"But I never said any of that!" Teresa protested.
"Never mind. The message you sent doesn't matter. The message received is all that counts."
"What can I do?"
Burnham closed his eyes. An idea that had been ricocheting around the back of his mind lurched forward. He didn't know if it was any good, but he had no alternative.
"Hold on a second."
He cupped the phone and said to Dyanna, "I want you to call Evelyn. Tell her I want somebody from the State Department to call the Cubans. Direct, not through the Swiss. Tell them that the yacht is ere wed by sick people, diseased people, contagious people. Two of them have AIDS. It is going to be leaving the harbor, and we will pick it up outside and remove it from Cuban waters. Got that?"
"Yes, sir." Dyanna looked terrified. She started to dial.
"And, Dyanna ..."
"Yes, sir?"
"You can be polite with Evelyn. You should be. But don't ask her to do this. Tell her it's what we need. That's what she'll expect, and it's what she'll respect."
"Yes, sir."
Burnham spoke into the phone. "Teresa, can you start your engine?"
"I think I can get her going on two cylinders, but I wouldn't trust her to—"
"That's good enough. I just need you to go a couple of miles. Got a white flag?"
"A white flag? No."
"How about a white shirt?"
"/ don't, but . . . Yes. Ian's wearing a Ralph Lauren that's white. Sort of. It has blood on it."
"Never mind. Run it up your mast."
"What am I doing, surrendering?"
"In a way. Now: I want you to do exactly as I say. First, fly that shirt. Second, start your engine. Third, untie yourself from that tanker. Fourth, head straight out of the harbor, nice and easy, until you're a couple of miles offshore, then turn southwest and just putt along. An American boat will come and take you in tow."
"But what'll they do to me?"
"Nothing. I promise. They'll tow you to Guantanamo. I'll take it from there."
"We're freaks, Timothy!" Teresa was panicking. "Don't you know what Marines do to freaks?"
"Calm down, Teresa. Don't you know what Marines hate worse than freaks?"
"Nothing! Except maybe Communists."
"They hate the brig. And bread and water. And two years at hard labor. And dishonorable discharges. And if any one of them does anything to you, that's what he's gonna get."
"You can do that?"
"You better believe it." Burnham wasn't sure he believed it, but he had to offer the guarantee.
"My!" Teresa said. "You have done well."
"Think you can do it?"
"Yes, if nobody shoots at me."
"They won't," Burnham said hopefully. "And Toddy . . .
Teresa ... if this all . . . when this all works out, and you're home safe and sound, I'll make sure you get your operation."
"Who's going to pay for it?" Teresa laughed. "The President?"
"Sure." Burnham laughed, too. "That's what America's all about, right? We take care of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses—"
"And the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. That's me. Wretched refuse."
"Stop sniveling. Go rip the clothes off that pansy."
"Timothy!"
"I've got to make a couple of calls to your . . . welcoming committee. This line'll stay open. If anything goes wrong, if you just want to talk . . . anything . . . give a holler and they'll get me. Okay?"
"Okay."
Burnham looked at Dyanna as she hung up the phone.
"It's done," she said, and she exhaled visibly.
He smiled at her. "How do you feel?"
"Like the time I broke up with my first steady. It was real hard at first, but then I got warmed up, and—"
"Good." Burnham asked Sergeant Pingrey to connect him to General Starkweather.
"Starkweather."
"Timothy Bumham, General. The yacht is about to leave the harbor. He'll—"
"He's surrendering. The Cuban's are gonna take him. I've got to—"
"How do you know? You're to-hell-and-gone down in Guantanamo."
"I know, that's all. My men are—"
"You're men are to stay right . . . where . . . they . . . are. Is that clear?"
"But—"
"He is not surrendering. The Cubans know all about it. They'll let him go. He'll go offshore and head down toward you. I want you to dispatch a boat fast enough to get to him in a hurry and big enough to give him a tow back to the base."
"What makes you so all-fired sure?" Starkweather added, with blatant contempt, "Sir."
He's been sitting around fuming, Burnham decided, bitching to all his junior officers about interference from the goddamn egghead civilian know-nothings, and because they all value their lives they've been kissing his ass and telling him he should take control of the operation.
Time to put the general in his place again. He was astonished to find himself grinning.
"Because, General, he is doing what I told him to do."
Starkweather paused. "You talked to him?"
"At length. General. And I instructed him what to do. And I spoke to the Cubans"—what the hell, Burnham thought: In for a penny, in for a pound "—and they have agreed to let him go. And you, General, if you have any interest in keeping your star and taking a cushy job with some weapons manufacturer when you retire and playing golf with the members of the Armed Services Committee, instead of retiring as a colonel and running a trailer park in Salt Lick, Florida, you, too. General, will do what I tell you." Burnham took a breath. "Understood?"
Two seconds passed before the general said, "Understood."
"You will take the yacht to Guantanamo, and there the crew will be treated with—and I mean this with absolute insistence—the utmost courtesy and respect, no matter what some of those bald goons who work for you may think of them. Aboard are three women and a man. The man is disturbed. His hallucinations started all this ruckus. He has been restrained, and I think he should be kept restrained until he can be transferred to the States. The vessel is in need of repair. You will have it repaired. When it is seaworthy, you will escort it out to international waters. Until that time, the crew will be your guests, and they will be treated as if they are the daughters of the President himself. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Believe me, General, I will hear about it if there is a fuckup." Pleased with his exit line, Burnham started to hang up. Then he remembered something, and he said, "General?"
"Sir?"
"I have here the telex you sent to the NSC. Where did that information come from? About his asking for asylum and threatening to blow up the Russian tanker."
Starkweather's reluctance to answer was palpable. "Is this line secure?" he asked at last.
Burnham assumed it was, but he wasn't certain. He chuckled derisively. “Is this line secure?”
Starkweather lowered his voice, as if to ensure secrecy. "LP-ers," he said.
"What's an LP?"
"LP-er. Listening Poster. Infiltrators. They monitor radio transmissions, keep their eyes open. They don't miss a trick."
"Do they speak Spanish?"
"Of course!"
"Then I fail to understand how ..." Burnham stopped. He understood. "But they don't speak English."
"Why should they? The Cubans speak Spanish. Our men here translate for them."
"I see." Burnham waited, wondering if the synapses in the general's brain would suddenly begin to connect the neurons of cause to the neurons of effect. But the man's synapses, apparently, were off-duty. So Burnham said simply, "Thanks, General," and he hung up.
He punched up his open line to Bilitis. "Teresa?"
"Hi, Timothy."
"It's all set. They're on their way."
"I'm almost at the mouth of the harbor."
"They're not chasing you?"
"No."
"When you get home, I want you to do me a favor."
>
"Anything. I owe you my life."
"Put a new plaque on the boat for me."
"Saying?"
" 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.' "
Teresa laughed again. "Who said that?"
"A friend of mine. And when you get the plaque all screwed into place ..."
"Yes?"
"Sell the boat and be a decorator."
Burnham put the receiver back in its cradle. He stood up and stretched. He felt elated, better than when he had written a good speech, better even than when he had been praised by the President himself. He had actually done something, and what he had done was good—good not only in the sense of well done, but also good for someone else. Maybe he had saved lives, maybe he had done something for the country. The idea of leaving his mark on the world had always seemed preposterous to him. But now, suddenly, he wondered, for he knew that a measure of his satisfaction came from the certainty that he had left—if not a mark, at least a tiny scratch upon the wall of posterity.
A sweet little irony occurred to him then, and he savored it: He had acted on principle, had actually done something selfless, and the beneficiary was a member of Sarah's family. She would have to appreciate him, to acknowledge that for once he had done something worthy.
He looked at his watch. It was too early to call her: She would still be out selling macaroons for Kennedy. But when he spoke to her later on, and told her that Cobb had vowed to investigate the source of the bug in her car, and regaled her with his tale of rescuing Toddy from being garroted by a Mohican-cut anthropoid camouflaged in lampblack, she would have to relent. Without intention or design, he had bought himself a ticket home.
He had always believed in the apothegm: No good deed ever goes unpunished. Now he was finding it insufferably cynical.
He scooped his jacket off the couch and, as he slipped it on, crossed to the table where Dyanna sat, looking drained.
"Did we do it?" he said with a smile.
"Yes, sir!"
He put his hands on the edge of the table and leaned down toward her. "I have a present for you from the President."
"You do?" Dyanna brightened.
"He said to tell you that you're a source of comfort and strength to him."
"Go on!"
"He told me to give you this." Burnham reached a hand behind Dyanna's head and drew her to him. He kissed her full on the mouth.
For the first second, Burnham felt that he was kissing a piece of cold chicken. Her lips were firm and unyielding. Then they began to tremble, uneasily seeking an appropriate response. They parted, and Burnham felt warmth on his tongue. He wanted to flick his own tongue into that hot, wet cave, but no: It would be cruel.
He disengaged.
"Mr. Burnham!"
"Don't blame me," he said, slyly licking his lips to collect the sweet and fruity taste of her lip gloss. "I was just following orders."
"I . . . but . . . well . . ." One hand shot to her hair the other to a button on her dress. They were diversionary hands, like a hen pheasant scampering this way and that before her nest to distract a predator from her eggs.
"You did good, Dyanna," Burnham said honestly. "I'm proud of you. And"—he smiled—"you taste great."
He walked toward the door, leaving her at the table, as red and shiny as a Bing cherry.
He was at the outer door when she thought to ask, "Where are you going? I mean, if someone ..."
"Where else? To see the President."
"Oh."
"It's hell, I know." Burnham frowned and shook his head. "But somebody's got to do it."
Why had he kissed Dyanna? Why had he done that to her? For, he had to admit that he had done it to her. Not with her, or for her. To her. There were women whom you could kiss, in a burst of rash exuberance, and they would accept the kiss for what it was, a brief spasm of joy that had less to do with you or them than with the moment. He knew Dyanna well enough to know that she was not such a woman. To her a kiss was a covenant, to seal things past and promise things to come, the ultimate of which was the Act of Darkness itself, which to her (he was guessing wildly) would be a solemn ritual signifying commitment as permanent (and about as pleasurable) as a brand.
She would be confused now, wondering what he had meant by the kiss, unable to believe that it had been meaningless. Was he in love with her? Did he lust after her? What about his family? Suppose he asked her out, how should she respond? She shouldn't lead him on, but she didn't want to anger her boss, not when he was beginning to approach the throne.
The kiss to her would be like a Beckett play to a college student: She would study it, dissect it, analyze it, appraise it and inject it with the serum of significance, until at last she transformed the simple touching of four lips into a Rosetta Stone that would give meaning to her life.
That was not a nice thing to do, Burnham told himself as he turned out onto West Executive Avenue. When I return, I will apologize.
Head down, lost in thought, Burnham did not see Butterworth striding toward him, head down, lost in thought. They collided, like the Andrea Doric and the Stockholm. Burnham's bow struck Butterworth's port beam. Papers flew and fluttered down like falling leaves.
"Now look what you've done!" Butterworth said, as he stooped to gather up his papers. "Wrecked my proclamation for Rural Electric Power Week."
"Sorry." Burnham stooped to help him.
Butterworth flicked a wad of gum off one of his papers, and stood up. "Where have you been?"
"Me? Nowhere."
"Cobb tells me the boss has gathered you to his bosom. True?"
"Hardly." Burnham forced a weak laugh. He looked away, hoping to encourage Butterworth to join him searching for any stray papers. But Butterworth continued to look directly at him.
Ned Butterworth was one of Burnham's two good friends on the staff. He affected the guise of the absent-minded academic, which was a calculated act, designed to keep Epstein's minions away from him, to lead them elsewhere with their assignments of interminable, repetitive, tedious, unrewarding messages to Congress, each of which involved many late nights, bitter arguments and countless drafts and redrafts, all to no end whatever, since the President delivered his real messages to Congress in person, face to face.
Only Burnham, Cobb and a few of the other writers knew that Butterworth had a sharp and perceptive mind, an instinctive grasp of the complexities of foreign policy and the skill (when ignited) to turn out first-rate work in a very short time.
Burnham had never felt competitive with Butterworth. He admired him, envied his facility, and consoled himself with the knowledge that Butterworth was five years older than he and had been a professional speechwriter for twenty years. Their friendship was based, in part, on the maintenance of their relative positions: Butterworth senior and superior, Burnham junior and respectful. Burnham had no desire to become a rival of Butterworth's. He had endured too many lunches at which Butterworth's viperous tongue had flayed writers who had had the temerity to accept an assignment to write a speech in the field he regarded as his private fiefdom, foreign policy.
For, as contemptuous as he claimed to be of authority, as ostentatiously blase about power and power politics, Ned Butterworth was very human. He cherished praise from the President and framed his signed photographs just like everyone else, and he collected nuggets of inside information and used them as prized chips in the daily game.
"I almost got fired," Burnham said. "If that's being gathered to his bosom, you can have it."
"But you escaped."
"Yeah. How, I don't know, but I did."
"He asked for you by name, to write tonight's toast."
"Not to write it, exactly. Just to clean up someone else's mess." Burnham looked at his watch. "I've got to—"
"What do you know about Banda?"
"Not
hing!" As if pleading to the accusation in Butterworth's eyes, Burnham began to feel guilty. "I'd never even heard of the place." Again he looked at his watch. "I really gotta go, Ned." Burnham started across the avenue.
"Rushing off to confer with the President, I expect."
"Yeah, sure, Ned." Burnham tossed a laugh over his shoulder. "And tomorrow he's moving me right next to him in the West Wing."
Shit! Burnham said to himself. I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't want any of this. I still don't.
He pulled open the door to the West Basement, and the cool darkness and the gentle hum of the air conditioning reminded him that he was entering the womb of power.
Liar. You love every minute of it.
He climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and turned into Evelyn Witt's office. "Hi, Evelyn," he said.
"Timothy! How did it go?"
"Okay, I think. Thanks for all your help. Dyanna was scared to death."
"She's a sweet girl. She'll learn." She glanced at her phone console. "He's talking to the Speaker, but you go ahead in. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you got here." She smiled. "Give the poor man a word of comfort."
"What's the problem?"
"He's been trying to write that letter for his nephew to Amherst."
"I thought he already had a draft. MacGregor did it."
"He didn't like it. It wasn't warm enough, didn't bring out the boy's true qualities."
Burnham recalled MacGregor bemoaning the difficulty in finding satisfactory circumlocutions with which to praise a boy whose true qualities were twin four hundreds on his SATs and substantial evidence of incipient alcoholism. MacGregor had dwelt at length on the lad's athletic prowess, calling him the finest lacrosse player since Crazy Horse.
"So he's doing it himself," Evelyn said, "but if he puts in any of the language I've heard bouncing off the walls in there, the wretched child won't get into Dannemora."
"I'll see what I can do." Burnham started for the door to the President's office.
Evelyn's phone rang. She picked it up, listened, and said, "Timothy."
"For me?"
Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 Page 22