The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum

‘What the hell is a purview? Corporate price-fixing and outrageous overruns aren’t in your purview? Let me tell you something, whack-a-doo, they damn well better be!… To hell with you, let’s turn to my esteemed running mate—the last is by far not the least in terms of vital importance. Our grovelling, snivelling tool of very special interests is the big man on the campus! They’re all your boys, Orson! How could you do it?’

‘Mr. President, they’re your men, too! They raised the money for your first campaign. They raised millions more than your opposition, virtually assuring your election. You espoused their causes, supported their cries for the unencumbered expansion of business and industry—’

‘Reasonably unencumbered, yes,’ said Jennings, the veins in his forehead pronounced, ‘but not manipulated. Not corrupted by dealings with arms merchants all over Europe and the Mediterranean, and, goddamn you, not by collusion, extortion and terrorists for hire!’

‘I knew nothing about such things!’ screamed Bollinger, leaping to his feet.

‘No, you probably didn’t, Mr. Vice President, because you were all too useful peddling influence for them to risk losing you through panic. But you sure as hell knew there was a lot more fat in the fire than there was smoke in the kitchen. You just didn’t want to know what was burning and smelling so rotten. Sit down!’ Bollinger sat, and Jennings continued. ‘But get this clear, Orson. You’re not on the ticket and I don’t want you near the convention. You’re out, finished, and if I ever learn that you’re peddling again or sitting on a board other than for charity… well, just don’t.’

‘Mr. President!’ said the leather-faced chairman of the Joint Chiefs as he stood up. ‘In light of your remarks and all too obvious disposition, I tender my resignation, effective immediately!’

The declaration was followed by half a dozen others, all standing and emphatic. Langford Jennings leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, his voice chilling. ‘Oh, no, you’re not getting off that easy, any of you. There’s not going to be a reverse Saturday night massacre in this administration, no crawling off the ship and into the hills. You’re going to stay right where you are and make damned sure we get back on course… Understand me clearly, I don’t care what people think of me or you or the house I’m temporarily occupying, but I do care about the country, I care about it deeply. So deeply in fact that this preliminary report—preliminary because it isn’t finished by a long shot—is going to remain the sole property of this President under the statutes of executive nondisclosure until I think the time is right to release it… which it will be. To release it now would cripple the strongest presidency this nation has had in forty years and do irreparable damage to the country, but I repeat, it will be released… Let me explain something to you. When a man, and I trust some day a woman, reaches this office, there’s only one thing left, and that’s his mark on history. Well, I’m taking myself out of that race for immortality within the next five years of my life, because during that time this completed report, with all its horrors, will be made public. But not until every wrong committed on my watch has been righted, every crime paid for. If that means working night and day, then that’s what you’re all going to do—all but my pandering, sycophantic Vice President who’s going to fade away and with any luck will have the grace to blow his brains out… A final word, gentlemen. Should any of you be tempted to jump this rotten ship we’ve all created by omission and commission, please remember that I’m the President of the United States with incredible powers. In the broadest sense they include life and death—that’s merely a statement of fact, but if you care to take it as a threat… Well, that’s your privilege. Now, get out of here and start thinking. Payton, you stay.’

‘Yes, Mr. President.’

‘Did they get the message, Mitch?’ asked Jennings, pouring himself and Payton a drink from a bar recessed in the left wall of the Oval Office.

‘Let’s put it this way,’ replied the director of Special Projects. ‘If I don’t have that whisky in a matter of seconds, I’m going to start shaking again.’

The President grinned his famous grin as he brought Payton’s drink to him at the window. ‘Not bad for a guy who’s supposedly got the IQ of a telephone pole, huh?’

‘It was an extraordinary performance, sir.’

That’s what this office has been largely reduced to, I’m afraid.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way, Mr. President.’

‘Of course you did and you’re right. It’s why the king, with all his clothes on or naked, needs a strong prime minister who, in turn, creates his own royal family—from both parties, incidentally.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Kendrick. I want him on the ticket.’

‘Then you’ll have to convince him, I’m afraid. According to my niece—I call her my niece but she’s not really—’

‘I know all about it, all about her,’ interrupted Jennings. ‘What does she say?’

‘That Evan’s perfectly aware of what’s happened—what’s happening—but hasn’t made up his mind. His closest friend, Emmanuel Weingrass, is extremely ill and not expected to live.’

‘I’m aware of that, too. You didn’t use his name but it’s in your report, remember?’

‘Oh, sorry. I haven’t had much sleep lately. I forget things … At any rate, Kendrick insists on going back to Oman and I can’t dissuade him. He’s obsessed with the arms merchant Abdel Hamendi. He quite rightly believes that Hamendi’s selling at least eighty per cent of all the firepower used in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, destroying his beloved Arab countries. In his way, he’s like a modern day Lawrence, trying to rescue his friends from international contempt and ultimate oblivion.’

‘What exactly does he think he can accomplish?’

‘From what he’s told me, it’s basically a sting operation. I don’t think it’s clear to him yet, but the objective is. That’s to expose Hamendi for what he is, a man who makes millions upon millions by selling death to anyone who’ll buy it.’

‘What makes Evan believe Hamendi gives a damn what his buyers think of him? He’s in the arms business, not evangelism.’

‘He might if more than half the weapons he’s sold do not function, if the explosives don’t explode, and the guns don’t fire.’

‘Good God,’ whispered the President, turning slowly and walking back to his desk. He sat down and placed his glass on the blotter, staring in silence at the far wall. Finally, he turned in his chair and looked up at Payton by the window. ‘Let him go, Mitch. He’d never forgive either one of us if we stopped him. Give him everything he needs, but make goddamned sure he comes back… I want him back. The country needs him back.’

Across the world, pockets of mist drifted in from the Persian Gulf, blanketing Bahrain’s Tujjar Road, causing inverted halos beneath the streetlamps and obscuring the night sky above. It was precisely four-thirty in the morning as a large black car intruded upon this deserted waterfront section of the sleeping city. It came to a stop in front of the glass doors of the building known as the Sahalhuddin, until sixteen months ago the princely high chambers of the man-monster who called himself the Mahdi. Two robed Arabs emerged from rear doors of the imposing vehicle and walked into the wash of dull neon lights that illuminated the entrance; the limousine quietly drove away. The taller man tapped softly on the glass; inside, the guard at the reception desk glanced at his wristwatch, got out of his chair and walked rapidly to the door. He unlocked it and bowed to the odd-hour visitors.

‘All is prepared, great sirs,’ he said, his voice at first barely above a whisper. ‘The outside guards have been granted early dismissal; the morning shift arrives at six o’clock.’

‘We’ll need less than half that time,’ said the younger, shorter visitor, obviously the leader. ‘Has your well-paid preparedness included an unlocked door upstairs?’

‘Most assuredly, great sir.’

‘And only one elevator is in use?’ asked the older, taller Arab.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We’ll lock it above.’ The shorter man started towards the bank of elevators on the right, his companion instantly catching up with him. ‘If I’m correct,’ he continued, speaking loudly, ‘we walk up the final flight of stairs, is that so?’

‘Yes, great sir. All the alarms have been disengaged and the room restored exactly as it was… before that terrible morning. Also, as instructed, the item you requested has been brought up; it was in the cellars. You may be aware, sir, that the authorities tore the room apart, then sealed it for many months. We could not understand, great sir.’

‘It wasn’t necessary that you did… You will alert us if anyone seeks entrance into the building or even approaches the doors.’