“You know my terms,” Pittman said.
“Ah, but you haven’t heard mine.” Gable’s thin lips formed a grimace that may have been a smile. “After you.”
His veins swelling from increased pressure, Pittman entered the house.
7
Hearing Gable shut the door behind him, Pittman noted that the inside had walls and beamed ceilings made from various tropical woods of varying colors, mahogany and teak among others. The lighting system was recessed but remarkably bright. The temperature was unusually warm. Passing a thermostat in a stone-floored corridor, Pittman saw that it was set at eighty degrees. Even on the coldest winter day, he would have considered that temperature excessive. But given that this was a mild day in late April, Pittman had to conclude that Gable was using the heat to combat his evident illness. Similarly, the bright lights suggested that Gable’s vision might be fading. To Pittman’s fear and anger, the unexpected emotion of pity was added, and Pittman urgently subdued it, knowing that Gable would take every advantage he could. For all Pittman knew, the bright lights and the excessive temperature were part of a carefully designed stage setting that would allow Gable to manipulate him.
Proceeding along the hallway, heading left, the direction that Gable indicated, Pittman listened to the old man’s labored footsteps. An open door led to a spacious room with a wall-length window that provided a view of the ponds and sand traps of the golf course at the bottom of the slope.
But Pittman’s attention was primarily directed toward two men who waited for him. One of them he recognized. A gaunt-cheeked elderly man sitting nervously on a sofa had a neatly trimmed white mustache, wore a dark three-piece suit almost identical to Gable’s, and was recognizable from photographs, particularly because of a distinctive cleft in his chin that had deepened with age: the other remaining grand counselor, Winston Sloane.
The second man was in his thirties, six feet tall, well built, with strong features emphasized by his short haircut. His gray suit looked less carefully tailored than Gable’s and Sloane’s. Indeed, the jacket seemed slightly too large and had a bulge on the left side. As Pittman studied the man, who stood in the middle of the room, it occurred to him that he knew this man also, or at least had seen him before. Last night, the man had been with the group who had attacked Mrs. Page’s house.
Pittman turned to Gable. “I didn’t know that we wouldn’t be alone.”
“It doesn’t do to negotiate unless all interested parties are in attendance. May I present my colleague—Winston Sloane.”
With effort, Sloane tried to stand.
“No need,” Pittman said.
Gable pointed toward the second man. “And this is my assistant, Mr. Webley.”
Pittman nodded, giving no indication that he recognized the man.
“I’m sure you won’t mind if Mr. Webley performs a security check,” Gable continued.
For a moment, Pittman wasn’t sure what Gable was talking about. “You’re saying you want this man to search me?”
“We’re here on good faith. There shouldn’t be any need for weapons.
“Then why is your assistant armed?”
Webley’s eyes narrowed.
“Because his duties require him to be armed. I do hope this isn’t going to be a problem,” Gable said.
Pittman raised his arms.
Webley reached for something on a chair behind him and came over with a handheld metal detector, tracing its wand along the contours of Pittman’s body.
It beeped when it came to the base of Pittman’s spine. Webley groped behind the sport coat and removed Pittman’s .45.
Gable made a tsking sound. “How can we negotiate on a basis of trust when you bring a weapon to our meeting?”
“Force of habit. For the last week, I’ve gotten used to needing protection.”
“Perhaps after this afternoon, you won’t need it anymore.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Webley continued to scan Pittman’s body with the metal detector. It beeped several more times. “Keys and coins. His belt buckle. A pen,” Webley told Gable.
“Examine the pen. Check him thoroughly. Be certain that he isn’t wearing a microphone.”
Webley did so. “Nothing unusual.”
“Very well. Be seated, Mr. Pittman. Let’s discuss your proposal.”
“Why?” Winston Sloane asked. “I don’t see what purpose this so-called negotiation will serve. Our best course is to telephone the police and have this man arrested for murdering Jonathan.”
“A week ago, I would have agreed with you,” Gable said. “In fact, I did agree. We all agreed.” He cleared his throat and turned to Pittman. “As you must have concluded by now, our original intention was to blame you for what we were forced to do to Jonathan. Your history of animosity toward Jonathan and your suicidal impulses made you an excellent candidate. No one would believe your denial, for which you would have no proof. Not that we wanted you to have a chance to deny anything. We made arrangements to have you killed before the police could take you into custody.”
“The man in my apartment,” Pittman said.
Gable nodded. “We bribed a policeman to let our own man take his place and wait there.”
Sloane’s cheeks became alarmingly flushed. “You’re telling him too much.”
“Not at all,” Gable said. “If we’re to accomplish anything, we have to be candid. Correct, Mr. Pittman?”
“That’s why I’m here. To be candid. To find a way out of this.”
“Precisely.”
“What I don’t understand,” Pittman said, “is why you needed to blame anyone for Jonathan Millgate’s death. He was old. He was sick. He was on oxygen. If you’d taken away his life-support system, let him die, and then hooked him up to the support system again, his death would have seemed natural. No one would have been the wiser.”
“That’s what I wanted,” Sloane insisted, his cheeks even redder.
“And at the start, you were right,” Gable said patiently. “Try to remember the sequence. As Jonathan’s health dwindled, he became more afraid of dying. He’d been flirting with religion for the past several years. That priest, that damnable priest. I never understood Jonathan’s attitude toward Father Dandridge. The priest hounded us during the Vietnam years. He organized demonstrations and called press conferences to criticize every policy we made about Vietnam. It was because of Father Dandridge that Jonathan left public life. The priest’s interference made it impossible for Jonathan to function effectively in the government. And yet two decades later, Jonathan asked the priest to be his personal confessor.”
“Father Dandridge felt that Jonathan Millgate needed a confessor who wouldn’t be intimidated by him, a spiritual adviser who would stand up to him about ultimate matters,” Pittman said.
Gable’s gaze turned cold. “Ultimate matters. I forgot that you spoke to the priest briefly.”
“I was there when you had him killed.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten involved. He shouldn’t have made trouble.”
“He would never have revealed what he heard in confession,” Pittman said.
“So you claim. But in my career, I have known diplomats who conveyed all sorts of confidential information to trusted associates, only to have that information repeated back to them by third parties. God only knows what Jonathan had already confessed to the priest, but I know for certain that what he intended to tell the priest on his deathbed would have been ruinous. I was visiting him in the hospital, and all he could do was keep telling me that he had to see Father Dandridge. He had to clear his conscience. He had to save his soul.” Gable said the last word with contempt. “Then the Justice Department leaked its report that it was investigating rumors about a covert plan to buy nuclear weapons from the former USSR. Jonathan was implicated as having acted as an intermediary.”
“Intermediary? Stop hiding behind words. What you mean is, Millgate was functioning as an arms dealer,” Pittman said with disgu
st. “The worst kind of arms. What possible reason could justify—?”
“The safety of the world,” Gable said indignantly.
“Yeah, right. That’s the excuse you and your buddies always came up with. The safety of the world. It doesn’t matter how self-serving the idea is, you always justify yourselves by saying it’s good for everybody.”
“Are you so naïve as to think that the fall of communism and the dissolution of the USSR mean the end of a threat from that region?”
“Of course not,” Pittman answered. “The bloodbath in Bosnia shows that any damned thing can happen over there. After decades of being repressed, the provinces of the former USSR might all go in the opposite extreme. Soon they might all be out of control.”
“With access to nuclear weapons about which neither the former government nor the disbanding military is responsible.” Gable gestured for emphasis. “If a new government, a rogue government comes into power, there’s a very real danger that those nuclear weapons will be used to allow that new government to consolidate its power. What’s unscrupulous about trying to stop that from happening?”
“The way you put it, nothing. But I’ve been a reporter too long not to be able to read between the lines.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Justice Department’s accusation was specific: Jonathan Millgate was implicated in buying nuclear weapons. Not paying to have them destroyed in Russia, nothing wrong about that, but buying them. What the hell was he going to do with them once he owned them? Bring them all the way to the United States to have them destroyed? Sounds a lot more expensive than it needs to be, not to mention dangerous, all those warheads being moved around. And who’s paying for these nuclear weapons, anyhow? The U.S. government? Not damned likely. It would be political suicide for anyone in the government to get involved in such an outrageous scheme. So you’ve got two problems: how to pay for the weapons and what to do with the weapons once you own them. Those problems bothered me ever since I heard that Millgate was under suspicion. And then the solution came to me. Of course. The way you get rid of the nuclear weapons enables you to pay for them in the first place—you sell them to someone else.”
Gable squinted. “I’m impressed, Mr. Pittman.”
“The compliment doesn’t sound sincere.”
“But I am impressed. You see to the heart of the issue. You understand the brilliance of the operation.”
“Brilliance?” Pittman asked in disbelief.
“The threat of the nuclear weapons in the former USSR is eliminated,” Gable said righteously. “At the same time, it’s possible to maintain the balance of power in other troubled regions. For example, it’s no secret that North Korea has been working furiously to develop a nuclear capability. What do you think will happen when its nuclear weapons are functional? It’ll control Southeast Asia. But if South Korea also gains nuclear capability, there’ll be a stalemate. They’ll balance each other.”
“Wrong. They’ll destroy each other. And maybe get the rest of the world involved,” Pittman said.
“Not necessarily.” The emotional strain of the conversation was having an evident effect on Gable. His breathing was more labored, his posture less erect. He lowered his voice. “To save the world, sometimes risks have to be taken.”
“And bank accounts fattened? You hypocrite. You and your friends pretended to be selfless public servants, and all along, from the forties onward, from the postwar anti-Soviet policy to the Iran-Contra arms-dealing scandal, you’ve been making a fortune in kickbacks from the weapons industry. How much money did you earn arranging to use American funds to arm Iraq so it would act as a counterweight against Iran? And then we went to war against Iraq, and you received kickbacks from the arms industry because you recommended that war.”
Anger made Gable regain his rigid posture. “I refuse to discuss the nuances of foreign policy with a mere reporter. You are not privy to classified information. You are not in a position to judge the delicacy of various negotiations that I have successfully concluded for the good of the United States and the world.”
“Right. The old excuse. There’s always secret information that justifies becoming rich by starting more wars and selling more weapons.”
“These matters are beyond your understanding,” Gable said. “You are here for one purpose only—to try to settle our differences, to undo the disastrous effects of your blundering into matters that do not concern you. After the leak implicating Jonathan in the purchase of Russia’s nuclear weapons, it was only a matter of hours, perhaps minutes, before reporters would have shown up at the hospital in hopes that Jonathan would be strong enough to make a statement. We had to get Jonathan out of the hospital to keep him from telling reporters what he intended to tell the priest. You were there when my men took him from the hospital. You followed them to Scarsdale. Damn it, what were you doing in his room? If only you hadn’t gone into his room.”
“His IV tubes had slipped out. His oxygen prongs weren’t attached to him. He was having some kind of seizure. I was sure he was going to die.”
“That was the idea,” Gable said with barely subdued irritation. “My colleagues and I said good-bye to him. Everyone except his nurse and doctor left the room. They removed his life supports. Then they left. He was supposed to die. But you had to get into the room and reattach the supports. And he finally had a chance to confess. If the nurse hadn’t come back into the room at that moment, we never would have known that Jonathan had betrayed us.”
“If only we’d stopped right there,” Sloane said.
“We couldn’t,” Gable said. “Because as far as we knew, this man”—Gable pointed toward Pittman—“saw our first attempt to kill Jonathan. And this man”—Gable pointed harder toward Pittman—“had information that could ruin us. One of our security team riding in the escort car noticed a taxi following the ambulance. As soon as he reached the estate and told me about the taxi, I sent him to locate it before it disappeared from the area. The driver’s passenger was gone. But the driver could identify the passenger because of a check that the passenger had written to cover the expense of the ride. Imagine our concern, Mr. Pittman, when we researched your background and discovered that you were a reporter. What were we to do? Allow you to write a story about our attempt to kill our friend and about the information he revealed to you? Certainly not. But we did have another option. Our investigation revealed that you’d harassed Jonathan seven years ago, that you were currently having an emotional collapse. It wasn’t any effort to make it seem that you killed Jonathan. We had the check you’d given to the taxi driver. We had your fingerprints on the door to Jonathan’s room and on his life-support equipment. In a twisted personal vendetta, you killed Jonathan, then continued with your plans to kill yourself.”
“And when your men caught me, they were going to help me along.”
Gable spread his hands. “Unless the police caught you first, in which case I had the resources to arrange for you to commit suicide in jail.”
“You’re awfully confident that you can manipulate the system to make it do anything you want.”
“I’m a diplomat. I helped design the system. I guarantee that the plan would have worked.”
“Then why didn’t it?”
Gable glanced at the floor.
“Well?” Pittman asked.
“I congratulate you. You’re far more resourceful than your profile led me to believe. If you weren’t so resourceful, I wouldn’t have agreed to this conversation, I assure you. For a man determined to commit suicide, you have a remarkable talent for survival.”
“You see, I changed my mind.”
Gable looked puzzled.
“I don’t want to kill myself any longer. Because of you.”
“Explain.”
“What you did to me made me so afraid that I had to ask myself, If I was so eager to die, why was I running? Why not let you do the job for me? I rationalized by telling myself that I wanted my death to be m
y idea, not yours. But the truth is, you forced me to reconsider where I was in my life. I love my dead son. I miss him desperately. But you distracted me enough that I think I can accept my grief now rather than fight it.”
Gable studied him as if he had no understanding of the emotions Pittman referred to. At last, he sighed. “It would have been so much easier if my men had been able to shoot you when you were running from the Scarsdale estate.”
Sloane fidgeted. “First Jonathan. Then Anthony. Now Victor. No more. I want this settled. I want it stopped.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Gable said. “To settle things.”
Throughout, the man known as Mr. Webley stood against the wall to Pittman’s right, watching the group, holding Pittman’s .45.
“For a negotiation to be successful,” Gable said, “each side must have something to gain. So tell me, Mr. Pittman, what do we gain in exchange for the million dollars and the two passports that you gain?”
“Security. Peace of mind.”
“All very well. Desirable conditions. But vague. How exactly are you going to give us security and peace of mind?”
“By disappearing.”
“Be specific.”
“I’ll make it look as if I carried through on my intention to commit suicide. I’ll do it in such a way that my body can’t be identified.”
“Again, be specific.”
“I thought perhaps I’d arrange for your men to trap me on one of your yachts. I’d blow it and myself up. My body would never be found. Presumably sharks and other scavengers would have eaten what was left of me. Of course, I wouldn’t actually have been on the yacht. But your men, having watched the explosion from another yacht, would testify that they’d seen me go aboard.”
Sloane’s voice trembled with enthusiasm. “It might work.”
“One of my yachts?” Gable squinted. “You imagine expensive ways to disappear.”
“Another factor that makes it convincing. Given the magnitude of your property loss, the police wouldn’t think that you were involved.”
“He has a point,” Sloane said quickly.
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