private field adjacent to the airport, authorities suspect that the death may have been drug oriented…
Evan flew to San Diego on the first morning flight from Denver. He had insisted on seeing Manny at 6:00 am and would not be denied. 'You're going to be fine,' he had lied. 'And you're a horseshit artist,' Weingrass had shot back. 'Where are you going?' '… Khalehla. San Diego. She needs me.''… Then get the hell out of here! I don't want to see your ugly face another second. Go to her, help her. Get those bastards!'
The taxi from the airport to the hotel in the early traffic seemed interminable, the situation hardly relieved by the driver, who recognized him and kept up a flow of inane chatter laced with invective directed at all Arabs and all things Arabic.
'Every fuckin' one of 'em should be taken out and shot, right?'
'Women and children, too, of course.'
'Right! The brats grow up and the broads make more brats!'
'That's quite a solution. You might even call it final.'
'It's the only way, right'?'
'Wrong. When you consider the numbers and the price of ammunition, the cost would be too high. Taxes would go up.'
'No kiddin'? Shit, I pay enough. There's gotta be another way.'
'I'm sure you'll come up with one… Now, if you'll forgive me, I have some reading to do.' Kendrick returned to his copy of the Denver Post and the terrible news from Cyprus. And, either miffed or feeling he had been put down, the driver turned on the radio. Again, as in the newspapers, the coverage was almost exclusively about the abominable act of terrorism in the Mediterranean, on-site recordings and repeated interviews from world figures in various translated languages condemning the barbaric act. And as if death had to follow death, a stunned Evan heard the newscaster's words.
'Here in San Diego there was another tragedy. Mrs. Ardis Vanvlanderen, Vice President Bollinger's chief of staff, was found dead early this morning when her body washed up on the beach in Coronado, an apparent suicide…'
Kendrick shot forward on the seat… Ardis? Ardis Vanvlanderen …? Ardis Montreaux! The Bahamas… a dissolute minor player from Off Shore Investments of years ago said Ardis Montreaux had married a wealthy Californian! Good Christ! That was why Khalehla had flown to San Diego. Mitchell Payton had found the 'money whore'—Bollinger's chief of staff! The announcer went on to speculate on the new widow's grief, a speculation Kendrick thought suspect.
He walked across the hotel lobby and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Studying the numbered arrows, he started down the hall towards Khalehla's room both anxious and depressed—anxious to see her and hold her, depressed about Manny, about the wholesale slaughter in Cyprus, about so much, but mainly Emmanuel Weingrass, scheduled victim of murder. He reached the door and rapped four times, hearing the racing footsteps inside before he removed his hand. The door swung back and she was in his arms.
'My God, I love you,' he whispered into her dark hair, the words rushed. 'And everything's so rotten, so goddamned rotten!'
'Quickly. Inside.' Khalehla closed the door and returned to him, holding his face in her hands. 'Manny?'
'He's got somewhere between three and six months to live,' replied Evan, his voice flat. 'He's dying of a virus he couldn't possibly have got except through an injection.'
'The non-existent Dr Lyons,' said Rashad, making a statement.
‘I’ll find him if it takes me twenty years.'
'You'll have all the help Washington can give you.'
'The news is rotten everywhere. Cyprus, the best man in the administration blown to bits—’
'It's tied in here, Evan. Here in San Diego.'
'What?'
Khalehla backed away and took his hand, leading him across the room to where there were two chairs, a small round table between them. 'Sit down, darling. I've got a lot to tell you that I couldn't tell you before. Then there's something you have to
