including myself. Not only for myself but for many others I used and misused to keep you in sight. Someone like me builds a network based on trust, and right now that trust, my most vital commodity, has been called into question. So you see, Mr. Kendrick, you've wasted not only my time and my concentration but a great deal of the taxpayers' money to bring me back here for a question any experienced intelligence officer could answer.'
'You could have sold me, sold my name for a price.'
'For what? My life? For the lives of those I used to track you, men who are important to me and the work I do—work I think has real value which I tried to explain to you in Bahrain? You really believe that?'
'Oh, Jesus, I don't know what to believe!' admitted Evan, expelling his breath and shaking his head. 'Everything I wanted to do, everything I'd planned, has been thrown out in the garbage. Ahmat doesn't want to see me again, I can't go back—there or anywhere else in the Emirates or the Gulfs. He'll see to it.'
'You wanted to go back?'
'More than anything. I wanted to take up my life again where I did my best work. But first I had to find and get rid of a son of a bitch who'd crippled everything, killed for the sake of killing—so many.'
'The Mahdi,' interrupted Rashad, nodding. 'Ahmat told me. You did it. Ahmat's young and he'll change. In time he'll understand what you did for everyone over there and be grateful… But you just answered a question. You see, I thought that you might have blown the story yourself, but you didn't, did you?'
'Me? You're out of your mind! I'm getting out of here in six months!'
'There's no political ambition, then?'
'Christ, no! I'm packing it in, I'm leaving! Only now I have nowhere to go. Someone's trying to stop me, making me into something I'm not. What the hell is happening to me?'
'Offhand I'd say you were being exhumed.'
'Being what? By whom?
'By someone who thinks you were slighted. Someone who believes you deserve public acclaim, prominence.'
'Which I don't want! And the President isn't helping. He's awarding me the Medal of Freedom next Tuesday in the goddamned Blue Room with the whole Marine Band! I told him I didn't want it, and the son of a bitch said I had to show up because he refused to look like a “chintzy bastard”. What kind of reasoning is that?
'Very presidential…' Rashad suddenly stopped. 'Let's walk,' she said quickly as two white-suited members of the staff appeared at the base of the dock. 'Don't look around. Be casual. We'll just stroll down this poor excuse for a beach.'
'May I talk?' asked Kendrick as he fell in step.
'Not anything germane. Wait till we get around the bend.'
'Why? Can they hear us?'
'Possibly. I'm not really sure.' They followed the curve of the shoreline until the trees obscured the two men on the dock. 'The Japanese have developed directional relays, although I've never seen one,' continued Rashad aimlessly. Then she stopped again and looked up at Evan, her intelligent eyes questioning. 'You spoke to Ahmat?' she asked.
'Yesterday. He told me to go to hell but not to go back to Oman. Ever.'
'You understand that I'll check with him, don't you?'
Evan was suddenly astonished, then angry. She was questioning him, accusing him, checking up on him. 'I don't give damn what you do, my only concern is what you may have done. You're convincing, Kahlehla—excuse me, Miss Rashad—and you may believe what you say, but the six men who knew about me had everything to lose and not a goddamned thing to gain by saying that I was in Masqat last year.'
'And I had nothing to lose but my life and the lives of those I've cultivated throughout the sector, some of whom, incidentally, are very dear to me? Stop that tired old argument, Congressman, you sound ridiculous. You're not only an amateur, you're insufferable.'
'You know, it's possible you could have made a mistake!.' cried Kendrick, exasperated. 'I'd almost be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I implied as much to
