Ludlum, Robert - The Icarus Agenda

Thirty-five minutes later, after the effusive yet strangely awkward greetings of three friends from the past, the meeting was arranged. He had chosen seven names, each among the most influential men he remembered from his days in Masqat. Two had died; one was out of the country; the fourth told him quite frankly that the climate was not right for an Omani to meet with an American. The three who had agreed to see him, with varying degrees of reluctance, would arrive separately within the hour. Each would go directly to his suite without troubling the front desk.

Thirty-eight minutes passed, during which time Kendrick unpacked the few items of clothing he had brought and ordered specific brands of whisky from room service. The abstinence demanded by Islamic tradition was more honoured in the breach, and beside each name was the libation each guest favoured; it was a lesson Evan had learned from the irascible Emmanuel Weingrass. An industrial lubricant, my son. You remember the name of a man's wife, he's pleased. You remember the brand of whisky he drinks, now that's something else. Now you care!

The soft knocking at the door broke the silence of the room like cracks of lightning. Kendrick took several deep breaths, walked across the room, and admitted his first visitor.

'It is you, Evan? My God, you haven't converted, have you?'

'Come in, Mustapha. It's good to see you again.'

'But am I seeing you? said the man named Mustapha who was dressed in a dark brown business suit. 'And your skin! You are as dark as I am if not darker.'

'I want you to understand everything.' Kendrick closed the door, gesturing for his friend from the past to choose a place to sit. 'I've got your brand of Scotch. Care for a drink?'

'Oh, that Manny Weingrass is never far away, is he?' said Mustapha, walking to the long, brocade-covered sofa and sitting down. 'The old thief.'

'Hey, come on, Musty,' protested Evan, laughing and heading for the bar. 'He never short-changed you.'

'No, he didn't. Neither he nor you nor your other partners ever short-changed any of us… How has it been with you without them, my friend? Many of us talk about it even after all these years.'

'Sometimes not easy,' said Kendrick honestly, pouring drinks. 'But you accept it. You cope.' He brought Mustapha his Scotch and sat down in one of the three chairs opposite the sofa. 'The best, Musty.' He raised his glass.

'No, old friend, it is the worst—the worst of times as the English Dickens wrote.'

'Let's wait till the others get here.'

'They're not coming.' Mustapha drank his Scotch.

'What?'

'We talked. I am, as is said in so many business conferences, the representative of certain interests. Also, as the only minister of the sultan's cabinet, it was felt that I could convey the government's consensus.'

'About what? You're jumping way the hell ahead of me.'

'You jumped ahead of us, Evan, by simply coming here and calling us. One of us; two, perhaps; even in the extreme, three—but seven. No, that was reckless of you, old friend, and dangerous for everyone.'

'Why?'

'Did you think for a minute,' continued the Arab, overriding Kendrick, ‘that even three recognizable men of standing—say nothing of seven—would converge on a hotel within minutes of each other to meet with a stranger without the management hearing about it? Ridiculous.'

Evan studied Mustapha before speaking, their eyes locked. 'What is it, Musty? What are you trying to tell me? This isn't the embassy, and that obscene mess over there hasn't anything to do with the businessmen or the government of Oman.'

'No, it obviously does not,' agreed the Arab firmly. 'But what I'm trying to tell you is that things have changed here—in ways many of us do not understand.'

'That's also obvious,' interrupted Kendrick. 'You're not terrorists.'

'No, we're not, but would you care to hear what people—responsible people—are saying?'

'Go ahead.'

'“It will pass,” they say. “Don't interfere; it would only inflame them further.”'

'Don't interfere?' repeated Evan incredulously.

'And “Let the politicians settle it.”'

'The politicians can't settle it!'

'Oh, there's more, Evan. “There's a certain basis for their anger,” they say. “Not the killing of course, but within the context of certain events,” et cetera, et cetera. I've heard that, too.'

'Context of certain events? What events?'

'Current history, old friend. “They're reacting to a very uneven Middle East policy on the part of the United States.” That's the catch-phrase, Evan. “The Israelis get everything and they get nothing,” people say. “They, are driven from their lands and their homes and forced to live in crowded, filthy refugee camps, while in the West Bank the Jews spit on them.” These are the things I hear.'

'That's bullshit!' exploded Kendrick. 'Beyond the fact that there's another, equally painful, side to that bigoted coin, it has nothing to do with those two hundred and thirty-six hostages or the eleven who've already been butchered! They don't make policy, uneven or otherwise. They're innocent human beings, brutalized and terrified and driven to exhaustion by goddamned animals! How the hell can responsible people say those things? That's not the President's cabinet over there, or hawks from the Knesset. They're civil service employees and tourists and construction families. I repeat. Bullshit!'

The man named Mustapha sat rigidly on the sofa, his eyes still levelled at Evan. 'I know that and you know that,' he said quietly. 'And they know that, my friend.'

'Then why?

'The truth then,' continued the Arab, his voice no louder than before. 'Two incidents that forged a dreadful consensus, if I may use the word somewhat differently from before… The reason these things are said is that none of us cares to create targets of our own flesh.'

'Targets? Your… flesh?'

'Two men, one I shall call Mahmoud, the other Abdul—not their real names, of course, for it's better that you not know them. Mahmoud's daughter—raped, her face slashed. Abdul's son, his throat slit in an alley below his father's office on the piers. “Criminals, rapists, murderers!” the authorities say. But we all know better. It was Abdul and Mahmoud who tried to rally an opposition. “Guns!” they cried. “Storm the embassy ourselves,” they insisted. “Do not let Masqat become another Tehran!”… But it was not they who suffered. It was those close to them, their most precious possessions… These are the warnings, Evan. Forgive me, but if you had a wife and children would you subject them to such risks? I think not. The most precious jewels are not made of stone, but of flesh. Our families. A true hero will overcome his fear and risk his life for what he believes, but he will balk when the price is the lives of his loved ones. Is it not so, old friend?'

'My God,' whispered Evan. 'You won't help—you can't.'

'There is someone, however, who will see you and hear what you have to say. But the meeting must take place with extraordinary caution, miles away in the desert before the mountains of Jabal Sham.'

'Who is it?'

'The sultan.'

Kendrick was silent. He looked at his glass. After a prolonged moment he raised his eyes to Mustapha. 'I'm not to have any official linkage,' he said, 'and the sultan's pretty official. I don't speak for my government, that's got to be clear.'

'You mean you don't want to meet with him?'

'On the contrary, I want to very much. I just need to make my position clear. I have nothing to do with the intelligence community, the State Department or the White House—God knows not the White House.'

'I think that's patently clear; your robes and the colour of your skin confirm it. And the sultan wants no connection with you, as emphatically as Washington wants no connection.'