The Icarus Agenda Read Online Free PDF Page A

of this insanity. For various reasons—probably the same mistrust we felt whenever your Cons Op flunkies showed up—they might not talk to strangers but they
will
talk to me. They trust me. I’ve spent days, weekends, with their families. I know their unveiled wives and their children—”
    “Unveiled wives and children,” repeated Swann, interrupting. “The ultimate
shorbet
in the Arab vocabulary. The broth of friendship.”
    “A harmonious mixture of ingredients,” agreed the congressman from Colorado. “They’ll work with me, perhaps not with you. Also, I’m familiar with most of the suppliers on the docks and the lading offices, even people who avoid anything official because they make money out of what you can’t get officially. I want to trace the money and the instructions that come with the money and end up inside the embassy. Someone somewhere is sending both.”
    “Suppliers?
” asked Swann, his eyebrows arched, his voice incredulous. “You mean, like food and medical supplies, that kind of thing?”
    “That’s only—”
    “Are you
crazy
?” exclaimed the deputy director. “Those hostages are our
people
! We’ve opened the vaults, anything they need, anything we can
get
to them!”
    “Like bullets and weapons and spare parts for weapons?”
    “Of course not!”
    “From all the accounts I read, what I could get my hands on at the newsstands in Flagstaff and Phoenix, every night after
el Maghreb
there’s four or five hours of fireworks—thousands of rounds shot off, whole sections of the embassy sprayed with rifle and machine-gun fire.”
    “It’s part of their goddamned
terror
!” exploded Swann. “Canyou imagine what it’s like
inside
? Lined up against a wall under floodlights and all around you everything’s being blasted with bullets, thinking,
Jesus
, I’m going to be killed any
second
! If we ever get those poor souls out, they’ll be on couches for years trying to get rid of the nightmares!”
    Kendrick let the emotion of the moment pass. “Those hotheads don’t have an arsenal in there, Mr. Swann. I don’t think the people running them would allow it. They’re
supplied.
Just as the mimeograph machines are supplied because they don’t know how to operate your copiers and word processors for the daily bulletins they print for the television cameras. Please try to understand. Maybe one in twenty of those crazies has a minimum intellect, much less a thought-out ideological position. They’re the manipulated dregs of humanity given their own hysterical moments in the sun. Maybe it’s our fault, I don’t know, but I
do
know they’re being programmed, and you know it, too. And behind that programming is a man who wants all of Southwest Asia to himself.”
    “This
Mahdi
?”
    “Whoever he is, yes.”
    “You think you can find him?”
    “I’ll need help. Getting out of the airport, Arab clothes; I’ll make a list.”
    The deputy director again leaned back in his chair, his fingers touching his chin. “
Why
, Congressman? Why do you want to do this? Why does Evan Kendrick, multimillionaire-entrepreneur want to put his very rich life on the line? There’s nothing left for you over there.
Why?
”
    “I suppose the simplest and most honest answer is that I might be able to help. As you’ve pointed out, I made a lot of money over there. Maybe this is the time to give a little of myself back.”
    “If it was just money or ‘a little’ of yourself, I’d have no trouble with that,” said Swann. “But if I let you go, you’ll be walking into a minefield with no training on how to survive. Has that thought struck you, Congressman? It should have.”
    “I don’t intend to storm the embassy,” answered Evan Kendrick.
    “You might not have to. Just ask the wrong person the wrong question and the results could be the same.”
    “I could also be in a cab at Twenty-third Street and Virginia Avenue at noontime today and be in an accident.”
    “I presume that means you