“I’ll convince him.”
“Then you’ll hear for yourself.”
“But you know him! Who is he?”
Varak got out of the chair, his hands pressed in front of him. “Again, we are off limits, Miss Rashad. But I’ll tell you this much. He’s the reason I must leave. He’s human filth, whatever words you care to use … and he’s mine. I’ll scour this city all night until I find him, and if I don’t, I know where I can find him, tomorrow or the next day. I repeat, he’s mine.”
“A jaremat thaár, Mr. Milos?”
“I do not speak Arabic, Miss Rashad.”
“But you know what it means, I’ve told you.”
“Good night,” said the Czech, going to the door.
“My uncle wants to know how you got the Oman file. I don’t think he’ll stop hunting you down until he finds out.”
“We all have our priorities,” said Varak, turning, his hand on the knob. “Right now his and yours are in San Diego and mine are elsewhere. Tell him that he has nothing to fear from my source. He would go to his grave before endangering one of your people, one of our people.”
“Goddamn you, he already has! Evan Kendrick!” The telephone rang; they both whipped their heads around, staring at it. Khalehla picked it up. “Yes?”
“It happened!” cried Payton in Langley, Virginia. “Oh, my God, they did it!”
“What is it?”
“The Larnaca Hotel on Cyprus! The west wing was blown up; there’s nothing left, just debris. The Secretary of State’s dead, they’re all dead!”
“The hotel on Cyprus,” repeated Khalehla, looking at the Czech, her voice a frightened monotone. “It was blown up, the Secretary’s dead, they’re all dead.…”
“Give me that phone!” roared Varak, rushing across the room and grabbing it. “Did no one check the cellars, the air-conditioning ducts, the structural underpinnings?”
“The Cypriot security forces claimed they checked everything—”
“Cypriot security?” yelled the furious Czech. “It’s riddled with a dozen hostile elements! Fools, fools, fools!”
“Do you want my job, Mr. A?”
“I wouldn’t take it,” said Varak, controlling his anger, lowering his voice. “I do not work with amateurs,” he added contemptuously, hanging up and going to the door. He turned and spoke to Khalehla. “What was needed here today were the brains of Kendrick of Oman. He would have been the first to tell all of you what to do, what to look for. And you probably would not have listened to him.” The Czech opened the door, let himself out and slammed it shut.
The telephone rang. “He’s gone,” said Rashad, picking it up, knowing instinctively who was on the line.
“I offered him my job, but he made it clear that he didn’t work with amateurs.… Strange, isn’t it? A man without any credentials that we know about alerts us, and we blow it. And a year ago we send Kendrick to Oman and he does what five hundred professionals from at least six countries couldn’t do. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it.… I’m getting old.”
“No way, MJ!” cried the agent from Cairo. “They happen to be bright guys and they hit jackpots, that’s all. You’ve done more than they’ll ever do!”
“I’d like to believe that, but tonight’s pretty horrible for whatever ego I’ve got left.”
“Which should be a bunch!… But it’s also a good moment for me to explain that insubordinate remark I made to you a few minutes ago.”
“Please do. I’m receptive. I’m not even sure I have a hell of a lot of breath left.”
“Whomever Milos works for, they want nothing from Evan. When I pressed him, he pointed out the obvious. If they made any demands on him, he’d throw them to the wolves, and he’s right, Evan would.”
“I also agree. So what does he want?”
“To back off and let events take their course. They want us to let the race go on.”
“Evan won’t run—”
“He may when he learns about the black knights who are running things in California. Say we stop them; there are hundreds more waiting to take their places. Milos is right, a voice is needed.”
“But what do you say, niece?”
“I want him alive, not dead. He can’t go back to the Emirates—he may convince himself that he can, but he’d be killed the moment he got off the plane. And he can’t vegetate in Mesa Verde, not with his energy and imagination—that’s a form of death, too, you know.… The country could do worse, MJ.”
“Fools, fools!” whispered Varak to himself as he dialed while studying a diagram of the Vanvlanderen suite in his hand; there were small red Xs marked in each room. Seconds later a voice was on the other end of the line.
“Yes?”
“Sound Man?”
“Prague?”
“I need you.”
“I can always use your money. You roll high.”
“Pick me up in thirty minutes, the service entrance. I’ll explain what I want you to do on the way to your studio.… There are no changes in the diagram?”
“No. You found the key?”
“Thank you for both.”
“You paid. Thirty minutes.”
The Czech hung up the phone and looked at the packed recording equipment in front of the door. He had listened to Rashad’s interview with Ardis Vanvlanderen, and despite his anger over the tragedy of the Secretary of State’s death, he had smiled—grimly, to be sure—at the bold strategy employed by the field agent from Cairo and her superior. Based on what they had learned, they had gambled on the presumed truth of Andrew Vanvlanderen’s actions and turned it into an irresistible lie: Palestinian hit teams, the target Bollinger, Kendrick never even mentioned! Brilliant! The appearance of Eric Sundstrom within two hours after Rashad’s astonishing, convoluted information—an appearance designed to trap a traitor of Inver Brass and not based on any presumption of Vanvlanderen’s guilt—had been the combined detonations that blew apart the cemented structure of deceit in San Diego. One took things where one could find them.
Varak went to the door, opened it cautiously and slipped out into the corridor. He walked rapidly to the Vanvlanderen suite down the hall and, with the key provided by the Sound Man, let himself inside, the diagram still in his hand. With swift catlike strides he went from room to room removing the tiny electronic intercepts from their recesses—under tables and chairs, secreted beneath the deep cushions of the sofa, behind mirrors in the four bedrooms, under the medicine cabinets in the various bathrooms, and inside two burners in the kitchen. He left the widow’s office for last, counting the red Xs, satisfied that he had collected every tap so far. The office was dark; he found the desk lamp and switched it on. Ten seconds later he pocketed the four intercepts, three from the office itself, one from the small attached bathroom, and concentrated on the desk. He looked at his watch; the dismantling operation had taken nine minutes, leaving him at least fifteen to examine Mrs. Vanvlanderen’s domestic inner sanctum.
He started with the desk drawers, pulling one out after another, riffling through meaningless papers devoted to vice presidential trivia—schedules, letters from individuals and institutions deemed worthy of answering someday, position papers from the White House, State, Defense and various other administrative agencies that had to be studied so they could be explained to Orson Bollinger. There was nothing of value, nothing at all related to the subterranean manipulations taking place in southern California.
He looked around the large paneled office, at the bookshelves, the graceful furniture and at the framed photographs on the walls … photographs. There were over twenty of them scattered about the dark paneling in crisscrossing patterns. He walked over and began examining them, snapping on a table lamp for better light. They were the usual collection of self-aggrandizing pictures showing Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Vanvlanderen in the company of political heavyweights, from the President on down through the upper ranks of the administration and Congress. Then on the adjacent wall were photographs of the widow h
erself without her late husband. Judging from appearances, these were obviously from Ardis Vanvlanderen’s past, a personal testimonial that made clear her past was not inconsequential. Expensive cars, yachts, ski slopes and luxurious furs predominated.
Varak was about to abandon the panoply of conceit when his eyes fell on an enlarged candid shot obviously taken in Lausanne, Switzerland, Lake Geneva’s northern Leman Marina in the background. Milos studied the face of the dark-skinned man standing beside the effervescent center of attraction. He knew that face but he could not place it. Then, as if following a scent, the Czech’s eyes roamed down to the lower right, to another enlarged snapshot also taken in Lausanne, this in the gardens of the Beau-Rivage Palace. There was the same man again—who was he? And next to it yet another, now in Amsterdam, in the Rozengracht, the same two subjects. Who was that man? Concentrate! Images came, fragments of elusive impressions but no name. Riyadh … Medina, Saudi Arabia. A shocked and furious Saudi family … a scheduled execution, then an escape. Millions upon millions had been involved … eight to ten years ago. Who was he? Varak considered taking one of the photographs, then instinctively knew he should not. Whoever the man was, he represented another telling aspect of the machine built around Orson Bollinger. A missing photograph of that face might send out alarms.
Milos turned off the table lamp and started back toward the desk. It was time to leave, to get his equipment and meet the Sound Man down in the street outside the service entrance. He reached for the dome-shaped lamp on the desk when suddenly he heard the door opening in the foyer. Swiftly he turned off the light and moved to the office door, partially closing it so he could slip behind and watch through the space of the hinged panel.
The tall figure came into view, a lone man walking confidently into familiar surroundings. Varak frowned for an instant; he had not thought about the intruder for weeks. It was the red-haired FBI agent from Mesa Verde, a member of the unit assigned to the Vice President at the request of Ardis Vanvlanderen—the man who had led him to San Diego. Milos was momentarily bewildered, but only momentarily. The unit had been recalled to Washington, yet one player had remained behind.… More accurately, one had been bought before Varak had found him in Mesa Verde.
The Czech watched as the redheaded man walked around the living room as if looking for something. He picked up a glass from beneath an ivory-shelled lamp on a table to the left of the couch, then went through a door leading to the kitchen. He returned moments later with a spray can in one hand, a dish-towel in the other. He crossed to the dry bar, where he picked up each bottle separately, spraying each and wiping it clean. He next sprayed the copper rim of the bar top and rubbed it thoroughly with the cloth. From the bar he proceeded to go to every solid piece of furniture in the sunken living room and repeated the cleaning process as if he were purifying the premises. What he was doing was apparent to Varak: the agent was eliminating the forensic presence of Eric Sundstrom, removing the scientist’s fingerprints from the area.
The man put down the spray can and the towel on the coffee table, then casually started across the room … toward the office! The Czech spun silently out from behind the partially closed door and raced into the small bathroom, closing its door, now more than partially, leaving barely an inch between the edge and the frame. As Milos had done, the FBI agent turned on the desk lamp, sat down in the chair and opened the lower right-hand drawer. However, he did something that Varak had not done: he pressed an unseen button. Instantly, the vertical molding of the desk shot out.
“Jesus Christ!” said the red-haired man to himself, his stunned cry a whisper as he peered into an obviously empty recess. Without wasting motion, he reached for the telephone on the desk, virtually ripping it out and dialing. Within seconds he spoke. “It’s not here!” he cried. “No, I’m certain!” he added after a pause. “There’s nothing!… What do you want from me? I followed your instructions and I’m telling you there’s not a goddamned thing!… What? Down the street from your house? All right, I’ll get on it and call you back.” The agent depressed the telephone plate, released it and dialed eleven digits: long distance. “Base Five, this is Blackbird, special assignment San Diego, code six-six-zero. Confirm, please … Thank you. Do we have vehicles in La Jolla I don’t know about?… We don’t.… No, nothing urgent, probably the press. They must have found out the VP is going to an art-show soirée—you got that, soirée—with the fruitcake crowd. He wouldn’t know a Rembrandt from Al Capp, but he’s got to fake it. I’ll check it out, forget it.” Again the lanky red-haired man hung up and redialed. “There’s nothing from our side,” he said quietly, almost immediately. “No, there’s no law that says we have to be told.… CIA? We’d be the last to know.… Okay, I’ll call the airport. Do you want me to reach your pilot?… Whatever you say, then I’m getting out of here. The Agency and the Bureau don’t mix, we never have.” The FBI man hung up as Varak stepped out of the dark bathroom, his thin black automatic in his hand.
“You’re not getting out of here that fast,” said the coordinator of Inver Brass.
“Christ!” screamed the redheaded agent, lunging out of the chair and hurling himself at Varak in the doorway, gripping the Czech’s right wrist with the strength of a panicked animal, propelling Milos back into the wall above the toilet, crashing Varak’s head into the tastefully papered Sheetrock. The Czech straddled the commode in the dark bathroom, whipping his left leg around the man’s torso and vising it while yanking his right hand and gun straight up, half tearing the agent’s left arm out of its socket. It was over; the man collapsed on the floor, gripping his damaged arm as if it were broken.
“Get up,” said Varak, the weapon at his side, not bothering to level it at his prisoner. The red-haired man struggled, wincing while he pulled himself up by the rim of the marble washbasin. “Go back in there and sit down,” ordered Milos, shoving the agent through the door to the desk.
“Who the hell are you?” asked the man breathlessly, plummeting into the chair, still holding his arm.
“We’ve met, but you wouldn’t know about it. A country road in Mesa Verde, west of a certain congressman’s house.”
“That was you?” The agent shot forward, only to be pushed back by Varak.
“When did you sell out, federal man?”
The agent studied Milos in the wash of the desk lamp. “If you’re some kind of naturalized spook from a cross-over unit, you’d better get one thing straight. I’m here on special assignment to the Vice President.”
“A ‘cross-over’ unit? I see you’ve been talking to some very excitable people.… There is no cross-over unit and those vehicles around Grinell’s house were dispatched from Washington—”
“They weren’t! I just checked!”
“Perhaps the Bureau wasn’t informed, or perhaps you were lied to, it doesn’t matter. Like all privileged soldiers from elite organizations, I’m sure you can claim that you were merely following orders, as in removing fingerprints and searching for hidden documents of which you know nothing.”
“I don’t!”
“But you did sell out and that’s all that matters to me. You were prepared to accept money and privileges for services rendered under your official status. Are you also prepared to lose your life for these people?”
“What?”
“Now, you get this straight,” said Varak quietly, raising his automatic and suddenly pressing it into the agent’s forehead. “Whether you live or die means absolutely nothing to me, but there’s a man I must find. Tonight.”
“You don’t know Grinell—”
“Grinell is immaterial to me, leave him to others. The man I want is the one whose fingerprints you so carefully removed from this apartment. You’ll tell me where he is right now or your brains will be all over this desk, and I will not bother to clean them up. The scene will add a further convincing nuance of evil consistent with everything that’s taking place out here.… Where is he?”
His entire body trembling, his breath short
, the red-haired man spat out the words rapidly. “I don’t know and I’m not lying! I was ordered to meet them on a side street near the beach in Coronado. I swear I don’t know where they were going.”
“You just called.”
“It’s a cellular phone. He’s mobile.”
“Who was in Coronado?”
“Just Grinell and this other guy, who told me where he walked and everything he touched here in Vanvlanderen’s place.”
“Where was she?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she was sick or had an accident. There was an ambulance across from Grinell’s limo.”
“But you do know where they’re going. You were about to call the airport. What were your instructions?”
“To have maintenance get the plane ready for takeoff in an hour.”
“Where is the plane?”
“San Diego International. The private strip south of the main runways.”
“What’s the destination?”
“That’s between Grinell and his pilot. He never tells anyone.”
“You offered to call the pilot. What’s his number?”
“Christ, I don’t know! If Grinell wanted me to call him, he would have told me. He didn’t.”
“Give me the cellular number.” The agent did and the Czech committed it to memory. “You’re certain it’s accurate?”
“Go ahead and try it.”
Varak pulled the gun away and replaced it in his shoulder holster. “I heard a term tonight that fits you, federal man. Scum-rotten, that’s what you are. But as I said, you’re of no consequence to me, so I’m going to let you go. Perhaps you can start building your defenses as the obedient soldier betrayed by his superiors, or perhaps you’d be better off heading to Mexico and points south. I don’t know and I don’t care. But if you call that mobile phone, you’re a dead man. Do you understand that?”
“I just want to get out of here,” said the agent, bolting out of the chair and running into the sunken living room toward the marble steps and the foyer door.
The Icarus Agenda Page 66
