assumed you wanted some time to think.'
'Some time to plan a couple of murders!' agreed Evan, dashing through the patio door and up the back staircase, Dr Hassan following closely. 'How the hell did it happen? Goddamn it!'
'I fear it's only the beginning, my friend.'
'What?' asked Kendrick, racing into the huge master bedroom overlooking the pool and going to his bureau, where he hurriedly opened drawers, whipping out socks, underwear and a shirt.
'The stations are calling all manner of people for their comments. They're most laudatory, of course.'
'What else could they say?' said Evan, putting on his socks and shorts while Sabri unfolded his laundered shirt and handed it to him. 'That they were all rooting for their terrorist buddies in Palestine?' Kendrick put on the shirt and ran to his closet, yanking out a pair of trousers. Sabri's wife, Kashi, walked through the door.
'Anahdsfa!' she exclaimed, asking to be pardoned and turning away.
'No time for eltakaled, Kashi,' cried the congressman, telling her to forget her traditions. 'How are you doing with the clothes?'
'They might not be your choices, dear Evan, but they will cover you,' replied the sweet-faced anxious wife. 'It also occurred to me that you could call us from wherever you are and I can bring things to you. Many people on the newspapers know my husband but none know me. I am never in evidence.'
'Your choice, not mine,' said Kendrick, putting on a jacket and returning to the bureau for his wallet, money clip and lighter. 'We may be closing up this place, Kashi, and heading out to Colorado. Out there you can be my official hostess.'
'Oh, that's foolish, dear Evan,' giggled Mrs. Hassan. 'It's not proper.'
'You're the professor, Sabri,' added Kendrick, rapidly running a comb through his hair. 'When are you going to teach her?'
'When will she listen? Our women must have advantages we men know nothing about.'
'Let's go!'
'The keys are in the car, dear Evan—’
'Thanks, Kashi,' said Kendrick, going out the door and down the staircase with Sabri. 'Tell me,' continued Evan as both men crossed through the portico into the large garage that housed his Mercedes convertible and Hassan's Cimarron Cadillac. 'How much of the story do they have?'
'I can only compare what I've heard with what Emmanuel told me, for you have said literally nothing.'
'It's not that I wanted to keep anything from you—'
'Please, Evan,' interrupted the professor. 'How long have I known you? You are uncomfortable praising yourself, even indirectly.'
'Praise, hell!' exclaimed Kendrick, opening the garage door. 'I blew it! I was a dead man with a bleeding pig strapped to my back about to be dropped over the shoals of Qatar! Others did it, not me. They saved my overachieving ass.'
'Without you they could have done nothing—’
'Forget it,' said Evan, standing by the door of the Cadillac. 'How much have they learned?'
'In my opinion, very little. Not an iota of what Emmanuel told me, even discounting his natural exaggerations. The journalists are scratching for details, and apparently those details are not forthcoming.'
'That doesn't tell me much. Why did you say it was only “the beginning” when we left the pool?'
'Because of a man who was interviewed—roused willingly out of his house, obviously—a colleague of yours on the House Intelligence Subcommittee, a congressman named Mason.'
'Mason…?' said Kendrick, frowning. 'He's got a big profile in Tulsa or Phoenix—I forget which—but he's a zero. A few weeks ago there was a quiet movement to get him off the committee.'
'That's hardly the way he was presented, Evan.'
