The Icarus Agenda

by Ludlum, Robert

  It was planned, thought Evan. The timing was chosen to startle the nation as it woke up across the country, bulletins mandatory throughout the day.

  Why?

  What was remarkable were the facts revealed—as remarkable for what they omitted as for those they paraded. They were astonishingly accurate, down to such points as his having been flown to Oman under deep cover and spirited out of the airport in Masqat by intelligence agents who had provided him with Arab garments and even the skin-darkening gel that made his features compatible with the 'area of operations'. Christ! Area of operations!

  There were sketchy, often hypothesized details of contacts he made with men he had known in the past, the names scissored out—black spaces in the memorandum for obvious reasons. There was a paragraph dealing with his voluntary internment in a terrorist compound where he nearly lost his life, but where he learned the names he had to know in order to trace the men behind the Palestinian fanatics at the embassy, specifically one name—name scissored out, a black space in the copy. He had tracked down that man—scissored out, a black space—and forced him to dismantle the terrorist cadre occupying the embassy in Masqat. That pivotal man was shot—details scissored out, a black paragraph— and Evan Kendrick, representative from the ninth district of Colorado, was returned under protective cover to the United States.

  Experts had been summoned to examine the photographs. Each print was subjected to spectrographic analysis for authenticity with respect to the age of the negative and the possibility of laboratory alterations. Everything was confirmed, even down to the day and the date extracted from 20 X magnification of a newspaper carried by a pedestrian in the streets of Masqat. The more responsible papers noted the lack of alternative sources that might or might not lend credibility to the facts as they were sketchily presented, but none could question the photographs or the identity of the man in them. And that man, Congressman Evan Kendrick, was nowhere to be found to confirm or deny the incredible story. The New York Times and the Washington Post unearthed what few friends and neighbours they could find in the capital as well as in Virginia and Colorado. None could recall having seen or heard from the congressman during the period in question fourteen months ago—not that they would necessarily have expected to, which in itself meant that they probably would have remembered if he had been in touch with them.

  The Los Angeles Times went further and, without revealing its sources, ran a telephone check on Mr. Kendrick. Apart from calls to various local shops and a certain James Olsen, a gardener, only five possibly relevant calls were made from the congressman's residence in Virginia over a four-week period. Three were to the Arabian Studies departments at Georgetown and Princeton universities, one to a diplomat from the Arab Emirate of Dubai, who had returned home seven months before, and the fifth to an attorney in Washington, who refused to talk to the press. Relevance be damned, the bird dogs were pointing even though the quarry had disappeared.

  The less responsible papers, which meant most of those without the resources to finance extensive investigations, and all of the tabloids, which did not care a whit about verification, if they could spell it, had a pseudo-journalistic field day. They took the exposed maximum-classified memorandum and used it as a springboard for the wild waters of heroic speculation, knowing their issues would be grabbed by their unsceptical readership. Words in print are more often than not words of truth to the uninformed—a patronizing judgment, to be sure, but all too true.

  What was missing in every one of the stones, however, were truths, deep truths, that went beyond the astonishingly accurate revelations. There was no mention of a brave young sultan of Oman, who had risked his life and lineage to help him. Or of the Omanis who had guarded him both at the airport and in the back streets of Masqat. Or of a strange and strikingly professional woman who had rescued him in a congested concourse of another airport in Bahrain after he had been nearly killed, who had found him sanctuary and a doctor who ministered to his wounds. Above all, there was not a word about the Israeli unit, led by a Mossad officer, who had saved him from a death that still made him shiver in horror. Or even of another American, an elderly architect from the Bronx, without whom he would have been dead a year ago, his remains expunged by the sharks of Qatar.

  Instead, a common theme ran through all the articles. Everything Arab was tainted with the brush of inhuman brutality and terrorism. The very word Arab was synonymous with ruthlessness and barbarism, not a vestige of decency allowed to a whole people. The longer Evan studied the newspapers, the angrier he became. Suddenly, in a burst of fury, he swept them all off the bed.

  Why?

  Who?

  And then he felt a hollow, terrible pain in his chest Ahmat! Oh, my God, what had he done? Would the young sultan understand, could he understand? By omission—by silence—the American media had condemned the entire country of Oman, leaving to insidious speculation its Arab impotence in the face of terrorists, or worse, its Arab complicity in the wanton, savage killing of American citizens.

  He had to call his young friend, reach him and tell him that he had no control over what had happened Kendrick sat on the edge of the bed, he grabbed the telephone while reaching into his trousers pocket for his wallet, balancing the phone under his chin as he extracted his credit card. Not remembering the sequence of numbers to reach Masqat, he dialled 0 for an operator. Suddenly the dial tone disappeared and for a moment he panicked, his eyes wide, glancing around at the windows.

  'Yeah, twenty-three' came the hoarse male voice over the line.

  'I was trying to call the operator.'

  'You dial even an area code you get the board here.'

  'I . . . I have to make an overseas call,' stammered Evan, bewildered.

  'Not on this phone you don't.'

  'On a credit card. How do I get an operator—I'm charging it to my credit card number.'

  'I'll listen in till I hear you give the number and it's accepted for real, understand?'

  He did not understand. Was it a trap? Had he been traced to a run-down motel in Woodbridge, Virginia? 'I don't really think that's acceptable,' he said haltingly. 'It's a private communication.'

  'Fancy that,' replied the voice derisively. 'Then go find yourself a pay phone. There's one at the diner about five miles down the road. Ta-ta, asshole, I've been stuck enough—'

  'Wait a minute! All right, stay on the line. But when the operator clears it, I want to hear you click off, okay?'

  'Well, actually, I was gonna call Louella Parsons.'

  'Who?'

  'Forget it, asshole. I'm dialling. People who stay all day are either sex freaks or shooting up.'

  Somewhere in the far reaches of the Persian Gulf an English-speaking, Arabic-accented operator volunteered that there was no exchange in Masqat, Oman, with the prefix 555. 'Dial it, please!' insisted Evan, adding a more plaintive 'Please.'

  Eight rings passed until he heard Ahmat's harried voice. 'Iwah?'

  'It's Evan, Ahmat,' said Kendrick in English. 'I have to talk to you—'

  'Talk to me?' exploded the young sultan. 'You've got the balls to call me, you bastard?'

  'You know, then? About—what they're saying about me.'

  'Know? One of the nicer things about being a rich kid is that I've got dishes on the roof that pick up whatever I want from wherever I want! I've even got an edge on you, ya Shaikh. Have you seen the reports from over here and the Middle East? From Bahrain and Riyadh, from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv?'

  'Obviously not. I've only seen these—’

  'They're all the same garbage, a nice pile for you to sit on! Do well in Washington, just don't come back here.'

  'But I want to come back. I am coming back!'

  'Don't, not to this part of the world. We can read and we can hear and we watch television. You did it all by yourself! You stuck it to the Arabs'. Get out of my memory, you son of a bitch!'

  'Ahmat!'

  'Out, Evan! I would never have believed it of you. Do you become power
ful in Washington by calling us all animals and terrorists? Is that the only way?'

  'I never did that, I never said it!'

  'Your world did! The way it keeps saying it again and again and again, until it's pretty fucking obvious you want us all in chains! And the latest goddamned scenario is yours!'

  'No!' protested Kendrick, shouting. 'Not mine!'

  'Read your press. Watch it!'

  'That's the press, not you and me!'

  'You are you—one more arrogant bastard within your blind, holier-than-thou Judaeo-Christian hypocrisies—and I am me, an Islamic Arab. And you won't spit on me any longer!'

  'I never would, never could—'

  'Nor on my brothers, whose lands you decreed should be stolen from them, forcing whole villages to abandon their homes and their jobs and their insignificantly small businesses—small and insignificant but theirs for generations!'

  'For Christ's sake, Ahmat, you're sounding like one of them!'

  'No kidding?' said the young sultan, both anger and sarcasm in his words. 'By “them” I assume you mean like a kid from one of those thousands upon thousands of families marched under guns into camps fit for pigs. For pigs, not families! Not for mothers and fathers and children!… Good gracious, Mr. All-knowing, eminently fair American. If I sound like one of them, gosh, I'm sorry! And I'll tell you what else I'm sorry about: I got here so late. I understand so much more today than I did yesterday.'

  'What the hell does that mean?'

  'I repeat. Read your press, watch your television, listen to your radio. Are you superior people getting ready to nuke all the dirty Arabs so you won't have to contend with us any more? Or are you going to leave it to your cool pals in Israel who tell you what to do anyway? You'll simply give them the bombs.'

  'Now, just hold it!' cried Kendrick. 'Those Israelis saved my life!'

  'You're damned right they did, but you were incidental! You were just a bridge to what they really flew in here for.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'I might as well tell you because no one else will, nobody's going to print that. They didn't give a shit about you, Mr. Hero. That unit came here to get one man out of the embassy, a Mossad agent, a high-ranking strategist posing as a naturalized American under contract to the State Department.'

  'Oh, my God,' whispered Evan. 'Did Weingrass know?'

  'If he did he kept his mouth shut. He forced them to go after you in Bahrain. That's how they saved your life. It wasn't planned. They don't give a goddamn about anyone or anything but themselves. The Jews! Just like you, Mr. Hero.'

  'Damn it, listen to me, Ahmat! I'm not responsible for what's happened here, for what's been printed in the papers or what's on television. It's the last thing I wanted—’

  'Bullshit!' broke in the young Harvard alumnus and sultan of Oman. 'None of it could have been reported without you. I learned things I had no idea about. Who are these intelligence agents of yours running around my country? Who are all those contacts you reached?'

  'Mustapha, for one!'

  'Killed. Who flew you in under cover without apprising me? I run the goddamn place; who has the right? Am I a fucking “aggie” in the game of marbles?'

  'Ahmat, I don't know about these things. I only knew I had to get there.'

  'And I'm incidental? Wasn't I to be trusted?… Of course not, I'm an Arab!'

  'Now that's bullshit. You were being protected.'

  'From what? An American-Israeli cover-up?'

  'Oh, for Christ's sake, stop it! I didn't know anything about a Mossad agent at the embassy until you just told me. If I did I would have told you! And while we're at it, my sudden young fanatic, I had nothing to do with the refugee camps or marching families into them under guns—'

  'You all did!' shouted the sultan of Oman. 'One genocide for another, but we had nothing to do with the other! Out!'

  The line went dead. A good man and a good friend who had been instrumental in saving his life was gone from his life. As were his plans to return to a part of the world he dearly loved.

  Before he showed himself in public, he had to find out what had happened and who had made it happen and why! He had to start somewhere and that somewhere was the State Department and a man named Frank Swann. A frontal assault on State was, of course, out of the question. The minute he identified himself alarms would go off and insofar as his face was seen repeatedly, ad nauseam, on television and half Washington was searching for him, his every move had to be carefully thought out. First things first: how to reach Swann without Swann or his office knowing it. His office? Evan remembered. A year ago he had walked into Swann's office and spoken to a secretary, giving her several words in Arabic so as to convey the urgency of his visit. She had disappeared into another office and ten minutes later he and Swann were talking in the underground computer complex. That secretary was not only efficient but also exceedingly protective, as apparently were most secretaries in serpentine Washington. And since that protective secretary was very much aware of one Congressman Kendrick whom she had spoken to a year ago, she just might be receptive to another voice also protective of her boss. It was worth a try; it was also the only thing he could think of. He picked up the phone, dialled the 202 area code for Washington, and waited for the hoarse manager of The Three Bears motel to come on the line.

  'Consular Operations, Director Swann's office,' said the secretary.

  'Hi, this is Ralph over in ID,' began Kendrick. 'I've got some news for Frank.'

  ‘Who’s this?'

  'It's okay, I'm a friend of Frank's. I just want to tell him that there may be an inter-division meeting called for later this afternoon—’

  'Another one? He doesn't need that.'

  'How's his schedule?'

  'Overworked! He's in conference until four o'clock.'

  'Well, if he doesn't want to be put on the grill again maybe he should have a short day and drive home early.'

  'Drive? Him? He'll parachute into the jungles of Nicaragua but he won't take chances in Washington traffic.'

  'You know what I mean. Things are a little jumpy around here. He could be put on the spit.'

  'He's been on it since six this morning.'

  'Just trying to help out a buddy.'

  'Actually, he's got a doctor's appointment,' said the secretary suddenly.

  'He does?'

  'He does now. Thanks, Ralph.'

  'I never called you.'

  'Of course not, sweetie. Someone in ID was just checking schedules.'

  Evan stood in the crowd waiting for a bus at the corner of Twenty-first Street within clear sight of the entrance to the Department of State. After speaking to Swann's secretary, he had left the cabin and driven rapidly up to Washington, stopping briefly at a shopping mall in Alexandria, where he bought dark glasses, a wide-brimmed canvas fishing hat and a soft cloth jacket. It was 3:48 in the afternoon; if the secretary had pursued her protective inclinations, Frank Swann, deputy director of Consular Operations, would be coming out of the huge glass doors within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.

  He did. At 4:03 and in a hurry, turning left on the pavement away from the bus stop. Kendrick rushed out of the crowd and started after the man from the State Department, staying thirty feet behind him, wondering what means of transportation the nondriving Swann would take. If he intended to walk, Kendrick would stop him somewhere they could talk undisturbed.

  He was not going to walk; he was about to take a bus heading east on Virginia Avenue. Swann joined several others waiting for the same vehicle now lumbering rapidly down the street towards the stop. Evan hurried to the corner; he could not allow the Cons Op director to get on that bus. He approached Swann and touched his shoulder. 'Hello, Frank,' said Kendrick pleasantly, taking off the dark glasses.

  'You!' shouted the astonished Swann, startling the other passengers as the doors of the bus cracked open.

  'Me,' admitted Evan quietly. 'I think we'd better talk.'

  'Good Christ! You've go
t to be out of your mind!'

  'If I am, you've driven me there, even if you don't drive—’

  It was as far as their brief conversation got, for suddenly an odd voice filled the street, echoing off the side of the bus. 'It's him?' roared a strange-looking, dishevelled man with wide, popping eyes and long, wild hair that fell over his ears and his forehead. 'See! Look! It's him! Commando Kendrick! I seen him all day long on the television—I got seven televisions in my apartment! Nothin' goes on I don't know about! It's him!'

  Before Evan could react the man grabbed the fishing hat off his head. 'Hey!' shouted Kendrick.

  'See! Look! Him!'

  'Let's get out of here!' cried Swann.

  They started running up the street, the odd-looking man in pursuit, his baggy trousers flopping in the wind he created, Evan's hat in his hand, his arms flailing.

  'He's following us!' said the Cons Op director, looking back.

  'He's got my hat!' said Kendrick.

  Two blocks later, a doddering, blue-haired lady with a cane was climbing out of a cab. 'There!' yelled Swann. 'The taxi!' Dodging traffic, they raced across the wide avenue. Evan climbed in the near door as the man from the State Department ran around the back to the far side; he helped the elderly passenger out and inadvertently kicked the cane with his foot. It fell to the pavement; so did the blue-haired lady. 'Sorry, dear,' said Swann, jumping into the back seat.

  'Let's go!' yelled Kendrick. 'Hurry up! Get out of here!'

  'You clowns hold up a bank or somethin'?' said the driver, shifting into gear.

  'You'll be richer for it if you'll just hurry,' added Evan. " 'I'm hurryin', I'm hurryin'. I ain't got no pilot's licence. I gotta stay earthbound, y'know what I mean?'

  As one, Kendrick and Swann whipped around to look out of the rear window. Back at the corner the odd-looking man with the wild hair and baggy trousers was writing something down on a newspaper, Evan's hat now on his head. 'The name of the company and the cab's number,' said the Cons Op director quietly. 'Wherever we're going, we'll have to switch vehicles at least a block behind this one.'