‘Thanks for everything,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been more pleasant company.’
‘You could have spat in my face and I’d still have been proud to meet you, Congressman.’
‘I wish I could say I appreciate that… what is your name?’
‘Call me Joe, sir.’
‘Call me Joe.’ A young man on the same type of aircraft a year ago had been called Joe. Was another Oman, another Bahrain in his future?
‘Thank you, Joe.’
‘We’re not quite finished, Mr. Kendrick. One of those AF boys with the rank of colonel or above has to sign a paper.’
The signer in question was not a colonel, he was a brigadier general and he was black. ‘Hello again, Dr Axelrod,’ said the pilot of the F-106. ‘It seems I’m your personal chauffeur.’ The large man held out his hand. ‘That’s the way the powers that be like it.’
‘Hello, General.’
‘Let’s get one thing straight, Congressman. I was out of line last time and you handed it to me and you were right. But I’ll tell you now that if they transfer me to Colorado, I’ll vote for you in spades—don’t take that idiomatically.’
‘Thanks, General,’ said Evan, attempting to smile. ‘However, I won’t be needing any more votes.’
‘That’d be a damn shame. I’ve been watching you, listening to you. I like the sweep of your wing and that’s something I know about.’
‘I think you’re supposed to sign a paper.’
‘I never got one in Sardinia,’ said the general officer accepting a letter of release from the CIA station chief. ‘You sure you’re gonna accept this li’l old document from an uppity goin’-on-fifty nigger in a general’s suit, Mr. Old School Tie?’
‘Shut your mouth, boy, I’m half Paiute Indian. You think you’ve got problems?’
‘Sorry, son.’ The Air Force officer signed and his special cargo got on board.
‘What happened?’ asked Khalehla when they reached their seats. ‘Why did MJ call?’
His hands shaking, his voice trembling at the sudden enormity of it all, at the violence and the near death of Emmanuel Weingrass, he told her. There was a pained helplessness both in his eyes and in his halting, frightened spurts of explanation. ‘Christ, it’s got to stop! If it doesn’t, I’ll kill everyone I care for!’ She could only grip his hand again and let him know that she was there. She could not fight the lightning in his mind. It was too personal, too soul-racking.
Thirty minutes into the flight, Evan convulsed and leaped out of his seat, racing up the aisle to the toilet. He retched, throwing up everything he had eaten in the last twelve hours. Khalehla ran behind him, forcing the narrow door open and grabbing his forehead, holding him, telling him to let it all out.
‘Please,’ coughed Kendrick. ‘Please, get out of here!’
‘Why? Because you’re so different from the rest of us? You hurt but you won’t cry? You bottle it up until something’s got to give?’
‘I’m not wild about pity—’
‘You’re not getting it, either. You’re a grown man who’s gone through a terrible loss and nearly suffered a greater one—or you the greatest one. I hope I’m your friend, Evan, and as a friend I don’t pity you—I respect you too much for that—but I do feel for you.’
Kendrick stood up, grabbing paper towels from the dispenser, pale and visibly shaken. ‘You know how to make a guy feel terrific,’ he said guiltily.
‘Wash your face and comb your hair. You’re a mess.’ Rashad walked out of the small enclosure past two uniformed and startled flight crew. ‘The damn fool ate some bad fish,’ she explained without looking at either man. ‘Will one of you close the door, please?’
An hour passed; drinks were served by the Air Force attendants, followed by a microwaved dinner eaten heartily by the intelligence agent from Cairo but barely picked at by the congressman. ‘You need food, friend,’ said Khalehla. ‘This beats the hell out of any commercial menu.’
‘Enjoy.’
‘How about you? You move it around but you don’t eat.’
‘I’ll have another drink.’
Their heads snapped up with the piercing sound of a buzzer heard easily over the outside roar of the engines. For Evan it was deja vu; a buzzer had sounded a year ago and he had been summoned to the flight deck. Now, however, the corporal who answered the intercom on the bulkhead walked back and spoke to Khalehla. ‘There’s a radio transmission for you, miss.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rashad, turning and seeing the alarm in Kendrick’s expression. ‘If it was anything important, they’d ask for you. Relax.’ She made her way up the aisle, gripping the few well-separated seats for balance in the mild turbulence, and sat in the seat in front of the bulkhead. The crewman handed her the phone; the spiralling cord was more than adequate for the reach. She crossed her legs and answered. ‘This is Pencil Two, Bahamas. Who are you?’
‘One of these days we’ve got to get rid of that garbage,’ said Mitchell Payton.
‘It works, MJ. If I’d used “Banana Two”, how would you have responded?’
‘I’d have called your father and told him you were a naughty girl.’
‘We don’t count. We know each other… What is it?’
‘I don’t want to talk to Evan, he’s too upset to think clearly. You have to.’
‘I’ll try. What’s your query?’
‘I want your evaluation. The information you got from that fellow you went to see from the old Off Shore Investment crowd in Nassau—you’re convinced he’s reliable, aren’t you?’
‘His information is, he isn’t, but he can’t hide if he lied for money. The man’s a floating drunk who lives off what’s left of his wits, which may have been more acute before his brain was soaked in gin. Evan showed him two thousand in cash and, believe me, he would have given away the secrets of the drug trade for it.’
‘Do you recall exactly what he said about the woman, Ardis Montreaux?’
‘Certainly. He said that he kept track of the money-whore, as he called her, because she owed him and one day he was going to collect.’
‘I mean her marital status.’
‘Of course I remember, but Evan told you over the phone, I heard him.’
‘Tell me yourself. No mistakes can be made.’
‘All right. She divorced the banker, Frazier-Pyke, and married a wealthy Californian from Sun Francisco named Von Lindemann.’
‘He was specific about San Francisco?’
‘Not actually. He said, “San Francisco or Los Angeles”, I think. But he was very specific about California, that was the point. Her new husband was a Californian and terribly rich.’
‘And the name—try to recall precisely. You’re certain it was Von Lindemann?’
‘Well… yes. We met him in a booth at the junkanoo and there was a steel band, but yes, that was the name. Or if it isn’t exact, it’s certainly close enough.’
‘Banco!’ cried Payton. ‘Close enough, my dear. She married a man named Vanvlanderen, Andrew Vanvlanderen, from Palm Springs.’
‘So blame a mouth drowned in gin.’
‘We’re beyond gin, Field Agent Rashad. Andrew Vanvlanderen is one of Langford Jennings’s most distinguished contributors—read that as a mother lode for the presidential coffers.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Oh, we’re even beyond interest. Ardisolda Wojak Montreaux Frazier-Pyke Vanvlanderen, an admittedly gifted and obviously talented administrator, is currently Vice President Orson Bollinger’s chief of staff.’
“That’s fascinating.’
‘I think the situation calls for an informal but nonetheless quite official visit from one of our Middle East specialists—you’ll be in southwest Colorado, barely an hour away. I choose you.’
‘Good God, MJ, on what basis?’
‘Threats were supposedly made against Bollinger and an FBI unit was assigned to him. They kept it quiet—too quiet in my judgment—and now the unit’s suddenly recalled, the emergency declared over.’
‘Coinciding with the attacks on Fairfax and Mesa Verde?’ suggested Khalehla, sharply interrupting.
‘It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s there. Call it the twitching of an old professional’s nostrils, but I detect an odour of amateurish offal drifting out of San Diego.’
‘Implicating the Bureau?’ asked Rashad, astonished.
‘No… Using it. I’m working on an inter-agency interrogation. I intend to interview every member of that unit.’
‘You still haven’t answered me. What’s the reason for my going to San Diego? We’re not domestic.’
‘The same as mine for questioning the unit. With regard to those threats against Bollinger, we’re looking into the possibility of terrorist involvement. The good Lord knows that if we’re pressed to reveal tonight’s events, we have every justification… I don’t know where it is, my dear, but somewhere in this madness there’s a connection—and a blond man with a European accent.’
Khalehla glanced around the cabin as she spoke. The two attendants were talking quietly in their seats and Evan was staring blankly out of the window. ‘I’ll do it, of course, but you’re not making my life any easier. It’s obvious that my boy had an affair with this Vanvlanderen woman—not that it bothers me but it bothers him.’