The Icarus Agenda

Chapter 43

He was aware of violently swaying weightlessness, then of hands grabbing him, and a harsh wind buffeting him, finally of a deafening roar above him. He opened his eyes to blurred figures frantically moving around him, unbuckling straps… then a sharp puncture in his flesh, on his arm. He tried to rise but was restrained as men carried him to a flat, padded surface inside a huge, vibrating metal cage.

'Easy, Congressman!' shouted a man in a white Navy uniform that gradually came into focus. 'I'm a doctor and you're pretty bashed up. Don't make things more difficult for me because the President himself will officiate at my court martial if I don't do my job.'

Another puncture. He could not take any more pain. 'Where am I?'

'A logical question,' replied the medical officer, emptying a syringe into Kendrick's shoulder. 'You're in a big whirly-bird ninety miles off the coast of Mexico. You were on your way to China, man, and those seas are rugged.'

'That's it!’ Evan tried to raise his voice, but could barely hear himself.

'What's “it”?' The doctor leaned down as a medical aide above him held a bottle of plasma.

'Passage to China—an island called Passage to China! Seal it off!'

'I'm a doctor, not a member of the Seals—’

'Do as I tell you!… Radio San Diego, get planes out there, boats out there! Take everyone!'

'Hey man, I'm no expert, but these are Mexican waters—'

'Goddamn it, call the White House!… No! Contact a man named Payton at the CIA… Mitchell Payton, CIA! Tell him what I just told you. Say the name Grinell!'

'Wow, this is heavy,' said the young doctor, looking up at a third man at the foot of Kendrick's padded resting place. 'You heard the congressman, Ensign. Go up to the pilot. An island called Passage to China, and a man named Payton at Langley, and someone else called Grinell! Hop to it, guy, this is the President's boy!… Hey, is this anything like what you did to the Arabs?'

'Emilio?' asked Evan, dismissing the question. 'How is he?"

The Mex?'

'My friend… the man who saved my life.'

'He's here right beside you; we just got him up.'

'How is he?'

'Worse off than you—much worse. At best it's sixty-forty against him, Congressman. We're flying back to the base hospital as fast as we can.'

Kendrick elbowed himself up and looked at the prone, unconscious figure of Emilio, barely two feet away behind the doctor. The Mexican's arm was on the deck of the helicopter, his face ashen, close to a mask of death. 'Give me his hand,' ordered Evan. 'Give it to me!'

'Yes, sir,' said the doctor, reaching over and pulling Emilio's hand up so Kendrick could grasp it.

'El Descanso!' roared Evan. 'El Descanso and your family—your wife and the nifios! You goddamned son of a bitch, don't die on me! You fucking know-nothing fisherman put some juice in your stomach!'

'¿Como?' The Mexican's head thrashed back and forth as Kendrick tightened his grip.

'That's better, amigo. Remember, we're angry! We stay angry. You hang in there, you bastard, or I'll kill you myself. Comprende?'

His head turned towards Evan, Emilio partially opened his eyes, a smile creasing his lips. 'You think you could kill this strong fisherman?'

'Try me!… Well, maybe I couldn't, but I can get you a big boat.'

'You are loco, señor,' coughed the Mexican. '… Still, there is El Descanso.'

'Three ranches,' said Kendrick, his hand falling away under the effect of the Navy doctor's hypodermic needle.

One by one the graceful limousines drove through the dark streets of Cynwid Hollow to the big house on Chesapeake Bay. Whereas on previous occasions there had been four such vehicles, on this night there were but three. One was missing; it belonged to a company founded by Eric Sundstrom, traitor of Inver Brass.

The members sat around the large circular table in the extraordinary library, a brass lamp in front of each. All the lamps on the table were lit but one, and that was the one in front of a fifth empty chair. Four pools of light shone down on the polished wood; the fifth source was extinguished, implying no honour in death, instead, perhaps, a reminder of human frailty in an all too human world. On this night there was no humorous small talk, no badinage to remind them that they were mortal and not above the common touch despite their awesome wealth and influence. The empty chair was enough.

'You have the facts,' said Samuel Winters, his aquiline features in the flow of light. 'Now I ask you for your comments.'

'I have only one,' Gideon Logan stated firmly, his large black head in shadows. 'We can't stop, the alternative is too devastating. The unleashed wolves will take over the government—what they haven't usurped already.'

'But there's nothing to stop, Gid,' corrected Margaret Lowell. 'Poor Milos set everything in motion in Chicago.'

'He hadn't finished, Margaret,' said Jacob Mandel, his gaunt face and frame in his accustomed chair next to Winters. 'There's Kendrick himself. He must accept the nomination, be convinced that he should take it. If you recall, the subject was brought up by Eric, and now I wonder why. He might have left well enough alone, for it could be our Achilles' heel.'

'Sundstrom was consumed, as always, by his insatiable curiosity,' said Winters sadly. 'The same curiosity that, when applied to space technology, made him betray us. Having said that, however, it doesn't answer Jacob's question. Our congressman could walk away.'

'I'm not sure Milos thought it was so serious a problem, Jacob,' reflected Attorney Lowell, leaning forward, her elbow on the table, her extended fingers against her right temple. 'Whether he actually said it or not is immaterial, but he certainly implied that Kendrick was an intensely, if unfashionably, moral man. He loathes corruption so he went into politics to replace a corrupter.'

'And he went to Oman,' added Gideon Logan, 'because he believed that with his expertise he could help with no thought of reward for himself—that was proved to us.'

'And that was what persuaded all of us to accept him,' said Mandel, nodding. 'Everything dovetailed. The extraordinary man in a very ordinary field of political candidates. But is it enough? Will he agree even if there's the national ground swell that Milos had so well orchestrated?'

'The assumption was that if genuinely summoned, he would respond to the call,' said Winters flatly. 'But is it an accurate assumption?'

'I think it is,' replied Margaret Lowell.

'I do, too.' Logan nodded his large head and moved forward into the reflected pool of light from the table. 'Still Jacob has a point. We can't be sure, and if we're wrong, it's Bollinger and business as usual, and the wolves take over next January.'

'Suppose Kendrick was confronted with the alternative of your wolves, with proof of their venality, their entrenched behind-the-scenes power that's permeated the entire Washington structure?' asked Winters, his voice no longer a monotone but very much alive. 'Under those circumstances, do you think he will answer the call?'

The huge black entrepreneur leaned back into the shadows, his large eyes squinting. 'From everything we know… yes, yes, I do.'

'And you, Margaret?'

'I agree with Gid. He is a remarkable man—with a political conscience, I believe.'

'Jacob?'

'Of course, Samuel, but how is it to be done? We have no documentation, no official records—good heavens, we burn our own notes. So apart from the fact that he'd have no reason to believe us, we can't reveal ourselves and Varak's gone.'

'I have another to take his place. A man who, if necessary, can make certain Evan Kendrick is given the truth. The whole truth if he doesn't know it already.'

Stunned, all eyes were on the spokesman for Inver Brass. 'What the hell are you saying, Sam?' cried Margaret Lowell.

'Varak left instructions in the event of his death, and I gave him my word not to open them unless he was killed. I kept my word because in all honesty I didn't care to know the things he might tell me… I opened them last night after Mitchell Payton's call.'

'How will you handle Payton?' asked Lowell suddenly, anxiously.

'We're meeting tomorrow. None of you has anything to fear; he knows nothing about you. We'll either reach an accommodation or we won't. If we don't, I've lived a long and productive life—it will be no sacrifice.'

'Forgive me, Samuel,' said Gideon Logan impatiently, 'but we all face those decisions—we wouldn't be at this table if we didn't. What were Varak's instructions?'

'To contact the one man who can keep us—or conceivably the collective you—completely and officially informed. The man who was Varak's informer from the beginning, the one without whom Milos could never have done what he did. When our Czech uncovered the discrepancy in the State Department's logs sixteen months ago, the omission that had Kendrick listed as entering the State Department but with no record of his departure, Varak knew where to look. What he found was not only a willing informer but a dedicated one… Milos is, of course, irreplaceable, but in this day of high technology, our new co-ordinator is among the most rapidly rising young officials in government. There isn't a major department or agency in Washington that's not vying for his services, and the private sector has offered him contracts reserved for former presidents and secretaries of state at least twice his age.'

'He must be a hell of a lawyer or the youngest foreign service expert on record,' interjected Margaret Lowell.

'He's neither,' countered the white-haired spokesman of Inver Brass. 'He's considered the foremost technologist of computer science in the country, perhaps in the West. Fortunately for us, he comes from considerable wealth and isn't tempted by private industry. In his way he's as committed as Milos Varak in pursuit of the nation's excellence… In essence, he was one of us when he understood his gifts.' Winters leaned forward over the table and pressed an ivory button. 'Will you come in, please?'

The heavy door of the extraordinary library opened and in the frame stood a young man still in his twenties. What set him apart from most others of his age were his striking looks; it was as though he had walked out of a glossy advertisement for men's fashions in an expensive magazine. Yet his clothes were subdued, neither tailored nor cheap… just ordinarily neat. It was the chiselled, nearly idealized Grecian face that was startling.

'He should forget computers,' said Jacob Mandel quietly. 'I have friends at the William Morris Agency. They'll get him a television series.'

'Do come in, please,' interrupted Winters, placing his hand over Mandel's arm. 'And, if you will, introduce yourself.’

The young man walked confidently but without arrogance to the west end of the table below the black cylinder that when lowered was a screen. He stood for a moment looking down at the pools of light on the table.

'It's a particular honour for me to be here,' he said pleasantly. 'My name is Gerald Bryce, and I am currently director of GCO, Department of State.'

'GCO?' asked Mandel. 'Another alphabet?'

'Global Computer Operations, sir.'

* * *

The California sun streamed through the windows of the hospital room as Khalehla, her arms around Evan, gradually released him. She sat back on the bed above him and smiled wanly, her eyes glistening from the residue of tears, her light olive skin so pale. 'Welcome to the land of the living,' she said, gripping his hand.

'Glad to be here,' whispered Kendrick weakly, staring at her. 'When I opened my eyes, I wasn't sure it was you or whether I was… whether they were playing more tricks on me.'

'Tricks?'

'They took my clothes… I was in some old corduroy pants—then I was back in my suit—my blue—’

'Your “congressional threads”, I believe you called them,' interrupted Khalehla gently. 'You'll have to get another suit, my darling. What was left of your trousers after they cut them away was beyond a tailor.'

'Extravagant girl… Christ, do you know how good it is to see you? I never thought I'd see you again—it made me so goddamned angry.'

'I know how good it is to see you. That hotel carpet has been worn through… Rest now; we'll talk later. You just woke up and the doctors said—’

'No… To hell with the doctors, I want to know what's happened. How's Emilio?'

'He'll make it, but one lung is gone and his hip is shattered. He'll never walk properly again, but he's alive.'

'He doesn't have to walk, just sit in a captain's chair.'

'What?'

'Forget it… The island. It's called Passage to China—’

'We know,' broke in Khalehla firmly. 'Since you're so rotten stubborn, let me do the talking… What you and Carallo did was incredible—’

'Carallo?… Emilio?'

'Yes. I've seen the photographs—my God, what a mess! The fire spread everywhere, especially over the east side of the island. The house, the grounds, even the dock where the other boats exploded—gone; all gone. By the time the Navy choppers arrived with Marine assault troops, everyone on the place was frightened to death and waiting on the west beaches. They greeted our people as if we were liberators.'

'Then they got Grinell.'

Khalehla looked down at Evan; she paused, then shook her head. 'No. I'm sorry, darling.'

'How…?' Kendrick started to rise, wincing at the pain in his stitched and bandaged shoulder. Again gently, Rashad held him, lowering him down on the pillow. 'He couldn't have got away! They didn't look!'

They didn't have to. The Mexicans told them.'

'What? How?'

'A seaplane flew out and picked up the hombrepatron.'

'I don't understand. All communications were out!'

'Not all. What you didn't know—couldn't know—was that Grinell had small auxiliary generators in the cellar of the main house with enough power to reach his people at an airfield in San Felipe—we've learned that much from the Mexican transmission authorities; not who but where. He can run and even disappear, but he can't hide forever; we've got the tail of a trail.'

'Very alliterative, as my executioner might say.'

'What?'

'Forget it—'

'I wish you'd stop saying that.'

'Sorry, I mean it. What about Ardis's lawyer and the ledger I told you about?'

'Again, we're closing in but we're not there yet. He's taken a hike somewhere, but where no one knows. All his phones are monitored and sooner or later he'll have to call one of them. When he does, we'll have him.'

'Could he have any idea that you're after him?'

'It's the big question. Grinell was able to reach the mainland, and through San Felipe he could have sent word to Ardis's lawyer. We simply don't know.'

'Manny?' asked Evan hesitantly. 'Then again you didn't have time—’

'Wrong, I had nothing but time, desperation time, to be exact. I called the hospital in Denver last night, but all the floor nurse could tell me was that he was stable… and, I gather, something of a nuisance.'

'The understatement of the week.' Kendrick closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. 'He's dying, Khalehla. He's dying and there's nothing anyone can do about it.'

'We're all dying, Evan. Every day is one day less of life. That's not much help, but Manny's over eighty and the verdict's not in until it's in.'

'I know,' said Kendrick, looking at their entwined hands then up at her face. 'You're a beautiful lady, aren't you?'

'It's not something I dwell on, but I suppose I'll pass for okay-plus. You're not exactly Quasimodo yourself.'

'No, I just walk like him… It's not very modest but our kids have a fair chance of being decent looking little bastards.'

'I'm all for the first part but somewhat dubious about the second.'

'You understand that you just agreed to marry me, don't you?'

'Try getting away from me and you'll find out how really good I am with a gun.'

'That's nice. “… Oh, Mrs. Jones, have you met my wife, the gunslinger? If anyone's crashed your party, she'll nail him right between the eyes.”'

'I'm also black belt, first class, in case a weapon makes too much noise.'

'Hey, terrific. Nobody's going to push me around any more. Pick a fight with me, I'll let her off the leash.'

'Grrrr,' growled Khalehla, baring her bright lovely teeth, then composing her face, looking down as if studying him, her dark eyes soft, floating. 'I do love you. God knows what we two misfits think we're doing, but I guess we're going to give it a try.'

'No, not a try,' said Evan, reaching for her with his right hand. 'A lifetime,' he added. She bent down and they kissed, holding each other like two people who had nearly lost each other. And the telephone rang.

'Damn!' cried Khalehla, springing up.

'Am I that irresistible?'

'Hell, no, not you. It's not supposed to ring in here, those were my instructions!' She picked up the phone and spoke harshly. 'Yes, and whoever you are I'd like an explanation. How did you get through to this room?'

'The explanation, Officer Rashad,' said Mitchell Payton in Langley, Virginia, 'is comparatively simple. I countermanded a subordinate's order.'

'MJ, you haven't seen this man! He looks like a nuked Godzilla!'

'For a grown-up woman, Adrienne, one who has admitted in my presence that she's over thirty, you have an untidy habit of frequently talking like an adolescent… And I've also spoken to the doctors. Evan needs some rest and must keep his ankle strapped and his leg quiet for a day or so and his shoulder wound periodically checked, but beyond these minor inconveniences, he could go right back into the field.'

'You are one frozen fish, Uncle Mitch! He can barely talk.'

'Then why have you been talking to him?'

'How did you know…?'

'I didn't. You just told me… May we please deal with realities, my dear?'

'What's Evan? Unreal?'

'Give me that phone,' said Kendrick, awkwardly taking the instrument from Khalehla's hand. 'It's me, Mitch. What's happening?'

'How are you, Evan?… I suppose that's a foolish question.'

'Very. Answer mine.'

'Ardis Vanvlanderen's lawyer is at his summer house in the Sanjacinto Mountains. He called his office for messages and we got an area fix. A unit is on its way there now to evaluate. They should be there in a matter of minutes.'

'Evaluate? What the hell is there to evaluate? He's got the book! Go in and get it! It obviously spells out their whole global structure, every rotten arms merchant they've used in the world! Grinell can run to any of them and be hidden. Grab it!'

'You're forgetting about Grinell's own sense of survival. I assume Adrienne… Khalehla told you.'

'Yes, a seaplane picked him up. So what?'

'He wants that ledger as much as we do, and he's no doubt reached Mrs. Vanvlanderen's man by now. Grinell won't risk coming up himself, but he'll send someone he can trust to retrieve it. If he knows we're closing in, and all it would take is another pair of eyes on the lawyer's house, what do you suppose the instructions will be to his trusted courier who must, after all, get that book into Mexico?'

'Where he could be stopped at the border or in an airport—’

'With us in attendance. What do you think he'll tell that person?'

'To burn the damn thing,' said Kendrick quietly.

'Precisely.'

'I hope your men are good at what they do.'

'Two men, and one is just about the best we have. His name is Gingerbread; ask your friend about him.'

'Gingerbread? What kind of dumb name is that?'

'Later, Evan,' interrupted Payton. 'I've got something to tell you. I'm flying out to San Diego this afternoon and we have to talk. I hope you'll be up to it because it's urgent.'

'I'll be up to it, but why can't we talk now?'

'Because I wouldn't know what to say… I'm not sure I will later, but at least I'll have learned more. You see, I'm meeting with a man an hour from now, an influential man who's intensely interested in you—has been for the past year.'

Kendrick closed his eyes, feeling weak as he sank back into the pillows. 'He's with a group or a committee that calls itself… Inver Brass.'

'You know?'

'Only that much. I've no idea who they are or what they are, just that they've screwed up my life.'

The tan car, its coded government plates signifying the Central Intelligence Agency, drove through the imposing gates of the estate on Chesapeake Bay and up the circular drive to the smooth stone steps of the entrance. The tall man in an open raincoat that revealed a rumpled suit and shirt—evidence of nearly seventy-two hours' continuous wear—got out of the back seat and walked wearily up the steps towards the large, stately front door. He shivered briefly in the cold morning air of the overcast day that promised snow—snow for Christmas, reflected Payton. It was Christmas Eve, simply another day for the director of Special Projects, yet a day he dreaded, the impending meeting one he would trade several years of his life not to have insisted upon. Throughout his long career he had done many things that caused the bile to erupt in his stomach, but none more so than the destruction of good and moral men. He would destroy such a man this morning and he loathed himself for it, yet there was no alternative. For there was a higher good, a higher morality, and it was found in the reasonable laws of a nation of decent people. To abuse those laws was to deny the decency; accountability was paramount and constant. He rang the bell.

A maid preceded Payton through an enormous sitting room overlooking the bay to another stately door. She opened it and the director walked inside the extraordinary library, trying to absorb everything that struck his eyes. The huge console that took up the entire wall on the left with its panoply of television monitors and dials and projection equipment; the lowered silver screen on the right and the burning stove in the near corner; the cathedral windows directly opposite and the large circular table in front of him. Samuel Winters got up from the chair beneath the wall of sophisticated technology and came forward, his hand extended.

'It's been too long, MJ—may I call you that?' said the world renowned historian. 'As I recall, everyone called you MJ.'

'Certainly, Dr Winters.' They shook hands and the septuagenarian scholar waved his arm, encompassing the room.

'I wanted you to see it all. To know that we have our fingers on the pulse of the world—but not for personal gain, you must understand that.'

'I do. Who are the others?'

'Please sit down,' said Winters, gesturing at the chair facing his own, on the opposite side of the circular table. 'Take off your coat, by all means. When one reaches my age all the rooms are much too warm.'

'If you don't mind, I'll keep it on. This will not be a long conference.'

'You're certain of that?'

'Very,' replied Payton, sitting down.

'Well,' said Winters softly but emphatically as he went to his chair, 'it's the unusual intellect that chooses its position without regard to the parameters of discussion. And you do have an intellect, MJ.'

'Thank you for your generous, if somewhat condescending, compliment.'

That's rather hostile, isn't it?'

'No more so than your deciding for the country who should run and be elected to national office.'

'He's the right man at the right time for all the right reasons.'

'I couldn't agree with you more. It's the way you did it. When one lets loose a rogue force to achieve an objective, one can't know the consequences.'

'Others do it. They're doing it now.'

'That doesn't give you the right. Expose them, if you can, and with your resources I'm sure you can, but don't imitate them.'

'That's sophistry! We live in an animal world, a politically oriented world dominated by predators!'

'We don't have to become predators to fight them… Exposure, not imitation.'

'By the time the word gets out, by the time even the few understand what's happened, the brutal herds have stampeded, trampling us. They change the rules, alter the laws. They're untouchable.'

'I respectfully disagree, Dr Winters.'

'Look at the Third Reich!'

'Look what happened to it. Look at Runnymede and the Magna Carta, look at the tyrannies of the French Court of Louis the Sixteenth, look at the brutalities of the Czars—for Christ's sake, look at Philadelphia in 1787! The Constitution, Doctor! The people react goddamned quickly to oppression and malfeasance!'

'Tell that to the citizens of the Soviet Union.'

'Checkmate. But don't try to explain that to the refuseniks and the dissidents who every day make the world more aware of the dark corners of Kremlin policy. They are making a difference, Doctor.'

'Excesses!' cried Winters. 'Everywhere on this poor, doomed planet there is excess. It will blow us apart.'

'Not if reasonable people expose excess and do not join it in hysteria. Your cause may have been right, but in your excess you violated laws—written and unwritten—and caused the deaths of innocent men and women because you considered yourself above the laws of the land. Rather than telling the country what you knew, you decided to manipulate it.'

'That is your determination?'

'It is. Who are the others in this Inver Brass?'

'You know that name?'

'I just said it. Who are they?'

'You'll never learn from me.'

'We'll find them… ultimately. But for my own curiosity, where did this organization start? If you don't care to answer, it doesn't matter.'

'Oh, but I do care to answer,' said the old historian, his thin hands trembling to the point where he gripped them together on the table. 'Decades ago Inver Brass was born in chaos, when the nation was being torn apart, on the edge of self-destruction. It was the height of the great depression; the country had come to a stop and violence' was erupting everywhere. Hungry people care little about empty slogans and emptier promises, and productive people who've lost their pride through no fault of their own are reduced to fury… Inver Brass was formed by a small group of immensely wealthy, influential men who had followed the advice of the likes of the financier Bernard Mannes Baruch and were unscathed by the economic collapse. They were also men of social conscience and put their resources to work in practical ways, stemming riots and violence not only by massive infusions of capital and supplies into inflamed areas, but by silently ushering laws through Congress that helped to bring about measures of relief. It is that tradition that we follow.'

'Is it?' asked Payton quietly, his eyes cold, studying the old man.

'Yes,' answered Winters emphatically.

'Inver Brass… What does it mean?'

'It's the name of a marshy inlet in the Highlands of Scotland that's not on any map. It was coined by the first spokesman, a banker of Scots descent, who understood that the group had to act in secrecy.'

'Therefore without accountability?'

'I repeat. We seek nothing for ourselves!'

'Then why the secrecy?'

'It's necessary, for although our decisions are arrived at dispassionately for the good of the country, they're not always pleasant or in the eyes of many even defensible. Yet they were for the good of the nation.'

'“Even defensible?”' repeated Payton, astonished at what he was hearing.

‘I’ll give you an example. Years ago our immediate predecessors were faced with a government tyrant who had visions of reshaping the laws of the country. A man named John Edgar Hoover, a giant who became obsessed in his old age, who had gone beyond the bounds of rationality, blackmailing presidents and senators—decent men—with his raw files, which were rampant with gossip and innuendo. Inver Brass had him eliminated before he brought the executive and the legislative, in essence the government, to its knees. And then a young writer named Peter Chancellor surfaced and came too close to the truth. It was he and his intolerable manuscript that caused the demise of Inver Brass then—but not its resurrection.'

'Oh, my God!' exclaimed the director of Special Projects softly. 'Good and evil, decided solely by you, sentences pronounced only by you. A legend of arrogance.'

'That's unfair! There was no other solution. You're wrong'.'

'It's the truth.' Payton stood up, pushing the chair behind him. 'I've nothing more to say, Dr Winters. I'll leave now.'

'What are you going to do?'

'What has to be done. I'm filing a report for the President, the Attorney General and the congressional oversight committees. That's the law… You're out of business, Doctor. And don't bother to see me to the door, I'll find my way.'

Payton walked out into the cold grey morning air. He breathed deeply, trying to fill his lungs but unable to do so. There was too much weariness, too much that was sad and offensive—on Christmas Eve. He reached the steps and started down to his car when suddenly, shattering the grounds, was a loud report—a gunshot. Payton's driver lunged out of the car, crouching in the drive, his weapon steadied by both hands.

MJ slowly shook his head and continued towards the back door of the vehicle. He was drained. There were no reservoirs of strength to draw from; his exhaustion was complete. Nor was there now the urgency to fly out to California. Inver Brass was finished, its leader dead by his own hand. Without the stature and authority of Samuel Winters, it was in shambles and the manner of his death would send the message of collapse to those who remained… Evan Kendrick? He had to be told the whole story, all sides of it, and make up his own mind. But it could wait—a day at least. All MJ could think of as the driver opened the door for him was to get home, have several more drinks than were good for him, and sleep.

'Mr. Payton,' said the driver, 'you had a radio Code Five, sir.'

'What was the message?'

'“Contact San Jacinto. Urgent.”'

'Return to Langley, please.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Oh, in case I forget. Have a Merry Christmas.'

Thank you, sir.'