the subpoena powers of Congress and various special prosecutors.

  What has happened? What's happening now? My appliances scream for information but I can't give them anything! To factor in a name without specific reference only spews forth encyclopaedic historical data long since inserted—and updated—by photoscan. Sometimes I think my own talents defeat me, for I see beyond factors and equations and find visions.

  Yet he is the man! My appliances tell me that and I trust them.

  The Icarus Agenda

  Chapter 13

  Evan struggled against the constricting tape around his left shoulder and then was aware of a stinging sensation that extended throughout his upper chest accompanied by the sharp smell of rubbing alcohol. He opened his eyes, startled to find that he was sitting up in a bed, pillows supporting his back. He was in a woman's bedroom. A dressing table with a low, gold-rimmed chair against the wall stood on his left. A profusion of lotions and perfumes were in small ornate bottles in front of a large three-sided mirror bordered with tiny bulbs. Tall windows flanked the table, the cascading peach-coloured curtains made of a translucent material that virtually shouted—as did the rest of the rococo furniture—a hefty decorator's fee. A satin chaise-lounge was in front of the far window, beside it a small telephone table-cum-magazine rack with a top of rose marble. The wall directly in front of the bed, some twenty feet away, consisted of a long row of mirrored cupboards. On his right, beyond the bedside table, was an ivory-coloured writing desk with another gold-rimmed chair—and then the longest single bureau he had ever seen; it was lacquered peach—peche, as Manny Weingrass would insist upon—and extended the entire length of the wall. The floor was covered with soft thick white carpeting, the pile of which appeared capable of massaging the bare feet of anyone walking across it if he dared. The only item lacking was a mirror over the bed.

  The sculptured door was closed, yet he could hear voices beyond it, a man's and a woman's. He turned his wrist to look at his watch; it was gone. Where was he? How did he get here? Oh, Christ! The airport concourse… He was slammed into a car—two rushing cars—and a c
rowd had gathered around him until, limping, he was led away. Azra! Azra was waiting for him at the Aradous Hotel!… And MacDonald! Gone! Oh, my God, everything's blown apart! Close to panic, only vaguely aware of the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows, he threw off the sheet and climbed out of bed, unsteady, wincing, gritting his teeth with each move he made, but he could move and that was all that mattered. He was also naked and suddenly the door opened.

  'I'm glad you could get up,' said the olive-skinned woman as Kendrick lurched back to the bed and the peche sheet while she closed the door. 'It confirms the doctor's diagnosis; he just left. He said you were badly banged up but the X rays showed no broken bones.'

  'X rays? Where are we and who the hell are you, lady?'

  'You don't remember me, then?'

  'If this,' exclaimed Evan angrily, sweeping his hand over the room, 'is your modest pied-d-terre in Bahrain, I assure you I've never seen it before. It's not a place one easily forgets.'

  'It's not mine,' said Khalehla, shaking her head with a trace of a smile and walking to the foot of the bed. 'It belongs to a member of the royal family, a cousin of the Emir, an elderly man with a young wife—his youngest—both of whom are in London. He's quite ill, which accounts for the medical equipment in the basement, a great deal of equipment. Rank and money have their privileges everywhere, but especially here in Bahrain. Your friend the sultan of Oman made this possible for you.'

  'But someone had to make it possible for him to know what happened—for him to make it possible!'

  'That was me, of course—'

  'I do know you,' interrupted Kendrick, frowning. 'I just can't remember where or how.'

  'I wasn't dressed like this, and we saw each other under equally unpleasant circumstances. In Masqat, in a dark, filthy alleyway that serves as a street—'

  'Rot town!' cried Evan, eyes wide, head rigid. 'Slime town. El-Baz. You're the woman with the gun; you tried to kill me.'

  'No, not true. I was protecting myself from four thugs, three men and a girl.'

  Kendrick briefly closed his eyes. 'I remember that. A kid in cut-off khakis holding his arm.'

  'He wasn't a kid,' objected Khalehla. 'He was a drug addict as stretched out as his girlfriend and they both would have killed me to pay their Arab suppliers for what they needed. I was following you, nothing more, nothing less. Information, that's my job.'

  'For whom?'

  'The people I work for.'

  'How did you know about me?'

  'That I won't answer.'

  'Whom do you work for?'

  'In the broad sense, an organization that seeks to find solutions for the multiple horrors of the Middle East.'

  'Israeli?'

  'No,' replied Khalehla calmly. 'My roots are Arab.'

  'That doesn't tell me a damn thing but it sure scares me.'

  'Why? Is it so impossible for an American to think we Arabs might want to find equitable solutions?'

  'I've just come from the embassy in Masqat. What I saw there wasn't pretty—Arab pretty.'

  'Nor to us. However, may I quote an American congressman who said on the floor of the House of Representatives that “a terrorist isn't born, he's made.”'

  Astonished, Evan looked hard at the woman. 'That was the only comment I ever made for the Congressional Record. The only one.'

  'You did so after a particularly vicious speech by a congressman from California who practically called for the wholesale slaughter of all Palestinians living in what he termed Eretz Israel.'

  'He didn't know Eretz from Biarritz! He was a WASP grubber who thought he was losing the Jewish vote in Los Angeles. He told me that himself the day before. He mistook me for an ally thinking that I'd approve—goddamn it, he winked at me!'

  'Do you still believe what you said?'

  'Yes,' replied Kendrick hesitantly, as if questioning his own response. 'No one who's walked through the squalor of the refugee camps can think anything remotely normal can come out of them. But what I saw in Masqat went too far. Forget about the screaming and the wild chants, there was something ice cold, a methodical brutality that thrived on itself. Those animals were enjoying themselves.'

  'The majority of those young animals never had a home. Their earliest memories are of wandering through the filth of the camps trying to find enough to eat, or clothes for their younger brothers and sisters. Only a pitiful few have any skills, even basic schooling. These things were not available to them. They were outcasts in their own land.'

  'Tell that to the children of Auschwitz and Dacha!' said Evan in quiet, cold fury. 'These people are alive. They're part of the human race.'

  'Checkmate, Mr. Kendrick. I have no answer, only shame.'

  'I don't want your shame. I want to get out of here.'

  'You're in no condition to continue what you were doing. Look at you. You're exhausted, and on top of that you've been severely damaged.'

  The sheet across his waist, Kendrick supported himself on the edge of the bed. He spoke slowly. 'I had a gun, a knife and a watch among several other valuable items. I'd like them back, please.'

  'I think we should discuss the situation—’

  'There's nothing to discuss,' said the congressman. 'Absolutely nothing.'

  'Suppose I were to tell you we've found Tony MacDonald?'

  'Tony?'

  'I work from Cairo. I wish I could say we were on to him months ago, perhaps years ago, but it wouldn't be true. The first inkling I had was early this morning, before daybreak in fact. He followed me in a car with no headlights—'

  'On the road above the Jabal Sham?' asked Evan, interrupting.

  'Yes.'

  'Then you're Crawly or something like that. Cawley the—enemy, among other things.'

  'My name is Khalehla, the first two syllables pronounced like the French seaport Calais; and I am indeed his enemy, but not the other things which I can easily imagine.'

  'You were following me.' A statement.

  'Yes.'

  'Then you knew about the “escape”.'

  'Again, yes.'

  'Ahmat?'

  'He trusts me. We go back a long time.'

  'Then he must trust the people you work for.'

  'I can't answer that. I said he trusts me.'

  'That's a corkscrew statement—two corkscrew statements.'

  'It's a corkscrew situation.'

  'Where's Tony?'

  'Holed up in a room at the Tylos Hotel on Government Road under the name of Strickland.'

  'How did you find him?'

  'Through the taxi company. On the way he stopped at a sporting goods store suspected of selling illegal weapons. He's armed… Let's say the driver was co-operative.'

  '“Let's say”?'

  'It'll suffice. If MacDonald makes a move, you'll be informed immediately. He's already made eleven phone calls.'

  'To whom?'

  'The numbers were unpublished. A man will go over to the Central Exchange in an hour or so when the calling lets up and get the names. They'll be given to you as soon as he has them and can reach an official or a public phone.'

  'Thanks. I need those numbers.'

  Khalehla pulled over the small rococo chair in front of the dressing table and sat down opposite Kendrick. 'Tell me what you're doing, Congressman. Let me help.'

  'Why should I? You won't give me my gun or my knife or my watch—or a certain piece of clothing you've probably sold by now. You won't even tell me whom you work for.'

  'As to your gun, your knife, your watch and your wallet, and a money belt with some fifty thousand American dollars, and your gold cigarette lighter, and a squashed pack of not-for-export American cigarettes—which was very foolish of you—you may have them all if you'll just convince me that what you're doing won't result in the slaughter of two hundred and thirty-six Americans in Masqat. We Arabs can't tolerate that possibility; we're despised enough for the horrible things we can't control. As to whom I work for, why should it matter to you any more than it d
oes to your friend and my friend, Ahmat? You trust him, he trusts me. So you can trust me, too. A equals B equals C. A therefore equals C. Incidentally, your clothes have been fumigated, laundered and pressed. They're in the first closet on the left.'

  Evan, perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed, stared at the intense young woman, his lips slightly parted. 'That's a hell of a mouthful, lady. I'll have to think about your alphabetical logic.'

  'I don't know your schedule, but you can't have much time.'

  'Between eleven-thirty and midnight tonight,' said Kendrick, with no intention of revealing anything but a time span. 'A young man was with me on the plane. He's a terrorist from the embassy in Masqat.'

  'He registered at the Aradous Hotel on the Wadi Al Ahd as “T. Farouk”.'

  'How…?'

  'Another co-operative driver,' answered Khalehla, permitting herself a broader smile. '“Let's say,'” she added.

  'Whoever you work for has a lot of input in a lot of places.'

  'Oddly enough, the people I work for have nothing to do with it. They wouldn't go this far.'

  'But you did.'

  'I had to. Personal reasons; they're off limits, too.'

  'You're something, Cawley.'

  'Khalehla—Kah-lay-la—in English. Why don't you call your friend at the Aradous? He bought clothes at the hotel and also got a haircut. I assume these were your instructions. But call him; relieve his mind.'

  'You're almost too co-operative—like the drivers.'

  'Because I'm not your enemy and I want to co-operate. Call Ahmat, if you wish. He'll tell you the same thing. Incidentally, like you, I have the triple five number.'

  It was as if an unseen veil had been lifted off the Arab woman's face, a lovely, striking face, thought Evan as he studied the large brown eyes that held such care and curiosity in them. Yet still he swore silently at himself for being the amateur, not knowing who was real and who was false!

  Between eleven-thirty and midnight. That was the zero hour, the 30-minute span when he would catch a link, the link to the Mahdi. Could he trust this terribly efficient female who told him only so much and no more? Then again, could he do it himself? She had the triple five number… how did she get it? Suddenly, the room started to spin around, the sunlight through the windows became a sprayed burst of orange. Where were the windows?