by Warren Adler
The television commentator had begun to update the situation. There were now five kidnap victims. Three overseas. Two in the States. She listened in horror. He, too, seemed overly excited by events. For him it was the story of a lifetime.
“There is still no word on the condition of any of the victims,” the commentator announced in his frenetic staccato. “Nor has anyone claimed credit, although speculation all over the world insists that this is the work of our own CIA on orders from the President. The President, despite the accusations and his own tenuous position, is reported to have denied any complicity. Nor would any responsible official confirm that this was an American-sponsored enterprise. Of course the head of the CIA is with the President, but no statement has been forthcoming.”
“Keeps ’em guessing,” the President said. He and Harkins seemed to have been emboldened by events, as if their captivity had not occurred. A conspiracy, Amy decided. They were all in it together.
But the Padre, Amy noted, showed no such delight. He seemed deep in thought, his concentration elsewhere.
Harkins went back to working the keyboard.
“No word?” the Padre asked, suddenly reunited with events. The question perked up her own curiosity.
The Padre turned toward Harkins, who looked up from the screen.
“I’m sorry,” Harkins said.
“The others?” the President asked.
“All accounted for,” Harkins said. “In safe houses. Well cared for.” He looked at the Padre. “What about your people?” Harkins looked first to the President, then back at the Padre. “We don’t know where you’ve . . . where they are.”
“Still nothing about the boy?” the Padre asked pointedly, ignoring Harkins’ question. Beneath the mask of calm, Amy saw the cold, cruel resolve.
“Just taking them longer to respond,” Harkins said. His mood had changed. He was obviously distressed.
She struggled to piece things together without calling attention to herself. The television commentator was beginning to fill in the blanks, including more details about Ahmed’s son, who had been taken from his home in Jordan. These revelations had only compounded the shock. The boy was weak, sickly, a rheumatic heart. He was only seventeen. In fact, all five were under twenty. Five innocent children. Terrorism in reverse.
Still, Amy did not show them her disgust. The general assumption, as reported by the commentator and seconded by various pundits, was that negotiations were currently under way by all parties for the release of all hostages, that the Americans, although it was denied, had demonstrated their ability to reach out anywhere in the world. Their willingness to cross the moral line and kidnap other innocents for barter was the latest escalation. As always in the media, the question was debated, analyzed, dissected ad infinitum.
“We will pay the price,” someone said. They had arranged a panel show to fill the time between bulletins. Above all, don’t let it get boring, she thought. As usual, a confrontation had been contrived.
“We’ve descended to their level,” the panelist declared. Despite her cynicism, her inclination was to agree. They are going mad, she thought.
“The Mafia have not only kidnapped the President. They’ve brainwashed him,” another said. Not really, she decided. They’ve merely broken down the artificial barriers.
“Damned bleeding heart,” the President said with contempt. It was not a term he used very often and it puzzled her.
She turned away from the set. It was too painful to watch. Both her disgust and her doubts were accelerating. She wished it would all go away. Harkins continued to beat on his keyboard. The Padre stood near him, watching.
It was obvious that all was not well. What she had determined was that they did not yet know the whereabouts of Ahmed’s son. The most essential ingredient of the operation was to have the boy in their possession.
“Any definitive terms yet?” the President asked.
“Everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move,” Harkins said.
“What happens when they do?” the President asked. “How do we hide behind the denials?”
“Our people will make a deal,” Harkins said, looking toward the Padre. “All hostages for all hostages. We don’t have to confirm or deny our complicity. Just arrange the exchange. Isn’t that the way you see it, Padre?”
The Padre nodded. “As long as my daughter and grandson are part of the package, I do not care about the others.”
The Padre began to pace the floor. Amy watched him, then looked at her husband, whose elation of moments before had disappeared.
“We must know about the boy,” the Padre muttered.
At this point a commentator interrupted the ongoing panel discussion on television.
“This just in,” the commentator said with appropriate solemnity. “Ahmed Safari, the man who is holding the daughter and grandson of Salvatore Padronelli hostage, has just communicated with a Beirut radio station. He has issued the following ultimatum. If his son is not released by noon tomorrow without conditions, then Maria Michaels will be killed.”
The Padre had turned ashen.
“I am sure it’s only a bluff,” Harkins said. “These people—”
“Where is the boy?” the Padre asked. His expression had darkened despite Harkins’ assurances.
“Our people have lost contact.”
“Your people are not competent. . .” the Padre began, his calm shattered. “Without the boy, we have nothing.”
“He won’t do it,” Harkins said, but without much conviction. He turned back to the keyboard and pounded out a message. “I have ordered our asset in his group. . . . What?” He was not satisfied with his answer on the monitor. Again he typed out a message. “Gone,” he said, swallowing the word. “He’s changed his people.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s no longer got one of his assets on the inside,” the President explained.
“You mean we’re out of touch?” the Padre asked.
“For the moment.”
“We know of his attachment to his boy,” Harkins added. Beads of sweat had sprouted on his upper lip. “He won’t risk it.”
“But we haven’t got the boy,” the President said.
“Ahmed thinks we do,” Harkins said.
“He will expect us to respond,” the Padre said.
“Our people can get word to him. Say we have him,” Harkins said nervously. “Anyway, it’s only a threat. No point in hurting your daughter. He won’t. I’m sure of it.”
“He is testing us,” the Padre said.
“How?” the President asked.
“By our willingness to kill,” the Padre said.
Amy felt an iciness crawl down her spine.
“He does not believe that we will respond in kind. If we don’t, he will kill my daughter. He will then bargain for my grandson.”
“Now really,” the President began.
The Padre raised his hand for silence. “We must send the only message he will understand.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” the President said.
“We could play it in kind, give him the same deadline,” Harkins said. “Contact a Beirut radio station. Get the word out to him and the others whose people we have. Tell them, release your daughter and grandson without conditions or. . .”
“Or what?” the President asked.
“Mr. President,” the Padre said slowly. “The problem is that you are not taken seriously.”
“Because I refuse to sanction cold-blooded killing.”
“The decision is not in your hands, Mr. President,” the Padre said.
“The hell it isn’t,” the President said, looking at Harkins, who turned his eyes away.
Amy’s finger groped for the trigger of the gun.
“And yet you would stand by and let them kill my daughter. Let them kill others at will.”
“But I’m not ordering that.”
“Not directly,” the Padre said.
“I can’t.”
“There is no choice for you.” His meaning was unmistakable.
“Ah, but there is,” the President shot back. “I can refuse to govern. I can step down.”
“It is too late for that,” the Padre said. “I will not permit it.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the President shot back.
“I can decide who lives and dies in this place.”
Silence seemed to crackle in the room. Although frightened, Amy discovered that her fear was not incapacitating. One thing was certain, she told herself. I will not go quietly. But she still could not find the courage to remove the gun from her waistband. The Padre had his back turned to her. How easily she could end his life. One bullet to the head.
“We shall see,” the President said calmly.
His hand reached out for the phone. There was only the briefest hesitation, but Amy saw it. She was sure the Padre saw it as well. They all knew it. A feeble ploy at rebellion. The prune-faced man’s arm shot forward and quickly removed the phone from the President’s hand.
The President seemed to crumble. His shoulders gave way. He leaned back in his chair. She had seen him like that before, finding his second wind. Yet despite her instinct for blind loyalty, a trait she had demonstrated time and time again, she tried to distance herself from that role, to maintain some degree of objectivity.
“Perhaps we can say it and not do it,” the President said quietly, indicating what she had suspected. His mind still searched for alternatives. No, she decided, he is not going to roll over easily.
“Facts not words,” the Padre said. “We must show him.”
“One of his,” Harkins said to the President, cocking his head toward the Padre. “After all, you are under duress. The country knows this is so. I can get word to his people.” He looked at the Padre, who shrugged, an obvious sign of his willingness. The issue of who was to die as a sacrifice for credibility was immaterial to him.
Amy continued to stroke the trigger of the gun. Surely her husband was simply playing out a strategy that he had worked out in his mind.
The Padre said, “We will make sure the body is found.”
“Then we deny any complicity,” Harkins said, looking toward the Padre for approval. The Padre responded with a nod. “He’ll get the message. He’ll know we mean business and that we are capable of retaliating against his son.”
“All this talk of killing,” the President said, shaking his head.
“It is not talk, Mr. President,” the Padre said. “We must deal with it.”
“He’s right, Mr. President,” Harkins said.
Harkins watched him, obviously waiting for consent. Slippery bastard, Amy thought. Once again he was absolving himself of responsibility. She felt a surge of emotion. Her practiced effort at control fell apart.
“Resist them, Paul,” she cried. They all turned to face her as if noticing her for the first time. “You don’t have to.”
“He has no choice, Mrs. Bernard,” Harkins said.
Images of her own children, Tad and Barbara, burst into her mind. She felt the remembered pain of birthing, the exquisite joys of motherhood and nurturing. My children, she screamed inside herself. And theirs. Was there any crime more monstrous than to hurt innocent children?
“Weakness now is a death warrant for my daughter,” the Padre said.
“Paul, I beg of you,” Amy began. But she did not stand up, maintaining enough presence of mind to keep the gun in her waistband, hidden beneath the table. She reached for it again, her finger settling around the trigger. A plan had jumped into her mind. She would put a bullet in Harkins’ head. Only Harkins knew the various codes to operate that vast mysterious empire of evil.
At that moment the computer came alive. It deflected their attention. Harkins watched the monitor, then began to respond on the keyboard.
“What is it?” the President asked, a man grasping for straws.
“They’re reporting in,” Harkins said. With a finger he flicked away the perspiration on his lower lip.
“We have him.” He looked at the Padre, who nodded approval.
“A hospital in Rome,” Harkins said.
Harkins turned from the monitor and looked at the Padre. Something, Amy noted, had passed between them. Then he directed his concentration back to the computer monitor. He worked the keyboard, studied the monitor again. His eyes blinked and his lips betrayed a nervous tremor. He turned away and his gaze roamed the faces in the room. Amy’s fingers remained clutched around the trigger of the gun, although it was still in the waistband of her slacks.
“Intensive care,” he whispered. “Critical.”
32
NED FOREMAN, the National Security Advisor, stood behind a large oak and watched the footpath in the patch of park behind his apartment house. Vashevsky, wily as ever, rarely approached from the same direction. His journey was always the difficult one, since he had to get out of the Soviet Embassy compound unobserved by American surveillance, then find his way to the strip of parkland bounded by Massachusetts and New Mexico avenues. The senior KGB operative in the United States, he was, of course, resourceful and clever.
They had set up the rules years before, as if it were a kind of floating crap game. Meeting places were arranged by sequence. There were six preagreed sites, all outdoors, an imagined neutral turf, theoretically safe from unwanted listening devices. To police these devices, Foreman carried an electronic sensor. Its mechanism had never been triggered. Perhaps Vashevsky carried one as well. Foreman’s instinct was to trust the man.
It wasn’t easy for Foreman to leave what was now referred to sarcastically as the command bunker. Chalmers was frustrated. Most of those around him were exhausted. The country appeared trapped in the entrails of its own system.
He had insisted that he must go back to his own apartment. An hour, no more, he had promised. Milly had called, reporting that Vashevsky’s signal had come. Two rings on his private number followed by an interval of one minute, then two rings. Repeated twice. Milly actually had no knowledge about the signal’s origin. Foreman was, after all, the President’s National Security Advisor. Such mysterious goings-on required no explanation.
He had expected Vashevsky to step forward in response to the crisis. Indeed, it had surprised him that he had not done so sooner.
Peter Vashevsky, a general in rank, had direct and mostly secret access to the Premier of the Soviet Union, who was also the General Secretary of the Communist Party.
A burly man with a jolly manner and a brilliant mind, Vashevsky was highly educated and, most important, well-informed, especially on matters of infighting and intrigue among the bureaucrats who ran the Soviet Union. Foreman offered similar credentials. Both men enjoyed their roles, especially the subterfuge, which seemed to satisfy some childish urge for secrecy.
Alert to the sounds around him, he heard Vashevsky’s footfalls as they moved cautiously along the little-used path.
“Pete,” he whispered. “Here.”
Vashevsky halted behind the tree. From there they had a clear view of both ends of the path.
“Ned,” Vashevsky said, offering his hand. Foreman took it and shook it warmly.
“Goes from bad to worse,” Foreman said, kicking his toe into the dirt for emphasis.
“They are confused at home,” Vashevsky said. “How is it possible for the man to stay in office? He is a captive.” The setting sun made his pale blue eyes shine. He shook his head. “There was Watergate and the President resigned. Hardly a terrible crime. Now this. Your system needs an overhaul.” A deep chuckle rumbled in his throat.
“Polls show that the people overwhelmingly support him.”
Vashevsky shook his head. “The General Secretary is not happy. All this instability is dangerous.”
“You’ve put your people on alert,” Foreman said, careful not to adopt an accusatory tone.
“There was no choice. It was not at all like the surgical bombing ploy o
f Reagan. Instability feeds the paranoia of our military. When in doubt, put the troops out.”
“The President has refused to do this,” Foreman said.
“Wise move on his part. Keeps our paranoids from acting hastily. But, Ned, there are problems. When you destabilize you set an uncontrollable course, especially among those fools in the Middle East.”
“Can’t you rein in your friends?” Foreman asked. “At least until we get things sorted out.”
“Believe me, we are trying.” Vashevsky sighed. “We are having our hands full just keeping some of them from massacring every American they can get their hands on. I think we can lean on the Syrians and the Libyans. The Iranians are irascible. The Saudis are your problem.” He lowered his voice. “The King must be really pissed off.”
“He is. I’ve spoken to him.”
“Your President can’t keep denying his complicity, Ned. Our people know what is happening. It is ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“This Harkins.” Vashevsky pointed to his temple and made a twirling motion. “He loves these macho games. Besides, we know where at least three of the people have been put.”
Foreman’s ears perked up. “Only three. You’re slipping, Pete.”
“We have to assume you know where the other two are. The Saudi boy and the Syrian girl.”
“Wish we did,” Foreman said sadly. “The FBI is on the case. But we’re dealing with a clever bunch of bastards.”
“The Mafiosa.”
“It’s as if we were all in on this great big secret. We are all winking at each other.”
“Look, Ned, if it doesn’t get out of hand, I know we can get the Syrian President to play ball. But if the girl is harmed, I assure you he will go crazy.”
“You think our Mafiosa friend will sit still if they harm his daughter or his grandson?”
“It has troubled us, Ned,” Vashevsky said. His knowledge of the American idiom was superb and his accent detectable only by the strange rhythm of his speech, not the pronunciation of his words. He hesitated for a moment, rare for him. Ned could see he was having trouble putting his thoughts in context. “There are those who believe that the President and Harkins staged these events to allow this action to proceed.”