The Fourth K

by Mario Puzo

  But now Yabril’s plot was perhaps a nightmare. The Sultan had summoned Yabril to the palace, spirited him from the plane, to make sure that his ferocity would be controlled. Yabril had a history of adding his own little twists to his operations.

  The Sultan insisted that Yabril be bathed and shaved and enjoy a beautiful dancing girl of the palace. Then, with Yabril refreshed, and in the Sultan’s minor debt, they sat on the glassed-in air-conditioned terrace.

  The Sultan felt he could speak frankly. “I must congratulate you,” he said to Yabril. “Your timing has been perfect, and I must say lucky. Allah watches over you, without a doubt.” Here he smiled affectionately at Yabril. Then he went on. “I have received advance notice that the United States will meet any demands you make. Be content. You have humiliated the greatest country in the world. You have killed the world’s greatest religious leader. You will achieve the release of your killer of the Pope and that will be like pissing in their faces. But go no further. Give thought to what happens afterwards. You will be the most hunted man in the history of this century.”

  Yabril knew what was coming, the probing for more information on how he would handle the negotiations. For a moment he wondered if the Sultan would try to take over the operation. “I will be safe here in Sherhaben,” Yabril said. “As always.”

  The Sultan shook his head. “You know as well as I do that they will concentrate on Sherhaben after this is over. You will have to find another refuge.”

  Yabril laughed. “I will be a beggar in Jerusalem. But you should worry about yourself. They will know you have been a part of it.”

  “Not probable,” the Sultan said. “And I sit on the greatest and cheapest ocean of oil in the world. Also, the Americans have fifty billion dollars invested here, the cost of the oil city of Dak and even more. No, I think I will be forgiven much more quickly than you and your Romeo. Now, Yabril, my friend, I know you well, you have gone far enough this time, really a magnificent performance. Please, do not ruin everything with one of your little flourishes at the end of the game.” He paused for a moment. “When do I present your demands?”

  Yabril said softly, “Romeo is in place. Give the ultimatum this afternoon. They must agree by eleven Tuesday morning, Washington time. I will not negotiate.”

  The Sultan said, “Be very careful, Yabril. Give them more time.”

  They embraced before Yabril was taken back to the plane, which was now held by the three men of his cadre and four other men who had come aboard in Sherhaben. The hostages were all in the tourist section of the plane, including the crew. The plane was sitting isolated in midfield, the crowds of spectators, along with the TV people from all over the world, with their camera equipment and vehicles, pushed back five hundred yards from the aircraft where the Sultan’s army had established a cordon.

  Yabril was smuggled back onto the plane as a member of the crew of a provisioning truck that was bringing food supplies and water for the hostages.

  In Washington, D.C., it was very early Monday morning. The last thing that Yabril had said to the Sultan of Sherhaben was “Now we will see what this Kennedy is made of.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  It is often dangerous to all concerned when a man rejects the pleasures of this world and devotes his life to helping his fellowman. The President of the United States, Francis Xavier Kennedy, was such a man.

  Before he entered politics Kennedy had achieved spectacular success and wealth before he was thirty years of age. He then addressed the problem of what it is worthwhile to do in life. Because he was religious, because he had a strict moral sense, because of the tragedy of losing his uncles when he was a child, he believed he could do nothing better than to improve the world he lived in. In essence to better Fate itself.

  When he was elected to the presidency, he said that his administration would declare war on all human misery. He would represent the millions of people who could not afford lobbyists and other pressure groups.

  All this in ordinary circumstances would have been far too radical for the voting populace of America had it not been for Kennedy’s magical presence on the TV screen. He was handsomer than his two famous “uncles” and a far better actor. He also had a better brain than his two uncles and was far superior in education, a true scholar. He could back up his rhetoric with an array of statistics. He could present the skeleton of plans that had been prepared by eminent men in different fields with dazzling eloquence. And a somewhat caustic wit.

  “With a good education,” Francis Kennedy said, “any burglar, stickup man, any mugger, will know enough to steal without hurting anyone. They’ll know how to steal like the people on Wall Street, learn how to evade their taxes like respectable people in our society. We may create more white-collar crime, but at least nobody will get hurt.”

  But there was another side to Kennedy. “I’m a reactionary to the left and a terror to the right,” Kennedy had said to Klee on the day he gave him a new FBI charter with wide discretionary powers. “When a man commits what is called a criminal act, I feel it is a sin. Law enforcement is my theology. A man who commits a criminal act exercises the power of God over another human being. Then it becomes the decision of the victim whether to accept this other god in his life. When the victim and society accept the criminal act in any way, we destroy our society’s will to survive. Society and even the individual have no right to forgive or to dilute punishment. Why impose the tyranny of the criminal over a law-abiding populace that adheres to the social contract? In terrible cases of murder and armed robbery and rapes, the criminal proclaims his godhead.”

  Christian said, smiling, “Put them all in jail?”

  Kennedy said grimly, “We haven’t got enough jails.”

  Christian had given him the latest computerized statistical report on crime in America. Kennedy studied it for a few minutes. And he began to rage.

  “If only people knew the statistics on crime,” he said. “If only people knew the crimes that never get into statistics. Burglars, even those with prior records, rarely go to prison. That home which the government shall not invade, that precious freedom, that sacred social contract, that sacred home, is invaded routinely by armed fellow citizens intent on theft, murder and rape.”

  Kennedy recited that beloved bit of English common law: “The rain may enter, the wind may enter, but the king may not enter,” and said, “What a piece of bullshit that is.” He went on: “California alone had six times as many murders as the whole of England in a year. In America murderers do less than five years in prison. Provided that by some miracle you can convict them.”

  “The people of America are terrorized by a few million lunatics,” Kennedy said. “They are afraid to walk the streets at night. They guard their homes with private security that costs thirty billion dollars a year.”

  Kennedy especially hated one aspect. He said, “Do you know that ninety-eight percent of the crimes go unpunished? Nietzsche called it a long time ago: ‘A society when it becomes soft and tender takes sides with those who harm it.’ The religious outfits with all their mercy shit forgive criminals. They have no right to forgive criminals, those bastards. The worst thing I ever saw was this mother on TV whose daughter was raped and killed in an awful way, saying ‘I forgive them.’ What fucking right did she have to forgive them?”

  And then to Christian’s slightly snobbish surprise, Kennedy attacked literature. “Orwell had it all wrong in 1984,” he said. “The individual is the beast, and Huxley, in Brave New World, he made it out as a bad thing. But I wouldn’t mind living in a Brave New World, it’s better than this. It’s the individual who is the tyrant, not the government.”

  Christian said earnestly and a little ingenuously, “I am really astonished by the figures in the statistical report I showed you. The population of this country is being terrorized.”

  “Congress must pass the legislation we need. The newspapers and other media scream bloody murder about the Bill of Rights, the sacred Consti
tution.” Kennedy paused to weigh his friend’s reaction. Klee looked somewhat shocked. Kennedy smiled and went on.

  “Let me give you a little insight, buy it or not. The amazing thing is that I’ve discussed this situation with the really powerful men in this country, the ones with all the money. I gave a speech to the Socrates Club. I thought that they would be concerned. But what a surprise. They had the clout to move Congress, they wouldn’t do it. And you could never in a million years guess the reason. I couldn’t.” He paused as if he expected Christian to guess.

  His face grimaced in what could have been a smile or an expression of contempt. “The rich and powerful in this country can protect themselves. They don’t rely on the police or government agencies. They surround themselves with expensive security systems. They have private bodyguards. They are sealed off from the criminal community. And the prudent ones don’t get mixed up with the wild drug elements. They can sleep peacefully at night behind their electric walls.”

  Christian moved restlessly and took a sip of brandy. Then Kennedy went on.

  “OK,” he said. “The point is this. Let’s say we pass laws to crush crime, we are then punishing the black criminals more than anyone else. And where are those ungifted, uneducated, unpowered people going to go? What other resource do they have against our society? If they have no outlet in crime they will turn to political action. They will become active radicals. And they will shift the political balance of this country. We may cease to be a capitalist democracy.”

  Christian said, “Do you really believe that?”

  Kennedy sighed. “Jesus, who knows? But the people who run this country believe it. They figure, let the jackals feast on the helpless. What can they steal, a few billion dollars? A small price to pay. Thousands get raped, burglarized, murdered, mugged, it doesn’t matter, it happens to unimportant people. Better that minor damage than a real political upheaval.”

  Christian said, “You’re going too far.”

  “That may be,” Kennedy said.

  “And when it goes too far,” Christian said, “you’ll have all kinds of vigilante groups, fascism in an American form.”

  “But that’s the kind of political action that can be controlled,” Kennedy said. “That will actually help the people who run our society.”

  Then he smiled at Christian and picked up the computer report. “I’d like to keep this,” he said. “Just to frame it and put up on the wall of my den as a relic of the days before Christian Klee became Attorney General and head of the FBI.”

  Now on the Monday after Easter, at seven in the morning, the members of President Francis Kennedy’s staff, his Cabinet and Vice President Helen Du Pray assembled in the Cabinet Room of the White House. And on this Monday morning they were fearful of what action he would take.

  In the Cabinet Room, the CIA chief, Theodore Tappey, waited for a signal from Kennedy and then opened the session. “Let me say first that Theresa is OK,” he said. “No one has been injured. As yet no specific demands have been made. But demands will be made by evening, and we have been warned that they must be met immediately, without negotiation. But that’s standard. The hijacker leader, Yabril, is a name famous in terrorist circles and indeed known in our files. He is a maverick and usually does his own operations with help from some of the organized terror groups, like the mythical One Hundred.”

  Klee cut in, “Why mythical, Theo?”

  Tappey said, “It’s not like Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Just liaison actions between terrorists of different countries.”

  Kennedy said curtly, “Go on.”

  Tappey consulted his notes. “There is no doubt that the Sultan of Sherhaben is cooperating with Yabril. His army is protecting the airfield to prevent any rescue attempt. Meanwhile the Sultan pretends to be our friend and volunteers his services as a negotiator. What his purpose is in this no one can guess, but it is to our interest. The Sultan is reasonable and vulnerable to pressure. Yabril is a wild card.”

  The CIA chief hesitated; then, at a nod from Kennedy, he went on reluctantly. “Yabril is trying to brainwash your daughter, Mr. President. They have had several long conversations. He seems to think she’s a potential revolutionary and that it would be a great coup if she gave out some sort of sympathetic statement. She doesn’t seem afraid of him.”

  The others in the room remained silent. They knew better than to ask Tappey how he had gotten such information.

  The hall outside the Cabinet Room hummed with voices, they could hear the excited shouts of the TV camera crews waiting on the White House lawn. Then one of Eugene Dazzy’s assistants was let into the room and handed Dazzy a handwritten memo. Kennedy’s chief of staff read it in a glance.

  “This has all been confirmed?” he asked the aide.

  “Yes, sir,” the aide said.

  Dazzy stared directly at Francis Kennedy. “Mr. President,” he said, “I have the most extraordinary news. The assassin of the Pope has been captured here in the United States. The prisoner confirms that he is the assassin, that his code name is Romeo. He refuses to give his real name. It has been checked with the Italian security people and the prisoner gives details that confirm his guilt.”

  Arthur Wix exploded, as if an uninvited guest had arrived at some intimate party, “What the hell is he doing here? I don’t believe it.”

  Dazzy patiently explained the verifications. Italian security had already captured some of Romeo’s cadre and they had confessed and identified Romeo as their leader. The chief of Italian security, Franco Sebbediccio, was famous for his ability to extract confessions. But he could not learn why Romeo had fled to America and how he had been so easily captured.

  Francis Kennedy went to the French doors overlooking the Rose Garden. He watched the military detachments patrolling the White House grounds and adjoining streets. Again he felt a familiar sense of dread. Nothing in his life was an accident, life was a deadly conspiracy, not only between fellow humans but between faith and death.

  Francis Kennedy turned back from the window and returned to the conference table. He surveyed the room filled with the highest-ranking people in the country, the cleverest, the most intelligent, the schemers, the planners. He said almost jokingly, “What do you guys want to bet that today we get a set of demands from the hijacker? And one of the demands will be that we release this killer of the Pope.”

  The others stared at Kennedy in amazement. Otto Gray said, “Mr. President, that’s an awful big stretch. That is an outrageous demand, it would be nonnegotiable.”

  Tappey said carefully, “Intelligence shows no connection between the two acts. Indeed it would be inconceivable for any terrorist group to launch two such important operations in the same city on the same day.” He paused for a moment and turned to Christian Klee. “Mr. Attorney General,” he asked, “just how did you capture this man?” and then added with distaste, “Romeo.”

  Klee said, “Through an informer we’ve been using for years. We thought it impossible, but my deputy, Peter Cloot, followed through with a full-scale operation, which seems to have succeeded. I must say I’m surprised. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Francis Kennedy said quietly, “Let’s adjourn this meeting until the hijackers make their demands.”

  In one instant of paranoid divination he had comprehended the whole plan that Yabril had created with such pride and cunning. Now for the first time he truly feared for his daughter’s safety.

  Yabril’s demands came through the White House Communications Center late Monday afternoon, relayed through the seemingly helpful Sultan of Sherhaben. The first demand was a ransom of fifty million dollars for the aircraft; the second, the freeing of six hundred Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. The third was for the release of Romeo, the newly captured assassin of the Pope, and his transport to Sherhaben. Also, that if the demands were not met in twenty-four hours, one hostage would be shot.

  Francis Kennedy and his personal staff met in the large northwest dining room on the secon
d floor of the White House to discuss the demands of Yabril. The antique table was set for Helen Du Pray, Otto Gray, Arthur Wix, Eugene Dazzy and Christian Klee. Kennedy’s place was at one end of the table and set so that he had more space than the others.

  Francis Kennedy put himself in the minds of the terrorists—he had always had this gift of empathy. Their primary aim was to humiliate the United States, to destroy its mantle of power in the eyes of the world, even in the eyes of friendly nations. And Kennedy thought it a master psychological stroke. Who would ever take America seriously again if its nose was rubbed in the dirt by a few armed men and a small oil Sultanate? Must he allow this to happen to bring his daughter safely home? Yet in his empathy he divined that the scenario was not complete, that there were more surprises to come. But he did not speak. He let the others in the dining room begin their briefings.

  Eugene Dazzy, as chief of staff, opened the discussion. His voice was heavy with fatigue; he had not slept for thirty-six hours. “Mr. President,” he said, “it is our judgment that we comply with the terrorist demands to a limited extent. That we release Romeo, not to Yabril but to the Italian government, which is just and legally correct. We don’t agree we have to pay the money, and we cannot make Israel release its prisoners. In this way we won’t look too weak but we won’t provoke them. When Theresa is back, then we can handle the terrorists.”

  Klee said, “I promise that problem will be solved within a year.”