Kendrick took a deep breath. ‘I’d been riding the rapids in Arizona when I reached a base camp called Lava Falls and heard a radio for the first time in several weeks. I knew I had to get to Washington…’ Evan recounted the details of those frantic eight hours going from a comparatively primitive campsite in the mountains to the halls of the State Department and finally down to the sophisticated computer complex that was OHIO-Four-Zero. ‘That’s where Swann and I made our agreement and I was off and running.’
‘Let’s go back a minute,’ said Khalehla, only at that moment taking her eyes off Kendrick’s face. ‘You hired a river plane to take you to Flagstaff, where you tried to charter a jet to DC, is that right?’
‘Yes, but the charter desk said it was too late.’
‘You were anxious,’ suggested the field agent. ‘Probably angry. You must have thrown your weight around a bit. A congressman from the great state of Colorado, et cetera.’
‘More than a bit—and lots more of the et cetera.’
‘You reached Phoenix and got the first commercial flight out. How did you pay for your ticket?’
‘Credit card.’
‘Bad form,’ said Khalehla, ‘but you had no reason to think so. How did you know whom to reach at the State Department?’
‘I didn’t, but remember I’d worked in Oman and the Emirates for years, so I knew the sort of person I wanted to find. And since I had inherited an experienced DC secretary who had the instincts of an alley cat, I told her what to look for. I made it clear that it would undoubtedly be someone in the State’s Consular Operations, Middle East or Southwest Asia sections. Most Americans who’ve worked over there are familiar with those people—frequently up to their teeth.’
‘So this secretary with the instincts of an alley cat began calling around asking questions. That must have raised a few eyebrows. Did she keep a list of whom she called?’
‘I don’t know. I never asked her. Everything was kind of frantic and I kept in touch with her on one of those air-to-ground phones during the flight from Phoenix. By the time I landed she had narrowed the possibilities down to four or five men, but only one was considered an expert on the Emirates and he was also a deputy director of Cons Op. Frank Swann.’
‘It would be interesting to know if your secretary did keep a list,’ said Khalehla, arching her neck, thinking.
‘I’ll phone her.’
‘Not from here you won’t. Besides, I’m not finished… So you went to State to find Swann, which means you checked in with security.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Did you check out?’
‘Well no, not actually, not at the lobby desk. Instead, I was taken down to the parking area and driven home in a State Department car.’
‘To your house?’
‘Yes, I was on my way to Oman and had to get some things together—’
‘What about the driver?’ interrupted Khalehla. ‘Did he address you by name?’
‘No, never. But he did say something that shook me. I asked him if he wanted to come in for a snack or coffee while I packed, and he said, “I might get shot if I got out of this car,” or words to that effect. Then he added, “You’re from OHIO-Four-Zero.'”
‘Which means he wasn’t,’ said Rashad quickly. ‘And you were in front of your house?’
‘Yes. Then I stepped out and saw another car about a hundred feet behind us at the curb. It must have been following us; there are no other houses on that stretch of road.’
‘An armed escort.’ Khalehla nodded. ‘Swann covered you from minute-one and he was right. He didn’t have the time or the resources to trace everything that had happened to you minus-one.’
Evan was bewildered. ‘Would you mind explaining that?’
‘Minus-one is before you reached Swann. A rich, angry congressman using a chartered plane to Flagstaff makes a lot of noise about getting to Washington. He’s turned down, so he flies to Phoenix, where he no doubt insists on the first flight out and pays with a credit card, and starts calling his secretary, who has the instincts of an alley cat, telling her to find a man he doesn’t know but is sure exists at the Department of State. She makes her calls—frantically, I think you said—reaching a number of people who have to wonder why. She gets you a narrowed-down quorum—which means she’s reached a lot of her contacts who could give her the information and who also had to wonder why, and you turn up at State demanding to see Frank Swann. Am I right? In your state of mind, did you demand to see him?’
‘Yes. I was given a run-around, told he wasn’t there, but I knew he was, my secretary had confirmed it. I guess I was pretty adamant. Finally, they let me go up to his office.’
‘Then after you talked with him he made his decision to send you to Masqat.’
‘So?’
‘That tight little circle you spoke of wasn’t very little or very tight, Evan. You did what anyone else would do under the circumstances—under the stress you felt. You left a number of impressions during that agitated journey from Lava Falls to Washington. You could easily be traced back through Phoenix to Flagstaff, your name and your loud insistence on fast transportation remembered by a lot of people, especially because of the time of night. Then you show up at the State Department, where you made more noises—incidentally, checking in with security but not checking out—until you were permitted to go up to Swann’s office.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Let me finish, please,’ interrupted Khalehla again. ‘You’ll understand, and I want us both to have the full picture… You and Swann talk, make your agreement of anonymity, and as you said, you’re off and running to Masqat. The first leg was made to your house with a driver who was not part of OHIO-Four-Zero any more than the guards in the lobby. The driver was simply assigned by a dispatcher and the guards on duty were merely doing their jobs. They’re not in the rarefied circles; nobody up there brings them in on top secret agendas. But they’re human; they go home and talk to their wives and their friends because something different happened in their normally dull jobs. They might also answer questions casually put to them by people they thought were government bureaucrats.’
‘And one way or another they all knew who I was—’
‘As did a lot of other people in Phoenix and Flagstaff, and one thing was clear to all of them. This important man’s upset; this congressman’s in a hell of a hurry; this big shot’s got a problem. Do you see the trail you left?’
‘Yes, I do, but who would look for it?’
‘I don’t know, and that troubles me more than I can tell you.’
‘Troubles you? Whoever it was has blown my life apart! Who would do it?’
‘Someone who found an opening, a gap that led to the rest of the trail from a remote campsite called Lava Falls to the terrorists in Masqat. Someone who picked up on something that made him want to look farther. Perhaps it was the calls your secretary made, or the commotion you caused at the State Department’s security desk, or even something as crazy as hearing the rumour that an unknown American had interceded in Oman—it wasn’t crazy at all; it was printed and squashed—but it could have started somebody thinking. Then the other things fell in place and you were there.’
Evan put his hand over hers on the dirt path. ‘I have to know who it was, Khalehla, I have to know.’
‘But we do know,’ she said softly, correcting herself, her voice flat as if seeing something she should have seen before. ‘A blond man with a European accent.’
‘Why?’ Kendrick removed his hand as the word exploded from his throat.
Khalehla looked at him, her gaze compassionate, yet beneath her concern was that cold analytical intelligence in her eyes. ‘The answer to that has to be your overriding concern, Evan, but I have another problem and it’s why I’m frightened.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Whoever the blond man was, whoever he represents, he reached way down deep in our cellars and took out what he should never have been given. I’m stunned, Evan, petrified, and those words aren’t strong enough for the way I feel. Not only by what’s been done to you, but by what’s been done to us. We’ve been compromised, penetrated where such penetration should have been impossible. If they—whoever they are—can dig you up out of the deepest, most secure archives we have, they can learn a lot of other things no one should have access to. Where people like me work that can cost a great many lives—very unpleasantly.’