The Icarus Agenda: A Novel

  A traffic accident had taken place at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Virginia Avenue. It was not major in terms of damage or injury, but it was far from minor where tempers were concerned. A taxi had collided with a government limousine emerging from an underground parking ramp of the State Department. Both drivers—righteous, hot, and fearing their superiors—stood by their vehicles accusing each other, yelling in the blistering heat while awaiting the police who had been summoned by a passing government employee. Within moments the traffic was congested; horns blared and angry shouts came from reluctantly opened windows.

  The passenger in the cab climbed impatiently out of the backseat. He was a tall, slender man in his early forties, and seemed out of place in surroundings that included summer suits and neat print dresses and attaché cases. He wore a pair of rumpled khaki trousers, boots and a soiled cotton safari jacket that took the place of a shirt. The effect was that of a man who did not belong in the city, a professional guide, perhaps, who had strayed out of the higher and wilder mountains. Yet his face belied his clothes. It was clean-shaven, his features sharp and clearly defined, his light blue eyes aware, squinting, darting about and assessing the situation as he made his decision. He put his hand on the argumentative driver’s shoulder; the man whipped around and the passenger gave him two twenty-dollar bills.

  “I have to leave,” said the fare.

  “Hey, come on, mister! You saw! That son of a bitch pulled out with no horn, no nothin’!”

  “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be able to help you. I didn’t see or hear anything until the collision.”

  “Oh, boy! Big John Q! He don’t see and he don’t hear! Don’t get involved, huh?”

  “I’m involved,” replied the passenger quietly, taking a third twenty-dollar bill and shoving it into the driver’s top jacket pocket. “But not here.”

  The oddly dressed man dodged through the gathering crowd and started down the block toward Third Street—toward the imposing glass doors of the State Department. He was the only person running on the pavement.

  The designated situation room in the underground complex at the Department of State was labeled OHIO-Four-Zero. Translated, it meant “Oman, maximum alert.” Beyond the metal door rows of computers clacked incessantly, and every now and then a machine—having instantaneously cross-checked with the central data bank—emitted a short high-pitched signal announcing new or previously unreported information. Intense men and women studied the printouts, trying to evaluate what they read.

  Nothing. Zero. Madness!

  Inside that large, energized room was another metal door, smaller than the entrance and with no access to the corridor. It was the office of the senior official in charge of the Masqat crisis; at arm’s length was a telephone console with links to every seat of power and every source of information in Washington. The current proprietor was a middle-aged deputy director of Consular Operations, the State Department’s little-known arm of covert activities. His name was Frank Swann, and at the moment—a high noon that held no sunlight for him—his head with its prematurely gray hair lay on his folded arms on the top of the desk. He had not had a night’s sleep in nearly a week, making do with only such naps as this one.

  The console’s sharp hum jarred him awake; his right hand shot out. He punched the lighted button and picked up the phone. “Yes?… What is it?” Swann shook his head and swallowed air, only partially relieved that the caller was his secretary five stories above. He listened, then spoke wearily. “Who? Congressman—a congressman? The last thing I need is a congressman. How the hell did he get my name?… Never mind, spare me. Tell him I’m in conference—with God, if you like—or go one better and say with the secretary.”

  “I’ve prepared him for something like that. It’s why I’m calling from your office. I told him I could only reach you on this phone.”

  Swann blinked. “That’s going some distance for my Praetorian Guard, Ivy-the-terrible. Why so far, Ivy?”

  “It’s what he said, Frank. And also what I had to write down because I couldn’t understand him.”

  “Let’s have both.”

  “He said his business concerned the problem you’re involved with—”

  “Nobody knows what I’m— Forget it. What else?”

  “I wrote it down phonetically. He asked me to say the following: ‘Ma efham zain.’ Does that make any sense to you, Frank?”

  Stunned, Deputy Director Swann again shook his head, trying to clear his mind further, but needing no further clearance for the visitor five floors above. The unknown congressman had just implied in Arabic that he might be of help. “Get a guard and send him down here,” Swann said.

  Seven minutes later the door of the office in the underground complex was opened by a marine sergeant. The visitor walked in, nodding to his escort as the guard closed the door. Swann rose from his desk apprehensively. The “congressman” hardly lived up to the image of any member of the House of Representatives he had ever seen—at least in Washington. He was dressed in boots and khakis and a summer hunting jacket that had taken too much abuse from the spattering of campfire frying pans. Was he an ill-timed joke?

  “Congressman—?” said the deputy director, his voice trailing off for want of a name as he extended his hand.

  “Evan Kendrick, Mr. Swann,” replied the visitor, approaching the desk and shaking hands. “I’m the first-term man from Colorado’s Ninth District.”

  “Yes, of course, Colorado’s Ninth. I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “No apologies are necessary, except perhaps from me—for the way I look. There’s no reason for you to know who I am—”

  “Let me add something here,” interrupted Swann pointedly. “There’s also no reason for you to know who I am, Congressman.”

  “I understand that, but it wasn’t very difficult. Even newly arrived representatives have access—at least, the secretary I inherited does. I knew where to look over here; I just needed to refine the prospects. Someone in State’s Consular Operations—”

  “That’s not a household name, Mr. Kendrick,” interrupted Swann again, again with emphasis.

  “In my house it was once—briefly. Regardless, I wasn’t just looking for a Middle East hand, but an expert in Southwest Arab affairs, someone who knew the language and a dozen dialects fluently. The man I wanted would have to be someone like that.… You were there, Mr. Swann.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “So have you,” said the Congressman, nodding his head at the door and the huge outer office with the banks of computers. “I assume you understood my message or else I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes,” agreed the deputy director. “You said you might be able to help. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know. I only knew I had to offer.”

  “Offer? On what basis?”

  “May I sit down?”

  “Please. I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just tired.” Kendrick sat down; Swann did the same, looking strangely at the freshman politician. “Go ahead, Congressman. Time’s valuable, every minute, and we’ve been concerned with this ‘problem,’ as you described it to my secretary, for a few long, hairy weeks. Now, I don’t know what you’ve got to say or whether it’s relevant or not, but if it is, I’d like to know why it’s taken you so long to get here.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about the events over in Oman. About what’s happened—what’s happening.”

  “That’s damn near impossible to believe. Is the Congressman from Colorado’s Ninth District spending the House recess at a Benedictine retreat?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Or is it possible that a new ambitious congressman who speaks some Arabic,” went on Swann rapidly, quietly, unpleasantly, “who elaborates on a few cloakroom rumors about a certain section over here and decides to insert himself for a little political mileage down the road? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Kendrick sat motionless in the chair, his face without expression, but not his
eyes. They were at once observant and angry. “That’s offensive,” he said.

  “I’m easily offended under the circumstances. Eleven of our people have been killed, mister, including three women. Two hundred thirty-six others are waiting to get their heads blown off! And I ask you if you can really help and you tell me you don’t know, but you have to offer! To me that has the sound of a hissing snake, so I watch my step. You walk in here with a language you probably learned making big bucks with some oil company and figure that entitles you to special consideration—maybe you’re a ‘consultant’; it has a nice ring to it. A freshman pol is suddenly a consultant to the State Department during a national crisis. Whichever way it goes, you win. That’d lift a few hats in Colorado’s Ninth District, wouldn’t it?”

  “I imagine it would if anyone knew about it.”

  “What?” Once again the deputy director stared at the Congressman, not so much in irritation now but because of something else. Did he know him?

  “You’re under a lot of stress so I won’t add to it. But if what you’re thinking is a barrier, let’s get over it. If you decide I might be of some value to you, the only way I’d agree is with a written guarantee of anonymity, no other way. No one’s to know I’ve been here. I never talked to you or anyone else.”

  Nonplussed, Swann leaned back in his chair and brought his hand to his chin. “I do know you,” he said softly.

  “We’ve never met.”

  “Say what you want to say, Congressman. Start somewhere.”

  “I’ll start eight hours ago,” began Kendrick. “I’ve been riding the Colorado white water into Arizona for almost a month—that’s the Benedictine retreat you conjured up for the congressional recess. I passed through Lava Falls and reached a base camp. There were people there, of course, and it was the first time I’d heard a radio in nearly four weeks.”

  “Four weeks?” repeated Swann. “You’ve been out of touch all that time? Do you do this sort of thing often?”

  “Pretty much every year,” answered Kendrick. “It’s become kind of a ritual,” he added quietly. “I go alone; it’s not pertinent.”

  “Some politician,” said the deputy, absently picking up a pencil. “You can forget the world, Congressman, but you still have a constituency.”

  “No politician,” replied Evan Kendrick, permitting himself a slight smile. “And my constituency’s an accident, believe me. Anyway, I heard the news and moved as fast as I could. I hired a river plane to fly me to Flagstaff and tried to charter a jet to Washington. It was too late at night, too late to clear a flight plan, so I flew on to Phoenix and caught the earliest plane here. Those in-flight phones are a marvel. I’m afraid I monopolized one, talking to a very experienced secretary and a number of other people. I apologize for the way I look; the airline provided a razor but I didn’t want to take the time to go home and change clothes. I’m here, Mr. Swann, and you’re the man I want to see. I may be of absolutely no help to you, and I’m sure you’ll tell me if I’m not. But to repeat, I had to offer.”

  While his visitor spoke the deputy had written the name “Kendrick” on the pad in front of him. Actually, he had written it several times, underlining the name. Kendrick. Kendrick. Kendrick. “Offer what?” he asked, frowning and looking up at the odd intruder. “What, Congressman?”

  “Whatever I know about the area and the various factions operating over there. Oman, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar—Masqat, Dubai, Abu Dhabi—up to Kuwait and down to Riyadh. I lived in those places. I worked there. I know them very well.”

  “You lived—worked—all over the Southwest map?”

  “Yes. I spent eighteen months in Masqat alone. Under contract to the family.”

  “The sultan?”

  “The late sultan; he died two or three years ago, I think. But yes, under contract to him and his ministers. They were a tough group and good. You had to know your business.”

  “Then you worked for a company,” said Swann, making a statement, not asking a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Mine,” answered the new congressman.

  “Yours?”

  “That’s right.”

  The deputy stared at his visitor, then lowered his eyes to the name he had written repeatedly on the pad in front of him. “Good Lord,” he said softly. “The Kendrick Group! That’s the connection, but I didn’t see it. I haven’t heard your name in four or five years—maybe six.”

  “You were right the first time. Four, to be exact.”

  “I knew there was something. I said so—”

  “Yes, you did, but we never met.”

  “You people built everything from water systems to bridges—racetracks, housing projects, country clubs, airfields—the whole thing.”

  “We built what we contracted.”

  “I remember. It was ten or twelve years ago. You were the American wonder boys in the Emirates—and I do mean boys. Dozens of you in your twenties and thirties and filled with high tech, piss and vinegar.”

  “Not all of us were that young—”

  “No,” interrupted Swann, frowning in thought. “You had a late-blooming secret weapon, an old Israeli, a whiz of an architect. An Israeli, for heaven’s sake, who could design things in the Islamic style and broke bread with every rich Arab in the neighborhood.”

  “His name was Emmanuel Weingrass—is Manny Weingrass—and he’s from Garden Street in the Bronx in New York. He went to Israel to avoid legal entanglements with his second or third wife. He’s close to eighty now and living in Paris. Pretty well, I gather, from his phone calls.”

  “That’s right,” said the deputy director. “You sold out to Bechtel or somebody. For thirty or forty million.”

  “Not to Bechtel. It was Trans-International, and it wasn’t thirty or forty, it was twenty-five. They got a bargain and I got out. Everything was fine.”

  Swann studied Kendrick’s face, especially the light blue eyes that held within them circles of enigmatic reserve the longer one stared at them. “No, it wasn’t,” he said softly, even gently, his hostility gone. “I do remember now. There was an accident at one of your sites outside Riyadh—a cave-in when a faulty gas line exploded—more than seventy people were killed, including your partners, all your employees, and some kids.”

  “Their kids,” added Evan quietly. “All of them, all their wives and children. We were celebrating the completion of the third phase. We were all there. The crew, my partners—everyone’s wife and child. The whole shell collapsed while they were inside, and Manny and I were outside—putting on some ridiculous clown costumes.”

  “But there was an investigation that cleared the Kendrick Group completely. The utility firm that serviced the site had installed inferior conduit falsely labeled as certified.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “That’s when you packed it all in, wasn’t it?”

  “This isn’t pertinent,” said the Congressman simply. “We’re wasting time. Since you know who I am, or at least who I was, is there anything I can do?”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question? I don’t think it’s a waste of time and I think it is pertinent. Clearances are part of the territory and judgments have to be made. I meant what I said before. A lot of people on the Hill continuously try to make political mileage out of us over here.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Why are you a congressman, Mr. Kendrick? With your money and professional reputation, you don’t need it. And I can’t imagine how you’d benefit, certainly not compared with what you could do in the private sector.”

  “Do all people seeking elective office do so solely for personal gain?”

  “No, of course not.” Swann paused, then shook his head. “Sorry, that’s too glib. It’s a stock answer to a loaded stock question.… Yes, Congressman, in my biased opinion, most ambitious men—and women—who run for such offices do so because of the exposure, and, if they win, the clout. Combined, it all ma
kes them very marketable. Sorry again, this is a cynic talking. But then I’ve been in this city for a long time and I see no reason to alter that judgment. And you confuse me. I know where you come from, and I’ve never heard of Colorado’s Ninth District. It sure as hell isn’t Denver.”

  “It’s barely on the map,” said Kendrick, his voice noncommittal. “It’s at the base of the southwest Rockies, doing pretty much its own thing. That’s why I built there. It’s off the beaten track.”

  “But why? Why politics? Did the boy wonder of the Arab Emirates find a district he could carve out for his own base, a political launching pad maybe?”

  “Nothing could have been further from my mind.”

  “That’s a statement, Congressman. Not an answer.”

  Evan Kendrick was momentarily silent, returning Swann’s gaze. Then he shrugged his shoulders. Swann sensed a certain embarrassment. “All right,” he said firmly. “Let’s call it an aberration that won’t happen again. There was a vacuous, overbearing incumbent who was lining his pockets in a district that wasn’t paying attention. I had time on my hands and a big mouth. I also had the money to bury him. I’m not necessarily proud of what I did or how I did it, but he’s gone and I’ll be out in two years or less. By then I’ll have found someone better qualified to take my place.”

  “Two years?” asked Swann. “Come November it’ll be a year since your election, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you started serving last January?”

  “So?”

  “Well, I hate to disabuse you, but your term of office is for two years. You’ve either got one more year or three, but not two or less.”

  “There’s no real opposition party in the Ninth, but to make sure the seat doesn’t go to the old political machine, I agreed to stand for reelection—then resign.”

  “That’s some agreement.”

  “It’s binding as far as I’m concerned. I want out.”

  “That’s blunt enough, but it doesn’t take into account a possible side effect.”