Read Online The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online Page B

of his royal office,but with the door still open he proceeded to remove them, throwing his aba into the car, the ghotra headdress remaining on his head. He walked through the circle of his Royal Guard, a slender, muscular man of medium height and broad shoulders. Except for the ghotra, his clothes were Western. His slacks were a tan gabardine, and over his chest was a T-shirt with a cartoon figure wearing a three-cornered American revolutionary hat bursting out of an American football. Underneath, the legend read:
New England Patriots
.
    “It’s been a long time, Evan Kendrick,
ya Shaikh
,” said the young man in a slightly British accent, smiling and extending his hand. “I like your costume, but it’s not exactly Brooks Brothers, is it?”
    “Neither is yours unless the Brothers Brooks are into T-shirts.” They shook hands. Kendrick could feel the sultan’s strength. “Thank you for seeing me, Ahmat.… Forgive me—I should say Your Royal Highness. My apologies.”
    “You knew me as Ahmat, and I knew you as
Shaikh, sir
. Must I still call you ‘sir’?”
    “That’d be inappropriate, I think.”
    “Good. We understand each other.”
    “You look different from what I remember,” said Evan.
    “I was forced to grow up swiftly—not by choice. From student to teacher, without the proper qualifications, I’m afraid.”
    “You’re respected, I’ve heard that.”
    “The office does it, not the man. I must learn to fill the office. Come on, let’s talk—away from here.” The sultan, Ahmat, took Kendrick’s arm and started through his circle of guards only to be stopped by the officer who had searched Evan.
    “Your Highness!” cried the soldier. “Your safety is our lives! Please remain within the cordon.”
    “And be a target by the light of the fire?”
    “We
surround
you, sir, and the men will continuously side-step around the circle. The ground is flat.”
    “Instead, point your weapons beyond the shadows,
ya sahbee
,” said Ahmat, calling the soldier his friend. “We’ll only be a few meters away.”
    “With pain in our hearts, Your Highness.”
    “It will pass.” Ahmat ushered Kendrick through the cordon. “My countrymen are frequently given to trivial melodramatics.”
    “It’s not so trivial if they’re willing to make a moving ring and take a bullet meant for you.”
    “It’s nothing special, Evan, and, frankly, I don’t know all themen in those bodies. What we
may
have to say to each other could be for our ears only.”
    “I didn’t realize …” Kendrick looked at the young sultan of Oman as they walked into the darkness. “Your own
guards
?”
    “Anything’s possible during this madness. You can study the eyes of a professional soldier but you can’t see the resentments or the temptations behind them. Here, this is far enough.” Both men stopped in the sand.
    “The madness,” said Evan flatly in the dim light of the fire and the intermittent moonlight. “Let’s talk about it.”
    “That’s why you’re here, of course.”
    “That’s why I’m here,” Kendrick said.
    “What the hell do you want me to
do
?” cried Ahmat in a harsh whisper. “Whatever move I make, another hostage could get shot and one more bullet-riddled body is thrown out a window!” The young sultan shook his head. “Now, I know you and my father worked well together—you and I discussed a few projects at a couple of dinner parties, but I don’t expect you to remember.”
    “I remember,” broke in Kendrick. “You were home from Harvard, your second year in graduate school, I think. You were always on your father’s left, the position of inheritance.”
    “Thanks a bunch, Evan. I could have had a terrific job at E. F. Hutton.”
    “You have a terrific job here.”
    “I
know
that,” said Ahmat, his whispered voice again rising. “And that’s why I have to make goddamned sure I do it right. Certainly I can call back the army from the Yemeni border and take the embassy by blowing