‘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!’
‘ฟComo?’ 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, se๑or,’ 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?’