The Icarus Agenda: A Novel

  “Don’t talk,” broke in Evan. “Conserve your strength. Please?”

  “Oh, get off it,” replied the old man. “What have I got? Twenty more years and I don’t get laid?”

  “Will you stop it?”

  “No, I won’t stop it. Five years I don’t see you, so we get back together and what happens? You get too attached—to me. What are you, a feygele with a hang-up for old guys?… Don’t answer that, Khalehla will do it for you. You two must have busted your parts last night.”

  “Why don’t you ever talk like a normal person?”

  “Because normalcy bores me, just like you’re beginning to bore me.… Don’t you know what all this shit is about? I brought up a dummy? You can’t figure?”

  “No, I can’t figure, all right?”

  “That lovely girl was on the button. Someone wants to make you very important in this country, and someone else is having bowel movements over the prospect. You can’t see that?”

  “I’m beginning to, and I hope the other guys win. I don’t want to be important.”

  “Maybe you should be. Maybe it’s where you belong.”

  “Who the hell says so? Who thinks so?”

  “The people who don’t want you—you think about that. Khalehla told us that these garbage maniacs who came over here to kill you didn’t just hop on a plane from Paris or walk off a cruise ship. They had help, influential help. How did she put it?… Passports, weapons, money—even driver’s licenses and clothes and hideouts. Those things, especially the paperwork, you don’t pick up at Walgreen’s. They take contacts with power in high places, and the people who can pull those kinds of strings are the bastards who want you dead.… Why? Does the outspoken Congressman pose a threat to them?”

  “How can I be a threat? I’m getting out.”

  “They don’t know that. All they see is a mensch politician who, when he opens his mouth, everybody in Washington shuts up and listens to him.”

  “I don’t talk that much, so the listening’s minor, practically nonexistent.”

  “The point is that when you do talk, they don’t. You got what I call listening credentials. Like I do, frankly.” Weingrass coughed, bringing a trembling hand to his throat. Evan bent over him, concerned.

  “Take it easy, Manny.”

  “Be quiet,” ordered the old man. “You hear what I’ve got to say.… Those bastards see a real American hero who’s awarded a big medal by the President and put on important committees in the Congress—”

  “The committees came before the medal—”

  “Don’t interrupt. After a couple of months the sequence of things blurs—anyway, you just made it stronger. This hero takes on the Pentagon brass over national television before he’s a hero and damn near indicts the whole damned bunch of them as well as all those big industrial complexes who supply the machine. Then what does he do? He demands accountability. Terrific word, ‘accountability’—the bastards all hate it. They’ve got to start sweating, kid. They’ve got to figure that maybe this joker-hero will get more powerful, maybe chair one of those committees, or even get elected to the Senate, where he could do some real damage.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Your girlfriend wasn’t!” countered Weingrass loudly, staring into Kendrick’s eyes. “She told us that her elite group may have tapped into a nerve center higher up in the government than they want to think about.… Doesn’t all this present a blueprint to you, although I admit you were never the hottest shot with a blueprint I ever knew?”

  “Of course it does,” answered Evan, nodding slowly. “There’s no nation in the world that doesn’t have its degrees of corruption, and I doubt there ever will be.”

  “Oh, corruption?” intoned Manny, eyes rolling, as if the word were part of a Talmudic chant. “Like in one guy stealing a buck’s worth of paper clips from the office and another taking a million with a cost overrun, is that what you mean?”

  “Basically, yes. Or ten million, if you like.”

  “Insignificant peanuts!” shouted Weingrass. “Such people do not deal with Palestinian terrorists thousands of miles away for the sole purpose of positively removing themselves from a kill. They wouldn’t know how! Also, you didn’t look into that lovely girl’s eyes, or maybe you don’t know what to look for. You’ve never been there.”

  “She says she knows where you’re coming from because you have been there. All right, I haven’t, so what are you talking about?”

  “When you’re there, you’re scared,” said the old man. “You’re walking toward a black drape that you’re going to pull down. You’re excited; the curiosity’s killing you and so is the fear. All of those things. You try like hell to suppress them, even hide some from yourself, and that’s part of it because you can’t afford to lose an ounce of control. But it’s all there. Because once that drape is yanked away you know you’ll be looking at something so nuts you wonder if anyone will believe it.”

  “You saw all that in her eyes?”

  “Enough, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s getting near the edge, kid.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re not dealing—she’s not dealing—with simple corruption, even terrific corruption. What’s behind that black curtain is a government within the government, a bunch of servants running the master’s house.” The old architect suddenly went into a spasm of coughing, his whole body trembling, his eyes shut tight. Kendrick grabbed his arms; in moments the convulsion was over and Manny blinked again, breathing deeply. “Listen to me, my dumb son,” he whispered. “Help her, really help her, and help Payton. Find the bastards and rip them out!”

  “Of course I will, you know that.”

  “I hate them! That youngster under chemicals, that Ahbyahd you knew in Masqat—we might have been friends in another time. But that time won’t ever come as long as there are bastards who pit ourselves against ourselves because they make billions out of hatred.”

  “It’s not that simple, Manny—”

  “It’s a larger part of it than you think! I’ve seen it!… ‘They have more than you do, so we’ll sell you more than they have’—that’s one of the come-ons. Or ‘They’ll kill you unless you kill them first, so here’s the firepower—for a price.’ It goes right up the goddamned ladder: ‘They spent twenty million on a missile, we’ll spend forty million!’ Do we really want to blow up the fucking planet? Or is everyone listening to lunatics who listen to men who sell hatred and peddle fear?”

  “On that level, it’s that simple,” said Evan, smiling. “I may even have mentioned it myself.”

  “Keep mentioning it, kid. Don’t walk away from that platform we talked about—mainly regarding a certain Herbert Dennison we also talked about who you scared the shit out of. Remember, you got listening credentials like me. Use ’em.”

  “I’ll have to think about it, Manny.”

  “Well, while you’re thinking,” coughed Weingrass, his right hand on his chest, “why don’t you think about why you had to lie to me? You and the doctors, that is.”

  “What?”

  “It’s back, Evan. It’s back and it’s worse because it never went away.”

  “What’s back?”

  “ ‘Big casino,’ I think is the gentle phrase. The cancer’s running rampant.”

  “No, it isn’t. We ran you through a dozen tests. They got it—you’re clean.”

  “Tell that to these little suckers who are choking off my air.”

  “I’m no doctor, Manny, but I don’t think that’s a symptom. During the last thirty-six hours you’ve been through a couple of wars. It’s a wonder you can breathe at all.”

  “Yeah, but while they’re patching me up at the hospital you have them run one of those little checks, and don’t lie to me. There are some people in Paris I’ve got to take care of, some things I’ve got locked away they should have. So don’t lie to me, understand?”

  “I won’t lie to you,” said Kendrick as
the aircraft started its descent into Denver.

  Crayton Grinell was a slender man of medium height and a perpetually gray face made prominent by sharp prominent features. When greeting someone, for the first time or the fiftieth, whether a waiter or a board chairman, the forty-eight-year-old attorney who specialized in international law greeted that person with a shy smile that conveyed warmth. The warmth and the modesty were accepted readily until one looked into Grinell’s eyes. It was not that they were cold, for they were not, yet neither were they particularly friendly; they were expressionless, neutral, the eyes of a cautiously curious cat.

  “Ardis, my dear Ardis,” said the lawyer, walking into the foyer and holding the widow, gently patting her shoulder as one might console a faintly disagreeable aunt who had lost a far more agreeable husband. “What can I say? What can anyone say? Such a loss for us all, but how much more so for you.”

  “It was sudden, Cray. Too sudden.”

  “Of course it was, but we must all look for something positive in our sorrows, mustn’t we? You and he were spared a prolonged and agonizing illness. Since the end must come, it’s better if it’s quick, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose you’re right. Thank you for reminding me.”

  “Not at all.” Disengaging himself, Grinell looked over at Sundstrom, who was standing in the large sunken living room. “Eric, how good to see you,” he said solemnly, walking across the foyer and down the marble steps to shake hands with the scientist. “Somehow it’s right that we both should be with Ardis at a time like this. Incidentally, my men are outside in the hallway.”

  “Fucking bitch!” Sundstrom muttered the words, his breath a whisper as the grieving Mrs. Vanvlanderen closed the door, the sound of the closing and the noise of her heels on the marble covering the mumble uttered by her former lover.

  “Would you care for a drink, Cray?”

  “Oh, no thank you.”

  “I think I will,” said Ardis, heading for the dry bar.

  “I think you should,” agreed the attorney.

  “Is there anything I can do? At the legal end here, or with arrangements, anything at all?”

  “I imagine you’ll be doing it, the legal things, I mean. Andy-boy had lawyers all over the place, but I gathered you were his main man.”

  “Yes, I was, and we’ve all been in touch during the day. New York, Washington, London, Paris, Marseilles, Oslo, Stockholm, Bern, Zurich, West Berlin—I’m handling everything personally, of course.”

  The widow stood motionless, a decanter halfway to her glass, staring at Grinell. “When I said ‘all over the place,’ I didn’t think that far all over the place.”

  “His interests were extensive.”

  “Zurich …?” said Ardis, as if the name of the city had slipped out unintentionally.

  “It’s in Switzerland!” broke in Sundstrom harshly. “And let’s cut the crap.”

  “Eric, really—”

  “Don’t ‘Eric, really’ me, Cray. That bullheaded horse’s ass did it. He contracted the Palestinians and paid them out of Zurich.… Remember Zurich, sweetie?… I told you in Baltimore, Cray. He did it!”

  “I couldn’t get a confirmation on the assaults in Fairfax or Colorado,” said Grinell calmly.

  “Because they never happened!” yelled the widow, her right hand trembling as she poured a drink from the heavy crystal decanter.

  “I didn’t say that, Ardis,” objected the attorney softly. “I merely said I couldn’t get a confirmation. However, I did get a later call, no doubt placed by a well-paid drunk who was handed a phone after the number was dialed, thus eliminating the identity of the source. The words he obviously repeated are all too familiar. ‘They’re following the money,’ he said.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” exclaimed Mrs. Vanvlanderen.

  “So now we have two crises,” continued Grinell, walking to a white marble telephone on a red-lined marble table against the wall. “Our weak, ubiquitous Secretary of State is on his way to Cyprus to sign an agreement that could cripple the defense industry, and one of our own is linked to Palestinian terrorists.… In a way, I wish to heaven I knew how Andrew did it. We may be far clumsier.” He dialed as the widow and the scientist watched. “The switch from Design Six to Design Twelve, Mediterranean, is confirmed,” said the attorney into the phone. “And prepare the medical unit, if you will, please.”

  35

  Varak raced around the corner to the service entrance and took the freight elevator up to his floor. He then walked rapidly to his rooms, unlocked the door and rushed to the sophisticated vertical recording equipment against the wall, somewhat startled to see that so much tape had been used. He ascribed it to various telephone calls received by Ardis Vanvlanderen. He flipped the switch that allowed dual transmission, tape and direct audio, put on the earphones and sat down to listen.

  She left about an hour and a half ago.

  She? Who?

  A woman named Rashad, a counterterrorist expert. She’s with a cross-over unit.…

  The Czech glanced at the spool of exposed tape. There were at least twenty-five minutes of recorded conversation on it! What was the former operations officer from Egypt doing in San Diego? It made no sense to Milos. She had resigned from the Agency; he had confirmed it. The quiet but official word out of Cairo and Washington was that she had been “open to compromise.” He assumed it was the Oman operation and thoroughly accepted her vanishing. She had to fade—but she had not! He listened further to the conversation taking place in the Vanvlanderen suite. Sundstrom was speaking.

  He did it, didn’t he, Ardis? That financial megalomaniac couldn’t stand the possibility that a small group of ‘benevolent misfits’ might replace his man with another who could cut off his pipeline to millions and probably would.

  Then Ardis Vanvlanderen:

  Eight hundred million, that’s what he said. Eight hundred million for him alone, billions for all the rest of you … I didn’t know a thing!

  Varak was stunned. He had made two enormous errors! The first concerned the covert activities of Adrienne Khalehla Rashad, and as difficult as it was for him to accept this error, he could do so, for she was an experienced intelligence officer. The second he could not accept! The false scenario he had presented to Inver Brass had been true! It had never occurred to him that Andrew Vanvlanderen would act independently of his wife. How could he? Theirs was a La Rochefoucauld marriage, one of convenience, of mutual benefit, certainly not of affection, to say nothing of love. Andy-boy had broken the rules. A bull in financial heat had crashed open the gates of his corral and raced into the slaughterhouse. Varak listened.

  Another voice, another name. A man named Crayton Grinell. The tape rolled as the Czech concentrated on the words being spoken. Finally:

  So now we have two crises. Our weak, ubiquitous Secretary of State is on his way to Cyprus to sign an agreement that could cripple the defense industry.… The switch from Design Six to Design Twelve, Mediterranean, is confirmed.

  Varak tore off the earphones. Whatever remained to be heard in the Vanvlanderen suite would be recorded. He had to move quickly. He got out of the chair and rushed across the room to the telephone. He picked it up and pressed the numbers for Cynwid Hollow, Maryland.

  “Yes?”

  “Sir, it’s Varak.”

  “What is it, Milos? What have you learned?”

  “It’s Sundstrom—”

  “What?”

  “That can wait, Dr. Winters, something else cannot. The Secretary of State is flying to Cyprus. Can you find out when?”

  “I don’t have to find out, I know. So does everyone else who watches television or listens to the radio. It’s quite a breakthrough—”

  “When, sir?”

  “He left London about an hour ago. There was the usual statement about bringing the world closer to peace and that sort of thing—”

  “In the Mediterranean!” interrupted Varak, controlling his voice. “It will happen in the Mediterranean.”


  “What will?”

  “I don’t know. A strategy called Design Twelve, that’s all I heard. It will happen on the ground or in the air. They want to stop him.”

  “Who does?”

  “The contributors. A man named Grinell, Crayton Grinell. If I tried to break in and find out, they might take me. There are men outside the door and I cannot jeopardize the group. I certainly would never willingly disclose information, but there are drugs—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Reach Frank Swann at the State Department. Tell the switchboard to raise him wherever he is and use the phrase ‘crisis containment.’ ”

  “Why Swann?”

  “He’s a specialist, sir. He ran the Oman operation for State.”

  “Yes, I know that, but I might have to tell him more than I care to.… There may be a better way, Milos. Stay on the line, I’m going to put you on hold.” Each ten seconds that went by seemed like minutes to Varak, then they were minutes! What was Winters doing? They did not have minutes to waste. Finally the spokesman for Inver Brass was back on the phone. “I’m going to switch us to a conference call, Milos. Another will be joining us, but it’s understood that neither of you is required to identify yourself. I trust this man completely and he accepts the condition. He’s also in what you term ‘crisis containment’ and has far greater resources than Swann.” There were two clicks over the line and Winters continued. “Go ahead, gentlemen. Mr. A, this is Mr. B.”

  “I understand you have something to tell me, Mr. A.”

  “Yes, I do,” replied Varak. “The circumstances are not relevant but the information is verified. The Secretary of State is in imminent danger. There are people who do not want him to attend the conference on Cyprus and they intend to stop him. They’re employing a plan or a tactic called ‘Design Twelve, Mediterranean.’ The individual who gave the order is named Grinell, a Crayton Grinell of San Diego. I know nothing about him.”

  “I see.… Let me phrase this as delicately as I can, Mr. A. Are you in a position to tell us the current whereabouts of this Grinell?”

  “I have no choice, Mr. B. The Westlake Hotel. Suite Three C. I have no idea how long he’ll be there. Hurry, and send firepower. He’s guarded.”