'Am I on board?'
'On board and on your way to Zurich,' replied Grinell, smiling. 'Once you settle certain items on our agenda, like Chicago.'
'The telegram will go out in the morning. I'll have O'Reilly send it from the office.'
'With a copy to our esteemed Vice President, of course.'
'Of course.'
The chairman of the contributors' board of directors sighed audibly, pleasantly. 'Oh, how venal we all are,' he said. 'You, for instance, Congressman, you're a bundle of contradictions.
Your public persona would never accept our accommodation.'
'If this is for the benefit of your videotape, let me make a statement. I was burned and did my best to put out the fires in Oman because they had burned me, killing a great many friends. I see no contradiction of issues.'
'So recorded, Representative Kendrick.'
Suddenly, without any indication whatsoever, the quiet conference was broken apart by a combination of signals. A bright red light started flashing from the console of the radio telephone on the desk, and a muted siren came from somewhere in the stuccoed walls, probably from the mouth of a dead animal. The door crashed open and the tall figure of the deeply tanned captain of the boat, the laconic angry weed from the Town of Corruption, burst into the room.
'What are you doing?' roared Grinell.
'Get that fart out of here,' the yachtsman yelled. 'I thought he was a trap from the beginning and I was right! There are government people dispatched by Washington all over Bollinger's place looking for him, questioning everyone as if they were in a police line-up.'
'What?'
'We're handling that but we've got a bigger problem. The ledger! Bollinger got a call. It's with the bitch's own lawyer!'
'Shut up!' commanded Grinell.
'He's talking ten million which she told him her Andy-boy promised her. Now he wants it!'
'I told you to shut up!… What did you mean that the federal men were questioning everyone?'
'Just what I said. They're not only grilling them, they got search warrants. They won't find anything, but not for lack of trying.'
'In the Vice President's house? It's unheard of!'
'They're playing it smart. They're telling Bollinger that they're protecting him from his subordinates. But no one's going to convince me.' The yachtsman turned on Evan. 'That son of a bitch was sent in to trap us. The hero's word against everybody else's!'
Grinell stared at Kendrick. 'There can't be a hero's word if there's no hero… Adios, Congressman.' Grinell touched a button on the side of his desk and the door to the huge room of dead animals opened once again. The Mafioso's automatic waved back and forth as he entered cautiously. 'Take him out,' ordered the attorney. 'The Mexicans will tell you where… You really fooled me, Congressman. I'll remember the lesson. Beware the persuasive philosophical turncoat.'
The sound of the waves crashing against the island's rockbound coastline below grew louder as they walked down the amber lit path. Ahead the ground lights came to an end, and a white barrier was starkly in place between the final domed lamps, the amber wash illuminating the letters of the two signs on the white obstruction. The left was again in Spanish, the right in English.
?Pellagra!… Danger!
Beyond the barrier was a promontory overlooking the sea, the angry waters churning in the erratic moonlight, the sound of the crashing waves now deafening. Kendrick was being led to his execution.
The Icarus Agenda
