Ludlum, Robert - The Icarus Agenda

'Why not?'

'Because the computers would pick up a pattern of payments to a central hub of the network, that's why. How do you think Cornfeld and Vesco got caught? Somewhere there has to be linkage, a convergence.'

'You're way ahead of me.'

'Because you're way behind in computer analyses,' retorted Ahmat. 'You can have a hundred thousand dispersals for twenty thousand separate projects, and whereas before it would have taken months, even years, to find the hidden linkages between, say, five hundred corporations, dummy and otherwise, those disks can do it in a couple of hours.'

'Very enlightening,' said Kendrick, 'but you're forgetting something.'

'What?'

'Finding those linkages would take place after the fact, after all those “dispersals” were made. By then the network's in place, and the fox has got one hell of a lot of chickens. If you'll excuse a couple of mixed metaphors, not too many people will be interested in setting traps or sending out hounds under the circumstances. Who could care? The trains are running on time and no one's blowing them up. Of course, there's also a new kind of government around now that has its own set of rules, and if you and your ministers don't happen to like them, you might just be replaced. But again, who cares? The sun comes up every morning and people have jobs to go to.'

'You make it sound almost attractive.'

'Oh, it always is in the beginning. Mussolini did get those damned trains on schedule, and the Third Reich certainly revitalized industry.'

'I see your point, except you're saying that it's the reverse here. An industrial monopoly could move into a void and take over my government because it represents stability and growth.'

'Two points for the sultan,' agreed Evan. 'He gets another jewel for his harem.'

'Tell my wife about it. She's a presbyterian from New Bedford, Massachusetts.'

'How did you get away with that?'

'My father died and she's got a hell of a sense of humour.'

'Again, I can't follow you.'

'Some other time. Let's suppose you're right, and this is a shakedown cruise to see if their tactics can take the weather. Washington wants us to keep talking while you people come up with a plan that obviously combines some kind of penetration followed by a Delta Force. But let's face it, America and its allies are hoping for a diplomatic breakthrough because any strategy that depends on force could be disastrous. They've called in every nut leader in the Middle East and short of making Arafat mayor of New York City, they'll deal with anyone, holier-than-thou statements notwithstanding. What's your idea?'

'The same as what you say those computers of yours could do in a couple of years from now when it'd be too late. Trace the source of what's being sent into the embassy. Not food or medical supplies, but ammunition and weapons… and somewhere among those items the instructions that someone's sending inside. In other words, find this manipulator who calls himself the Mahdi and rip him out.'

The T-shirted sultan looked at Evan in the flickering light. 'You're aware that much of the “Western press have speculated that I, myself, might be behind this. That I somehow resent the Western influence spreading throughout the country. Otherwise, they say, ”Why doesn't he do something?"'

'I'm aware of it, but like the State Department, I think it's nonsense. No one with half a brain gives any credence to those speculations.'

'Your State Department,' said Ahmat reflectively, his eyes still on Kendrick. 'You know, they came to me in 1979 when Tehran blew up. I was a student then, and I don't know what those two guys expected to find, but whatever it was, it wasn't me. Probably some Bedouin in a long flowing aba, sitting cross-legged and smoking a hashish water pipe. Maybe if I'd dressed the part, they would have taken me seriously.'

'You've lost me again.'

'Oh, sorry. You see, once they realized that neither my father nor the family could do anything, that we had no real connection with the fundamentalist movements, they were exasperated. One of them almost begged me, saying that I appeared to be a reasonable Arab—meaning that my English was fluent, if tainted by early British schooling—and what would I do if I were running things in Washington. What they meant here was what advice would I offer, if my advice were sought… Goddamn it, I was right!'

'What did you tell them?'

'I remember exactly. I said… “What you should have done in the beginning. It could be too late now, but you might still pull it off.” I told them to put together the most efficient insurgency force they could mount and send it—not to Tehran but to Qum —Khomeini's backwoods headquarters in the north. Send ex-SAVAK agents in first; those bastards would figure out a way to do it if the firepower and compensation were guaranteed. “Take Khomeini in Qum,” I told them. “Take the illiterate mullahs around him and get them all out alive, then parade them on world television.” He'd be the ultimate bargaining chip, and those hairy fanatics that are his court would serve to point up how ridiculous they all are. A deal could have been made.'

Evan studied the angry young man. 'It might have worked,' he said softly, 'but what if Khomeini had decided to stand-to and fast as a martyr?'

'He wouldn't have, believe me. He would have settled; there would have been a compromise, offered by others, of course, but designed by him. He has no desire to go so quickly to that heaven he extols, or to opt for that martyrdom he uses to send twelve-year-old kids into minefields.'

'Why are you so sure?' asked Kendrick, himself unsure.

'I met that half-wit in Paris—that's not to justify Pahlevi or his SAVAK or his plundering relatives, I couldn't do that—but Khomeini's a senile zealot who wants to believe in his own immortality and will do anything to further it. I heard him tell a group of fawning imbeciles that instead of two or three, he had twenty, perhaps thirty, even forty sons. “I have spread my seed and I will continue to spread it,” he claimed. “It is Allah's will that my seed reach far and wide.” Bullshit! He's a dribbling, dirty old man and a classic case for a funny-farm. Can you imagine? Populating this sick world with little Ayatollahs? I told your people that once they had him, to catch him on video tape with his guard down, sermonizing to his hick high-priests—one-way mirror stuff, that kind of thing. His holy persona would have collapsed in a global wave of laughter.'

'You're drawing some kind of parallel between Khomeini and this Mahdi I've described, aren't you?'

'I don't know, I suppose so, if your Mahdi exists, which I doubt. But if you're right and he does exist, he's coming from the opposite pole, a very practical, non-religious pole. Still, anybody who feels he has to spread the spectre of the Mahdi in these times has a few dangerous screws loose… I'm still not convinced, Evan, but you're persuasive, and I'll do everything I can to help you, help all of us. But it's got to be from a distance, an untraceable distance. I'll give you a telephone number to call; it's buried—non-existent, in fact—I and only two other people have it. You'll be able to reach me, but only me. You see, Shaikh Kendrick, I can't afford to know you.'

'I'm very popular. Washington doesn't want to know me, either.'

'Of course not. Neither of us wants the blood of American hostages on our hands.'

I'll need papers for myself and probably lists of air and sea shippers from areas I'll pinpoint.'

'Spoken, nothing written down, except for the papers. A name and an address will be delivered to you; pick up the papers from that man.'

'Thank you. Incidentally, the State Department said the same thing. Nothing they gave me could be written down.'

'For the same reasons.'