‘What’s the problem?’ asked the man in a naval uniform behind the wheel. The gold wings signified that he was a pilot.
‘I’m afraid I’ve had an accident,’ replied Varak. ‘I drove off the road a mile or so back and no one has stopped to help me.’
‘You’re pretty smashed up, pal… Climb in and I’ll get you to the hospital. Jesus, you’re a mess! Come on, I’ll give you a hand.’
‘Don’t bother, I can manage,’ said Varak, walking around the bonnet. He opened the door and climbed in. ‘If I soil your car I’ll gladly pay—’
‘Let’s worry about that in a month of Tuesdays.’ The naval officer shifted into gear and raced off as the Czech replaced his unseen automatic in the holster.
‘You’re very kind,’ said Milos, digging a scrap of paper out of his pocket and removing his pen, writing brief words and numbers in the darkness.
‘You’re very hurt, pal. Hang on.’
‘Please, I must find a telephone. Please!’
The fucking insurance can wait, buddy.’
‘No, not insurance,’ stammered Varak. ‘My wife. She expected me hours ago… She has psychological problems.’
‘Don’t they all?’ said the pilot. ‘Do you want me to make the call?’
‘No, thank you very much. She would interpret that as a crisis far worse than it is.’ The Czech arched back in the seat, grimacing.
‘There’s a fruit stand about a mile down the road. I know the owner and they have a phone.’
‘I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Take me to dinner when you get out of the hospital.’
The perplexed owner of the fruit store handed Varak the phone as the naval officer watched, concerned for his damaged passenger. Milos dialled the Westlake Hotel. ‘Room Fifty-one, if you please?”
‘Hello, hello?’ cried Khalehla from out of a deep sleep.
‘Do you have an answer for me?’
‘Milos?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m not terribly well, Miss Rashad. Do you have an answer?’
‘You’re hurt!’
‘Your answer.’
‘Green light. Payton will back off. If Evan can get the nomination, it’s his. The race is on.’
‘He’s needed more than you’ll ever know.’
‘I don’t know that he’ll agree.’
‘He has to! Keep your line free. I’ll call you right back.’
‘You are hurt!’
The Czech depressed the bar on the phone and immediately redialled.
‘Yes?’
‘Sound Man?’
‘Prague?’
‘How are things progressing?’
‘We’ll be done in a couple of hours. The typist’s got the earphones on and is pounding away… She’s rough on all-night overtime.’
‘Whatever the cost, it’s… covered.’
‘What’s wrong with you? I can barely hear you.’
‘A slight cold… You’ll find ten thousand in your studio mailbox.’
‘Yes, come on, I’m not a thief.’
‘I roll high, remember?’
‘You really don’t sound right, Prague.’
‘In the morning, take everything to the Westlake, Room Fifty-one. The name of the woman is Rashad. Give it only to her.’
‘Rashad. Room Fifty-one. I’ve got it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Listen, if you’re in trouble, let me know about it, okay? I mean if there’s anything I can do—’
‘Your car’s at the airport, somewhere in Section C,’ said the Czech, hanging up. He lifted the phone for the last time and dialled again. ‘Room Fifty-one,’ he repeated.
‘Hello?’
‘You will receive… everything in the morning.’
‘Where are you? Let me send help!’
‘In the… morning. Get it to Mr. B!’
‘Goddamn you, Milos, where are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter… Ask Kendrick. He may know.’
‘Know what?’
‘Photographs… The Vanvlanderen woman… Lausanne, the Leman Marina. The Beau Rivage—the gardens. Then Amsterdam, the Rozengracht. In the hotel… her study. Tell him! The man is a Saudi and things happened to him… millions, millions!’ Milos could hardly talk; he had so little breath. Go on… go on! Escape… millions!’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘He may be the key! Don’t let anyone remove the photographs… Contact Kendrick. He may remember!’ The Czech lost control of his movements; he swung the telephone back on to the counter missing the cradle, then fell to the ground in front of the fruit stand on a back country road beyond the airport in San Diego. Milos Varak was dead.
* * *
Chapter 38
The morning’s headlines and related articles obscured all other news. The Secretary of State and his entire delegation had been brutally killed in a hotel in Cyprus. The Sixth Fleet was heading towards the island, all weapons and aircraft at the ready. The nation was transfixed, furious, and not a little frightened. The horror of some uncontrollable force of evil seemed to loom on the horizon, edging the country towards the brink of wholesale confrontation, provoking the government to respond with equal horror and brutality. But in a stroke of rare intuitive geopolitical brilliance, President Langford Jennings controlled the storm. He contacted Moscow, and the result of that communication had brought forth dual condemnations from the two superpowers. The monstrous event in Cyprus was labelled an isolated act of terrorism that enraged the entire world. Words of praise and sorrow for a great man came from all the capitals of the globe, allies and adversaries alike.
And on pages 2, 7 and 45, respectively, in the San Diego Union, and pages 4, 50 and 51 in the Los Angeles Times, were the following far less important wire service reports.
San Diego, 22 Dec.—Mrs. Ardis Vanvlanderen, chief of staff for Vice President Orson Bollinger, whose husband, Andrew Vanvlanderen, died yesterday from cardiac arrest, took her own life early this morning in apparent grief. Her body washed up on the beach in Coronado, death attributed to drowning. On his way to the airport, her attorney, Mr. Crayton Grinell, of La Jolla, had dropped her off at the funeral home for a last viewing of her husband. According to sources at the home, the widow was under severe strain and barely coherent. Although a limousine waited for her, she slipped out a side door and apparently took a taxi to the Coronado beach…
Mexico City, 22 Dec.—Eric Sundstrom, one of America’s leading scientists and creators of highly complex space technology, died of a cerebral haemorrhage while on vacation in Puerto Vallarta. Few details are available at this time. A full report of his life and work will appear in tomorrow’s editions.
San Diego, 22 Dec.—An unidentified man without papers, but carrying a gun, died of gunshot wounds on a back road south of the International Airport. Lt Commander John Demartin, a US Navy fighter pilot, picked him up, telling the police the man claimed to have been in an automobile accident. Due to the proximity of the private field adjacent to the airport, authorities suspect that the death may have been drug oriented…
Evan flew to San Diego on the first morning flight from Denver. He had insisted on seeing Manny at 6:00 am and would not be denied. ‘You’re going to be fine,’ he had lied. ‘And you’re a horseshit artist,’ Weingrass had shot back. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘… Khalehla. San Diego. She needs me.”… Then get the hell out of here! I don’t want to see your ugly face another second. Go to her, help her. Get those bastards!’
The taxi from the airport to the hotel in the early traffic seemed interminable, the situation hardly relieved by the driver, who recognized him and kept up a flow of inane chatter laced with invective directed at all Arabs and all things Arabic.
‘Every fuckin’ one of ’em should be taken out and shot, right?’
‘Women and children, too, of course.’
‘Right! The brats grow up and the broads make more brats!’
‘That’s quite a solution. You might even call it final.’
‘It’s the only way, right’?’
‘Wrong. When you consider the numbers and the price of ammunition, the cost would be too high. Taxes would go up.’
‘No kiddin’? Shit, I pay enough. There’s gotta be another way.’
‘I’m sure you’ll come up with one… Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have some reading to do.’ Kendrick returned to his copy of the Denver Post and the terrible news from Cyprus. And, either miffed or feeling he had been put down, the driver turned on the radio. Again, as in the newspapers, the coverage was almost exclusively about the abominable act of terrorism in the Mediterranean, on-site recordings and repeated interviews from world figures in various translated languages condemning the barbaric act. And as if death had to follow death, a stunned Evan heard the newscaster’s words.
‘Here in San Diego there was another tragedy. Mrs. Ardis Vanvlanderen, Vice President Bollinger’s chief of staff, was found dead early this morning when her body washed up on the beach in Coronado, an apparent suicide…’
Kendrick shot forward on the seat… Ardis? Ardis Vanvlanderen …? Ardis Montreaux! The Bahamas… a dissolute minor player from Off Shore Investments of years ago said Ardis Montreaux had married a wealthy Californian! Good Christ! That was why Khalehla had flown to San Diego. Mitchell Payton had found the ‘money whore’—Bollinger’s chief of staff! The announcer went on to speculate on the new widow’s grief, a speculation Kendrick thought suspect.