by Ted Bell
It had been bone cold walking down the snowy lane, and he had been glad of his warm peacoat. The temperature was somewhere in the low forties, and as he had hoped, it had been exhilarating to breathe in the cold, cold air.
He’d been delighted with the president’s suggestion of exploring the countryside in a top-down car, seeing things through FDR’s eyes. The president had outlined this much anticipated outing from start to finish. First, his favorite places: the old swimming hole, the original one-room schoolhouse dating back to the early nineteenth century, the magnificent views from the top of Pine Mountain, source of all the warm springs feeding the healing pools by gravity.
When he crested the hill and rumbled up the paved drive to the house, he saw FDR in his chair, covered with a plaid woolen blanket, waiting under the porte cochere by the front door, chatting amiably with his butler, Jarvis. Tiger, feeling somewhat refreshed and returned to the real world, rolled to a stop a few yards away, smiled at his jovial host, waved his hand, and tooted the loud ah-ooga horn three times. For some reason, the president found all this foolishness somehow amusing, and both Jarvis and the boss broke into wide grins.
“How do you like her, Tiger?” Roosevelt called out. “A beauty, what?”
“Love it, sir! Just a stunning piece of machinery! Listen to that big twelve-cylinder engine roar!”
Vrooom-vrooom went the big V-12 as Tiger pumped the throttle and Jarvis helped the president manage the transfer from his wheelchair to the spacious tufted leather passenger seat.
“She’s a stunner, all right,” Roosevelt said, getting settled and arranging his furry lap robe over his withered legs. “I have a long-standing habit of naming all the automobiles I love the most. What do you think of Big Bertha?”
Tiger smiled and told the truth. “Sounds like your fat maiden auntie to me, sir.”
“I know. How about the Blue Flyer?” Jarvis said.
Roosevelt looked at Tiger. “How about the Blue Torpedo?”
“Pretty good,” Tiger said. “How about the P-51?”
“P for Packard?” Roosevelt asked.
“Yes, sir. And P-51 like the Army’s new single-seat fighter plane. Hottest thing in the sky these days, Mr. President.”
“P-51, it is, then,” Roosevelt said. “Good for you, Tiger. I like a young man with a keen imagination. Come on, now. Let’s get this P-51 show on the road!
“Where to first, sir?” Tiger said, engaging first gear and overcoming inertia to get the behemoth rolling.
“The ole swimmin’ hole, driver!” FDR said. “And step on it, son. Step on it!”
* * *
—
The ambassador had not been quite sure what to expect when he arrived in Warm Springs. But he’d never have guessed what fun it was to be with the American president when he put down his burden and forgot for a while all of his cares and woes: the weight of the entire world on one man’s shoulders, the way forward to victory on both fronts, and all the brave young lads who wouldn’t be coming home to their mothers, the horrific loss of his Pacific fleet to the treacherous Japanese . . . his endless lists borne with courage and optimism and a bedrock determination to emerge victorious and preserve the precious liberty and freedom and justice for all that his nation had been founded upon.
“Turn right here on the dirt road,” Roosevelt said, remembering that Tiger had no earthly idea where they were headed.
The road through the woods was sketchy going for most of the way to the ole swimmin’ hole. Tiger was praying to his gods that the tires did not get stuck in this icy muck, and wondering how the hell he would ever be able to get the president of the United States out of these woods and back to safety, should they become stuck in the muck and worst came to worst.
His only comfort was that the president had carefully outlined the order of sites to be visited on this expedition in the company of Special Agent in Charge Griswold and Agent Smithers. If for some reason the two adventurers did not return in a reasonable time, this swimming hole would be the first place they would look.
“Here it is, although in winter you don’t really get the charm and beauty of it as you do in summer. Here is where the Roosevelt boys, all four of them, learned how to swim and get in touch with nature. They’ve always said their fondest memories will be of this holy place and all the good times they enjoyed as the years rolled by. . . . I hope to bring my grandsons here one day . . . when the war is at long last over and all my brood is home safe with me.”
“Where are they now, sir?” Tiger said, lighting a cigarette FDR had stuck into his ivory holder.
“My boys?” the president said. “Well, as you might expect, Tiger, young Jimmy, Elliott, Franklin Jr., and Alex, the whole lot of them joined the U.S. Armed Forces and are all now serving overseas. With some distinction, I might add. We’re very proud of them, you know, their mother, Eleanor, and I.”
“As well you should be, sir. So, what’s next on our itinerary?”
“Let’s take the P-51 up to the top of Pine Mountain. That’s where I want to be as it gets close to sunset. Glorious views from up there. You know, as an old New York Dutchman, I never knew much about the country south of the Mason-Dixon Line. But I have to say, there is much to love down here. And if it hadn’t been for my banker friend Peabody, who discovered the springs as a possible cure for my polio, I’d have died all the poorer for not knowing this part of our country.”
“It’s a delight. It really is. I had no idea. I studied the Civil War, of course, both at Cambridge and then later at Oxford. I always sensed a romantic quality about the old South. Now I know the truth of it. Shall we head up there now?”
“Indeed we shall, my boy. Indeed we shall!” FDR then leaned his noble head of silver hair back against the red seat cushion, took a puff of his cigarette, and exclaimed, “‘To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!’”
* * *
—
It was getting on five o’clock, and as the sun dropped, so, too, did the temperature. Tiger could sense that the president was getting uncomfortable in the frigid air, but didn’t want to admit it and cut the adventure short. He was having too good a time.
The president touched his shoulder and said, “Look there! There’s the original one-room schoolhouse over on the hillside. Dates back to eighteen forty or so. It was falling down, so one summer I convinced my boys to rebuild it. They had no carpentry skills to speak of, but by jiminy, they got the job done, didn’t they?”
“Turn here?” Tiger said.
“Yes, that’s the road up the mountain. Tiger, I hate to say it, but I’m getting rather cold out in this wind. I have a second fur lap blanket back in the trunk. Would you mind terribly pulling over here and fetching it for me?”
“Not at all, sir, not at all. It’s cold enough up here, all right.”
He returned with the blanket moments later and helped the president get comfortable. Then he climbed back behind the wheel and chugged up the snow-choked mountain road, which, luckily enough, had recently been plowed.
“All righty, then,” FDR said some minutes later, “here’s what the park rangers refer to as the scenic overlook. Let’s just pull over and watch the sun setting in the western sky, all right?”
“Fine, sir. It’s lovely up here.”
“Do you mind if we don’t speak?” FDR said. “I just want to watch this glorious spectacle in silence. I feel I’m slowly running out of peaceful days like this . . . and I just . . . I just . . .”
But he never finished his thought.
A few minutes of silence passed.
“Mr. President?” Tiger heard himself say, without recalling ever having summoned up the intention to sound those two words aloud.
“Yes?” Franklin said, his pale blue eyes still fixed on the far horizon. An alarm sounded. His friend’s voice had sound
ed exceedingly odd. Stilted. And mechanical. What could be the—
“I have something for you, sir. A gift. Actually from General Chiang Kai-shek himself.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about, Tiger?” FDR said, instantly sensing that all was not as it should be. When he turned to face the ambassador, the American president truly thought he was losing his own mind.
The handsome young diplomat suddenly had a large pistol in his hand. It was a revolver, a big one, and he was calmly aiming it at close range, point blank, at the head of the United States president. As if he was about to put a bullet in his forehead. Tiger an assassin? God in heaven! Madness! Roosevelt had put every bit of trust he had in this young fellow.And now he was about to die for his mistake? It was sheer insanity.
But Roosevelt never betrayed one iota of fear. Cool, collected, and calm, he was ever the iceberg, people would say, when his emotions were spiraling out of control; his rock steady blue eyes, his facial expressions, all bore no visible trace of whatever fierce turmoil might be raging inside.
His voice was cold and and as steady as was humanly possible. He said, with no discernible trace of emotion:
“Put the gun down, Tiger. Now. You don’t want to do this. There’s something terribly wrong with you. My sense is that you have no idea what you’re doing. It’s like you’re in some kind of trance. Hypnotized perhaps. Is that what this is about?”
“I’m going to put a bullet in the head of the president of the United States,” Tiger said, sounding like a space robot in a Flash Gordon movie.
Every syllable coming out of Tiger’s mouth was mechanical. And his eyes were out of focus, glazed over, but then Roosevelt saw the ambassador’s trigger finger begin to tighten . . . the knuckles of his finger starting to go white with the mounting pressure. . . .
“Stop this insanity, Tiger! You can’t do this! You’re not yourself, boy!”
But. You could see in his dead eyes that he was going to fire that gun, Roosevelt realized, and unless he acted, there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
FDR said, in a chillingly cold voice, “Tiger. Is that gun loaded?”
He nodded.
“And you’re pointing it at me?”
Another nod of his head.
Tiger then spoke again, a cold, dead, dull monotone that chilled the marrow of a man’s poor old bones.
“This is for my father and my country. They have ordained it. I have no choice.”
“Tiger! Do not do this!”
The president could see the knuckles of Tiger’s gun hand turning white as he gripped the weapon more tightly and applied more and more pressure to the trigger. . . .
Then he saw Tiger’s eyes go wide with shock as the president’s powerful left hand came out of nowhere and closed like a steel vise around the ambassador’s right wrist. . . .
“God help you, son!” Roosevelt said, tightening his grip around Tiger’s gun hand. He was not at all surprised to see the ambassador wince in pain. He had, after all, been using all the powerful muscles of his upper body for decades to substitute for the loss of strength in his legs, his lower body. His biceps and forearms bulged beneath his tailored suits. His forearms were long and well-muscled and extraordinarily powerful. And his wrists? His steely grip when shaking a man’s hand had often been described as nothing less than viselike.
Tiger, for his part, now began to try to wrench his gun hand away from the iron grip, gritting his teeth in pain as Roosevelt increased the pressure around the fragile bones of his wrist.
Tiger sensed now, and the president well knew, that the small bones of Tiger’s wrist were about to be crushed into pieces if the powerful Roosevelt kept up this degree of mounting pressure.
“Nod if you can hear me, Tiger,” the president said calmly, and waited coolly for a reaction. Any reaction would do.
Tiger nodded his head mechanically. His eyes were glassy, and he seemed dazed and confused, as if he had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
FDR said, “Now, I want you to look me in the eye but not say a word. Nod if you understand.”
Tiger looked over at him, silent, his eyes now full of pain and even remorse.
He gave a brief nod of his head.
“I’m now going to count to five, Tiger. If, at the end of that count, you have not dropped your weapon to the floor, I am going to crush all of the bones in your right wrist, pulverizing them. You’ll never have use of your right hand again if you don’t drop that weapon. Do you understand me? Nod if you do.”
Tiger nodded.
“One,” Roosevelt said, increasing the pressure. “Two.” He heard a brittle bone crack, and Tiger screamed in pain. “Three,” he said, feeling all the compression and destruction of the smaller bones. “Four,” he said. “Drop it, Tiger, now! Or I will hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before! You will never use that hand again. Do as I say. Do it now, I order you!”
The gun fell with a thud to the carpeted transmission hump.
Roosevelt slowly opened his hand, turned his eyes toward Heaven, and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to his Lord.
Tiger, hot tears coursing down his cheeks, seemed to be having a seizure of some sort. He threw his head back and burst out screaming, seeing for perhaps the first time the gun that had been in his hand now lying at the president’s feet, and then he was howling and weeping and holding his throbbing right wrist in his left.
Tiger looked skyward and screamed at Heaven, both in pain and despair, so blinded by tears was he that he never noticed Roosevelt leaning over to pick up the revolver. The president started to put it in the glove compartment, then thought better of doing so. He cocked his right arm and flung the pistol away with all his might, as high and as hard as he could, out into space, high in the air before it disappeared from sight, bouncing down the mountainside to the purplish valley below.
“Take me home now, Tiger,” the president said. “I think we’ve both had quite enough adventure for one day. Are you capable of driving, do you think? I mean, with that wrist?”
“Yes, sir,” Tiger said, still sobbing, his wrist gone black-and-blue, with what looked like unbearable remorse for what he’d almost done.
“You’re sure, son?” Roosevelt said quietly.
“I’m all right now. I’m so, so terribly sorry, sir. I don’t know what came over me. I swear it. Of all the people on this earth, you are the man I most revere. . . . You are the father I never had. And pardon me, but I love you like a father! I truly do! I think—I think I need help, sir. Some kind of help, Mr. President. I feel like I’m losing my mind . . . or have already lost it, sir!”
“Yes, I’m quite sure you do. And I shall see that you get help, son. So, as soon as we get home, I am going to have you speak with Special Agent in Charge Griswold and Agent Smithers. I want you to explain to them in great detail every single thing that led up to this wholly bizarre moment. Go back in time as far as you have to. They will be merciless with their questions, as well they should. And then they will put you in a private room at Bethesda Naval Hospital with a battery of senior military psychiatrists for a full analysis. And, perhaps, they will all tell me that the U.S. State Department will have to have you recalled home from your posting so that you are no longer a threat to me.”
“I understand,” the man sobbed.
“I saw the look in your eyes, Tiger. I heard your voice coming up from Hell itself. You had no idea where you were or what you were doing. I will tell them that. In the end, your future will rest with them alone. I will have no say in the matter, either to defend you or accuse you.”
“Yes, sir. I understand exactly. I will tell them about my father’s visit and—”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear it, Tiger. Not a word of it! You and I will never speak of this again!”
They drove home. The silence now hovering between them w
as as cruel and as heartbreaking as the death of an unborn child.
Tiger sat there behind the wheel, looking straight ahead, sensing how terribly uncomfortable and saddened the president was feeling. And he wished to Heaven FDR hadn’t thrown the goddamn gun away.
Tiger would have returned to China and used it on his father.
And then on himself.
CHAPTER 71
Pindling Airport, Nassau, the Bahamas
Present Day
Hawke’s Gulfstream was a G650 airplane with a ceiling of fifty-one thousand feet and a top speed of nearly seven hundred miles per hour. They’d arrive in Miami in well under two hours. Hawke couldn’t help but silently worry about Henry’s condition. He knew that until he got that boy to the hospital alive, every damn minute counted.
There was, as Hawke well knew, a very comfortable queen-sized berth in the aft owner’s cabin aboard his new G650. Prince Henry was still awfully weak, and the comfortable berth would be perfect for this short hop over to Bermuda. Earlier, he’d been on the mobile to Colin Falconer, his new pilot. He’d informed him there’d been a change of plan. They were no longer flying direct to Heathrow.
As per his instructions, Captain Falconer had prepositioned the airplane at a distant location on the far side of the field. Hawke was taking no chances at this point. It was entirely possible that Tang Security had been following them, though keeping back at distance to avoid being spotted. Or, even drones.
That was why, when he finally reached the Nassau airfield, he had driven the overheated ambulance right through a maximum-security gate barrier and taken out a good stretch of hurricane fencing along with it. He was now racing away from the perimeter and out across the grass and the grid of runways.
Hawke had driven the big ambulance at full speed, dodging departing United and JetBlue flights outbound to Miami, and all those aircraft now taxiing out to get in line for takeoff or heading in to the terminal gates with their arriving passengers. Just as he reached his own plane, he saw flashing blue lights in the distance headed this way at speed.