‘You already have, but not now.’ She had turned to him, adding with gentle yet firm sincerity, ‘I mean that, Evan. This isn’t Bahrain; we’re in business together, not bed. Okay?’
‘That’s why you wouldn’t move in before?’
‘Of course.’
‘You don’t know me very well,’ Kendrick had said after a few moments of silence in the traffic.
‘That’s part of it.’
‘Which leads me to a question I’ve wanted to ask you but I thought you might take it the wrong way.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘When you walked into that house in Maryland last month, among the first things you mentioned was Bahrain. Yet later you told me the house was wired, that anything we said would be heard. Why did you say it then?’
‘Because I wanted the subject dispensed with as rapidly and as thoroughly as possible.’
‘Meaning that others—people cleared to read the transcripts—would assume or suspect what happened.’
‘Yes, and I wanted my position clear, which was not supine. My following statements were consistent.’
‘Case closed,’ said Evan, heading into the Beltway towards Virginia.
‘Thanks.’
‘By the way, I’ve told the Hassans all about you—sorry, not all, of course. They can’t wait to meet you.’
‘They’re your couple from Dubai, aren’t they?’
‘Far more than a “couple”. Old friends from long ago.’
‘I didn’t mean it in a belittling sense. He’s a professor, isn’t he?’
‘With luck he’ll have a post at either Georgetown or Princeton next spring; there was a little matter of papers which we’ve managed to clear up. Incidentally, “small world” department, he reveres your father. He met him once in Cairo, so be prepared for a lot of reverence.’
‘That’ll pass quickly,’ laughed Khalehla. ‘He’ll learn soon enough that I’m neither in his or Dad’s league.’
‘You can use a computer, though, can’t you?’
‘Well, yes, I can. I frequently have to.’
‘I can’t. Sabri’s wife, Kashi, can’t, and certainly he can’t, so maybe you’re way out of our league.’
‘Flattery doesn’t suit you, Evan. Remember the dead bolt on the door.’
They had arrived at the house, where Khalehla was warmly greeted by Kashi Hassan; an instant friendship was formed, as was a tradition among Arab women.
‘Where’s Sabri?’ Kendrick had asked. ‘I want him to meet Khalehla.’
‘He’s in your study, dear Evan. He’s instructing a gentleman from the Central Intelligence Agency how to operate the computer in case of an emergency.’
It had been over three weeks since the Khalehla-Langley axis had been in full operation and they were no closer to learning anything new than they had been since the sterile house in Maryland. Scores of people who even might have had the slightest possible access to the Oman file were put under Payton’s intelligence microscopes. Every step in the maximum-classified procedure was studied for flaws in personnel; none were found. The file itself was written by the State Department’s Frank Swann in tandem with the Agency’s Lester Crawford, the mechanics involving a single word processor, the typing done in shifts of 1,000 words per typist with all proper names omitted, inserted later solely by Swann and Crawford.
The decision to go to maximum classification had been reached by overview, on the basis of a summary without details, but with the highest recommendations of the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Joint Chiefs, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency. It was all accomplished without Kendrick’s name or the identities or nationalities of other individuals or military units; the basic information had been submitted to the Select Committees of the Senate and the House for approval at the conclusion of the crisis sixteen months before. Both congressional approvals were instantly forthcoming; it was also assumed that the Washington Post press leak concerning an unknown American in Masqat had come from an indiscreet member of these committees.
Who? How? Why? They were back where they had started: By all the rules of logic and elimination, the Oman file was beyond reach, yet it had been stolen.
‘There’s something not logical,’ Payton had pronounced. ‘A hole in the system and we’re missing it.’
‘No kidding,’ agreed Kendrick.
Payton’s decision regarding Evan’s sudden appointments to both the Partridge Committee and the Select Subcommittee for Intelligence had floored Kendrick. Neither the manipulative Partridge nor the equally manipulating Speaker of the House should be approached directly. Why not? Evan had objected. If he was the one being programmed, he had every right to confront those who were willing accessories.
‘No, Congressman,’ Payton had said. ‘If they were blackmailed into appointing you, you can be sure they’ll stonewall and send out alarms. Our blond European and whomever he works for will go farther underground. We don’t stop them; we simply can’t find them. I remind you, it’s the “why” that concerns us. Why are you, a relatively apolitical freshman representative from an obscure district in Colorado, being pushed into the political centre?’
‘It’s died down a lot—’
‘You don’t watch television very much,’ said Khalehla. ‘Two cable networks did retrospectives on you last week.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t tell you. There was no point. It would only have made you angry.’
Kendrick lowered the Mercedes’ window and stuck out his arm. The government mobile unit behind him was new and the turn in the country road ahead was halfway around a long wooded curve, the turn itself close to a blind one. He was warning his guards, and he supposed there was a minor irony in that… His thoughts returned to the ‘lousy enigma’, as he and Khalehla had come to call the whole elusive mess that had screwed up his life. Mitch Payton—it was now ‘Mitch’ and ‘Evan’—had driven over from Langley the other evening.
‘We’re working on something new,’ the director of Special Projects had said in the study. ‘On the assumption that Swann’s European had to reach a great many people in order to compile the information he had on you, we’re assembling some data ourselves. It may offend you but we, too, are going back over your life.’
‘How many years?’
‘We picked you up when you were eighteen—the chances of anything before then having relevance is remote.’
‘Eighteen? Christ, isn’t anything sacred?’
‘Do you want it to be? If so, I’ll call it off.’
‘No, of course not. It’s just kind of a shock. You can get that sort of information?’
‘It’s nowhere near as difficult as people think. Credit bureau, personnel files and routine background checks do it all the time.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘Several possibilities—realistically two, I suppose. As I mentioned, the first is our doggedly curious European. If we could put together a list of people he had to contact in order to learn about you, we’d be closer to finding him, and I think we all agree, he’s the linchpin… The second possibility is something we haven’t attempted. In trying to unearth the vanishing blond man and whoever’s behind him, we’ve concentrated on the events in Oman and the file itself. We’ve restricted our microscopes to government oriented areas.’
‘Where else would we look?’ Kendrick had asked.
‘Your personal life, I’m afraid. There could be something or someone in your own past, an event or people that you knew, an incident perhaps that galvanized friends or conceivably enemies who wanted to advance your position or—conversely—make you a target. And make no mistake, Congressman, you are a potential target, nobody’s kidding about that.’
‘But MJ,’ broke in Khalehla. ‘Even if we found people who either liked or hated him, they’d have to be Washington connected. Mr. Jones from Ann Arbor, Michigan—friend or enemy—couldn’t just go to the max-classified data banks or the archives and say, “By the way, there’s a certain file I’d like to have a copy of so I can mock up a fake memorandum for the newspapers.” I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I, Adrienne—or should I call you “Khalehla”, which will take some getting used to.’
‘There’s no reason for you to call me Khalehla—’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Evan, smiling. ‘Khalehla’s just fine,’ he added.
‘Yes, well, I really don’t understand,’ continued Payton. ‘But as I told you, there’s a hole in the system, a gap we’ve missed, and we have to try everything.’
‘Then why not go after Partridge and the Speaker of the House?’ pressed Kendrick. ‘If I could do what I did in Masqat, they can’t be so tough to break down.’
‘Not yet, young man. The timing isn’t right, and the Speaker’s retiring.’
‘Now I don’t understand.’
‘MJ means he’s working on both,’ Khalehla had explained.
Evan braked the Mercedes around the long curve in the Virginia woods and waited until he saw the mobile unit in his rearview mirror; he then turned right into the pasture road that was the back way to his house. The guards would admit him. He wanted to hurry now; it was why he had taken the short cut. Khalehla had called him at the office and told him Mitchell Payton’s list had arrived over the computer printout. His past was about to be presented to him.