Herb Dennison belched; the chalky-white liquid pacifier was working, but not rapidly enough; he had to be ready for the man who would walk into his office in a matter of minutes. He took two more swallows and looked at himself in the mirror, unhappy at the sight of his continuously thinning gray hair that he combed straight back on both sides, the sharply defined part on the left, the top of his head consistent with his no-nonsense image. Peering into the glass, he wished his gray-green eyes were larger; he opened them as wide as he could; they were still too narrow. And the slight wattle under his chin reinforced the hint of jowls, reminding him that he must get some exercise or eat less, neither of which appealed to him. And why, with all the goddamned money he paid for his suits, didn’t he look more like the men in the ads his British tailors sent him. Still, there was about him an imposing air of strength, emphasized by his rigid posture and the thrust of his jaw, both of which he had perfected over the years.
He belched again and swallowed another mouthful of his personal elixir. Goddamn Kendrick son of a bitch! he swore to himself. That nobody-suddenly-somebody was the cause of his anger and discomfort.… Well, if he were to be honest with himself, and he always tried to be honest with himself, if not always with others, it was not the nobody/somebody by himself, it was the bastard’s effect on Langford Jennings, President of the United States. Shit, piss, and vinegar! What did Langford have in mind? (In his thoughts Herb had actually pulled himself short, substituting “the President” for “Langford,” and that made him angrier still; it was part of the tension, part of the distance that White House authority demanded and Dennison hated it.… After the inauguration and three years of calling him by his first name, Jennings had spoken quietly to his chief of staff during one of the inaugural balls, spoken to him in that soft, jocular voice that dripped with self-deprecation and good humor. “You know I don’t give a damn, Herb, but I think the office—not me, but the office—sort of calls for you to address me as ‘Mr. President,’ don’t you think so, too?” Damn! That had been that!)
What did Jennings have in mind? Regarding this Kendrick freak, the President had casually agreed with everything Herb had proposed, but the responses had been too casual, bordering on disinterest, and that bothered the chief of staff. Jennings’s mellifluous voice sounded unconcerned, but his eyes did not convey any lack of concern at all. Every now and then Langford Jennings surprised the whole goddamned bunch of them at the White House. Dennison hoped this was not one of those frequently awkward times.
The bathroom telephone rang, its proximity causing the chief of staff to spill Maalox over his Savile Row suit coat. Awkwardly he grabbed the phone off the wall with his right hand while turning on the hot water faucet with his left and dousing a washcloth under the stream. As he answered he frantically rubbed the wet cloth over the white spots, grateful that they disappeared into the dark fabric.
“Yes?”
“Congressman Kendrick has arrived at the East Gate, sir. The strip search is in progress.”
“The what?”
“They’re checking him for weapons and explosives—”
“Jesus, I never said he was a terrorist! He’s in a government car with two Secret Service personnel!”
“Sir, you did indicate a strong degree of apprehension and displeasure—”
“Send him up here at once!”
“He may have to get dressed, sir.”
“Shit!”
Six minutes later a quietly furious Evan Kendrick was ushered through the door by an apprehensive secretary. Rather than thanking the woman, Evan’s expression conveyed another message, more like Get out of here, lady, I want this man to myself. She left quickly as the chief of staff approached, his hand extended. Kendrick ignored it. “I’ve heard about your fun and games over here, Dennison,” said Evan, his voice a low, ice-like monotone, “but when you presume to search a member of the House who’s here at your invitation—that’s what it had better be, you fucker; you don’t give orders to me—you’ve gone too far.”
“A complete foul-up of instructions, Congressman! My God, how can you think anything else?”
“With you, very easily. Too many of my colleagues have had too many run-ins with you. The horror stories are rampant, including the one in which you threw a punch at the member from Kansas who, I understand, flattened you out on the floor.”
“That’s a lie! He disregarded White House procedures, for which I’m responsible. I may have touched him, merely to keep him in place, but that’s all. And that’s when he took me by surprise.”
“I don’t think so. I heard he called you a ‘two-bit major’ and you went up.”
“Distortion. Complete distortion!” Dennison winced; the acid was erupting. “Look, I apologize for strip search—”
“Don’t. It didn’t happen. I accepted removing the jacket, figuring it was standard, but when the guard mentioned my shirt and trousers, my far brighter escorts moved in.”
“Then what the hell are you so uptight about?”
“That you even considered it, and if you didn’t, that you’ve created a mentality here that would.”
“I could defend that accusation, but I won’t bother. Now we’re going into the Oval Office and, for Christ’s sake, don’t confuse the man with all that Arab bullshit. Remember, he doesn’t know what happened and it won’t do any good trying to explain positions. I’ll clarify everything for him later.”
“How do I know you’re capable of that?”
“What?”
“You heard me. How do I know you’re either capable or reliable?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you’d clarify whatever you want to clarify, telling him whatever you want him to hear.”
“Who the hell are you to talk to me this way?”
“Someone probably as rich as you are. Also someone who’s getting out of this town, as I’m sure Swann told you, so your political benediction is meaningless to me—I wouldn’t accept it in any event. You know something, Dennison? I think you’re a bona fide rat. Not the cute Mickey Mouse variety, but the original animal. An ugly, scavenging, long-tailed rodent who spreads a lousy disease. It’s called nonaccountability.”
“You don’t spare words, do you, Congressman?”
“I don’t have to. I’m leaving.”
“But he isn’t! And I want him strong, persuasive. He’s taking us into a new era. We’re standing tall again and it’s about time. We’re telling the crumbs of this world to shit or get off the pot!”
“Your expressions are as banal as you are.”
“What are you? Some fucking Ivy Leaguer with a degree in English? Get with it, Congressman. We’re playing hardball here; this is it! People in this administration move their bowels or they’re out. Got that?”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“While you’re at it, remember he doesn’t like dissent. Everything’s cool, got that? No waves at all; everybody’s happy, got that?”
“You repeat yourself, don’t you?”
“I get things done, Kendrick. That’s the name of the hardball game.”
“You’re a lean, mean machine, you are.”
“So we don’t like each other. So what? It’s no big deal—”
“I’ve got that,” agreed Evan.
“Let’s go.”
“Not so fast,” said Kendrick firmly, turning away from Dennison and walking to a window as if the office were his, not that of the President’s man. “What’s the scenario? That is the term, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want from me?” asked Kendrick, looking out at the White House lawn. “Since you’re doing the thinking, why am I here?”
“Because ignoring you would be counterproductive.”
“Really?” Kendrick turned again to face the White House’s chief of staff. “Counterproductive?”
“You’ve got to be acknowledged, is that clear enough? He can’t sit on his ass and prete
nd you don’t exist, right?”
“Oh, I see. Say that during one of his entertaining although not terribly enlightening press conferences someone brings up my name, which is inevitable now. He can’t very well say that he’s not sure whether I play for the Jets or the Giants, can he?”
“You got it. Let’s go. I’ll shape the conversation.”
“You mean control it, don’t you?”
“Call it what you like, Congressman. He’s the greatest President of the twentieth century, and don’t you forget it. My job is to maintain the status quo.”
“It’s not my job.”
“The hell it isn’t! It’s all our jobs. I was in combat, young fella, and I watched men die defending our freedoms, our way of life. I tell you, it was a goddamned holy thing to see! And this man, this President, has brought those values back, those sacrifices we prize so much. He’s moved this country in the right direction by the sheer force of his will, his personality, if you like. He’s the best!”
“But not necessarily the brightest,” interrupted Kendrick.
“That doesn’t mean shit. Galileo would have made a lousy Pope and a worse Caesar.”
“I suppose you’ve got a point.”
“I certainly do. Now the scenario—the explanation is simple and all too damned familiar. Some son of a bitch leaked the Oman story and you want it forgotten as soon as possible.”
“I do?”
Dennison paused, studying Evan’s face as if it were decidedly unattractive. “That’s based directly on what that jerk Swann told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs—”
“Why is Swann a jerk? He didn’t leak the story. He tried to throw off the man who came to see him.”
“He let it happen. He was the CO of that operation and he let it happen and I’ll see him hung.”
“Wrong past tense.”
“What?”
“Never mind. But just to make sure we’re both using the same scenario, why do I want everything forgotten as soon as possible?”
“Because there could be reprisals against your lousy Arab friends over there. That’s what you told Swann and that’s what he told his superiors. You want to change it?”
“No, of course not,” said Kendrick softly. “The scenario’s the same.”
“Good. We’ll schedule a short ceremony showing him thanking you on behalf of the whole damn country. No questions, just a restricted photo session and then you fade.” Dennison gestured toward the door; both men started toward it. “You know something, Congressman?” remarked the chief of staff, his hand on the knob. “Your showing up like this has ruined one of the best whispering campaigns any administration could ask for—public-relations-wise, that is.”
“A whispering campaign?”
“Yeah. The longer we kept quiet, deflecting questions on the basis of national security, the more people thought the President forced the Oman settlement all by himself.”
“He certainly conveyed that,” said Evan, smiling, not unkindly, as if he admired a talent he did not necessarily approve of.
“I tell you he may not be an Einstein, but he’s still a fucking genius.” Dennison opened the door.
Evan did not move. “May I remind you that eleven men and women were murdered in Masqat? That two hundred others will have nightmares for the rest of their lives?”
“That’s right!” replied Dennison. “And he said it—with goddamned tears in his eyes! He said they were true American heroes, as brave as those who fought at Verdun, Omaha Beach, Panmunjom and Danang! The man said it, Congressman, and he meant it, and we stood tall!”
“He said it as he narrowed the options, making his message clear,” agreed Kendrick. “If any one person was responsible for saving those two hundred thirty-six hostages, it must have been him.”
“So?”
“Never mind. Let’s get this over with.”
“You’re a fruitcake, Congressman. And you’re right, you don’t belong in this town.”
Evan Kendrick had met the President of the United States only once. The meeting lasted for approximately five, perhaps six, seconds, during a White House reception for the freshmen congressmen of the chief executive’s party. It had been mandatory for him to attend, according to Ann Mulcahy O’Reilly, who practically threatened to blow up the office if Evan refused to go to the affair. It was not that Kendrick disliked the man, he kept telling Annie; it was just that he did not agree with a lot of things Langford Jennings espoused—perhaps more than a lot, maybe most. And in answer to Mrs. O’Reilly’s question as to why he had run on the ticket, he could only reply that in an election the other party did not stand a chance of being elected.
The predominant impression Evan had while briefly shaking hands with Langford Jennings in that reception line was more in the abstract than in the immediate, yet not totally so. The office was both intimidating and overwhelming. That a single human being could be entrusted with such awesome global power stretched any thinking man’s mind to its limits. A miscue during some horrible miscalculation could blow up the planet. Yet … yet … despite Kendrick’s personal evaluation of the man himself, which included a less than brilliant intellect and a proclivity for oversimplification as well as tolerance for such zealous clowns as Herbert Dennison, there was about Langford Jennings a striking image that was larger than life, an image that the ordinary citizen of the republic desperately longed for in the presidency. Evan had tried to understand the gossamer veil that shielded the man from closer scrutiny and had finally come to the conclusion that scrutiny itself was irrelevant compared with his impact. So were the impacts of Nero, Caligula, any number of mad, authoritarian popes and emperors, and the ultimate villains of the twentieth century, Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. Yet this man displayed none of the evil inherent in those others; instead, he conveyed a strong, pervasive trustworthiness that seemed to radiate from his inner self. Jennings was also blessed with a large, attractive physique, and a much larger belief, and the purity of his belief was everything to him. He was also one of the most charming, ingratiating men Kendrick had ever observed.
“Damn, it’s good to meet you, Evan! May I call you Evan, Mr. Congressman?”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
Jennings came around the desk in the Oval Office to shake hands, gripping Kendrick’s left arm as their hands clasped. “I’ve just finished reading all that secret stuff about what you did, and I tell you, I’m so proud—”
“There were a lot of others involved, sir. Without them I’d have been killed.”
“I understand that. Sit down, Evan, sit, sit!” The President returned to his chair; Herbert Dennison remained standing. “What you did, Evan, as a single individual, will be a textbook lesson for generations of young people in America. You took the whip in your hands and made the damn thing snap.”
“Not by myself, sir. There’s a long list of people who risked their lives to help me—and several lost their lives. As I said, I’d be dead if it weren’t for them. There were at least a dozen Omanis, from the young sultan down, and an Israeli commando unit that reached me when I literally had only a few hours to live. My execution was already scheduled—”
“Yes, I understand all that, Evan,” interrupted Langford Jennings, nodding and frowning compassionately. “I also understand that our friends in Israel insist that there be no hint of their involvement, and our intelligence community here in Washington refuses to risk exposing our personnel in the Persian Gulf.”
“The Gulf of Oman, Mr. President.”
“I’m on your side,” said Jennings, grinning his famous self-deprecating grin that had charmed a nation. “I’m not sure I know one from the other but I’ll learn tonight. As my hatchet cartoonists would balloon it, my wife won’t give me my cookies and milk till I get it all straight.”
“That would be unfair, sir. It’s a geographically complex part of the world if a person’s not familiar with it.”
“Yes, well, somehow I think even I might master it with a coup
le of grammar school maps.”
“I never meant to imply—”
“It’s okay, Evan, it’s my fault. I slip now and then. The main issue here is what do we do with you. What do we do, given the restrictions placed on us for the sake of protecting the lives of agents and subagents who are working for us in an explosive part of the globe?”
“I’d say those necessary restrictions call for keeping everything quiet, classified—”
“It’s a little late for that, Evan,” broke in Jennings. “National security alibis can only go so far. Beyond a certain point you arouse too much curiosity; that’s when things can get sticky—and dangerous.”
“Also,” added Herbert Dennison, gruffly breaking his silence, “as I mentioned to you, Congressman, the President can’t simply ignore you. It wouldn’t be the generous or patriotic thing to do. Now, the way I see it—and the President agrees with me—we’ll schedule a short photo session here in the Oval Office, where you’ll be congratulated by the President, along with a series of shots showing you both in what’ll look like confidential conversation. That’ll be consistent with the intelligence gray-out required by our counterterrorist services. The country will understand that. You don’t tip off your tactics to those Arab scumballs.”
“Without a lot of Arabs I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, and you goddamned well know it,” said Kendrick, his angry eyes rigid on the chief of staff.
“Oh, we know it, Evan,” interrupted Jennings, his own eyes obviously amused by what he observed. “At least I know it. By the way, Herb, I had a call from Sam Winters this afternoon and I think he has a hell of an idea that wouldn’t violate any of our security concerns, and, as a matter of fact, could explain them.”
The Icarus Agenda Page 40