‘Consular Operations, Director Swann’s office,’ said the secretary.
‘Hi, this is Ralph over in ID,’ began Kendrick. ‘I’ve got some news for Frank.’
‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s okay, I’m a friend of Frank’s. I just want to tell him that there may be an inter-division meeting called for later this afternoon—’
‘Another one? He doesn’t need that.’
‘How’s his schedule?’
‘Overworked! He’s in conference until four o’clock.’
‘Well, if he doesn’t want to be put on the grill again maybe he should have a short day and drive home early.’
‘Drive? Him? He’ll parachute into the jungles of Nicaragua but he won’t take chances in Washington traffic.’
‘You know what I mean. Things are a little jumpy around here. He could be put on the spit.’
‘He’s been on it since six this morning.’
‘Just trying to help out a buddy.’
‘Actually, he’s got a doctor’s appointment,’ said the secretary suddenly.
‘He does?’
‘He does now. Thanks, Ralph.’
‘I never called you.’
‘Of course not, sweetie. Someone in ID was just checking schedules.’
Evan stood in the crowd waiting for a bus at the corner of Twenty-first Street within clear sight of the entrance to the Department of State. After speaking to Swann’s secretary, he had left the cabin and driven rapidly up to Washington, stopping briefly at a shopping mall in Alexandria, where he bought dark glasses, a wide-brimmed canvas fishing hat and a soft cloth jacket. It was 3:48 in the afternoon; if the secretary had pursued her protective inclinations, Frank Swann, deputy director of Consular Operations, would be coming out of the huge glass doors within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.
He did. At 4:03 and in a hurry, turning left on the pavement away from the bus stop. Kendrick rushed out of the crowd and started after the man from the State Department, staying thirty feet behind him, wondering what means of transportation the nondriving Swann would take. If he intended to walk, Kendrick would stop him somewhere they could talk undisturbed.
He was not going to walk; he was about to take a bus heading east on Virginia Avenue. Swann joined several others waiting for the same vehicle now lumbering rapidly down the street towards the stop. Evan hurried to the corner; he could not allow the Cons Op director to get on that bus. He approached Swann and touched his shoulder. ‘Hello, Frank,’ said Kendrick pleasantly, taking off the dark glasses.
‘You!’ shouted the astonished Swann, startling the other passengers as the doors of the bus cracked open.
‘Me,’ admitted Evan quietly. ‘I think we’d better talk.’
‘Good Christ! You’ve got to be out of your mind!’
‘If I am, you’ve driven me there, even if you don’t drive—’
It was as far as their brief conversation got, for suddenly an odd voice filled the street, echoing off the side of the bus. ‘It’s him?’ roared a strange-looking, dishevelled man with wide, popping eyes and long, wild hair that fell over his ears and his forehead. ‘See! Look! It’s him! Commando Kendrick! I seen him all day long on the television—I got seven televisions in my apartment! Nothin’ goes on I don’t know about! It’s him!’
Before Evan could react the man grabbed the fishing hat off his head. ‘Hey!’ shouted Kendrick.
‘See! Look! Him!’
‘Let’s get out of here!’ cried Swann.
They started running up the street, the odd-looking man in pursuit, his baggy trousers flopping in the wind he created, Evan’s hat in his hand, his arms flailing.
‘He’s following us!’ said the Cons Op director, looking back.
‘He’s got my hat!’ said Kendrick.
Two blocks later, a doddering, blue-haired lady with a cane was climbing out of a cab. ‘There!’ yelled Swann. ‘The taxi!’ Dodging traffic, they raced across the wide avenue. Evan climbed in the near door as the man from the State Department ran around the back to the far side; he helped the elderly passenger out and inadvertently kicked the cane with his foot. It fell to the pavement; so did the blue-haired lady. ‘Sorry, dear,’ said Swann, jumping into the back seat.
‘Let’s go!’ yelled Kendrick. ‘Hurry up! Get out of here!’
‘You clowns hold up a bank or somethin’?’ said the driver, shifting into gear.
‘You’ll be richer for it if you’ll just hurry,’ added Evan. ” ‘I’m hurryin’, I’m hurryin’. I ain’t got no pilot’s licence. I gotta stay earthbound, y’know what I mean?’
As one, Kendrick and Swann whipped around to look out of the rear window. Back at the corner the odd-looking man with the wild hair and baggy trousers was writing something down on a newspaper, Evan’s hat now on his head. ‘The name of the company and the cab’s number,’ said the Cons Op director quietly. ‘Wherever we’re going, we’ll have to switch vehicles at least a block behind this one.’
‘Why? Not the switch but the block away?’
‘So our driver doesn’t see which cab we get into.’
‘You even sound like you know what you’re doing.’
‘I hope you do,’ replied Swann breathlessly, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his sweat-drenched face.
Twenty-eight minutes and a second taxi later, the congressman and the man from the Department of State walked rapidly down the street in a run-down section of Washington. They looked up at a red neon sign with three letters missing. It was a seedy bar that belonged in its environs. They nodded to each other and walked inside, somewhat startled by the intensely dark interior, if only in contrast to the bright October day out in the street. The single glaring, blaring source of light was a television set bolted into the wall above the shabby distressed bar. Several hunched-over, dishevelled, bleary-eyed patrons confirmed the status of the establishment. Both squinting in the receding dim wash of light, Kendrick and Swann moved towards the darker regions to the right of the bar; they found a frayed booth and slid in opposite each other.
‘You really insist we talk?’ asked the grey-haired Swann, breathing deeply, his face flushed and still perspiring.
‘I insist to the point of making you the newest candidate for the morgue.’
‘Watch it, I’m a black belt.’
‘In what?’
Swann frowned. ‘I was never quite sure, but it always works in the movies when they show us doing our thing. I need a drink.’
‘You signal a waiter,’ said Kendrick. ‘I’ll stay in the shadows.’
‘Shadows?’ questioned Swann, raising his hand cautiously for a heavy black waitress with flaming red hair. ‘Where’s any light in here?’
‘When did you last do three push-ups in succession, Mr. Karate Kid?’
‘Sometime in the sixties. Early, I think.’
‘That’s when they replaced the light bulbs in this place… Now about me. How the hell could you, you liar?’
‘How the hell could you think I would?’ cried the man from State, suddenly silent as the grotesque waitress stood by the table, arms akimbo. ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked Evan.
‘Nothing.’
‘That’s not nice here. Or healthy, I suspect. Two ryes, double, thank you. Canadian, if you have it.’
‘Forget it,’ said the waitress.
‘Forgotten,’ agreed Swann as the waitress left, his eyes again on Kendrick. ‘You’re funny, Mr. Congressman, I mean really hilarious. Consular Operations wants my head! The Secretary of State has put out a directive that makes it clear he doesn’t know who I am, that vacillating, academic fleabag! And the Israelis are screaming because they think their precious Mossad may be compromised by anyone digging, and the Arabs on our payroll are bitching because they’re not getting any credit! And at three-thirty this afternoon the President—the goddamned President—is chewing me out for “dereliction of duty”. Let me tell you, he intoned that phrase just like he knew what the hell he was talking about, which meant I knew there were at least two other people on the line… You’re running? I’m running! Damn near thirty years in this dumb business—’
‘That’s what I called it,’ interrupted Evan quickly, quietly. ‘Sorry.’
‘You should be,’ said Swann without missing a beat. ‘Because who’s going to do this shit except us bastards dumber than the system? You need us, Charlie, and don’t you forget it. The problem is we don’t have much to show for it. I mean I don’t have to rush home to make sure the pool in my backyard has been treated for algae because of the heat… Mainly because I don’t have a pool, and my wife got the house in the divorce settlement because she was sick and tired of my going out for a loaf of bread and coming back three months later with the dirt of Afghanistan still in my ears! Oh, no, Mr. Undercover Congressman, I didn’t blow the whistle on you. Instead, I did my best to stop the blowing. I haven’t got much left, but I want to stay clean, and get out with what I can.’
‘You tried to stop the blowing? The whistle?’
‘Low key, very offhand, very professional. I even showed him a copy of the memo I sent upstairs rejecting you.’