by Warren Adler
“Reach?”
“We can place our people anywhere. There are no boundaries. We have the necessary assets and the ability to use them. As a matter of fact,” Harkins added proudly, “we are not as inefficient as we are portrayed in the media. The truth is, we court the image. Gives us more leverage in short strokes.”
“Good.” The Padre nodded, not completely understanding the language, but thoroughly understanding the implications.
For most of the early morning, banging on his keyboard, consulting his monitor, Harkins was able to provide the Padre with the information to concoct any scenario that might have occurred to him. The Padre absorbed this information, sifted and refined it in his mind. It became a cram course on terrorism and the groups that perpetrated these acts.
The names of these groups formed what appeared to be an endless parade on the monitor. They were not confined to the Middle East. There were the Irish, the Basques, the Sikhs, the Croats, and on and on, espousing causes that sometimes were centuries old. Impossible causes, pursued by people with obsessive fantasies and implausible dreams.
Harkins relished his presentation. Although the Padre was interested primarily only in what affected his daughter and grandson, he watched and listened with respect. It was, he agreed, a remarkable system. More important, it held the key to releasing Maria and Joey.
“The man who leads the group that holds your daughter is Ahmed Safari, thirty-seven, a hard case, a homosexual, a wife and sick teenage son in Jordan. Born in a Lebanese refugee camp.” The intelligence became microscopic, tracing every aspect of the man’s life and his present circumstances.
The Padre nodded at intervals, continuing to absorb the information, keeping what was essential, rejecting what was not useful, translating it into organizational terms he could understand, searching for vulnerabilities that would strike fear.
“And you know where she is being kept?” the Padre asked.
“She and the boy are being moved around and held in various safe places in the Muslim section of Beirut. We have an asset in the group. But the man is clever. He rotates his people. Mostly young boys.”
“And you have your own groups that could go in, button men?”
“Yes, we do.”
“They will obey?”
“If we pay them enough. In our business, people are mercenaries.”
“Of course,” the Padre said.
“And how fast can you transmit orders?”
“Remarkably so.”
“And weapons?”
“We have access to those as well.” Harkins smiled and coughed into his fist. His face darkened. “Problem is . . .”
“Yes.”
“We have to cover our tracks. Legitimize our actions, clean it up for public consumption. The fact is, you can’t run a covert action program with those Congressional oversight idiots having to know every move beforehand. It’s ridiculous. But they do hold the purse strings. In the end, though, the authority for all our actions still flows from the President.”
The Padre was getting the message. Harkins was asserting his own power in this situation. He would act, of course, but only on orders from the President, tendered after manipulative and vague briefings. So, the Padre thought, he needed presidential authority to cover his ass. Yet he was also telling the Padre that this computer was his weapon and he was the only one present who could fire it.
The Padre stood up and paced the dining room. Then he stopped at the buffet and poured a glass of water from a crystal decanter. The ice had melted. It was warm, but he drank it anyway. He was conscious of Harkins studying him, waiting.
“The leaders of these countries who finance them. . .” The Padre paused. His thoughts were coming together now. “They have families, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Are they heavily protected?”
“Some,” Harkins replied. “Many have children or grandchildren in school in this country.”
The Padre smiled. Harkins remained poker-faced, but the Padre knew now where they were both headed.
“You know where?”
“Yes.” Now Harkins smiled too. “But we have no mandate to operate within our borders.”
“We would, of course, respect each other’s territory,” the Padre said.
“Of course.”
“And this fellow who holds my daughter?”
“In Jordan he has a son he adores,” Harkins answered eagerly.
The Padre remained silent. He had learned that certain characteristics were common to all men. Some feared death. Some feared dishonor. Some feared losing loved ones, especially children, who represented a sense of continuity, of immortality. Some feared a loss of power, cojones sliced off, a worse fate than death to a man who knew its full meaning. There were others, of course. Every man had his fears.
“Tell me, Mr. Harkins,” the Padre asked. It was a question that was nagging at him, although he had not been fully conscious of it. “What plans did you people consider?”
Harkins wet his lips.
“It was only gamesmanship,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “You know, making up scenarios, concocting different situations, most of which are politically impossible to carry out.”
“Like what?”
“A kind of tit for tat. Do unto them what they did unto us. They hijack planes. We hijack planes. They shoot up airports. We shoot up airports. They plant bombs. We plant bombs. They take people . . . You get my drift. Problem is, wherever you put these ideas forward in a kind of committee, they get sidetracked. Too inflammatory. Too immoral. The beast in us gets like the beast in them. You know the arguments.”
Harkins hesitated suddenly. Despite his earlier eagerness, he seemed to pull back. He had drawn his line.
“I just give options and take orders,” Harkins said.
The Padre nodded.
“All right then, Mr. Harkins. I think it is time we woke the President.”
24
FROM THE MOMENT they had been brought to the living quarters, Amy Bernard had been thinking about the little silver-plated .22-caliber pistol that lay in the rear of the drawer of the table next to her side of their king-size bed. Without her-husband’s knowledge, she had put it into an empty metal pastille box and had brought it with her from their home in the Kalorama section of Washington where they had lived when Paul was a senator.
Was it fear or simply whim that made her take it with her? Certainly she had been frightened at the prospect of living in the goldfish bowl of the presidency. It was not comforting to remember what had happened to Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Sometimes the knowledge of its presence passed vaguely across her mind. No one had ever asked her about the pastille box. Indeed, she frequently opened the drawer where she kept a set of reading glasses, a roll of Tums, and a box of tissues.
She knew it was loaded, six rounds. And accurate only at close range.
She had taken a bath, amused by the incongruity of soaking in the warm comfortable steamy water while strangers kept her imprisoned in her own home. She had taken off her evening gown and dressed in comfortable slacks and a blouse, ideal captive wear.
Then, instead of her bedroom, which was reserved for Paul and his constant companion, they had allowed her to use the bed in her dressing room. An interesting cell, all orange, with its white leaf prints and the dressing table deliberately put in front of the window for better light. Useless now. They had drawn the blinds of both windows.
Her “keeper” had carefully sat down on the upholstered straight chair and put his feet on the round antique table, a travesty that she ignored. No point in raising issues that had nothing to do with her objective, which was to get her hands on that pistol.
“May I read?” she asked pleasantly.
The young man shrugged an indifferent consent.
She looked around the room. On a little table she found a book in an antique binding. She had never opened it. She had been sitting on the edge of the couch where sh
e had often taken catnaps. Cautiously, she got up, walked to the table, opened the book. To her surprise it was printed in French.
“My glasses,” she said coyly.
“Where are they?”
She paused. All make-believe, she decided, like when she was in a school play. Pause briefly, flutter eyelids, smile thinly, show uncertainty.
“In the drawer in the master bedroom, the table next to my bed. May I get them?”
Her mind had devised a half-formed plan. She would open the drawer, remove her glasses, and the pastille box. He would be watching her.
“The President is sleeping there,” the young man said. “I wouldn’t wake him. He’ll need his rest.”
“How thoughtful,” she said, angered by her own sarcasm. She wasn’t following the stage directions.
“You should be getting rest yourself. Keep you in a better mental state.”
For what, she wondered.
“I won’t wake him,” she said, ignoring what she decided was a preposterous remark. Why would he care?
He thought for a moment, then nodded his okay and stood up.
They moved through the doorway into the darkened bedroom. She could see her husband’s form on the bed. He was under the covers on his side of the bed. On top of the covers, fully dressed, occupying her side of the bed, attached by the ubiquitous umbilical cord, was the ugly man, Vinnie. He was instantly alert. The other man, Carmine, sat near the desk, his chair slanted against the wall, his feet flung out in front of him.
“She wants her glasses,” the young man said.
She walked toward the bed, opened the drawer, felt around for her glasses, then quickly moved her hand to grasp the pastille box. Even in the half-light he was alert to her movements, watching her hand. She drew out her glasses and held the pastille box in the other.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Candy,” she replied, ignoring the pounding of her heart.
She walked calmly through the door to her dressing room and arranged herself lengthwise on the couch, book in hand. Please let him move to the other side of the room. He followed her, stood over her for a moment, studying her. Then he bent over. Her insides clenched and a sudden chill made her body tremble. He was looking at the candy label, squinting.
“Pastilles,” she said. “French.” She showed him the open pages of the book she was reading. “Like the book I’m reading. Parlez-vous français?”
He watched her for a moment more, then moved back to the chair, again putting his feet on the antique table. After a while she flicked the switch of the lamp that provided light for the couch, moved the pastille box under one of the pillows, and closed her eyes. Yes, she decided, she would need her rest. Her alertness was essential.
25
“YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS?” the President asked. Had he actually asked the question or was it some repetitive tape gone awry, zipping away in his mind? He sat in the dining room, beside him the ever-present Vinnie, whose sour odor seemed to have become a staple of the air they shared. He had slept beside the man in the same bed. There was something obscene in the memory.
Strangely, he had actually slumbered. His mind had clamped shut, as if he had slipped into a deep black pit of emptiness, rising without an iota of residual dream memory.
His first thought had been of Amy, whose missing presence set off the alarms of thirty years’ awakenings. He couldn’t bound out of bed, of course. Vinnie was attached, and they had taken the precaution, sometime after he had dozed off, of taping his ankles to a leg of the bed.
“My wife?” the President had asked.
“The other room.”
“I must see her.”
The man shrugged and followed him into the dressing room. She was still sleeping. He had leaned close to her cheek, moved a wisp of errant hair, and kissed her on the forehead. The young man, who had risen from a chair when they came into the room, looked haggard from his night of surveillance.
“She’s sleeping like a baby,” he said with a cocky smile.
The President did not answer. He returned to the bedroom and started to undress.
“I’m not going to stink all day, pal,” he said. “Bad enough I’ve got to carry you along.”
His captors’ communication system revolved around the big man with the heavy face, who seemed always lurking behind them. They had these mysterious little eye and body signals between them. The big man disappeared and came back with consent, and the two men stayed by as he was untied. They also followed him into the bathroom.
“I’m going to try and ignore you guys,” he said. He began to shave. The blade glided over his face. Then he remembered what he had thought earlier about the plastic sacks holding the liquid explosive. A razor’s slash, quick, sharp, direct. Would it empty the liquid, seep away the danger? He tried to dismiss the thought, couldn’t, then he replaced the blade and palmed the one he had just used.
To deflect their attention, he held up the razor. “Old faithful. Real gold.” As they looked he put the palmed blade in the pocket of his robe. Never know, he told himself. Then he patted his face with after-shave and pinched his cheeks. Old habits never die, he thought. “I know it looks kind of silly.”
Neither man responded while the President kept up his bouncy monologue. “Sorry fellas,” he said sitting on the toilet. “You remind me of my mama standing over me a hundred years ago, urging me on to duty. Making birdies, she called it. Funny, haven’t thought about this since the kids were being housebroken. Might have been how old—two, three?”
He looked at the men. “You have mamas, guys?” He shook his head. “Doubt it. God, you both are ugly. No self-respecting woman would have spawned either of you.”
He put up his palms. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be so outspoken, but hell, it throws you off your feed to have to take a crap with two guys observing the process.” He stood up. “Want to inspect the results?”
They were impassive. He flushed the toilet and jumped into the shower, sticking his head out as he regulated the taps.
“Come on in and play. Wouldn’t drop the soap in front of you guys.” He felt giddy as he moved into the stream, turning the knobs to make the water as hot as he could stand it, then reversing the process. Must clear out the cobwebs, he thought, raise the adrenaline.
He came out of the shower and toweled himself off. The two men leaned against the wall and watched him. They followed him back into the bedroom, where he dressed. With more sleight of hand, he transferred the blade from his robe to a pocket of his slacks. Then he put on a sport shirt and a cardigan with a Camp David logo stitched over the breast.
“I’m at home, after all. Why not be casual?” he said, really to himself.
Aside from the observing men, the situation struck him as routine. After he had dressed, they reattached him to the cord. Even that act felt expected. He tried to find some reference to a similar situation, one that might act as an anchor of logic. It came to him suddenly. He was Alice and he had walked through the looking glass.
“So let’s get on to the tea party,” he said, striding across the bedroom threshold, traversing the west sitting room with its doorway piled high with couches, like some decorator’s nightmare. “And there’s the mad hatter,” he muttered. “And the March hare.” A strange sight.
They were sitting calmly across the table from each other, the Padre, still in his waiter’s uniform, his bow tie removed, and Harkins, who looked up from his keyboard and offered a thin, hesitant smile. The President was instantly on his guard.
Despite the obvious fact that both men seemed to have been up all night, they looked strangely alert. On the table stood a pot of coffee and rolls and butter.
The Padre, as if he were the host, pointed to the President’s accustomed chair. The President smirked, sat down, putting a strain on the cord that attached him to Vinnie, who quickly sat down beside him. He poured himself some coffee, but had no appetite for anything more.
“The wonders of the computer
age,” the President said.
“Greatest invention since the wheel,” Harkins said.
“Or curse,” the President mumbled. They were bantering with clichés. He watched as Harkins turned toward the Padre, signaling. So he had picked up the eye and body signals.
“There is a certain logic to what he has in mind,” Harkins began. The President clasped his arms across his chest. It was, he knew, an uncharacteristic gesture on his part, a kind of protective act. Here it comes, he thought, wondering just how much caution and subtlety Harkins would be able to muster.
“He insists he understands these people, the hostage-takers,” Harkins continued, nodding his head toward the Padre, who blinked his eyes in mysterious acknowledgment. “Kind of a new way of looking at the eye-for-an-eye concept. Like two eyes for one.”
“I like the way you put things, Jack,” the President said, sipping his coffee.
“It’s important to place all this in the proper context,” Harkins said.
“Of course,” the President replied, looking toward the Padre, who returned his gaze impassively.
“It boils down to the following,” Harkins said cautiously, again looking toward the Padre. His delivery had the appearance of a well-rehearsed script. Harkins pointed to the monitor.
“In our data banks we have the names of most of the big players in the Middle East terrorist game and some of the little ones. The financiers, the bosses and underbosses, some legal heads of state, the rest hustlers, renegades, opportunists, many hiding under arguably legitimate causes.”
Again he looked toward the Padre. “Like what you call consigliatoros and capos and button men.” He was being transparently patronizing. The Padre showed no reaction.
“So chicanery is universal. How profound,” the President said, noting that his mocking tone was ignored. He had the impression that Harkins was making this presentation merely as a courtesy.
The President looked at the Padre and addressed him. “Okay, you’ve got his motor running. You want your daughter and your grandson. Just lay it out. Tell me how you think you can do it. I said I’d go along if I thought it would work. I don’t want a catalog of the bad guys. I’ve been through it all before ad nauseam.” He felt his anger rise. The Padre listened, unruffled and thoughtful.