The Fourth K

by Mario Puzo

  Francis Kennedy remained silent for a long time, then said, “I don’t think this will work.”

  Arthur Wix said, “But this is our public response. Behind the scenes we can promise them that Romeo will go free completely, that we will pay the ransom and that we will lean on Israel. I do think this will work. At least it will give them pause and we can negotiate further.”

  “It won’t do any harm,” Dazzy said. “In these situations ultimatums are just part of the negotiation process. That’s understood. The twenty-four-hour deadline means nothing.”

  Kennedy pondered their advice. “I don’t think this will work,” he said again.

  Oddblood Gray said, “We do. And, Francis, you have to be very careful. Congressman Jintz and Senator Lambertino have told me that Congress may ask you to remove yourself completely from this crisis because of your personal interest. That is a very dangerous development.”

  Kennedy said, “That will never happen.”

  “Let me deal with Congress,” Vice President Du Pray said. “Let me be the lightning rod. I’ll be the voice that proposes any surrenders on our part.”

  It was Dizzy who summed it up. “Francis, in this situation, you must trust the collective judgment of your staff. You know we will protect you and do what is best for you.”

  Kennedy sighed and paused for a long time, then finally said, “Then go ahead.”

  Peter Cloot had proved to be a superbly efficient deputy in running the FBI. Cloot was very spare, his body a flat slate of muscles. He had a tiny mustache, which did nothing to soften his bony face. Despite his virtues Cloot had his faults. He was too unbending in discharging his responsibilities, too fierce in discharging his duties, and believed too much in internal security. Tonight, grim-faced, he greeted Christian with a handful of memos and a three-page letter that he handed Christian separately.

  It was a letter composed with type cut from newspapers. Christian read it. It was another of those crazy warnings that a homemade atom bomb would explode in New York City. Christian said, “For this you pull me out of the President’s office?”

  Cloot said, “I waited until we went through all the checking procedures. It qualifies as a possible.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Christian said. “Not now.” He read the letter again but much more carefully. The different types of print disoriented him. The letter looked like a bizarre avant-garde painting. He sat down at his desk and read it slowly word for word. The letter was addressed to The New York Times. First he read the paragraphs that were isolated by heavy green Magic Marker to identify the hard information.

  The marked parts of the letter read:

  “We have planted a nuclear weapon with the minimum potential of one half kiloton and maximum of 2 kilotons, in the New York City area. This letter is written to your newspaper so that you may print it and warn the inhabitants of the City to vacate and escape harm. The device is set to trigger off seven days from the date above. So you know how necessary it is to publish this letter immediately.” Klee looked at the date. The explosion would be Thursday. He read on: “We have taken this action to prove to the people of the United States that the government must unite with the rest of the world on an equal partnership basis to control nuclear energy, or our planet can be lost.

  “There is no way we can be bought off by money or any other condition. By publishing this letter and forcing the evacuation of New York City you will save thousands of lives.

  “To prove that this is not a crackpot letter, have the envelope and paper examined by government laboratories. They will find residues of plutonium oxide.

  “Print this letter immediately.”

  The rest of the letter was a lecture on political morality and an impassioned demand that the United States cease making nuclear weapons.

  Christian said to Peter Cloot, “Have you had it examined?”

  “Yes,” Peter Cloot said. “It does have residue. The individual letters are cut from newspapers and magazines to form the message but they give a clue. The writer or writers were smart enough to use papers from all over the country. But there is just a slight edge over the normal for Boston newspapers. I sent an extra fifty men to help the bureau chief up there.”

  Christian sighed. “We have a long night ahead of us. Let’s keep this very low-key. And seal it off from the media. Command post will be my office and all papers to come to me. The President has enough headaches—let’s just make this thing disappear. It’s a piece of bullshit like all those other crank letters.”

  “OK,” Peter Cloot said. “But you know, someday one of them will be real.”

  It was a long night. The reports kept flowing in. The Nuclear Energy and Research Agency chief was informed so that his agency search teams could be alerted. These teams were specially recruited personnel with sophisticated detecting equipment that could search out hidden nuclear bombs.

  Christian had supper brought in for him and Cloot and read the reports. The New York Times of course had not published the letter; they had routinely turned it over to the FBI. Christian called the publisher of the Times and asked him to black out the item until the investigation was completed. This was also a matter of routine. Newspapers had received thousands of similar letters over the years. But because of this very casualness the letter had gotten to them Monday instead of Saturday.

  Sometime before midnight Peter Cloot returned to his own office to manage his staff, which was receiving hundreds of calls from the agents in the field, most of them from Boston. Christian kept reading the reports as they were brought in. More than anything else he didn’t want this to add to the President’s burdens. For a few moments he thought about the possibility that this might be another twist to the hijacker’s plot, but even they would not dare to play for such high stakes. This had to be some aberration that society had thrown up. There had been atom bomb scares before, crazies who had claimed they had planted homemade atom bombs and demanded ransoms of ten to a hundred million dollars. One letter had even asked for a portfolio of Wall Street stocks, shares of IBM, General Motors, Sears, Texaco and some of the gene technology companies. When the letter had been submitted to the Energy Department for a psycho profile the report had come back that the letter posed no bomb threat but that the terrorist was very savvy about the stock market. Which had led to the arrest of a minor Wall Street broker who had embezzled his clients’ funds and was looking for a way out.

  This had to be another of those crackpot things, Christian thought, but meanwhile it was causing trouble. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent. Luckily on this issue the media would suppress the letter. There were some things that those coldhearted bastards didn’t dare fuck around with. They knew that there were classified items in the atom bomb control laws that could be invoked, that could even make a hole in the sacred freedom of the Bill of Rights erected around them. He spent the next hours praying that this would all go away. That he would not have to go to the President in the morning and lay this load of crap on him.

  CHAPTER

  6

  In the Sultanate of Sherhaben, Yabril stood in the doorway of the hijacked aircraft preparing for the next act he would have to perform. Then his absolute concentration relaxed and he let himself check the surrounding desert. The Sultan had arranged for missiles to be in place, and radar had been set up. An armored division of troops had established a perimeter so that the TV vans could come no nearer to the plane than a hundred yards, and beyond them there was a huge crowd. And Yabril thought that tomorrow he would have to give the order that the TV vans and the crowds would be allowed to come closer, much closer. There would be no danger of assault; the aircraft was lavishly booby-trapped, and Yabril knew he could blow everything into fragments of metal and flesh so completely that the bones would have to be sifted out of the desert sands.

  Finally he turned from the aircraft doorway and sat down next to Theresa Kennedy. They were alone in the first-class cabin. Terrorist guards kept the passenger hostages in the touri
st section, and there were also guards in the cockpit with the crew.

  Yabril did his best to put Theresa at ease. He told her that the passengers, her fellow hostages, were being well looked after. Naturally, they were not all that comfortable; neither was she or, for that matter, he himself. He said with a wry face, “You know it is in my own best interests that no harm comes to you.”

  Theresa believed him. Despite everything, she found that dark, intense face sympathetic, and though she knew he was dangerous she could not really dislike him. In her innocence she believed her high station made her invulnerable.

  Yabril said almost pleadingly, “You can help us, you can help your fellow hostages. Our cause is just, you once said so yourself a few years ago. But the American Jewish establishment was too strong. They shut you up.”

  Theresa shook her head. “I’m sure you have your justifications, everybody always has. But the innocent people on this plane have never done you or your cause any harm. They should not suffer for the sins of your enemies.”

  It gave Yabril a peculiar pleasure that she was courageous and intelligent. Her face, so pleasant and pretty in the American fashion, also pleased him, as if she were some kind of American doll.

  Again he was struck by the fact that she was not afraid of him, was not fearful of what would happen to her. The blindness of the highborn to fate, the hubris of the rich and powerful. And of course it was in her family history.

  “Miss Kennedy,” he said in a courteous voice that cajoled her to listen, “it is well known to us that you are not the usual spoiled American woman, that your sympathies go out to the poor and oppressed of the world. You have doubts even about Israel’s right to expel people from their own land to found a warring state of their own. Perhaps you would make a videotape saying this and be heard all over the world.”

  Theresa Kennedy studied Yabril’s face. His tan eyes were liquid and warm, the smile made his dark thin face almost boyish. She had been brought up to trust the world, to trust other human beings and to trust her intelligence and her own beliefs. She could see that this man sincerely believed in what he was doing. In a curious way he inspired respect.

  She was polite in her refusal. “What you say may be true. But I would never do anything to hurt my father.” She paused for a moment, then said, “And I don’t think your methods are intelligent. I don’t think murder and terror change anything.”

  With this remark Yabril felt a powerful surge of contempt. But he replied gently, “Israel was established by terror and American money. Did they teach you that in your American college? We learned from Israel but without your hypocrisy. Our Arab oil sheiks were never as generous with money to us as your Jewish philanthropists were to Israel.”

  Theresa said, “I believe in the state of Israel, I also believe the Palestinian people should have a homeland. I don’t have any influence with my father, we argue all the time. But nothing justifies what you’re doing now.”

  Yabril became impatient. “You must realize that you are my treasure,” he said. “I have made my demands. A hostage will be shot every hour after my deadline. And you will be the first.”

  To Yabril’s surprise, there was still no fear on her face. Was she stupid? Could such an obviously sheltered woman be so courageous? He was interested in finding out. So far she had been well treated. She had been isolated in the first-class cabin and treated with the utmost respect by her guards. She looked very angry, but calmed herself by sipping the tea he had served her.

  Now she looked up at him. He noticed how severely her pale blond hair framed her delicate features. Her eyelids were bruised with fatigue, her lips, without makeup, a pale pink.

  Theresa said in a flat even voice, “Two of my great-uncles were killed by people like you. My family grew up with death. And my father worried about me when he became President. He warned me that the world had men like you, but I refused to believe him. Now I’m curious. Why do you act like such a villain? Do you think you can frighten the whole world by killing a young girl?”

  Yabril thought, Maybe not, but I killed a Pope. She didn’t know that, not yet. For a moment he was tempted to tell her. The whole grand design. The undermining of authority that all men fear, the power of great nations and great churches. And how man’s fear of power could be eroded by solitary acts of terror.

  But he reached out a hand to touch her reassuringly. “You will come to no harm from me,” he said. “They will negotiate. Life is negotiation. You and I as we speak, we negotiate. Every terrible act, every word of insult, every word of praise is negotiation. Don’t take what I’ve said too seriously.”

  She laughed.

  He was pleased she found him witty. She reminded him of Romeo; she had the same instinctive enthusiasm for the little pleasures of life, even just a play on words. Once Yabril had said to Romeo, “God is the ultimate terrorist,” and Romeo had clapped his hands in delight.

  And now Yabril’s heart sickened, he felt a wave of dizziness. He was ashamed of wanting to charm Theresa Kennedy. He had believed he had come to a time in his life when he was beyond such weakness. If only he could persuade her to make the videotape, he would not have to kill her.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Tuesday

  On the Tuesday morning after the Easter Sunday hijacking and the murder of the Pope, President Francis Kennedy entered the White House screening room to watch a CIA film smuggled from Sherhaben.

  The White House screening room was a disgraceful affair, with dingy green armchairs for the favored few and metal folding chairs for anyone under Cabinet level. The audience was composed of CIA personnel, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, their respective staffs, and the members of the White House senior staff.

  All rose when the President entered. Kennedy took a green armchair; the CIA director, Theodore Tappey, stood alongside the screen to provide commentary.

  The film started. It showed a truck pulling up to the back of the hijacked plane. The workers unloading supplies wore brimmed hats against the sun; they were clad in brown twill trousers and short-sleeved brown cotton shirts. The film showed the workers leaving the plane and then froze on one of them. Under the floppy hat the features of Yabril could be seen, the dark angled face with brilliant eyes, the slight smile on his lips. Yabril got into the supply truck with the other workers.

  The film stopped and Tappey spoke. “That truck went to the compound of the Sultan of Sherhaben. Our information is that they had an elaborate banquet complete with dancing girls. Afterward Yabril returned to the plane in the same fashion. Certainly the Sultan of Sherhaben is a fellow conspirator in these acts of terrorism.”

  The voice of the Secretary of State boomed in the darkness. “Certain only to us. Secret intelligence is always suspect. And even if we could prove it, we couldn’t make it public. It would upset all political balances in the Persian Gulf. We would be forced to take retaliatory action, and that would be against our best interest.”

  Otto Gray muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

  Christian Klee laughed outright.

  Eugene Dazzy, who could write in the dark—a sure mark of administrative genius, he always told everyone—made notes on a pad.

  The CIA chief continued, “Our information boils down to this. You’ll get the memos in detail later. This seems to be an operation cadre financed by the international terrorist group called the First Hundred, or sometimes the Christs of Violence. It seems to be a liaison between Marxist-oriented revolutionary groups from elite universities in different countries, supplying safe houses and material. And it is limited mostly to Germany, Italy, France and Japan, and exists very vaguely in Ireland and England. But according to our information even the Hundred never really knew what was going on here. They thought the operation ended with the killing of the Pope. So what we come down to is that only this man, Yabril, with the Sultan of Sherhaben, controls this conspiracy.”

  The film started to roll again. It showed the airplane isolated on th
e tarmac and the ring of soldiers and antiaircraft guns that protected the approaches to the plane. It showed the crowds that were kept over a hundred yards away.

  The CIA director’s voice sounded over the film. “This film and other sources indicate there can be no rescue mission. Unless we decide to simply overpower the whole state of Sherhaben. And of course Russia will never allow that, nor perhaps will the other Arab states. Also, over fifty billion dollars of American money has gone to build up their city of Dak, which is another sort of hostage they hold. We are not going to blow away fifty billion dollars of our citizen-invested money. Plus the fact that the missile sites are manned mostly by American mercenaries, but at this point we come to something much more curious.”

  On the screen appeared a wobbly shot of the hijacked plane’s interior. The camera was obviously hand-held and moved down the aisle of the tourist section to show the mass of frightened passengers strapped into their seats. Then the camera moved back up into the first-class cabin and held on a passenger sitting there. Then Yabril moved into the picture. He wore cotton slacks of a light brown and a tan short-sleeved shirt the color of the desert outside the plane. The film cut to Yabril sitting next to that lone passenger, revealed now as Theresa Kennedy. Yabril and Theresa seemed to be talking in an animated and friendly way.

  Theresa Kennedy had a small, amused smile on her face, and this made her father, watching the screen, almost turn his head away. It was a smile he remembered from his own childhood, the smile of people entrenched in the central halls of power, who never dream they can be touched by the malicious evil of their fellowmen. Francis Kennedy had seen that smile often on the faces of his uncles.

  Kennedy asked the CIA director, “How recent is that film and how did you get it?”

  Tappey replied, “It’s twelve hours old. We bought it at great cost, obviously from someone close to the terrorists. I can give you the details in private after this meeting, Mr. President.”