'Varak stole it.'
'Who?'
'Milos Varak!'
'The European…?' His sudden recognition of the name unconsciously slipped out. It was the Milos.
'Inver Brass's very professional, very dead lackey!'
'Inver who?'
'Your would-be promoters, Congressman. You don't think you got where you are by yourself, do you?'
'I knew someone was pushing me—'
'Pushing? Catapulting is more like it… Meddling lunatics! They didn't realize that one of them was also one of us.'
'What makes you think the European… that this Varak's dead?' asked Evan, if only to gain moments to adjust to revelations that were coming too fast.
'It was in the paper—not listing him by name, of course, but unmistakable. But before he died, he was somewhere else, with someone else who worked for us. He had to be or he never would have come to the airport… He stole it.'
'This other book?' said Kendrick, hesitantly.
'An industrially coded ledger, meaningless to any but a selected few.'
'And you think I have it.' A statement.
'I think you know where it is.'
'Why?'
'Because in his zeal Varak would have mistakenly believed it should be in your hands. He couldn't trust Inver Brass any longer.'
'Because he learned that one of them was also one of you.'
'Essentially, yes,' said Grinell. 'I'm hypothesizing, of course. It's a professional habit, but it's served me well over the years.'
'Not this time. I don't know anything about it.'
'I wouldn't lie if I were you, Congressman. It would be futile in any event. There are so many ways of loosening minds and mouths these days.'
He couldn't allow drugs! Under them he would reveal everything, signing Khalehla's death warrant as well as giving the contributors all the information they needed to mount their individual smoke screens and in other cases disappear. The dying Manny deserved better than that! If ever he needed credibility it was now. He was back in another compound, not in Masqat but on an island in the waters of Mexico. He had to be every bit as convincing as he was among the terrorists, for these men, these killers from the boardrooms, were no less than terrorists themselves.
'Listen to me,' said Evan firmly, leaning back and crossing his legs, his eyes levelled on Grinell. 'You can think whatever the hell you care to think, but I don't want the vice presidency, I want a fifty-million-dollar line of credit in Zurich. Do I make myself clear?'
'Clear and recorded, naturally.'
'Good, fine! Run a full scam on me and put it on videotape—’
'But you see, it is,' interrupted the attorney.
'Excellent! Then we're both in the same hot tub, aren't we?'
'Same tub, Congressman. So where's the ledger?'
'I haven't the vaguest idea, but if this Varak sent it to me, I know how you can get it… I'll call my office in Washington and tell my secretary, Annie O'Reilly, to express it out overnight to wherever you like.'
The two negotiators stared at each other, neither wavering for an instant. 'That's a fair solution,' said Grinell, finally.
'If you can think of a better one, use it.'
'That's even fairer.'
