Ikon by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

training
    base.’
    Willy said, i have to do what’s right, Daniel.’
    ‘Of course you do. But you also have to protect yourself. Whoever designed those missiles, whoever ordered them, whoever passed them as okay for active duty, all those people are going to want you out of the way. You just think to yourself how much money changes hands in a successful missile contract. Billions. Well, people get killed in the streets for pennies. So, be warned.’
    ‘Daniel, insisted Willy, ‘it’s all a question of fact, that’s all. The missiles don’t work against Soviet radar signatures and that’s it.’
    Daniel wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘You want some
    breakfast?’
    ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’
    ‘Get yourself some more information, that’s all, Daniel told him. ‘Don’t go breezing into Kawalek’s office with something you can’t totally substantiate. And before you go, leave a copy of whatever it is you’ve been working on here with me. Or somebody else you trust.’
    Willy pushed back his chair, and stood up. Susie came into the kitchen and announced, ‘Lannie says please move your hindquarters with his breakfast.’ Daniel smiled, and nodded. ‘Okay.’
    Willy said, ‘I guess I’ll go home and catch myself a couple of hours’ shuteye. Then I’ll go back to the armoury and run the last of those programmes. I’ll meet you at ten for a drink at Hank’s. Is that okay?’
    ‘That’s okay. But you’ll leave your findings with me before you go talk to Kawalek?’
    ‘So that you can sell them to the Russians, and make yourself rich?’ joked Willy.
    ‘Willy,’ Daniel cautioned him.
    Willy came over and flung an awkward arm around his shoulders. I know, Daniel. I know, Discretion is the better part of valour. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.’
    Daniel, one-handed, cracked two eggs. They had played racketball together, he and Willy. They had talked for hours, all night sometimes, until they knew each other like brothers, or maybe closer. Daniel had never been to Omaha, but he could have found his way to the hollow tree in Fontenelle Park where Willy used to hide his catapult and his Tom Mix plastic ‘look-in’ TV set as if he had played there himself.
    They were buddies, in the curiously old-fashioned sense of the word. Astrologically, psychologically, and physically. But now Daniel had the unsettling feeling that the responsibilities of the real world were about to come between them; and although he tried to smile, he couldn’t. His face was fixed like rapidly-cooling glass.
     
    Four
     
    Titus had seen Joe Jasper’s Cadillac approach through the willows, its amber marking-lights dipping and bouncing
     
    through Beahms Grove; and so by the time Joe had awkwardly parked by the bank of the river, and picked his way in his highly-polished Bejan shoes through the rough muddy grass that sloped down to the water’s edge, Titus had been able to wade twenty or thirty yards further into midstream, still near enough to hear what Joe might shout out, in case it was anything interesting, but far enough to pretend that he was out of earshot, in case it wasn’t.
    It was a silent foggy afternoon in the Shenandoah Valley, a few miles upstream from Front Royal, overlooked to the east by the Blue Ridge mountains, and to the west by the Massanuttens; old Civil War country. Titus was taking his first fishing vacation in three years, and whatever Joe Jasper had to say, it couldn’t be half as absorbing to Titus as the deep swirl of the Shenandoah River, or the distinct dripping of condensation from the overhanging trees, or the call of vireos and thrushes. Titus, after three-and-a-half years as Secretary of State, and five-and-a-half years of marriage to Nadine, was awarding himself three days and three nights of complete peace; peace that was punctuated only by the stitching-up sound of a fishing-reel, or the whirr of nylon line.
    ‘Titus!’ called Joe. He was teetering on a