The Icarus Agenda (65 page)

And as he looked at each face, its features heightened by the chiaroscuro wash from the lamps, he felt, as he always did, that he was in the presence of giants. Yet one was not; one had revealed the existence of Emmanuel Weingrass in Mesa Verde, Colorado, a secret unknown to the most clandestine departments in Washington. One of those shadowed faces in front of him was a traitor to Inver Brass. Who?

Samuel Winters?
Old money from an American dynasty going back to the railroad and oil barons of the late-nineteenth century. An honored scholar satisfied with his privileged life; an adviser to presidents regardless of party. A great man at peace with himself. Or was he?

Jacob Mandel?
A venerated financial genius who had designed and implemented reforms that revitalized the Securities and Exchange Commission into a viable and far more honorable asset to Wall Street. From Lower East Side Yiddish poverty to the halls of merchant princes, and it was said that no decent man who knew him could call him an enemy. Like Winters, he wore his honors well and there were few he had not attained. Or were there others he strove for secretly?

Margaret Lowell?
Again aristocratic old money from the New York-Palm Beach orbit, but with a twist that was virtually unheard of in those circles. She was a brilliant attorney who eschewed the rewards of estate and corporate law for the pursuit of advocacy. She worked feverishly in the legal vineyards on behalf of the oppressed, the dispossessed and the disfranchised. Both theorist and practitioner, she was rumored to be the next
woman on the Supreme Court. Or was the advocacy a supreme cover for the championship of opposite causes
under
cover?

Eric Sundstrom?
The wunderkind scientist of earth and space technology, holder of over twenty hugely remunerative patents, of which the vast majority of proceeds were given away to engineering and medical institutions for the advancement of those sciences. His was a towering intellect concealed by a cherubic face with tousled red hair, an impish smile and a ready sense of humor—as if he were embarrassed by his gifts, even quick to feign mild offense if they were singled out. Or was it all pretense, the guilelessness a sham?

Gideon Logan?
Perhaps the most complex of the quintet, and because he was a black man, again perhaps, understandable. He had made several fortunes in real estate, never forgetting where he came from, hiring and nursing along black firms in his developments. It was said that he quietly did more for civil rights than any single corporation in the country. The current administration, as well as its predecessor, had offered him a variety of cabinet posts, all of which he refused, believing he could achieve more as a respected independent force in the private sector than if he was identified with a political party and its practices. A nonstop worker, he seemingly permitted himself only one indulgence: a luxurious oceanfront estate in the Bahamas where he spent infrequent weekends fishing on his forty-six-foot Bertram with his wife of twelve years. Or was the legend that was Gideon Logan incomplete? The answer was yes. Several years of his whirlwind, meteoric life were simply unknown; it was as if he had not existed.

“Milos?” asked Margaret Lowell, her elbow forward on the table, her head resting on the extended fingers of her hand. “How in heaven’s name has the administration managed to keep the threats against Bollinger quiet? Especially with a Bureau unit exclusively assigned to him.”

Strike Margaret Lowell?
She was opening the obvious can of worms in which was found the Vice President’s chief of staff.

“I must assume it’s through the direction of Mrs. Vanvland-eren, her executive expertise, as it were.”
Watch the eyes. The muscles of their faces—the jaws.… Nothing. They reveal nothing! Yet one of them knows! Who?

“I realize she’s Andrew Vanvlanderen’s wife,” said Gideon Logan, “and ‘Andy-boy,’ as he’s called, is one hell of a fundraiser, but why was she appointed, to begin with?”

Strike Gideon Logan?
He was stirring up the worms.

“Perhaps I can answer that,” replied Jacob Mandel. “Before she married Vanvlanderen she was a headhunter’s dream. She turned around two companies that I know of from bankruptcy into profitable mergers. I’m told she’s distastefully aggressive, but no one can deny her managerial talents. She’d be good in that job; she’d keep the political sycophants at bay.”

Strike Jacob Mandel?
He had no compunction about praising her.

“I ran across her once,” said Eric Sundstrom emphatically, “and in plain words she was a
bitch
. I assigned a patent to Johns Hopkins Medical and she wanted to broker the damn thing.”

“What was there to broker?” asked the attorney Lowell.

“Absolutely nothing,” answered Sundstrom. “She tried to convince me that such large grants required an overseer to make sure the money went where it was supposed to go and not for new jockstraps.”

“She probably had a point,” said the lawyer, nodding as if from experience.

“Not for me. Not the way
she
talked and the med school’s president’s a good friend of mine. She’d have driven him up the wall so often he would have returned the patent. She’s a bitch, a real bitch.”

Strike Eric Sundstrom?
He had no compunction whatsoever about damning her.

“I never met her,” interjected Samuel Winters, “but she was married to Emory Frazier-Pyke, a fine-tuned banker in London. You remember Emory, don’t you, Jacob?”

“Certainly. He played polo and you introduced me as a silent branch of the Rothschilds—which, unfortunately, I think he believed.”

“Someone told me,” continued Winters, “that poor Frazier-Pyke lost a considerable amount of money in a venture she was associated with but came away with a wife. It was the Off Shore Investments crowd.”

“Some fine-tuning he had,” added Mandel. “
Goniffs
, every one of them. He should have checked with his polo ponies or even the silent Rothschild.”

“Perhaps he did. She didn’t last long and old Emory has always been a stickler for the straight and narrow. She could have been a thief, too.”

Strike Samuel Winters?
The traitor in Inver Brass would not raise the speculation.

“In one way or another,” commented Varak without emphasis, “you are all at least aware of her, then.”

“
I
wasn’t,” said Margaret Lowell, bordering on the defensive, “but after hearing the others I can tell you who else knows her—‘aware’ is a touch too dull. My ex-husband, the alley cat; it was the Frazier-Pyke that did it.”

“
Walter?
” Sundstrom’s voice and expression were both humorously questioning.

“My boy made so many business trips to London I thought he was advising the Crown, and he frequently mentioned that this Frazier-Pyke was his banker over there. Then one morning the maid phoned me at the office saying that Casanova had an urgent call from an ‘FP’ in London, but she didn’t know where he was. She gave me the number and I called saying to somebody—I assumed a secretary—that M. Lowell was on the line for ‘FP.’ I was subsequently greeted by an exuberant voice virtually yelling at me. ‘
Dahling
, I’ll be in New York tomorrow and we can have five full
days
together!’ I said ‘How nice’ and hung up.”

“She travels in the right circles for her purposes,” said Gideon Logan, chuckling. “Andy-boy Vanvlanderen will keep her in blue chips and sables until he gets bored.”

Varak had to change the subject quickly! If he was right about there being a traitor around the table, and he
was
right—whatever was said about Ardis Vanvlanderen would get back to her and he could not permit anything further. “From everyone’s reactions,” he said pleasantly, aimlessly, “we can assume that there are some opportunists who are immensely capable. However, it’s not important.”
Watch them. Every face
. “She serves the Vice President well, but that’s essentially immaterial to us.… Back to our candidate, everything proceeds on schedule. The Midwest newspapers, starting with Chicago, will be the first to speculate on his credentials, both in columns and editorials. They’ve all been provided with extensive background material on Kendrick as well as tapes of the Partridge Committee, the Foxley program and his own quite remarkable press conference. From this core the word will spread both East and West.”

“How were they approached, Milos?” asked the spokesman, Samuel Winters. “The newspapers and the columnists, I mean.”

“A legitimate ad hoc committee that we’ve formed in Denver. The seed, when planted, grew quickly. The Colorado branch of the party was enthusiastic, especially as the money was contributed by donors who insisted on remaining anonymous. The
state functionaries see a potentially viable candidate and the wherewithal to launch him, as well as the attention it focuses on Colorado. Win or lose,
they
can’t lose.”

“That ‘wherewithal’ could be a legal problem,” said Margaret Lowell.

“Nothing significant, madam. It’s provided in sequences, no amount over the legal limit as mandated by the election laws—which are quite obscure, if not mystifying, in my opinion.”

“If I need a lawyer, I’ll call you, Milos,” added Lowell, smiling and sitting back in her chair.

“I’ve furnished each of you with a copy of the names of the newspapers, their editorial writers and the columnists involved in this phase—”

“To be burned in our coal stove,” broke in Winters softly.

“Of course,” “Naturally,” “Most certainly,” came the chorus of quiet replies.

Which was the liar?

“Tell me, Varak,” said the brilliant cherubic Sundstrom. “According to everything we know, everything you’ve brought us, our candidate hasn’t displayed an iota of that ‘fire in the belly’ we hear so much about. Isn’t it terribly important? Doesn’t he have to ultimately
want
the job?”

“He’ll want it, sir. As we’ve learned, he’s what might be called a closet activist who runs out of the closet when the conditions call for his abilities.”

“Good Lord, Samuel, he’s a rabbi, too?”

“Hardly, Mr. Mandel,” replied the Czech, permitting himself a tight grin. “What I mean to say, no doubt poorly—”

“The words are lovely, Milos.”

“Thank you, sir, you’re too kind. But what I’m trying to say is that on two dramatic occasions in his life—one extraordinarily dangerous to him personally—he chose to take the most difficult courses of action because he felt he could effect a change for the better. The first was his decision to replace a corrupt congressman; the second, of course, was Oman. In short words, he must once again be convinced that his person and his abilities are needed—uniquely needed for the good of the country.”

“That’s a tall order,” said Gideon Logan. “He’s obviously a man of realistic sensibilities who makes a pretty fair appraisal of his qualifications. His bottom line may be … ‘I’m not qualified.’ How do we overcome that?”

Varak looked around the table, his expression that of a man trying to be understood. “I suggest symbolically, sir.”

“How’s that?” asked Mandel, removing his steel-rimmed glasses.

“For example, the current Secretary of State, although he is frequently maligned by his colleagues and the White House staff as a stubborn academic, is the most reasoned voice in the administration. I know privately that he has managed to block a number of rash actions recommended by the President’s advisers because the President respects him—”

“He damn well
should
,” exclaimed Margaret Lowell.

“I think the European alliance would fall apart without him,” offered Winters.

“There wouldn’t
be
an alliance without him,” agreed Mandel, anger on his normally passive face. “He’s a beacon of rationality in a sea of belching Neanderthals.”

“If I may, sir? Could your use of the word ‘beacon’ be construed as a symbol?”

“That’s logical,” answered Gideon Logan. “Our Secretary of State is by all means a symbol of intelligent moderation. The nation, too, respects him.”

“He intends to resign,” said Varak simply.

“
What?
” Sundstrom sat forward. “His loyalty to Jennings wouldn’t permit it.”

“His sense of integrity shouldn’t permit him to stay,” said Winters with finality.

“Out of loyalty, however,” explained Varak, “he’s agreed to attend the Middle East NATO conference at the UN mission on Cyprus in three weeks. It’s both a show of unity and a way of giving the President’s men time to find a replacement who will be acceptable to the Congress. Then he leaves for ‘pressing personal reasons,’ the main one being his frustration with the National Security Council, which continues to undercut him.”

“Has he explained that to the President?” asked Lowell.

“According to my source, he has not,” replied Varak. “As Mr. Mandel has pointed out, he’s a rational man. He understands that it’s easier and far better for the country to replace one person than an entire council of presidential advisers.”

“Tragic,” said Winters, “yet inevitable, I imagine. But how does the Secretary of State relate to Evan Kendrick? I fail to see the connection.”

“It’s in the symbol itself,” said Eric Sundstrom. “He’s got to understand its importance. Am I right, Milos?”

“Yes, sir. If Kendrick’s convinced that it’s crucial for the country to have a strong vice president who’s perceived by our
allies and enemies alike as a voice of reason within an imperial presidency—where the benign emperor frequently has no clothes—and that the world will breathe easier for it, then, in my judgment, he’ll again make the difficult choice and be available.”

“From all we’ve learned, I suppose he would,” agreed Gideon Logan. “But who the hell is going to
convince
him of that?”

“The only man he’ll listen to,” said Milos Varak, wondering if he was about to sign a death warrant. “Emmanuel Weingrass.”

Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly was a Washington secretary not easily disturbed. Over the years since she and Paddy moved down from Boston, she had worked for the bright and the unbright, the would-be good and the would-be thieves; nothing much surprised her anymore. But then she had never worked for anyone like Congressman Evan Kendrick. He was the all-time reluctant resident of Washington, its most persistently unwilling politician, and a perversely demurring hero. He had more ways to elude the ineluctable than a cat with nine lives to the cube, and he could vanish with the agility of the Invisible Man. Yet his proclivity for disappearing notwithstanding, the Congressman always left open lines of communication; he would either call in on a fairly regular basis or leave a number where he could be reached. However, for the past two days there had been no word from Kendrick and no number at which he could be found. Those two facts by themselves would not normally have alarmed Mrs. O’Reilly, but two others did: throughout the day—since nine-twenty that morning—neither the house in Virginia nor the home in Colorado could be reached by telephone. In both cases the operators in Virginia and Colorado reported disruptions of service, and that status was still unchanged at nearly seven o’clock in the evening.
That
disturbed Annie O’Reilly. So quite logically she picked up the phone and dialed her husband at police headquarters.