The Icarus Agenda Read Online Free Page A

eccentric and almost always theatrical. He enjoyed himself. Unfortunately, hisvarious wives rarely enjoyed
him
for very long. At any rate, no one wanted to tangle with a crazy Israeli. The tactics were too familiar.”
    “Are you suggesting we recruit him?” asked the deputy director.
    “No. Outside of his age, he’s winding up his life in Paris with the most beautiful women he can hire and certainly with the most expensive brandy he can find. He couldn’t help.… But there’s something you
can
do.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Listen to me.” Kendrick leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking about this for the past eight hours and with every hour I’m more convinced it’s a possible explanation. The problem is that there are so few facts—almost none, really—but a pattern’s there, and it’s consistent with things we heard four years ago.”
    “What things? What pattern?”
    “Only rumors to begin with, then came the threats and they
were
threats. No one was kidding.”
    “Go on. I’m listening.”
    “While defusing those threats in his own way, usually with prohibited whisky, Weingrass heard something that made too much sense to be dismissed as drunken babbling. He was told that a consortium was silently being formed—an industrial cartel, if you like. It was quietly gaining control of dozens of different companies with growing resources in personnel, technology and equipment. The objective was obvious then, and if the information’s accurate, even more obvious now. They intend to take over the industrial development of Southwest Asia. As far as Weingrass could learn, this underground federation was based in Bahrain—nothing surprising there—but what came as a shocker and amused the hell out of Manny was the fact that among the unknown board of directors was a man who called himself the ‘Mahdi’—like the Muslim fanatic who threw the British out of Khartoum a hundred years ago.”
    “The Mahdi?
Khartoum?
”
    “Exactly. The symbol’s obvious. Except that this new Mahdi doesn’t give a damn about religious Islam, much less its screaming fanatics. He’s using them to drive the competition out and keep it out. He wants the contracts and the profits in Arab hands—specifically
his
hands.”
    “
Wait
a minute,” Swann interrupted thoughtfully as he picked up his phone and touched a button on the console. “This ties in with something that came from MI-Six in Masqat lastnight,” he continued quickly, looking at Kendrick. “We couldn’t follow it up because there wasn’t anything to follow, no trail, but it sure as hell made wild reading.… Get me Gerald Bryce, please.… Hello, Gerry? Last night—actually around two o’clock this morning—we got a nothing-zero from the Brits in Ohio. I want you to find it and read it to me slowly because I’ll be writing down every word.” The deputy covered the mouthpiece and spoke to his suddenly alert visitor. “If anything you’ve said makes any sense at all, it may be the first concrete breakthrough we’ve had.”
    “That’s why I’m here, Mr. Swann, probably reeking of smoked fish.”
    The deputy director nodded aimlessly, impatiently, waiting for the man he had called Bryce to return to the phone. “A shower wouldn’t hurt, Congressman.…
Yes
, Gerry, go ahead!… ‘Do not look where you would logically expect to look. Search elsewhere.’ Yes, I’ve got that. I remember that. It was right after, I think … ‘Where grievances are not born of poverty or abandonment.’
That’s
it! And something else, right around there … ‘Where Allah has bestowed favor in this world, although perhaps not in the after one.’…
Yes
. Now go down a bit, something about whispers, that’s all I remember.…
There!
That’s it. Give it to me again.… ‘The whispers speak of those who will benefit from the bloodshed.’ Okay, Gerry, that’s what I needed. The rest was all negative, if I recall. No names, no organizations, just crap.…