Ahmat and all those who helped him and are frightened to death that they'll be exposed. What's happened to him during the past two days proves that he was right. He wants to go back and now he can't. No one will let him.'
Again Payton frowned, the sadness gone, replaced by a cold curiosity that bordered on doubt. 'Yes, I understand that, my dear, but then you have only his word that he wanted to go back—wants to go back.'
'I believe him,' said Rashad.
'He may believe it himself,' offered the director of Special Projects. 'Now, as it were, having had second thoughts provoked by thinking things through.'
'That's cryptic as hell, MJ. What do you mean?'
'It may be a minor point, but I think it's worth considering. A man who wants to fade from Washington, really fade, and not open a law office or a public relations firm or some other such gratuity for the government service he sought, doesn't usually do battle with Pentagon heavyweights in televised committee hearings, or go on a Sunday network programme that reaches the broadest audience in the country, or hold a provocative personal press conference guaranteed to get wide exposure. Nor does he continue to be a bete noire on a select subcommittee for intelligence, asking hard questions that may not promote his name in the public's eyes but certainly circulates it around the capital. Taken collectively, those activities aren't the mark of a man anxious to leave the political arena or the rewards it can offer. There's a certain inconsistency, wouldn't you say?'
Adrienne Rashad nodded. 'I asked him about all that, at first accusing him of even wanting another on-the-scene testimonial from me, and suffering from a bad case of political ambition. He blew up, denying any such motives, insisting vehemently that he wanted only to get out of Washington.'
'Could these be his second thoughts?' suggested Payton. 'I ask it kindly because any sane person would have them. Say this very successful individual—and he's nothing if not an individualist; I've seen that for myself—gets a touch of our Potomac virus and tells himself to go for it, use all the marbles he's got, including what he did in Oman. Then he wakes up and thinks, “My God, what have I done? What am I doing here? I don't belong among these people!”… It wouldn't be the first time, you know. We've lost a great many good men and women in this city who came to that same conclusion—they didn't belong here. Most are fiercely independent people who believe in their judgments, generally borne out by success in one field or another. Unless they want power for the sheer sake of a driving ego—which your instincts about Kendrick would seem to dismiss and I trust your instincts—these people have no patience with the mazes of endless debate and compromise that are the by-products of our system. Could our congressman be someone like that?'
'Offhand, I'd say it's his profile to a capital P, but again it's only instinct.'
'So isn't it possible that your attractive young man—’
'Oh, come on, MJ,' interrupted Rashad. 'That's so antediluvian.'
'I substitute it for a term I refuse to use with my niece.'
'I accept your version of courtesy.'
'Propriety, my dear. But isn't it possible that your friend woke up and said to himself, “I've made a terrible mistake making a hero out of myself and now I've got to undo it”?'
'It would be if he was a liar, which I don't think he is.'
'But you do see the inconsistency of his behaviour, don't you? He's acted one way and then claims to be the opposite.'
'You're saying that he's protesting too much, and I'm saying that he isn't because he's not lying, either to himself or to me.'
'I'm exploring every avenue before we look for a bastard, who—if you're right—was contacted by another bastard, a blond-haired one… Did Kendrick tell you why he publicly took on the Pentagon as well as the entire defence industry, to say nothing of his less public but well-circulated criticisms of our own intelligence services?'
'Because he was in a position to say those things and he thought they should be said.'
'Just like that? That's his explanation?'
'Yes.'
'But he had to seek the positions that gave him the opportunity
