Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Mackay shouted. The numbness of the emotional shock that had bound him was wearing off and he was returning to reality.

  “Smile at the bastard,” Woodward said, ignoring the outburst and pointing at the one man still alive. Mackay did as he was told and Woodward repeated his last question, demanding to know where the Americans had been taken. A torrent of words gushed from the man, but he was obviously repeating himself. “That’s all we’re going to get,” the British captain said. Then he shot him in the head.

  “You’re a fucking butcher!” Mackay yelled.

  “Really?” Woodward answered. “You have no idea, do you?” He walked out of the room and told Carlin to call in a helicopter to airlift them out. “We’ve got to get out of here tonight.” Then he turned to Mackay. “Do you know who General Chiang Tse-kuan is? This changes everything.”

  Mackay was speechless. Moments ago this man had summarily executed three men and he was now acting like a perfectly sane and rational teacher explaining a difficult problem to a student. Mackay shouldered past him and stomped out of the building, into the night.

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  General Leo Cox, the President’s tall and cadaverous chief of staff, escorted the senator into the Oval Office. President Pontowski stood up and walked around his desk to greet his most formidable and unrelenting political opponent, Senator William Douglas Courtland. Cox stood back and watched the two men meet. The tall and angular, slightly potbellied Pontowski looked like a statesman, his gray hair, blue eyes, hawklike nose perfect for the role. But Cox, more than any other man, had experienced the searing intelligence and im placable will that lay underneath the man’s surface. Cox was certain that history would have nice things to say about Pontowski and his stewardship as President.

  And history, Cox thought, will deal properly with William Douglas Courtland, that smooth and calculating son of a bitch. For a moment, Cox wondered if Courtland might be illegitimate. That might help explain the devious bastard, he thought; not that Pontowski would ever use such a fact for political gain. Cox had seen how Pontowski could crucify any member of his staff or political party who crossed the bounds of ethical conduct.

  The contrast between the two men struck at Cox. Courtland stood exactly five feet six inches tall and was built like a fire plug. The senator’s immaculately tailored suit shouted East Coast establishment while his voice carried conviction and warmth with every word. Cox had long ago pegged Courtland as a demagogue who would do anything to win the presidency of the United States.

  “Bill,” Pontowski said, shaking Courtland’s hand, “so far we don’t have much to go on.” He ushered the senator to a couch and the two sat down. “We should have something more concrete within a few hours.” Pontowski spoke in his slow and captivating way, recapping all he knew.

  Courtland clasped his hands and interlaced his fingers together in his lap, a worried look on his face, his high forehead wrinkled with concern under a full head of dark hair. “I thought that you would have more information by now,” he said. Both Pontowski and Cox caught the veiled implication that the United States government was not doing all it could. Or was it only the deep worry of a parent they heard?

  “Leo,” Pontowski said, “would you please check with the Situation Room and find out if anything more has come in?” He looked at the door and Cox understood that Pontowski wanted to be alone with Courtland. “We’ve set up a Crisis Action Team to stay on top of this,” he explained as Cox closed the door behind him.

  “Really?” Courtland questioned, more skepticism in his voice now that they were alone.

  “Bill, I am concerned,” Pontowski said, trying to convey his own worry. “I’ve ordered the CIA and NSA to give it top priority. The Navy is moving the Taos into the Gulf of Siam and the Fifty-first Strategic Reconnaissance Wing has an RC-One-thirty-five on station now.” Both the RC-135 and the Taos, the U.S. Navy’s most sophisticated spy ship, carried state-of-the-art communications monitoring equipment.

  “And what will all that accomplish?” Courtland asked.

  Pontowski masked his irritation. Courtland was the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and had been instrumental in getting the Taos for the Navy. He should have some idea of its capability. “With the Taos and one RC-One-thirty-five on station,” he explained, “we can monitor every form of electronic communications in the area. We’ve got them wired for sound and sooner or later, someone is going to start talking.”

  “And how can we monitor that amount of communications traffic—all in foreign languages?” Courtland’s questioning aggression was more obvious.

  “Rapid, high-volume scanners linked with computers programmed to pick up key words to alert the translators on the Taos. We will flush out whoever is behind this, just like we did in Beirut.”

  “A lot of good that did,” Courtland said. Pontowski said nothing, not willing to reveal how once the identification and location of the terrorists holding the American hostages had been established, the supersecret Intelligence Support Agency had convinced the parties involved that it was in the interest of their own health to release the hostages.

  Pontowski’s sixth sense started bonging, warning him of danger. For all its irrationality, long experience had taught him not to ignore it. “Bill, if we work together, we can get your daughter back. But going public at this point won’t help.”

  “I seem to remember us being a ‘government of the people, by the people,’ or have I missed something?” Courtland said. Pontowski could hear the oratory behind the words. “I noticed,” Courtland continued, “that you didn’t mention the DEA being part of your Crisis Action Team.” The senator was on a roll now and the old animosities were surfacing. He hated being in the Oval Office, on the turf of his oldest political enemy, acting like a supplicant. “Did it ever occur to you, or any of your staff, that what happened to my daughter is a reaction to your antidrug operations in Southeast Asia?”

  “The Drug Enforcement Administration has a representative on the team,” Pontowski told him.

  Courtland’s heavy dark eyebrows shot up—the gauntlet had been thrown. The senator had constantly criticized Pontowski about his antidrug policies. Courtland had struck some deep seed of fear and discontent in his attacks on the DEA and had made political hay by calling it the Double ICC, “an inept collection of clowns being led by an incompetent cluster of clods.” It was one of the clubs Courtland was using to beat his way to the presidency.

  “I’m doing all I can to rescue your daughter and her friends from these terrorists,” Pontowski reassured the senator, hiding his exasperation.

  A knock at the door interrupted him and Cox appeared. “More communications traffic, Mr. President,” he said. Pontowski nodded for him to come in. “We’ve a report that three young women and two men were transferred from a fishing boat here.” He unfolded a map and pointed to the old Gurkha camp on the Malaysian coast. “They were loaded on a seaplane and flown to near Bangkok. The plane landed on the water, just west of the resort at Pattya Beach and transferred to a power boat that was last seen headed for Bangkok.”

  “Was my daughter one of them?”

  “The descriptions of the three women matched that of the girls on the yacht,” Cox told him.

  “What about the young men?” Pontowski asked, concerned about all five.

  “They matched the descriptions of Richard Martel and Troy Spencer,” Cox said. “Mark Livingston is unaccounted for.”

  “Were they okay? Were they harmed?” Courtland asked.

  Cox looked at Pontowski, indicating there was some bad news. Pontowski nodded. “The women showed signs of possibly being raped.”

  Courtland stood up, his face flushed with anger, fists clenched. With a visible effort, he fought for control. “And so far you’ve done nothing.”

  “I’m doing what I can, Bill,” Pontowski reassured him.

  The look on Courtland’s face changed and he sat
back down, not about to apologize for his breach of etiquette. “What are the sources of your intelligence?” he asked.

  Again, Cox looked at Pontowski who nodded. “The British…”

  “The British?” Courtland interrupted. It was not a question. “What happened to the CIA?”

  “Sir,” Cox continued, apparently unruffled by the senator’s outburst, “a British Special Air Service squadron was training in the area and observed the transfer. They did attack the camp and try to save the hostages. Unfortunately, the transfer was made offshore and they had no way to stop it. They did manage to interrogate one of the terrorists left behind.”

  “Special Air Service?” Courtland asked. “Isn’t that the SAS? What did they discover?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cox answered, “it is. They reported the terrorist identified General Chiang Tse-kuan as being involved in some way. We do not have any specifics.”

  “Chiang!” the senator shouted. He fought for his self-control. “I told you this had to do with your antidrug campaign. There’s your proof. If Chiang has Heather—” He cut the thought off, his point made.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Pontowski said. “But it does help us in our search. Leo, can we get custody of the terrorist?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. President. He died from his wounds.”

  A heavy silence came down in the room. “Mr. President,” Courtland finally said, his voice flat and mechanical, “I appreciate your concern and everything you’re doing. I haven’t told my wife yet because I wanted something more positive, more hopeful. But I can’t wait any longer. I’ll have to tell her something. Our only daughter…being held captive by one of the most vicious drug lords in the world…. My God!”

  “Bill, you know how these things develop. We need time to work the problem. At this point, we are not sure that Chiang has your daughter.”

  “For everyone’s sake,” Courtland said in a low voice, “I hope you do this one right.” Pontowski and Cox heard the threat in his words.

  “At this point, we need time,” Pontowski repeated.

  “The one thing my daughter doesn’t have,” Courtland interrupted.

  Pontowski’s mind raced as he sought a way to bring Courtland around but every political instinct he possessed told him they had reached a standoff. Courtland simply wasn’t going to be understanding. Nothing productive would come from this meeting. “Would you like to talk to the team? They’re in the Situation Room.”

  “Thank you. Perhaps later,” Courtland answered. There was no emotion in his voice. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. President, I need to get back to my wife.” The two men rose and went through the ritual of departure. Pontowski walked with him to his waiting car, still trying to show his concern. Finally, the senator was gone.

  “What do you think?” Pontowski asked Cox as they descended the stairs to the Situation Room in the basement.

  “The good senator from California,” Cox answered, the implied contempt in his words not lost on Pontowski, “is going to make political hay out of this if he can.”

  A Marine guard held open the door to the Situation Room for them to enter. Inside, four men and a woman were clustered around one end of the table while another young staffer tacked up the last of a series of eighteen- by twenty-four-inch sheets of paper on one wall that outlined the current situation. “Mazie,” Pontowski said to the young woman, “sometimes I think you live here.”

  Mazie Kamigami smiled at him, her round oriental face full of warmth. “Mr. Cagliari does let me go home occasionally,” she replied. The rumpled, professorial-looking man sitting next to her was Michael Cagliari, the national security adviser. He only shook his head and muttered in his beard. Mazie Kamigami was the most aggressive and brightest member of the National Security Council staff and cut a swath across the highly compartmentalized NSC. Whenever a crisis broke, she always appeared in the center of things, working eighty and ninety hours a week, limitless energy flowing out of her squat, round body. She was Cagliari’s most valuable assistant.

  “We were just told,” Michael Cagliari said, “that a U.S. Army exchange officer was with the SAS team. No name yet.”

  “Find out who he is and get him here,” Pontowski said. “Also keep Senator Courtland posted on all new developments.” Mazie shot a worried glance at her boss, Cagliari. Pontowski caught it. “I know,” the President said, “that could be a problem. But we’ve got to work with the senator on this one.”

  “Sir,” Mazie said, not afraid to voice an opinion, “Senator Courtland chases reporters down the street throwing classified and sensitive information at them. He’s more like a geyser than a leak. Reporters call him Old Faithful—good for an outburst every hour.”

  “The stakes are different this time,” Cagliari said.

  “I hope so,” Pontowski said as he left, Cox in tow.

  Senator William Douglas Courtland was buoyant with anticipation when he entered his offices and called for his two most trusted assistants, George Rivera and Tina Stanley, to join him. The man and woman who entered his private office could have blended with the thousands of other men and women who prowled the halls of the Capitol in search of power and status. However, this pair were credited as being the most skilled and unscrupulous operators in Washington, D.C. Courtland paced the floor in his eagerness. “I’ve got that dumb Polack in the White House backed into a corner,” he told them. The senator recounted the situation and laid out his strategy.

  The man and woman sat impassively, waiting for Courtland to issue their marching orders. “George, I want you to wring every contact you’ve got in the CIA dry. Call in every marker that’s owed you. I want the raw stuff and I don’t give a damn about verification or authenticity. Dig it out. Tina, suck whatever cock you have to in the NSC and do the same.” Neither said a word. “I want this to be the screwup of the century,” Courtland said, his face stone hard.

  The two exchanged glances. “We can make that happen,” George Rivera assured him. Tina Stanley nodded in agreement.

  “The press conference has been set up for two o’clock this afternoon,” Leo Cox told Pontowski. The two men were sitting in the Oval Office going over the day’s revised schedule with the press secretary.

  “We expect most of the questions will be about the kidnapping,” Henry Gilman, the press secretary said.

  “Any feel of the mood of the press corps?” Cox asked.

  “Still digging for angles,” Gilman said. “Right now they are neutral and waiting to see what develops.”

  “Good,” Pontowski said. “Leo, have the Vice President cover the luncheon with the delegates from the American Bankers Association for me. I’ll have lunch with Tosh and join you both in the Oval Office for a final review before the press conference. Have all the players there.” The two men rose and left the room.

  Outside, Press Secretary Gilman said, “He always talks to Tosh before a press conference.”

  “She’s still his best adviser,” Cox told him.

  Pontowski walked upstairs to his wife’s bedroom. He knocked gently at her door and waited until the nurse answered. It was one of the small things he did to keep his wife’s morale up; she always wanted him to find her looking her best. The way the nurse smiled at him as she held the door opened signaled that Tosh Pontowski was having a good day. A smile spread across his face when he saw her sitting at the small table near the windows. He walked across the room and joined her.

  Tosh Pontowski smiled at him. “The wolf is losing today,” she said. As always, her lilting accent captivated him and touched the love he held for her, a love made stronger by her courage in coming to terms with and fighting the disease that ravaged her—systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus—the wolf). The disease was well named for the way it came and went unexpectedly, suddenly leaping out to rip and tear at human flesh and then sneaking away, only to return without warning to attack another part of the body. At first, it had only been a mild skin rash and Tosh had not been overly worried by the
flare-ups that continued for a number of years. But then lupus had attacked her joints, and then had returned as kidney paralysis. But that had disappeared and then the wolf had returned again, this time attacking her heart.

  He reached across the table and took her hand, hoping that she was in remission again. But his inner alarm warned him otherwise. How much longer? he wondered. He knew he could go on without her but life would lose most of its luster.

  As usual, Tosh Pontowski refused to give in to her disease. “Press conference today?” He nodded a yes. “L’affaire Courtland no doubt.”

  “Can’t hide much from you, can we?” Pontowski observed. Charles, his valet, entered with a tray holding his lunch.

  “Courtland will turn this against you,” she said, watching him eat. “He knows he must discredit you if he is to defeat the candidate you endorse in the next presidential election.”

  “I know,” he answered. “No matter what we do, he’ll claim it isn’t enough. He’ll work the sympathy angle for all it’s worth.”

  “Then you must defuse it,” she counseled. “Recall your own escape.”

  “But I was never in captivity.”

  “No, but you were wounded, frightened, and pursued. It was a near thing. Build on that.”

  Matthew Zachary Pontowski leaned back in his chair and recalled when he had indeed been a terrified, desperately wounded fugitive.

  1943

  RAF Church Fenton, England

  The battered Austin ground to a stop in front of the mat-black Beaufighter. “Right, sir,” the driver said, “here you are.” Zack Pontowski and Andrew Ruffum clambered out, dragging their flight gear with them. “Good luck,” she added before crunching the gears and driving off. Zack drew himself to his full six feet and sniffed the cold January night, waiting to feel any strange tingling sensations that might warn him about this particular aircraft they were going to fly tonight. Nothing unusual assaulted his senses and he relaxed.