‘Hey.’ yelled a rotund man who had just walked out of the small canopied door of a bar on Sixteenth Street. ‘I just seen you! You were on TV sittin’ on a desk! It was that all-day news programme Boring! I don’t know what the hell you said but some bums clapped and some other bums gave you raspberries. It was you!’
‘You must be mistaken,’ said Kendrick hurrying down the pavement. Good Lord, he thought, the Cable News people had rushed to air the impromptu press conference in short order. He had left his office barely an hour and a half ago, someone was in a hurry. He knew that Cable needed constant material but with all the news floating around Washington, why him? In truth, what bothered him was an observation made by young Tobias during Evan’s early days on the Hill. ‘Cable’s an incubating process, Congressman, and we can capitalize on it. The networks may not consider you important enough to cover, but they scan Cable’s snippets all the time for what’s off-beat, the unusual—their own fill. We can create situations where the C-boys will take the bait, and in my opinion, Mr. Kendrick, your looks and your somewhat oblique observations—’
‘Then let’s never make the mistake, Mr. Tobias, of ever calling the C-boys, okay?’ The interruption had deflated the aide, who was only partially mollified by Evan’s promise that the next inhabitant of his office would be far more cooperative. He had meant it; he meant it now, but he worried that it might be too late.
He headed back to the Madison Hotel, only a block or so away, where he had spent Sunday night—spent it there because he had had the presence of mind to call his house in Virginia to learn whether his appearance on the Foxley show had created any interruptions at home.
‘Only if one wishes to make a telephone call, Evan,’ Dr Sabri Hassan had replied in Arabic, the language they both spoke for convenience as well as for other reasons. ‘It never stops ringing.’
‘Then I’ll stay in town. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll let you know.’
‘Why bother?’ Sabri had asked. ‘You probably won’t be able to get through anyway. I’m surprised that you did now.’
‘Well, in case Manny calls—’
‘Why not call him yourself and tell him where you are so I will not have to lie. The journalists in this city cannot wait for an Arab to lie; they pounce upon us. The Israelis can say that white is black, or sweet is sour, and their lobby convinces Congress it’s for your own good. It is not so with us.’
‘Cut it out, Sabri—’
‘We must leave you, Evan. We’re no good to you, we will be no good to you.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Kashi and I watched the programme this morning. You were most effective, my friend.’
‘We’ll talk about it later.’ He had spent the afternoon watching baseball and drinking whisky. At six-thirty he had turned on the news, one network after another, only to see himself in brief segments from the Foxley show. In disgust, he had switched to an arts channel that showed a film depicting the mating habits of whales off the coast of Tierra del Fuego. He was amazed; he fell asleep.
Today, instinct told him to keep his room key, so he rushed through the Madison’s lobby to the elevators. Once inside the room he removed his clothes down to his shorts and lay on the bed. And whether it was a symptom of a repressed ego or sheer curiosity, he turned on the remote control unit and switched the channel to Cable News. Seven minutes later he saw himself walking out of his office.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen one of the most unusual press conferences this reporter has ever attended. Not only unusual, but unusually one-sided. This fast-term representative from Colorado has raised issues of obvious national importance but refuses to be questioned as to his conclusions. He simply walks away. On his behalf it should be said that he denies “grandstanding” because he apparently is not sure he intends to remain in Washington—which we assume means government—nevertheless his statements were provocative, to say the least.’
The videotape suddenly stopped, replaced by the live face of an anchorwoman. ‘We switch now to the Department of Defense where we understand that an under secretary in charge of Strategic Deterrence has a prepared statement. It’s yours, Steve.’
Another face, this a dark-haired, blunt-featured reporter with too many teeth who peered into a camera and whispered. ‘Under Secretary Jasper Hefflefinger, who manages to be hauled out whenever someone attacks the Pentagon, has rushed into the breach opened by Congressman—who?—Henry, of Wyoming—what?—Colorado! Here is Under Secretary Hefflefinger.’
Another face. A jowled but handsome man, a strong face with a shock of silver hair that demanded attention. And with a voice that would be envied by the most prominent radio announcers of the late thirties and forties. ‘I say to the Congressman that we welcome his comments. We want the same thing, sir! The avoidance of catastrophe, the pursuit of liberty and freedom—’
He went on and on, saying everything but also saying nothing, never once addressing the issues of escalation and containment.
Why me? shouted Kendrick to himself. Why me? To hell with it! With everything! He shut off the television set, reached for the phone and called Colorado. ‘Hi, Manny,’ he said, hearing Weingrass’s abrupt hello.
‘Boy, are you something!’ yelled the old man into the phone. ‘I brought you up right, after all!’
‘Stow it, Manny, I want out of this shit.’
‘You want what? Did you see yourself on TV?
‘That’s why I want out. Forget the glassed-in steam bath and the gazebo down by the streams. We’ll do it later. Let’s you and I head back to the Emirates—by way of Paris, naturally—maybe a couple of months in Paris, if you like. Okay?’
‘Not okay, you meshuga clown! You got something to say, you say it! I taught you always—whether we lost a contract or not—to say what you believed was right… Okay, okay, maybe we fudged a little on time, but we delivered!. And we never charged for extensions even when we had to pay!’
‘Manny, that has nothing to do with what’s going on here—’
‘It’s got everything. You’re building something… And speaking of building, guess what, my boy?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve started the terrace steam bath and I’ve handed over the plans for the gazebo down by the streams. Nobody interrupts Emmanuel Weingrass until his designs are completed to his satisfaction!’
‘Manny, you’re impossible!.’
‘I may have heard that before.’
Milos Varak walked down a gravelled path in Rock Creek Park towards a bench that overlooked a ravine where offshoot waters of the Potomac rushed below. It was a remote, peaceful area away from the concrete pavements above, favoured by the summer tourists wishing to get away from the heat and hustle of the streets. As the Czech expected, the Speaker of the House of Representatives was already there, sitting on the bench, his thatch of white hair concealed by an Irish walking cap, the visor half over his face, his long, painfully thin frame covered by an unnecessary raincoat in the sweltering humidity of an August afternoon in Washington. The Speaker wanted no one to notice him; it was not his normal proclivity. Varak approached and spoke.
‘Mr. Speaker, I’m honoured to meet you, sir.’
‘Son of a bitch, you are a foreigner!’ The gaunt face with the dark eyes and arched white brows was an angry face, angry and yet defensive, the latter trait obviously repulsive to him. ‘If you’re some fucking Communist errand boy, you can pack it in right now, Ivan! I’m not running for another term. I’m out, finished, kaput come January, and what happened thirty or forty years ago doesn’t mean doodlely shit! You read me, Bom?’
‘You’ve had an outstanding career and have been a positive force for your country, sir—also my country now. As to my being a Russian or an agent from the Eastern bloc, I’ve fought both for the past ten years, as a number of people in this government know.’
The granite-eyed politician studied Varak. ‘You wouldn’t have the guts or the stupidity to say that to me unless you could back it up,’ he intoned in the pungent accent of a northern New Englander. ‘Still, you threatened me!’
‘Only to get your attention, to persuade you to see me. May I sit down?’
‘Sit,’ said the Speaker as if addressing a dog he expected to obey him. Varak did so, maintaining ample space between them. ‘What do you know about the events that may or may not have taken place some time back in the fifties?’
‘It was 17 March 1951 to be exact,’ replied the Czech. ‘On that day a male child was born in Belfast’s Lady of Mercy Hospital to a young woman who had emigrated to America several years before. She had returned to Ireland, her explanation, indeed, a sad one. Her husband had died and in her bereavement she wanted to have their child at home, among her family.’