Fifty-one. The name of the woman is Rashad. Give it only to her.'
'Rashad. Room Fifty-one. I've got it.'
'Thank you.'
'Listen, if you're in trouble, let me know about it, okay? I mean if there's anything I can do—’
'Your car's at the airport, somewhere in Section C,' said the Czech, hanging up. He lifted the phone for the last time and dialled again. 'Room Fifty-one,' he repeated.
'Hello?'
'You will receive… everything in the morning.'
'Where are you? Let me send help!'
'In the… morning. Get it to Mr. B!'
'Goddamn you, Milos, where are you?'
'It doesn't matter… Ask Kendrick. He may know.'
'Know what?'
'Photographs… The Vanvlanderen woman… Lausanne, the Leman Marina. The Beau Rivage—the gardens. Then Amsterdam, the Rozengracht. In the hotel… her study. Tell him! The man is a Saudi and things happened to him… millions, millions!' Milos could hardly talk; he had so little breath. Go on… go on! Escape… millions!'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'He may be the key! Don't let anyone remove the photographs… Contact Kendrick. He may remember!' The Czech lost control of his movements; he swung the telephone back on to the counter missing the cradle, then fell to the ground in front of the fruit stand on a back country road beyond the airport in San Diego. Milos Varak was dead.
The Icarus Agenda
Chapter 38
The morning's headlines and related articles obscured all other news. The Secretary of State and his entire delegation had been brutally killed in a hotel in Cyprus. The Sixth Fleet was heading towards the island, all weapons and aircraft at the ready. The nation was transfixed, furious, and not a little frightened. The horror of some uncontrollable force of evil seemed to loom on the horizon, edging the country towards the brink of wholesale confrontation, provoking the government to respond with equal horror and brutality. But in a stroke of rare intuitive geopolitical brilliance, President Langford Jennings controlled the storm. He contacted Moscow, and the result of that communication had brought forth dual condemnations from the two superpowers. The monstrous event in Cyprus was labelled an isolated act of terrorism that enraged the entire world. Words of praise and sorrow for a great man came from all the capitals of the globe, allies and adversaries alike.
And on pages 2, 7 and 45, respectively, in the San Diego Union, and pages 4, 50 and 51 in the Los Angeles Times, were the following far less important wire service reports.
San Diego, 22 Dec.—Mrs. Ardis Vanvlanderen, chief of staff for Vice President Orson Bollinger, whose husband, Andrew Vanvlanderen, died yesterday from cardiac arrest, took her own life early this morning in apparent grief. Her body washed up on the beach in Coronado, death attributed to drowning. On his way to the airport, her attorney, Mr. Crayton Grinell, of La Jolla, had dropped her off at the funeral home for a last viewing of her husband. According to sources at the home, the widow was under severe strain and barely coherent. Although a limousine waited for her, she slipped out a side door and apparently took a taxi to the Coronado beach…
Mexico City, 22 Dec.—Eric Sundstrom, one of America's leading scientists and creators of highly complex space technology, died of a cerebral haemorrhage while on vacation in Puerto Vallarta. Few details are available at this time. A full report of his life and work will appear in tomorrow's editions.
San Diego, 22 Dec.—An unidentified man without papers, but carrying a gun, died of gunshot wounds on a back road south of the International Airport. Lt Commander John Demartin, a US Navy fighter pilot, picked him up, telling the police the man claimed to have been in an automobile accident. Due to the proximity of the
