The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 27

Varak studied the members of Inver Brass, each face around the table reflected in the light of the brass lamp in front of him… or her. The Czech's concentration was strained to the limit because he had to focus on two levels.

The first was the information he delivered; the second was on the immediate reaction of each face to certain facts within that information. He had to find one pair of eyes that were suspect and he could not find them. That was to say, there were no momentary flashes of astonishment or fear on the faces of the members as he gradually, logically approached the subject of the current Vice President of the United States and his staff, touching ever so lightly on the 'innocuous' details he had learned from a Mafia plant in the Secret Service. There was nothing, only blank riveted stares. So while he spoke with conviction and conveyed roughly 80 per cent of the truth, he kept watching their eyes, the second level of his mind recalling the salient facts of the life behind each face reflected in the light.

And as he looked at each face, its features heightened by the chiaroscuro wash from the lamps, he felt, as he always did, that he was in the presence of very formidable people. Yet one was not; one had revealed the existence of Emmanuel Weingrass in Mesa Verde, Colorado, a secret unknown to the most clandestine departments in Washington. One of those shadowed faces in front of him was a traitor to Inver Brass. Who?

Samuel Winters? Old money from an American dynasty going back to the railroad and oil barons of the late American nineteenth century. An honoured scholar satisfied with his privileged life; an adviser to presidents regardless of party. A great man at peace with himself. Or was he?

Jacob Mandel? A venerated financial genius who had designed and implemented reforms that revitalized the Securities and Exchange Commission into a viable and far more honorable asset to Wall Street. From Lower East Side Yiddish poverty to the halls of merchant princes, and it was said that no decent man who knew him could call him an enemy. Like Winters, he wore his honors well and there were few he had not attained. Or were there others he strove for secretly?

Margaret Lowell? Again aristocratic old money from the New York-Palm Beach orbit, but with a twist that was virtually unheard of in those circles. She was a brilliant attorney who eschewed the rewards of estate and corporate law for the pursuit of advocacy. She worked feverishly in the legal vineyards on behalf of the oppressed, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised. Both theorist and practitioner, she was rumored to be the next woman on the Supreme Court. Or was the advocacy a supreme cover for the championship of opposite causes under cover?

Eric Sundstrom? The Wunderkind scientist of earth and space technology, holder of over twenty hugely remunerative patents on which the vast majority of proceeds were given away to engineering and medical institutions for the advancement of those sciences. His was a towering intellect concealed within a cherubic face with tousled red hair, an impish smile and a ready sense of humour—as if he were embarrassed by his gifts, even quick to feign mild offence if they were singled out. Or was it all pretence, the guilelessness a sham of someone nobody knew.

Gideon Logan? Perhaps the most complex of the quintet, and because he was a black man, again perhaps, understandable. He had made several fortunes in property, never forgetting where he came from, hiring and nursing along black firms in his developments. It was said that he quietly did more for civil rights than any single corporation in the country. The current administration, as well as its predecessor, had offered him a variety of Cabinet posts all of which he refused, believing he could achieve more as a respected independent force in the private sector than if he were identified with a political party and its practices. A nonstop worker, he apparently permitted himself only one indulgence: a luxurious oceanfront estate in the Bahamas where he spent infrequent weekends fishing on his forty-six-foot Bertram with his wife of twelve years. Or was the legend that was Gideon Logan incomplete? The answer was yes. Several years of his whirlwind, meteoric life were simply unknown; it was as if he had not existed.

'Milos?' asked Margaret Lowell, her elbow forward on the table, her head resting on the extended fingers of her hand. 'How in heaven's name has the administration managed to keep the threats against Bollinger quiet? Especially with a Bureau unit exclusively assigned to him.'

Strike Margaret Lowell? She was opening the obvious can of worms in which was found the Vice President's chief of staff.

'I must assume it's through the direction of Mrs. Vanvlanderen, her executive expertise, as it were.' Watch the eyes. The muscles of their faces—the jaws… Nothing. They reveal nothing! Yet one of them knows! Who?

'I realize she's Andrew Vanvlanderen's wife,' said Gideon Logan, 'and “Andy-boy”, as he's called, is one hell of a fund raiser, but why was she appointed to begin with?'

Strike Gideon Logan? He was stirring up the worms.

'Perhaps I can answer that,' replied Jacob Mandel. 'Before she married Vanvlanderen she was a headhunter's dream. She turned around two companies that I know of from bankruptcy into profitable mergers. I'm told she's distastefully aggressive, but no one can deny her managerial talents. She'd be good in that job; she'd keep the political sycophants at bay.'

Strike Jacob Mandel? He had no compunction about praising her.

'I ran across her once,' said Eric Sundstrom emphatically, 'and in plain words she was a bitch. I assigned a patent to Johns Hopkins Medical and she wanted to broker the damn thing.'

'What was there to broker?' asked the attorney Lowell.

'Absolutely nothing,' answered Sundstrom. 'She tried to convince me that such large grants required an overseer to make sure the money went where it was supposed to go and not for new jockstraps.'

'She probably had a point,' said the lawyer, nodding as if from experience.

'Not for me. Not the way she talked and the med school's president is a good friend of mine. She'd have driven him up the wall so often he would have returned the patent. She's a bitch, a real bitch.'

Strike Eric Sundstrom? He had no compunction whatsoever about damning her.

'I never met her,' interjected Samuel Winters, 'but she was married to Emory Frazier-Pyke, a fine-tuned banker in London. You remember Emory, don't you, Jacob?'

'Certainly. He played polo and you introduced me as a silent branch of the Rothschilds—which, unfortunately, I think he believed.'

'Someone told me,' continued Winters, 'that poor Frazier-Pyke lost a considerable amount of money in a venture she was associated with but came away with a wife. It was the OffShore Investments crowd.'

'Some fine-tuning he had,' added Mandel. 'Goniffs, every one of them. He should have checked with his polo ponies or even the silent Rothschild.'

'Perhaps he did. She didn't last long and old Emory has always been a stickler for the straight and narrow. She could have been a thief, too.'

Strike Samuel Winters? The traitor in Inver Brass would not raise the speculation.

'In one way or another,' commented Varak without emphasis, 'you are all at least aware of her then.'

‘I wasn't,' said Margaret Lowell, bordering on the defensive, 'but after hearing the others I can tell you who else knows her—“aware” is a touch too dull. My ex-husband, the alley cat; it was the Frazier-Pyke that did it.'

'Walter?' Sundstrom's voice and expression were both humorously questioning.

'My boy made so many business trips to London I thought he was advising the Crown, and he frequently mentioned that this Frazier-Pyke was his banker over there. Then one morning the maid phoned me at the office saying that Casanova had an urgent call from an “FP” in London, but she didn't know where he was. She gave me the number and I called saying to somebody—I assumed a secretary—that M. Lowell was on the line for “FP”. I was subsequently greeted by an exuberant voice virtually yelling at me, “Dahling, I'll be in New York tomorrow and we can have five full days together!” I said, “How nice” and hung up.'

'She travels in the right circles for her purposes,' said Gideon Logan, chuckling. 'Andy-boy Vanvlanderen will keep her in blue chips and sables until he gets bored.'

Varak had to change the subject quickly! If he was right about there being a traitor around the table, and he was right—whatever was said about Ardis Vanvlanderen would get back to her and he could not permit anything further. 'From everyone's reactions,' he said pleasantly, aimlessly, 'we can assume that there are some opportunists who are immensely capable. However, it's not important.' Watch them. Every face. 'She serves the Vice President well but that's essentially immaterial to us… Back to our candidate, everything proceeds on schedule. The Midwest newspapers, starting with Chicago, will be the first to speculate on his credentials, both in columns and editorials. They've all been provided with extensive background material on Kendrick as well as tapes of the Partridge Committee, the Foxley show, and his own quite remarkable press conference. From this core the word will spread both east and west.'

'How were they approached, Milos?' asked the spokesman, Samuel Winters. 'The newspapers and the columnists, I mean.'

'A legitimate ad hoc committee that we've formed in Denver. The seed, when planted, grew quickly. The Colorado branch of the party was enthusiastic, especially as the money was contributed by donors who insisted on remaining anonymous. The state functionaries see a potentially viable candidate and the wherewithal to launch him, as well as the attention it focuses on Colorado. Win or lose, they can't lose.

‘That “wherewithal” could be a legal problem,' said Margaret Lowell.

'Nothing significant, madam. It's provided in sequences, no amount over the legal limit as mandated by the election laws—which are quite obscure, if not mystifying, in my opinion.'

'If I need a lawyer, I'll call you, Milos,' added Lowell, smiling and sitting back in her chair.

'I've furnished each of you with a copy of the names of the newspapers, their editorial writers and the columnists involved in this phase—’

'To be burned in our coal stove,' broke in Winters softly.

'Of course;' 'Naturally;' 'Most certainly,' came the chorus of quiet replies.

Which was the liar?

'Tell me, Varak,' said the brilliant, cherubic Sundstrom. 'According to everything we know, everything you've brought us, our candidate hasn't displayed an iota of that “fire-in-the-belly” we hear so much about. Isn't it terribly important? Doesn't he have to ultimately want the job?'

'He'll want it, sir. As we've learned, he's what might be called a closet activist who runs out of the closet when the conditions call for his abilities.'

'Good Lord, Samuel, he's a rabbi, too?'

'Hardly, Mr. Mandel,' replied the Czech, permitting himself a tight grin. 'What I mean to say, no doubt poorly—’

'The words are lovely, Milos.'

'Thank you, sir, you're too kind. But what I'm trying to say is that on two dramatic occasions in his life—one extraordinarily dangerous to him personally—he chose to take the most difficult course of action because he felt he could effect a change for the better. The first was his decision to replace a corrupt congressman; the second, of course, was Oman. In short words, he must once again be convinced that his person and his abilities are needed—uniquely needed for the good of the country.'

'That's a tall order,' said Gideon Logan. 'He's obviously a man of realistic sensibilities who makes a pretty fair appraisal of his qualifications. His bottom line may be… “I'm not qualified.” How do we overcome that?'

Varak looked around the table, his expression that of a man trying to be understood. 'I suggest symbolically, sir.'

'How's that?' asked Mandel, removing his steel-rimmed glasses.

'For example, the current Secretary of State, although he is frequently maligned by his colleagues and the White House staff as a stubborn academic, is the most reasoned voice in the administration. I know privately that he has managed to block a number of rash actions recommended by the President's advisers because the President respects him—’

'He damn well should,' exclaimed Margaret Lowell.

'I think the European alliance would fall apart without him,' offered Winters.

'There wouldn't be an alliance without him,' agreed Mandel, anger on his normally passive face. 'He's a beacon of rationality in a sea of belching Neanderthals.'

'If I may, sir? Could your use of the word “beacon” be construed as a symbol?'

'That's logical,' answered Gideon Logan. 'Our Secretary of State is by all means a symbol of intelligent moderation. The nation, too, respects him.'

'He intends to resign,' said Varak simply.

'What?' Sundstrom sat forward. 'His loyalty to Jennings wouldn't permit it.'

'His sense of integrity shouldn't permit him to stay,' said Winters with finality.

'Out of loyalty, however,' explained Varak, 'he's agreed to attend the Middle East NATO conference at the UN mission on Cyprus in three weeks. It's both a show of unity and a way of giving the President's men time to find a replacement who will be acceptable to the Congress. Then he leaves for “pressing personal reasons”, the main one being his frustration with the National Security Council, which continues to undercut him.'

'Has he explained that to the President?' asked Lowell.

'According to my source, he has not,' replied Varak. 'As Mr. Mandel has pointed out, he's a rational man. He understands that it's easier and far better for the country to replace one person than an entire council of presidential advisers.'

'Tragic,' said Winters, 'yet inevitable, I imagine. But how does the Secretary of State relate to Evan Kendrick? I fail to see the connection.'

'It's in the symbol itself,' said Eric Sundstrom. 'He's got to understand its importance. Am I right, Milos?'

'Yes, sir. If Kendrick's convinced that it's crucial for the country to have a strong vice president who's perceived by our allies and enemies alike as a voice of reason within an imperial presidency—where the benign emperor frequently has no clothes—and that the world will breathe easier for it, then, in my judgment, he'll again make the difficult choice and be available.'

'From all we've learned, I suppose he would,' agreed Gideon Logan. 'But who the hell is going to convince him of that?'

'The only man he'll listen to,' said Milos Varak, wondering if he was about to sign a death warrant. 'Emmanuel Weingrass.'

Ann Mulcahy O'Reilly was a Washington secretary not easily disturbed. Over the years since she and Paddy moved down from Boston, she had worked for the bright and the unbright, the would-be good and the would-be thieves; nothing much surprised her any more. But then she had never worked for anyone like Congressman Evan Kendrick. He was the all-time reluctant resident of Washington, its most persistently unwilling politician, and a perversely demurring hero. He had more ways to elude the ineluctable than a cat with nine lives cubed, and he could vanish with the agility of the Invisible Man. Yet his proclivity for disappearing notwithstanding, the congressman always left open lines of communication; he would either call in on a fairly regular basis or leave a number where he could be reached. However, for the past two days there had been no word from Kendrick and no number at which he could be found. Those two facts by themselves would not normally have alarmed Mrs. O'Reilly but two others did: throughout the day—since nine-twenty that morning—neither the house in Virginia nor the home in Colorado could be reached by telephone. In both cases the operators in Virginia and Colorado reported disruptions of service, and that status was still unchanged at nearly seven o'clock in the evening. That disturbed Annie O'Reilly. So quite logically she picked up the phone and dialled her husband at police headquarters.

'O'Reilly,' said the gruff voice. 'Detective squad.'

'Paddy, it's me.'

'Hi, tiger. Do I get beef stew?'

'I'm still at the office.'

'Good. I've got to talk to Evan. Manny called me a couple of days ago about some low-grade licence plates—'

'That's the point,' interrupted Mrs. O'Reilly. 'I want to talk to him too, but it seems I can't.' Annie told her husband about the strange coincidence of both the congressman's phones in Virginia and Colorado being out of order simultaneously and that he had neither checked in with her for the past two days nor left an alternative number where she could reach him. 'And that's not like him, Paddy.'

'Call Congressional Security,' said the detective firmly.

'In a pig's ass I will. You whisper that lad's name to Security all the bells go off, and you know what he thinks about those bells. He'd have my head in a basket if there's even a halfway decent explanation.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Can you take a quiet look-see over in Fairfax, darlin'?'

'Sure. I'll call Kearns in Arlington and have him send a radio car out there. What's the address again?'

'No, Paddy,' said Mrs. O'Reilly quickly. 'I can hear the bells already. That's the police.'

'What the hell do you think I do for a living? Ballet?'

'I don't want the police involved, what with reports and all. The Agency's got guards out there and I could get my broadside in a wringer. I meant you, lover. You're a friend in the area who just happens to be a cop doing a favour for your wife who just happens to be Kendrick's secretary.'

'That's a lot of just-happens, tiger… What the hell? I like beef stew.'

'With extra potatoes, Paddy.'

'And onions. Lots more onions.'

'The biggest I can find—’

'I'm on my way.'

'And, Paddy, if that shrinking violet has had both phones taken off the hook, you tell him I know about his girlfriend from Egypt and I just might leak it if he doesn't call me.'

'What girlfriend from—’

'Button it,' ordered Mrs. O'Reilly. 'Manny let it drop yesterday when he was a mite squiffed and couldn't find his broth of a boy either. Hurry along now. I'll wait for the call here.'

'What about my beef stew?'

'I've got one frozen,' lied the lass born Ann Mary Mulcahy.

Thirty-eight minutes later, after taking two wrong turns in the dark Virginia countryside, Detective First Grade O'Reilly found the road that led to Kendrick's house. It was a road he had travelled over exactly four times but never at night. Each trip had been made to see old Weingrass after he got out of the hospital and to bring him a freshly re-minted bottle of Listerine since his nurses kept the Scotch whisky beyond his reach. Paddy had righteously figured that if Manny, who was about to be eighty and who should have croaked on the operating table, wanted to go out a little pickled, who was to call it a sin? Christ in all his glory turned water into wine, so why shouldn't a miserable sinner named O'Reilly turn a little pint of mouthwash into Scotch? Both were for good Christian causes and he was only following the holy example.

There were no streetlamps on the back country road, and were it not for the wash of his headlights, Paddy would have missed the brick wall and the white wrought-iron gate. Then he understood why: there were no lights on in the house beyond. To all intents and purposes it was closed up, deserted, shut down while its owners were away. Yet its owner was not away and even if he were, there was the Arab couple from a place called Dubai who kept the place open and ready for the owner's return. Any change in that routine or the dismissal of the Agency guards would certainly be conveyed to Annie O'Reilly, the congressman's number one girl in the office. Paddy stopped the car on the side of the road; he snapped open the glove compartment, removed a torch, and got out. Instinctively, he reached under his jacket and felt the handle of his revolver in his shoulder holster. He approached the gate, expecting at any moment floodlights to be tripped on or the screeching sounds of multiple sirens to suddenly fill the quiet night. Those were the ways of Agency controls, methods of total protection.

Nothing.

O'Reilly arced his arm slowly through the bars of white wrought iron… Nothing. He then placed his hand on the centre plate between the two joining gates and pushed. Both opened and still nothing.

He walked inside, pushing the thumb of his left hand against the switch of the torch, his right hand reaching beneath his jacket. What he saw in seconds under the roving beam caused him to spin away, crouching into the wall, his weapon yanked out of the holster.

'Holy Mary, mother of God, forgive me for my sins!' he whispered.

Ten feet away lay the dead body of a young, business-suited guard from the Central Intelligence Agency, sickeningly drenched in blood from the throat above, his head nearly severed from the rest of him. O'Reilly pressed his back against the brick wall, instantly extinguishing the light, trying to calm his all too experienced nerves. He was familiar with violent death, and because he was, he knew that there was more to be found. He rose slowly to his feet and began his search for death, knowing also that the killers had disappeared.

He found three other corpses, each mutilated, each life taken in shock, each positioned at 90 degrees of the compass for protection. Jesus! How? He bent down and examined the body of the fourth man; what he found was extraordinary. Lodged in the guard's neck was a snapped-off needle; it was the remnants of a dart. The patrol had been immobilized by a narcotic and then, without defences, obscenely killed. They never knew what happened. None of them knew.

Patrick O'Reilly walked slowly, cautiously to the front door of the house, once again knowing that caution was irrelevant. The god-awful, terrible deeds had been done; there was nothing left but to total the casualties.

There were six. Each throat was slit, each corpse covered with drying blood, each face in torment. Yet the most obscene of all were the naked bodies of Kendrick's couple from Dubai. The husband was on top of his wife in the coital position, both red-soaked faces pressed against each other. And on the wall, scratched in human blood, were the words:

Death to God's traitors! Death to the fornicators of the Great Satan!

Where was Kendrick? Mother of God! Where was he? O'Reilly raced back through the house, going from the cellar to the attic and room to room, turning on every switch he could find until the entire estate was a blaze of light. There was no sign of the congressman! Paddy ran out of the house through the attached garage, noting that Evan's Mercedes was gone, the Cadillac empty. He began searching the grounds again, criss-crossing every foot of woods and foliage within the fenced compound. Nothing. There were no signs of struggle, no broken shrubbery, no breaks in the fence or scratches on the newly constructed brick wall. Forensic! The department's forensic division would find evidence… no! He was thinking police procedures and this was beyond the police—far, far beyond! O'Reilly ran back to the white wrought-iron gate, now awash with light, and raced to his car. He leaped inside and, disregarding the radio, yanked the police cellular phone from its recess under the dashboard. He dialled, only at that moment realizing that his face and shirt were drenched with sweat in the cold night air.

'Congressman Kendrick's office.'

'Annie, let me do the talking,' broke in the detective rapidly, softly. 'And don't ask questions—’

'I know that tone of voice, Paddy, so I have to ask one. Is he all right?'

There's no sign of him. His car's gone; he's not here.'

'But others are—’

'No more questions, tiger, but I've got one for you, and by the saints you'd better be able to answer it.'

'What?'

'Who's Evan's contact at the Agency?'

'He deals directly with the unit.'

'No. Someone else. Higher up. There has to be somebody!'

'Wait a minute!' cried Annie, her voice rising. 'Of course, there is. He just doesn't talk about him… a man named Payton. A month or so ago he told me that if this Payton ever called, I was to put him through immediately, and if Evan wasn't here I was to find him.'

'You're sure he's with the CIA?'

'Yes, yes I am,' said Mrs. O'Reilly thoughtfully. 'One morning he called me from Colorado saying he needed this Payton's number and where I could find it in his desk—in the bottom drawer of his desk under a cheque book. It was a Langley exchange.'

'Would it be there now?'

'I'll look. Hold on.' The wait of no more than twenty seconds was nearly unbearable for the detective, made worse by the sight of the large brightly lit house beyond the open gate. It was both an invitation and a target. 'Paddy?'

'Yes!'

'I've got it.'

'Give it to me. Quickly!' She did so, and O'Reilly issued an order that was not to be disobeyed. 'Stay in the office until I call you or pick you up. Understood?'

'Is there a reason?'

'Let's say I don't know how far up, or down, or sideways, this kind of thing reaches, and I happen to like beef stew.'

'Oh, my God,' whispered Annie.

O'Reilly did not hear his wife; he had disconnected the line and within seconds was dialling the number Annie had given him. After eight agonizing rings a woman's voice came over the phone. 'Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Payton's office.'

'Are you his secretary?'

'No, sir, this is the reception desk. Mr. Payton has gone for the day.'

'Listen to me, please,' said the Washington detective with absolute control. 'It's urgent that I reach Mr. Payton immediately. Whatever the regulations, they can be broken, can you understand me, girl? It's an emergency.'

'Please identify yourself, sir.'

'Hell's fire, I don't want to, but I will. I'm Lieutenant Patrick O'Reilly, Detective First Grade, District of Columbia Police Department. You've got to find him for me!'

Suddenly, startlingly, a male voice was on the line. 'O'Reilly?' the man said. 'Like in O'Reilly, the secretary of a certain Congressman?'

'The same, sir. You don't answer your goddamned phone—excuse my language.'

'This is a trunk line to my apartment, Mr. O'Reilly… You may switch systems, Operator.'

'Thank you, sir.' There was a snap over the phone.

'Yes, Mr. O'Reilly? We're alone now.'

'I'm not. I'm in the company of six corpses thirty yards from my car.'

'What?'

'Get out here, Mr. Payton. Kendrick's house. And if you don't want headlines, call off any relieving unit that's heading here.'

'Secure,' said the stunned director of Special Projects. 'The relief comes on at midnight; it's covered by the men inside.'

'They're dead, too. They're all dead.'

Mitchell Payton crouched beside the dead body of the guard nearest the gate, wincing under the beam of O'Reilly's light. 'Good God, he was so young. They're all so young!' 'Were, sir,' said the detective flatly. 'There's no one alive, outside or inside. I've turned off most of the lights, but I'll escort you through, of course.'

'I must… of course.'

'But I won't unless you tell me where Congressman Kendrick is—if he is, or whether he was supposed to be here, which would mean he probably isn't. I can and obviously should call the Fairfax police. Am I clear, sir?'

'Gaelically clear, Lieutenant. For the time being this must remain an Agency problem—a catastrophe, if you like. Am I clear?'

'Answer my question or rest assured I'll do my sworn duty and call Fairfax headquarters. Where is Congressman Kendrick? His car's not here and I want to know whether I should be relieved by that fact or not.'

'If you can find any relief in this situation you're a very strange man—’

'I mourn these people, these strangers to me, as I've mourned hundreds like 'em in my time, but I know Evan Kendrick! Now if you have the information, I want it this very moment, or I go to my vehicle and radio my report to the police in Fairfax.'

'For God's sake, don't you threaten me, Lieutenant. If you want to know where Kendrick is, ask your wife!'

'My wife?

'The congressman's secretary, in case it's slipped your mind.'

'You fancy rumbugger!' exploded Paddy. 'Why the hell do you think I'm out here? To pay a two-toilet social call on my old society chum, the millionaire from Colorado? I'm here, Chauncy-boyo, because Annie hasn't heard from Evan in two days, and since nine o'clock this morning both his phone here and in Mesa Verde don't ring! Now, that's what you might call a coincidence, isn't it!'

'Both his telephones—' Payton snapped his head around, peering above.

'Don't bother,' said O'Reilly, following the director's gaze. 'One line's been cut and expertly spliced into another; the thick cable to the roof's intact.'

'Good Christ!'

'In my opinion, you need His immediate help… Kendrick! Where the hell is he?'

'The Bahamas. Nassau, in the Bahamas.'

'Why did you think my wife, his secretary, knew that? And you'd better have a good goddamned reason for thinking so, Dan Fancy, because if this is some kind of spook shit to involve Annie Mulcahy in one of your fuck-ups, I'll have more blue jackets swarming around here than you've ever seen!'

'I thought so because he told me, Lieutenant O'Reilly,' said Payton, his voice cold, his eyes straying, his thoughts apparently racing.

'He never told her!'

'Obviously,' agreed the CIA director, now staring at the house. 'However, he was explicit. The day before yesterday he said that on the way to the airport he would stop at his office and leave the information with his secretary, Ann O'Reilly. He stopped; he went up to his office; the mobile unit confirmed it.'

'What time was that?'

'Around four-thirty, if I remember the mobile's logs.'

'Wednesday?'

'Yes.'

'Annie wasn't there. Every Wednesday she leaves at four o'clock in the afternoon and Kendrick knows it. It's her crazy aerobics class!'

'He obviously forgot.'

'Not likely. Come with me, sir.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Out to my car.'

'We have work to do here, Lieutenant, and I have several calls to make—from my car. Alone.'

'You're not doing a damn thing until I speak to Congressman Kendrick's secretary.' Sixty-five seconds later with Payton standing by the open door, the voice of Patrick O'Reilly's wife came over the cellular phone's speaker.

'Congressman Kendrick's—’

'Annie,' interrupted her husband. 'After you left the office Wednesday afternoon, who was there?'

'Only Phil Tobias. It's slow these days; the girls left earlier.'

'Phil who?'

'Tobias. He's Evan's chief aide and washer of the bottles.'

'He never said anything to you, yesterday or today? About seeing Kendrick, I mean.'

'He hasn't been here, Paddy. He didn't show up today or yesterday. I left half a dozen messages on his answering machine but I haven't heard from him, the high-hog PR brat that he is.'

‘I’ll talk to you later, tiger. Stay where you are. Understood?' O'Reilly replaced the phone and turned in his seat, looking up at the man from the Central Intelligence Agency. 'You heard, sir. I think an apology from yours truly is in order. You have it, Mr. Payton.'

'I neither seek it nor want it, Lieutenant. We've botched up so damned much in Langley that if someone thinks that his wife may be caught in one of our bungles, I can't fault him for telling us off.'

'I'm afraid that was it… Who goes after Tobias? You or me?'

'I can't deputize you, O'Reilly. There's no provision for it in the law and, frankly, there are specific provisions against it, but I can ask for your help, and I desperately need it. I can cover for tonight on the basis of genuine national security; you're off the hook for not reporting. But where this Tobias is concerned I can only plead.'

'For what?' asked the detective, getting out of the car and quietly closing the door.

'To keep me informed.'

'You don't have to plead for that—’

'Before any official report is released,' added Payton.

'That you've got to plead for,' said Paddy, studying the director. 'To begin with, I couldn't guarantee it. If he's spotted in Switzerland or floats up in the Potomac I wouldn't necessarily know about it.'

'We're obviously thinking along the same lines. However, you have what's referred to as clout, Lieutenant. Forgive me, but I've had to learn about everyone around Evan Kendrick. The District of Columbia Police Department virtually bribed you to come to Washington twelve years ago from Boston—'

'Grade pay, nothing shady.'

'Grade pay nearly equivalent to chief of detectives, a position you turned down four years ago because you didn't want the desk.'

'Holy Jesus—’

'I've had to be thorough… and since your wife works for the congressman, I believe a man in your position could insist on being informed if and when anything relevant to Phillip Tobias comes down, as he also works, or worked, in Kendrick's office.'

'I suppose I could, that's my girl. But it leads me to a question or two.'

'Go right ahead. Any questions you have may help me.'

'Why is Evan in the Bahamas?'

'I sent them there.'

'Them? The Egyptian woman?… Old Weingrass told my wife.'

'She works for us; she was part of Oman. There's a man in Nassau who fronted a company that Kendrick was briefly associated with years ago. He's not terribly reputable and neither was the firm, but we felt he was worth checking out.'

'For what purpose?'

The director of Special Projects looked over the roof of the car at Evan Kendrick's house, at the now dimly lit windows and what they held beyond the glass. 'All that will come later, O'Reilly. I won't hold anything back, I promise you. But from what you've described to me I have work to do. I have to reach the shroud squad and that can only be done at my car.'

The shroud squad? What the hell is that?'

'A group of men neither of us would care to be a part of. They pick up corpses they can never testify about, forensically examine evidence they've been sworn not to reveal. They're necessary and I respect every one of them, but I wouldn't be one of them.'

Suddenly, the staccato, grating ring of the detective's cellular telephone erupted. It had been tripped to Emergency, the sound echoing throughout the still, cold night, bouncing off the brick wall, each echo receding into the woods beyond. O'Reilly yanked open the door and grabbed the phone, pulling it to his ear. ' Yes?'

'Oh, Jesus, Paddy!' screamed Ann Mulcahy O'Reilly, her voice amplified over the speaker. 'They found him! They found Phil! He was down under the boilers in the basement. Good Christ, Paddy! They say his throat was cut! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he's dead, Paddy!'

'When you say “they” exactly who do you mean, tiger?'

'Harry and Sam from night maintenance—they just called me, scared out of their skins, and told me to phone the police!'

'You just did, Annie. Tell them to stay where they are. They're not to touch anything or say anything until I get there! Understood?'

'Not say anything…?'

'It's a quarantine, I'll explain later. Now call C-Security and have five men armed with shotguns posted outside the office. Say your husband's a police officer and he made the request because of personal threats against him. Understood?'

'Yes, Paddy,' replied Mrs. O'Reilly, in tears. 'Oh, holy Jesus, he's dead!'

The detective spun around in his seat. The CIA director was running to his car.