The Icarus Agenda

by Ludlum, Robert

  'But the Russians could make trouble for us here. They'd know I'm not Bahrudi.'

  'Could they? Would they?' The old Arab shrugged. 'Never pass up an opportunity to confuse or embarrass the KGB, ya Shaikh.'

  Evan paused, frowning. 'I think I see what you mean. How did you get all this? For God's sake, a dead Saudi in East Berlin—covered up—his dossier, even some grandfather, a European grandfather. It's unbelievable.'

  'Believe, my young friend, whom I do not know nor have ever met. Of course there must be confederates in many places for men like me, but that is not your concern either. Simply study the salient facts—revered parents' names, schools, universities; two, I believe, one in the United States, so like the Saudis. You won't need any more than that. If you do, it won't matter. You'll be dead.'

  Kendrick walked out of the underworld city within a city, skirting the grounds of the Waljat Hospital in the northeast section of Masqat. He was less than 150 yards from the gates of the American Embassy. The wide street was now only half filled with die-hard spectators. The torches and the rapid bursts of gunfire from within the grounds of the embassy created the illusion that the crowds were much larger and more hysterical than they actually were. Such witnesses to the terror inside were interested only in entertainment; their ranks thinned as one by one they were overcome by sleep. Ahead less than a quarter of a mile beyond the Harat Waljat, a calm passed over the young sultan's seaside mansion. Evan looked at his watch the hour and his location were an advantage; he had so little time and Ahmat had to move quickly. He looked for a street phone, vaguely remembering that there were several near the hospital entrance—thanks again to Manny Weingrass. Twice the reprobate old architect had claimed his brandy was poisoned, and once an Omani woman had bitten his wandering hand so severely that he required seven stitches.

  The white plastic shells of three public phones in the distance reflected the light from the streetlamps. Gripping the inside pocket of his robes where he had put his false papers, he broke into a run, then immediately slowed down. Instinct told him not to appear obvious… or threatening. He reached the first booth, inserted a larger coin than was necessary, and dialed the strange number indelibly printed on his mind. 555-0005.

  Beads of sweat formed at his hairline as the progressively slower rings reached eight. Two more and an answering machine would replace the human voice! Please!

  'Iwah?' came the simple greeting saying Yes?

  'English,' said Evan.

  'So quickly?' replied Ahmat astonished. 'What is it?'

  'First things first… A woman followed me. The light was dim, but from what I could see she was of medium height, with long hair, and dressed in what looked like expensive Western clothes. Also, she was fluent in both Arabic and English. Anybody come to mind?'

  'If you mean someone who would follow you into El-Baz's neighbourhood, absolutely no one. Why?'

  'I think she meant to kill me.'

  'What?'

  'And a woman gave El-Baz the information about me–over a telephone, of course.'

  'I know that.'

  'Could there be a connection?'

  'How?'

  'Someone moving in, someone looking to steal false papers.'

  'I hope not,' said Ahmat firmly. 'The woman who spoke to El-Baz was my wife. I would not trust your presence here with anyone else.'

  'Thank you for that, but someone else knows I'm here.'

  'You spoke to four men, Evan, and one of them, our mutual friend, Mustapha, was killed. I agree that someone else knows you're here. It's why the other three are under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Perhaps you should stay out of sight, in hiding, for at least a day. I can arrange it, and we might learn something. Also, I have something I must discuss with you. It concerns this Amal Bahrudi. Go in hiding for a day. I think that would be best, don't you?'

  'No,' answered Kendrick, his voice hollow at what he was about to say. 'Out of sight, yes, but not in hiding.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'I want to be arrested, seized as a terrorist. I want to be thrown into that compound you've got somewhere. I've got to get in there tonight!'

  The Icarus Agenda

  Chapter 6

  The robed figure raced down the middle of the wide avenue known as the Wadi Al Kabir. He had burst out of the darkness from beyond the massive Mathaib Gate several hundred yards from the waterfront west of the ancient Portuguese fortress called The Mirani. His robes were drenched with the oil and flotsam of the harbour, his headdress clinging to the back of his wet hair. To observers—and there were still many in the street at this late hour—the desperately running man was one more dog from the sea, an alien who had leaped from a ship to gain illegal entrance into this once-peaceful sultanate, a fugitive—or a terrorist.

  Strident eruptions of a two-note siren grew louder as a patrol car careened around the corner from the Wadi Al Uwar into the Al Kabir. The chase was joined; a police informant had betrayed the point of entry, and the authorities were ready. These days they were always ready, ready and eager and frenzied. A blinding light split the dimly lit street, its beam coming from a movable lamp mounted on the patrol car. The powerful light caught the panicky illegal immigrant; he spun to his left facing a series of shops, their dark fronts protected by iron shutters, protection that had not been thought of barely three weeks ago. The man pivoted, lurching across the Al Kabir to his right. Suddenly he stopped, blocked by a number of late-night strollers who moved together, stood together, their stares not without fear but somehow collectively saying they had had enough. They wanted their city back. A short man in a business suit but in Arab headdress stepped forward—cautiously to be sure, but with purpose. Two larger men in robes, perhaps more cautiously but with equal purpose, joined him, followed hesitantly by others. Down the Al Kabir to the south a crowd had gathered; tentatively they formed a line, robed men and veiled women creating a human wall across the street, courage reluctantly summoned from both exasperation and fury. It all had to stop!

  'Get away! Spread out! He may have grenades!' A police officer had jumped out of the patrol car and was racing forward, his automatic weapon levelled at the quarry.

  'Disperse!' roared a second policeman, sprinting down the left side of the street. 'Don't get caught in our fire!'

  The cautious strollers and the hesitant crowd beyond scattered in all directions, running for the protection of distance and the shelter of doorways. As if on cue, the fugitive grappled with his drenched robes, pulling them apart and menacingly reaching inside the folds of cloth. A rapid, staccato burst of gunfire shattered the Al Kabir; the fugitive screamed, calling on the powers of a furious Allah and a vengeful Al Fatah as he gripped his shoulder, arched his neck and dropped to the ground. He seemed to be dead, but in the dim light no one could determine the extent of his wounds. He screamed again, a roar summoning the furies of all Islam to descend on the hordes of impure unbelievers everywhere. The two police officers fell on him as the patrol car skidded to a stop, its tyres screeching; a third policeman leaped from the open rear door shouting orders.

  'Disarm him! Search him!' His two subordinates had anticipated both commands. 'It could be he!' added the superior officer, crouching to examine the fugitive more closely, his voice even louder than before. 'There!' he continued, still shouting. 'Strapped to his thigh. A packet. Give it to me!'

  The onlookers slowly rose in the semidarkness, curiosity drawing them back to the furious activity taking place in the middle of the Al Kabir under the dim wash of the streetlights.

  'I believe you are right, sir!' yelled the policeman on the prisoner's left. 'Here, this mark! It could be what remains of the scar across his neck.'

  'Bahrudi!' roared the ranking police officer in triumph as he studied the papers ripped from the oil cloth packet. 'Amal Bahrudi! The trusted one! He was last seen in East Berlin and, by Allah, we have him!'

  'All of you!' yelled the policeman, kneeling to the right of the fugitive, addressing the mesmerized cr
owd. 'Leave! Get away! This pig may have protectors—he is the infamous Bahrudi, the Eastern European terrorist! We have radioed for soldiers from the sultan's garrison—get away, don't be killed!'

  The witnesses fled, a disjointed stampede racing south on the Al Kabir. They had summoned up courage but the prospect of a gun battle panicked them. All was uncertainty, punctuated by death; the only thing the crowd was certain of was that a notorious international terrorist named Amal Bahrudi had been captured.

  'The word will spread quickly in our small city,' said the sergeant-of-police in fluent English, helping the 'prisoner' to his feet. 'We will help, of course, if it is necessary.'

  'I've got a question or two—maybe three!' Evan untied the headdress, removing it over his head and stared at the police officer. 'What the hell was all that stuff about “the trusted one”, the “Islamic leader” of East European whatever-it-was?'

  'Apparently the truth, sir.'

  I'm way behind you.'

  'In the car, please. Time is vital. We must leave here.'

  'I want answers!' The two other policemen walked up beside the congressman from Colorado, gripped his arms and escorted him to the back door of the patrol car. 'I played that little charade the way I was told to play it,' continued Evan climbing into the green police car, 'but someone forgot to mention that this real person whose name I'm assuming is some killer who's throwing bombs around Europe!'

  'I can only tell you what I've been told to tell you, which, truthfully, is all I know,' replied the sergeant, settling his uniformed figure beside Kendrick. 'Everything will be explained to you at the laboratory in the compound headquarters.'

  'I know about the laboratory. I don't know about this Bahrudi.'

  'He exists, sir.'

  'I know that but not the rest of it—’

  'Hurry, driver!' said the police officer. 'The other two will remain here.' The green car lurched in reverse, made a U-turn and sped back towards the Wadi Al Uwar.

  'All right, he's real, I understand that,' pressed Kendrick rapidly, breathlessly. 'But I repeat. No one said anything about his being a terrorist!'

  'At the headquarters laboratory, sir.' The police sergeant lit a brown Arabian cigarette, inhaled deeply and expunged the smoke through his nostrils in relief. His part of the strange assignment was over.

  'There was a great deal that El-Baz's computer did not print out for your eyes,' said the Omani doctor, studying Evan's bare shoulder. They were alone in the laboratory-examining room, Kendrick sitting on the elongated hard-cushioned table, his feet resting on a footstool, his money belt beside him. 'As Ahmat's—forgive me—the great sultan's personal physician—which I have been since he was eight years old, I am now your only contact to him in the event you cannot for whatever reason reach him yourself. Is that understood?'

  'How do I reach you?

  'The hospital or my private number, which I will give you when we are finished. You must remove your trousers and undergarment and apply the dye, ya Shaikh. Strip searches are a daily, often hourly, occurrence in that compound. You must be all one flesh colour, and certainly no canvas belt filled with money.'

  'You'll hold it for me?'

  'Certainly.'

  'Back to this Bahrudi, please,' said Kendrick, applying the skin-darkening gel to his thighs and lower regions as the Omani physician did the same to his arms, chest and back. 'Why didn't El-Baz tell me?'

  'Ahmat's instructions. He thought you might object so he wished to explain it to you himself.'

  'I spoke to him less than an hour ago. He didn't say anything except he wanted to talk about this Bahrudi, that's all.'

  'You were also in a great hurry and he had much to organize in order to bring about your so-called capture.

  Therefore he left the explanation to me. Lift your arm up higher, please.'

  'What's the explanation?' asked Evan, less angry now.

  'Quite simply, if you were taken by the terrorists you'd have a fall-back position, at least for a while, with luck providing enough time to help you—if help was at all possible.'

  'What fall-back position?'

  'You'd be considered one of them. Until they learned otherwise.'

  'Bahrudi's dead—’

  'His corpse is in the hands of the KGB,' added the doctor instantly, overriding Kendrick's words. 'The Komitet is notoriously indecisive, afraid of embarrassment.'

  'El-Baz mentioned something about that.'

  'If anyone in Masqat would know, it is El-Baz.'

  'So if Bahrudi is accepted here in Oman, if I'm accepted as this Bahrudi, I might have some leverage. If the Soviets don't blow the whistle and tell what they know.'

  'They will exhaustively examine the whistle before bringing it near their lips. They can't be certain; they will fear a trap, a trap of embarrassment, of course, and wait for developments. Your other arm, please. Lift it straight up, please.'

  'Question,' said Evan, firmly. 'If Amal Bahrudi supposedly went through your immigration, why wasn't he picked up? You've got one hell of a security force out there these days.'

  'How many John Smiths are there in your country, ya Shaikh'

  'So?'

  'Bahrudi is a fairly common Arabic name, more so perhaps in Cairo than Riyadh but nevertheless not unusual. Amal is the equivalent of your “Joe” or “Bill” or, of course, “John”.'

  'Still, El-Baz entered him in the immigration computers. Flags would leap up—’

  'And rapidly return to their recesses,' broke in the Omani, 'the officials satisfied by observation and harsh, if routine, questioning.'

  'Because there's no scar on my neck?' asked Evan quickly.

  'One of the police in the Al Kabir made a point of a scar across my neck—Bahrudi's neck.'

  'That is information I know nothing about, but I suppose it's possible; you have no such scar. But there are more fundamental reasons.'

  'Such as?'

  'A terrorist does not announce his arrival in a foreign land, much less a troubled one. He uses false papers. That's what the authorities look for, not the coincidence of one John W. Booth, a pharmacist from Philadelphia, who was cursed with the same name as the assassin from Ford's theatre.'

  'You're pretty well versed in things American, aren't you?'

  'Johns Hopkins Medical School, Mr. Bahrudi. Courtesy of our sultan's father who found a Bedouin child eager for more than a wandering tribal existence.'

  'How did that happen?'

  'It is another story. You may lower your arm now.'

  Evan looked at the doctor. 'You're very fond of the sultan, I gather.'

  The Omani physician returned Kendrick's gaze. 'I would kill for the family, ya Shaikh,' he said softly. 'Of course the method would be nonviolent. Perhaps poison or a misdiagnosed medical crisis or a reckless scalpel—something to repay my debt in kind—but I would do it.'

  'I'm sure you would. And by extension then, you're on my side.'

  'Obviously. The proof I am to give you and which was previously unknown to me comes numerically. Five, five, five—zero, zero, zero, five.'

  'That's good enough. What's your name?'

  'Faisal. Dr Amal Faisal.'

  'I see what you mean—“John Smith”.' Kendrick got off the examining table and walked naked to a small sink across the room. He washed his hands, kneading them with strong soap to remove the excess stains from his fingers, and studied his body in the mirror above the basin. The undarkened white flesh was turning brown; in moments it would be dark enough for the terrorist compound. He looked at the doctor reflected in the glass. 'How is it in there?' he said.

  'It is no place for you.'

  'That's not what I asked. I want to know what it's like. Are there rites of passage, any rituals they go through with new prisoners? You must have the place wired—you'd be fools if you don't.'

  'It's wired and we have to assume they know it; they crowd around the door where the main taps are and make a great deal of noise. The ceiling is too high for audible transmissi
on and the remaining taps are in the flushing mechanisms of the toilets—a civilizing reform instituted by Ahmat several years ago, replacing the floor holes. Those microphones have been useless, as if the inmates had discovered them also—we don't know this, of course. However, what little we hear is not pleasant. The prisoners, like all extremists, continuously vie for who is the most zealous, and as there are constant newcomers, many do not know each other. As a result, the questions are severe and pointed, the methods of interrogation often brutal. They're fanatics, but not fools in the accepted sense, ya Shaikh. Vigilance is their credo, infiltration a constant threat to them.'

  Then it'll be my credo.' Kendrick crossed back to the examining table and the neat pile of prison clothes provided for him. 'My vigilance,' he continued. 'As fanatical as anyone's in there.' He turned to the Omani. 'I need the names of the leaders inside the embassy. I wasn't permitted to make any notes from the briefing papers, but I memorized two because they were repeated several times. One was Abu Nassir; the other, Abbas Zaher. Do you have any more?'

  'Nassir hasn't been seen for over a week; they believe he's gone, and Zaher is not considered a leader, merely a show-off. Recently the most prominent appears to be a woman named Zaya Yateem. She's fluent in English and reads the televised bulletins.'

  'What does she look like?'

  'Who can tell? She wears a veil.'

  'Anyone else?'

  'A young man who's usually behind her; he seems to be her companion and carries a Russian weapon—I don't know what kind.'

  'His name?'

  'He is called simply Azra.'

  'Blue? The colour blue?'

  'Yes. And speaking of colours, there's another, a man with premature grey streaks in his hair—quite unusual for one of us. He is called Ahbyahd.'

  'White,' said Evan.

  'Yes. He's been identified as one of the hijackers of the TWA plane in Beirut. Only by photographs, however, no name was uncovered.'

  'Nassir, the woman Yateem, Blue and White. That should be enough.'

  'For what?" asked the doctor.