“It was a defense mechanism. Mother thought he could say ‘divorce’ three times and she’d have to split.”
“Rubbish. He adored her.” Then as deftly as if they had not strayed from the Masqat crisis, Payton returned to it. “Why did Kendrick insist on anonymity in the first place? I know you’ve told me, but run it by me again, will you?”
“You sound suspicious and you shouldn’t be. It’s a perfectly logical explanation. He intended to go back and take up where he left off five—six years ago. He couldn’t do that with the baggage of Oman around his neck. He can’t do it now because everyone wants his head, from the Palestinian fanatics to Ahmat and all those who helped him and are frightened to death that they’ll be exposed. What’s happened to him during the past two days proves that he was right. He wants to go back and now he can’t. No one will let him.”
Again Payton frowned, the sadness gone, replaced by a cold curiosity that bordered on doubt. “Yes, I understand that, my dear, but then you have only his word that he wanted to go back—wants to go back.”
“I believe him,” said Rashad.
“He may believe it himself,” offered the director of Special Projects. “Now, as it were, having had second thoughts provoked by thinking things through.”
“That’s cryptic as hell, MJ. What do you mean?”
“It may be a minor point, but I think it’s worth considering. A man who wants to fade from Washington, really fade, and not open a law office or a public relations firm or some other such gratuity for the government service he sought, doesn’t usually do battle with Pentagon heavyweights in televised committee hearings, or go on a Sunday network program that reaches the broadest audience in the country, or hold a provocative personal press conference guaranteed to get wide exposure. Nor does he continue to be a bête noire on a select subcommittee for intelligence, asking hard questions that may not promote his name in the public eye but certainly circulates it around the capital. Taken collectively, those activities aren’t the mark of a man anxious to leave the political arena or the rewards it can offer. There’s a certain inconsistency, wouldn’t you say?”
Adrienne Rashad nodded. “I asked him about all that, at first accusing him of even wanting another on-the-scene testimonial from me, and having a bad case of political ambition. He blew up, denying any such motives, insisting vehemently that he wanted only to get out of Washington.”
“Could these be his second thoughts?” suggested Payton. “I ask it kindly because any sane person would have them. Say this very successful individual—and he’s nothing if not an individualist; I’ve seen that for myself—gets a touch of our Potomac virus and tells himself to go for it, use all the marbles he’s got, including what he did in Oman. Then he wakes up and thinks, My God, what have I done? What am I doing here? I don’t belong among these people!… It wouldn’t be the first time, you know. We’ve lost a great many good men and women in this city who came to that same conclusion—they didn’t belong here. Most are fiercely independent people who believe in their judgments, generally borne out by success in one field or another. Unless they want power for the sheer sake of a driving ego—which your instincts about Kendrick would seem to dismiss and I trust your instincts—these people have no patience with the mazes of endless debate and compromise that are the by-products of our system. Could our congressman be someone like that?”
“Offhand, I’d say it’s his profile to a capital p, but again it’s only instinct.”
“So isn’t it possible that your attractive young man—”
“Oh, come on, MJ,” interrupted Rashad. “That’s so antediluvian.”
“I substitute it for a term I refuse to use with my niece.”
“I accept your version of courtesy.”
“Propriety, my dear. But isn’t it possible that your friend woke up and said to himself, I’ve made a terrible mistake making a hero out of myself and now I’ve got to undo it?”
“It would be if he was a liar, which I don’t think he is.”
“But you do see the inconsistency of his behavior, don’t you? He’s acted one way and then claims to be the opposite.”
“You’re saying that he’s protesting too much, and I’m saying that he isn’t because he’s not lying, either to himself or to me.”
“I’m exploring every avenue before we look for a bastard, who—if you’re right—was reached by another bastard, a blond-haired one.… Did Kendrick tell you why he publicly took on the Pentagon as well as the entire defense industry, to say nothing of his less public but well-circulated criticisms of our own intelligence services?”
“Because he was in a position to say those things and he thought they should be said.”
“Just like that? That’s his explanation?”
“Yes.”
“But he had to seek, the positions that gave him the opportunity to speak in the first place. Good Lord, the Partridge Committee, then the Select Subcommittee for Intelligence; they’re politically coveted chairs, to say the very least. For every one of those seats there are four hundred congressmen who’d sell their wives for the assignments. They don’t just fall into a member’s lap, they have to be worked for, fought for. How does he explain that?”
“He can’t. They just fell into his lap. And rather than fighting for them, he fought to stay off them.”
“I beg your pardon?” exclaimed M. J. Payton, astonished.
“He said that if I didn’t believe him I should go talk to his chief aide, who had to strong-arm him into taking the Partridge assignment, and then see the Speaker of the House himself and ask that conniving old Irish leprechaun what Evan told him to do with his subcommittee. He didn’t want either job, but it was explained to him that if he didn’t take them, he wouldn’t have a damn thing to say about his successor in Colorado’s Ninth. That’s important to him; it’s why he ran for office. He got rid of one party sleazeball and didn’t want another taking his place.”
Payton slowly leaned back in his chair, bringing his hand to his chin, his eyes narrowed. Over the years Adrienne Rashad had learned when to be silent and not interrupt her mentor’s thinking. She did both now, prepared for any of several responses but not the one she heard. “This is a different ball game, my dear. If I remember correctly, you told Kendrick that you thought he was being exhumed by someone who believed he deserved acclaim for what he did. It goes far deeper than that, I’m afraid. Our congressman is being programmed.”
“Good Lord, for what?”
“I don’t know, but I think we’d better try to find out. Very quietly, very cautiously. We’re dealing with something rather extraordinary.”
Varak saw the large dark blue sedan. It was parked off the winding, tree-lined road cut out of a forest several hundred yards west of Kendrick’s house and it was empty. He had passed the Congressman’s impressive hedge-bound grounds, still under minor siege by a few obstinate, hopeful reporters with a camera crew, and intended to head north to a motel on the outskirts of Cortez. The sight of the blue vehicle, however, changed his mind. The Czech continued around the next bend and drove the car into a cluster of wild brush that fronted the trees. On the seat beside him was his attaché case; he opened it and took out the items he thought he might need, several imperative, several hopeful. He put them in his pockets, got out of the car, closed the door quietly, and walked around the curve and back to the blue sedan. He approached the far door nearest the woods and studied the vehicle for traps—trips that would set off an alarm if someone tampered with the lock, or with pressure on the doors, or even light beams that extended from the front to the rear spoked wheels activated by solid objects breaking the beams.
He found two out of three with one so serious that it told him something: there were secrets in that automobile far more valuable than clothes or jewelry or even confidential business papers. A row of tiny holes had been drilled and painted over along the lower frames of the windows; they were jets that released a nonlethal vapor that would immobilize
an intruder for a considerable length of time. They had been conceived and perfected initially for diplomats in troubled countries where it was nearly as important to question assailants as to save lives. They could be set off by chauffeurs during an assault or by alarms when the car was unoccupied. They were now being marketed among the rich throughout the world, and it was said that the suppliers of the mechanisms could not keep up with the demand.
Varak looked around and quickly walked to the rear of the sedan, reached into his pocket and dropped to the ground in the vicinity of the tail pipe. He crawled under the car and instantly went to work; less than ninety seconds later he emerged, stood up and ran into the woods. The hunt had begun and the waiting began.
Forty-one minutes later he saw a tall, slender figure walking down the road. The man was in a dark suit, his coat open, a vest showing; his hair was neatly combed and more red than brown. Someone in charge, thought Milos, should be given a lesson in basic cosmetic tactics. One never permitted an employee to go out in the field with red hair; it was simply foolish. The man proceeded to unlock first the right front door, then rounded the hood and unlocked the driver’s side. However, before opening it, he crouched out of sight where there was apparently a third release, stood back up and climbed inside. He started the car.
The powerful engine coughed repeatedly, then suddenly there was a loud rattling from beneath the chassis and an expulsion of fumes followed by the sound of crashing metal. The muffler and the tail pipe had blown apart, accompanied by an explosion of vapor on all sides of the automobile. Varak lowered himself, a handkerchief over his face, and waited for the clouds to disappear, clinging to the trees as they rose to the sky. Slowly he stood up.
The driver, a surgical mask on his face and a gun in his hand, also watched the rising clouds as he spun repeatedly around in the seat checking every direction for an assault. None came, and his confusion was obvious. He picked up the car telephone, then hesitated and Milos understood. If the problem was a simple mechanical failure and he reached his controls, say thirty or three hundred or three thousand miles away, he would be severely criticized. He replaced the phone and put the car into gear; the sound was so thunderous he stopped instantly. One did not call attention to such a vehicle anywhere, anytime; one chose another alternative, like reaching a garage and being towed in for a simple exterior repair. And yet …? So another period of waiting began. It lasted nearly twenty minutes; despite his red hair, the man was a professional. Apparently convinced that no attack was forthcoming, he cautiously got out of the car and walked to the rear. Gun in one hand, a flashlight in the other, he continued to look around in all directions as Varak crept silently forward in the brush. The redheaded surveillant suddenly crouched, throwing the beam of light into the undercarriage. Milos knew he had only seconds to reach the edge of the road before the man discovered the heat-expanding plastic inserted in the tail pipe or noticed the markings on the muffler made by the small, diamond-edged knife-saw. The moment came as Varak briefly parted the foliage eight feet from the crouching, peering man.
“Christ!” exploded the slender, well-dressed redhead, leaping back, spinning first to his right, then to his left, his automatic leveled, his back now to Milos. The Czech raised a third item he had taken from his attaché case; it was a Co2-propelled dart gun. Once again he parted the leaves in front of him and quickly fired. The narcotic dart hit its mark, embedding itself in the back of the man’s neck. The red-haired surveillant whipped violently around, dropping the flashlight as he desperately tried to reach behind him and rip out the offending needle. The more frenzied his movements were, the more rapidly the blood rushed to his head, rushing also the circulation of the serum. It took eight seconds; the man fell to the ground, struggling against the inevitable effects, finally lying immobile on the country road. Varak walked out of the woods and swiftly pulled the redhead back into them, then returned for the man’s gun and flashlight. He proceeded to search the man for undoubtedly false identification cards.
They were not false. The unconscious figure below him was a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Among his ID papers was the unit to which he had been assigned two months and ten days ago—one day after the meeting of Inver Brass at Cynwid Hollow, Maryland.
Milos removed the dart, carried the man out to the road, and placed him behind the wheel of the blue sedan. He concealed the flashlight and the gun beneath the seat, closed the door, and walked back to his rented car around the bend. He had to find a telephone and reach a man at the Federal Bureau in Washington.
“There’s no information on that unit,” said Varak’s contact at the FBI. “It came down through administration circles, its origin in California, in San Diego, I think.”
“There’s no California White House now,” objected Milos.
“But there’s another ‘House,’ in case you’ve forgotten.”
“What?”
“Before I go on, Checkman, we’re going to need some data from you. It concerns an operation out of Prague that’s gathering fruit over here. It’s minor but irritating. Will you help us?”
“Certainly. I’ll find out whatever I can. Now, what is the house in San Diego, California, that can cause the Bureau to form a special unit?”
“Simple, Checkman. It belongs to the Vice President of the United States.”
It is agreed, then. Congressman Evan Kendrick will be the next Vice President of the United States. He will become President eleven months after the election of the incumbent.
In silence, Varak hung up the phone.
26
It had been five weeks since the calamitous ceremony in the White House’s Blue Room, a calamity compounded by Ringmaster Dennison’s incessant attempts to focus everyone’s attention on the presenter of the Medal of Freedom award and not on the recipient. The conductor of the Marine Band had misread his instructions. Instead of playing a haunting pianissimo of “America the Beautiful” under the President’s peroration, he plunged into a fortissimo version of the “Stars and Stripes” march, all but drowning out the chief of state. It was only when Congressman Kendrick stepped up to receive the award and express his thanks that the band struck the chords of the song in a low, swelling pianissimo, adding emotional impact to the recipient’s self-effacing words. To the ringmaster’s fury, Kendrick had refused to read the brief speech given to him by Dennison ten minutes before the ceremony, thus instead of extolling the President’s “secret but extraordinary assistance,” he thanked all those he could not mention by name for saving his life and bringing about the solution of the Masqat crisis. This particular moment was embarrassingly punctuated by a loud whispered “Shit!” from the ranks of Langford Jennings’s aides on the platform.
The final insult to the ringmaster was brought about solely by himself. During the short photo session where no questions were permitted because of antiterrorist strategies, Herbert Dennison absently withdrew a small bottle of Maalox from his pocket and drank from it. Suddenly cameras were aimed at him, strobes exploding, as the President of the United States turned and glared. It was too much for the acid-prone chief of staff. He spilled the chalk-white liquid over his dark suit jacket.
At the end, Langford Jennings, his arm around Evan’s shoulders, had walked out of the room and into the carpeted hallway.
“That went beautifully, Congressman!” exclaimed the President. “Except for a certain asshole who’s supposed to run these things.”
“He has a lot of pressures on him, sir. I wouldn’t be too harsh.”
“On Herb?” said Jennings quietly, confidentially. “And have to do what he does? No way.… I gather he gave you something to read and you wouldn’t do it.”
“I’m afraid he did and I wouldn’t.”
“Good. It would have looked like a damned cheap setup. Thanks, Evan, I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” said Kendrick to this large charismatic man who kept surprising him.
The ensuing five weeks had been as E
van thought they would be. The media clamored for his attention. But he kept his word to Herbert Dennison and would continue to keep it. He refused all interviews, claiming simply that to accept one he would feel obligated to accept all, and that would mean he could not adequately serve his constituency, a constituency, incidentally, he continued to hold. The November election in Colorado’s Ninth District was merely a ritual; under the circumstances the opposition could not even find a candidate. Yet in terms of the media, some were more succinct than others.
“You big son of a bitch,” had teased the acerbic Ernest Foxley of the Foxley program. “I gave you your first break, your first decent exposure.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Kendrick said. “I never wanted any breaks, any exposure.”
After a pause the commentator replied. “You know what? I believe you. Why is that?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth and you’re good at what you do.”
“Thank you, young man. I’ll pass the word and try to call off the hounds, but don’t give us any more surprises, okay?”
There were no surprises to give anyone, thought Kendrick angrily, driving through the Virginia countryside in the early December afternoon. His house in Fairfax had become a virtual base of operations for Khalehla, the property given a large measure of sophistication by way of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Mitchell Payton. The director of Special Projects had first ordered the construction of a high brick wall that fronted the grounds, admittance achieved through a wide white wrought-iron gate electronically operated. Surrounding the property an equally tall Cyclone fence was placed deep in the earth, the green metal so thick it would take an explosive, a blowtorch, or a furiously manipulated hacksaw to break through, the invading sounds heard easily by a unit of guards. Payton then had installed a continuously “swept” telephone in Evan’s study with extension lights in various other rooms that told whoever saw them to reach that instrument as quickly as possible. A communicating computer had been placed alongside the phone and was hooked up to a modem connecting it solely to the director’s private office. When he had information he wanted Khalehla or the Congressman to evaluate, it was immediately transmitted, all printouts to be shredded and burned.