‘Anahdsfa!’ she exclaimed, asking to be pardoned and turning away.
‘No time for eltakaled, Kashi,’ cried the congressman, telling her to forget her traditions. ‘How are you doing with the clothes?’
‘They might not be your choices, dear Evan, but they will cover you,’ replied the sweet-faced anxious wife. ‘It also occurred to me that you could call us from wherever you are and I can bring things to you. Many people on the newspapers know my husband but none know me. I am never in evidence.’
‘Your choice, not mine,’ said Kendrick, putting on a jacket and returning to the bureau for his wallet, money clip and lighter. ‘We may be closing up this place, Kashi, and heading out to Colorado. Out there you can be my official hostess.’
‘Oh, that’s foolish, dear Evan,’ giggled Mrs. Hassan. ‘It’s not proper.’
‘You’re the professor, Sabri,’ added Kendrick, rapidly running a comb through his hair. ‘When are you going to teach her?’
‘When will she listen? Our women must have advantages we men know nothing about.’
‘Let’s go!’
‘The keys are in the car, dear Evan—’
‘Thanks, Kashi,’ said Kendrick, going out the door and down the staircase with Sabri. ‘Tell me,’ continued Evan as both men crossed through the portico into the large garage that housed his Mercedes convertible and Hassan’s Cimarron Cadillac. ‘How much of the story do they have?’
‘I can only compare what I’ve heard with what Emmanuel told me, for you have said literally nothing.’
‘It’s not that I wanted to keep anything from you—’
‘Please, Evan,’ interrupted the professor. ‘How long have I known you? You are uncomfortable praising yourself, even indirectly.’
‘Praise, hell!’ exclaimed Kendrick, opening the garage door. ‘I blew it! I was a dead man with a bleeding pig strapped to my back about to be dropped over the shoals of Qatar! Others did it, not me. They saved my overachieving ass.’
‘Without you they could have done nothing—’
‘Forget it,’ said Evan, standing by the door of the Cadillac. ‘How much have they learned?’
‘In my opinion, very little. Not an iota of what Emmanuel told me, even discounting his natural exaggerations. The journalists are scratching for details, and apparently those details are not forthcoming.’
‘That doesn’t tell me much. Why did you say it was only “the beginning” when we left the pool?’
‘Because of a man who was interviewed—roused willingly out of his house, obviously—a colleague of yours on the House Intelligence Subcommittee, a congressman named Mason.’
‘Mason…?’ said Kendrick, frowning. ‘He’s got a big profile in Tulsa or Phoenix—I forget which—but he’s a zero. A few weeks ago there was a quiet movement to get him off the committee.’
‘That’s hardly the way he was presented, Evan.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t. What did he say?’
That you were the most astute member of the committee. You were the brilliant one whom everyone looked up to and listened to.’
‘Bullshit! I talked some and asked a few questions but never that much, and in the second place I don’t think Mason and I ever said more than “hello” to each other! It’s bullshit!’
‘It’s also all over the country—’
The sound of one, then two cars screeching to a stop in front of the house broke through the silence of the enclosed garage.
‘Good Christ!’ whispered Evan. ‘I’m cornered!’
‘Not yet,’ said Dr Hassan. ‘Kashi knows what to do. She will admit the early arrivals, speaking Hebrew, incidentally, and usher them into the solarium. She will pretend not to understand them and thus will stall them—for only a few minutes, of course. Go, Evan, take the pasture road south until you reach the highway. In an hour I’ll replace the phone. Call us. Kashi will bring you whatever you need.’
Kendrick kept dialling repeatedly, punching the button down with each repeated busy signal until finally, to his relief, he heard the sound of a ring.
‘Congressman Kendrick’s residence—’
‘It’s me, Sabri.’
‘Now I am truly astonished you got through. I’m also delighted for I can once again take the telephone off the hook.’
‘How are things going?’
‘Calamitously, my friend. Also at your office and at your home in Colorado. All are under siege.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Here no one will leave and, like you, Emmanuel finally reached us with a great deal of profanity. He claimed to have been trying for nearly half an hour—’
‘I’ve got ten minutes on him. What did he say?’
‘The house is surrounded, crowds everywhere. Apparently the newspaper and television people all flew into Mesa Verde, where most were stranded, as three taxis could hardly accommodate such numbers.’
‘All this must blow Manny’s mind.’
‘What blows his mind, as you phrase it, is the lack of sanitary facilities.’
‘What?’
‘He refused to offer them and then observed acts of necessity on all sides of the house that caused him to rush to your shotgun rack.’
‘Oh, my God, they’re pissing all over the lawn—his landscaping!.’
‘I’ve heard Emmanuel’s tirades many times in the past, but never anything like this. During his outburst, however, he did manage to tell me to call Mrs. O’Reilly at your office, as she was not able to get through here.’
‘What did Annie say?’
‘For you to stay out of sight for a while but—in her words—”for God’s sake” call her.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Evan thoughtfully. ‘The less she knows, the better at this point.’
‘Where are you?’ asked the professor.
‘At a motel outside Woodbridge off Route Ninety-five. It’s called The Three Bears and I’m in Cabin 23. It’s the last one on the left nearest the woods.’
‘By which description I assume you need things. Food, no doubt; you cannot go outside and be seen, and there can’t be room service at a motel with cabins—’
‘No, not food. I stopped at a diner on the way down.’
‘No one recognized you?’
‘There were cartoons on the television set.’
‘Then what do you need?’
‘Wait until the late editions of the morning papers come out and send Jim, the gardener, into Washington to pick up as many different ones as he can lay his hands on. Especially the majors; they’ll have their best people on the story and they’ll reach other people.’
‘I’ll make out a list for him. Then Kashi will bring them to you.’
It was not until one-thirty in the afternoon that Sabri’s wife arrived at the motel in Woodbridge, Virginia. Evan opened the door of Cabin 23, grateful to see that she had driven the gardener’s pick-up truck. He had not thought of the diversion, but his two friends from Dubai had known better than to drive his Mercedes past the crowds around his house. While Kendrick held the door, Kashi made rapid second and third trips back to the vehicle, for along with the pile of newspapers from all over the country she brought food. There were sandwiches encased in plastic wrap, two quarts of milk in an ice bucket, four hot plates equally divided between Western and Arab dishes and a bottle of Canadian whisky.
‘Kashi, I’m not going to be here for a week,’ said Kendrick.
‘This is for today and tonight, dear Evan. You are under a great deal of stress and must eat. The box on the table has silverware and metal stands under which you place the Sterno solid fuel for heat. There are also place mats and linen, but if I may, if you must leave here abruptly, please call so I may retrieve the silverware and the linen.’
‘Why? Will the quartermaster throw us in the brig?’
‘I am the quartermaster, dear Evan.’
‘Thanks, Kashi.’
‘You look tired, ya sahbee. You have not rested?’
‘No, I’ve been watching that damned television, and the more I watch, the angrier I get. Rest’s hard to come by when you’re furious.’
‘As my husband says, and I agree with him, you are very effective on television. He also says we must leave you.’
‘Why? He said that to me several weeks ago and I don’t know why!’
‘Of course you do. We are Arabs and you are in a city that distrusts us; you are in a political arena now that does not tolerate us. And we will not bring harm to you.’
‘Kashi, this isn’t my arena! I’m getting out, I’m sick of it! You say this is a city that doesn’t trust you? Why should you be any different? This town doesn’t trust anybody! It’s a city of liars and shills and phonies, men and women who’ll climb over any back with their cleats on to get a little closer to the honey. They’re messing around with a damn good system, sucking the blood out of every vein they can tap, proclaiming the patriotic holiness of their causes while the country sits by and applauds what it doesn’t know it’s paying for! That’s not for me, Kashi, I’m out!’
‘You’re upset—’
‘Tell me about it!’ Kendrick rushed to the bed and the pile of newspapers.