The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum

‘We have a problem,’ said Samuel Winters from his study in Cynwid Hollow, Maryland.

‘Can you discuss it, sir?’

‘I don’t see why not, at least briefly and with abbreviation. This line is clean and I can’t imagine anyone plugging into yours.’

‘Abbreviations, please.’

‘Roughly seven hours ago something horrible happened at a house in the Virginia suburbs—’

‘A storm?’ broke in the Czech.

‘If I understand you, yes, a terrible storm with enormous loss.’

‘Icarus?’ Varak nearly shouted.

‘He wasn’t there. Nor was he in the mountains, where a similar attempt was made but thwarted.’

‘Emmanuel Weingrass!’ whispered the Czech under his breath. ‘He was the target. I knew it would happen.’

‘It wouldn’t appear so, but why do you say that?’

‘Later, sir… I drove down from Evanston around twelve-thirty—’

‘I knew you were out, I started calling you hours ago but didn’t leave word, of course. Is everything on schedule?’

‘Ahead of it, but that’s not what I mean. There was nothing on the radio about either event, and that’s astonishing, isn’t it?’

‘If things go as I expect,’ answered Winters, ‘there’ll be nothing for at least several days, if then.’

‘That’s even more astonishing. How do you know that, sir?’

‘Because I believe I’ve arranged it. A man I trust has gone privately to Sixteen Hundred through my intervention. He’s there now. If there’s any hope of catching those responsible, he needs the blackout.’

With enormous relief, Milos Varak instantly understood that Samuel Winters was not the traitor within Inver Brass. Whoever the informer was would never prolong the hunt for killers if they were sent out by San Diego. Beyond that truth, that relief, the Czech co-ordinator had someone to confide in.

‘Sir, please listen to me carefully. It’s imperative—I repeat, imperative—that you call a meeting tomorrow as early as possible. It must be during the day, sir, not at night. Every hour will count in each of the time zones.’

‘That’s a startling request.’

‘Call it an emergency. It is an emergency, sir… and somehow, some way, I must find another emergency. I must force someone to make a move.’

‘Without specifics, can you give me a reason?’

‘Yes. The one thing we never thought could happen within the group has happened. There’s someone who shouldn’t be there.’

‘Good God!… You’re certain?’

‘I’m certain. Seconds ago I eliminated you as a possibility.’

It was 4:25 in the morning, California time; 7:25 in the eastern United States. Andrew Vanvlanderen sat in his overstuffed velour chair, his eyes glazed, his heavy body weaving, his white, wavy hair dishevelled. In a burst of frenzy, he suddenly threw a thick-based glass of whisky across the space into the television set; it glanced off the mahogany cabinet and dropped ineffectually on the white rug. In fury, he picked up a marble ashtray and heaved it into the screen of the twenty-four-hour All News programme. The convex glass picture shattered and the set imploded with a loud, sharp report as black smoke rushed out of the electronic entrails. Vanvlanderen roared incoherently at nothing and everything, his quivering lips trying to form words he could not find. In seconds his wife ran out of the bedroom.

‘What are you doing?’ she screamed.

‘There’s—augh!—nothing, not a goddamned thing!’ he shrieked, his speech garbled, his neck and face flushed, the veins in his throat and forehead distended. ‘Not a fucking thing! What’s happened? What’s going on? They can’t do this! I paid them a straight two million!’ And then, without warning or the slightest indication of anything other than being in the grip of rage, Vanvlanderen lurched out of the chair, his arms trembling, his hands shaking violently, pressing a wall of air he could not see through his bulging eyes, and fell forward on the floor. As his face crashed into the rug, a furious guttural cry was the last sound from his throat.

His fourth wife, Ardis Wojak Montreaux Frazier-Pyke Vanvlanderen, took several steps forward, her face white, her uplifted skin stretched to the parchment of a mask, her large eyes staring down at her dead husband. ‘You son of a bitch!’ she whispered. ‘How could you leave me with this mess, whatever it is? Whatever the hell you’ve done!’

* * *

Chapter 32

Ahbyahd called his four ‘priests’ together in the motel room he shared with the young member of the mission who spoke fluent English and who had never been in Oman. It was 5:43 am, Colorado time, and the long vigil was over. There would be no rendezvous. Command Two had not made contact, which meant that Yosef and his men were dead; there was no other explanation. The hardened veteran who was half Jew but with a consummate hatred of all things Western and Israeli would never permit a single member of his team to be taken alive. It was why he had insisted that the crippled, harelipped boy who would not be denied should be at his side at all times.

At the first sign of even conceivable capture, I will put a bullet in your head, child. Do you understand?

I will do it first, old man. I seek my glorious death far more than my miserable life.

I believe you, you young fool. But please remember the words of Azra. Alive you can fight, dead you cannot.

The martyred Azra was right, thought Ahbyahd. However, Azra had not defined the ultimate sacrifice sought by all who truly believed. It was to die while fighting. That was why the jihad was impervious to traps, even to death. And the thunderous silence that resulted from the attack on the house in Virginia and the absence of Yosef and his men could only be a trap. It was the Western way of thinking: Deny the accomplishment, acknowledge nothing; force the hunters to search farther and lead them into a trap. It was so meaningless. If the trap meant killing the enemy, in this instance the possibility of killing a great enemy, what did death matter? In their martyrdom they would find an exhilaration of happiness unknown in the life they led here on earth. There was no greater glory for the believer than to walk into the gentle clouds of Allah’s heaven with the blood of enemies on one’s hands in a just war.

It was this reasoning that confused Ahbyahd. Did not the Christians incessantly talk about walking into the arms of Christ for the causes of Christ, calling for wars in his name? Did not the Jews exalt their chosen status under Abraham’s God to the exclusion of all others, fighting for deliverance as the Maccabees did, dying for their beliefs atop the Masada? Was Allah to be deemed unworthy in this company? Who decreed it? The Christians and the Jews? Ahbyahd was no scholar, barely a student of such difficult subjects, if the truth be known, but these were things taught by the elders, men steeped in the holy Koran. The lessons were clear: Their enemies were quick to invent and fight for their own grievances but quicker still to deny the pain of others. The Christians and the Jews were very free in calling upon their almighties in any conflict that threatened them, and they would certainly continue to deny the just cause of the lowly Palestinian, but they could not deny him his martyrdom. They would not in a distant place called Mesa Verde, thousands of kilometres from Mecca.

‘My brothers,’ began the white-haired one, facing the four men of his command in the small, dingy motel room. ‘Our time has come and we approach it with rapture, knowing that a far better world lies before us, a heaven where we will be free, neither slaves nor pawns to others here on earth. If through the grace of Allah we survive to fight again, we will bring home to our brothers and sisters the holy kill of vengeance that so justly belongs to us. And the world will know that we have done it, know that five men of valour penetrated and destroyed all within two fortresses built by the great enemy to stop us… Now we must prepare. First with prayers, and then with the more practical applications of our cause. Depending on what we learn, we strike when they will least expect an attack—not with the cover of night but in sunlight. By sundown we will either be with the holy hour of Salat el Maghreb or in the arms of Allah.’

It was shortly past noon when Khalehla walked off the plane and into the lounge at San Diego’s International Airport. She was instantly aware of being watched, mainly because her observer made no pretence of not doing so. The nondescript overweight man in an unpressed, ill-fitting gabardine suit was eating popcorn from a white cardboard container. He nodded his head once, turned, and started walking down the wide, crowded corridor towards the terminal. It was a signal. In moments Rashad caught up with him, slowing her pace to his at his side.