By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  It took Dresden more than two hours to complete his work, but when he was done he was very satisfied with it. He made a package of the tapes he was taking and then returned to the filing room. Maddy was obviously nervous and seemed on the verge of becoming very upset, but this had only produced a very similar response in the four, who had stirred little from the positions in which Charley had left them.

  “We’re going to leave now,” he said. “I’ll call someone from the network in fifteen minutes to come out and free you.”

  In the car, Maddy talked frantically, almost hysterically, about how terrified she had been to have to sit for such a long time holding a loaded gun aimed at human beings. By the time they were speeding over a nearly empty George Washington Bridge, her fear and excitement had turned to a desire for love. It was not until they awoke the next morning in their room at the Plaza that Dresden remembered to call the network as promised.

  18

  The maître d’ had given them a table in the northeast corner of the Edwardian Room, with a view of Central Park through one window and of Fifth Avenue across the fountain plaza through the other. There were many other couples there at breakfast, some very attractive, all looking extremely wealthy. Dresden and Maddy were attracting a few admiring looks. Charley returned his attention to Madeleine. “My father used to come here. This was his kind of life. I had fully expected it would also be mine.”

  “You look like you belong.”

  “Spuriously. Spending money I took from a dead woman, and soon I’ll be running out of it.”

  A waiter appeared. They both ordered seafood dishes. It was late in the morning. He also ordered a bottle of champagne.

  “I may run out sooner than I thought,” he said.

  “I have money,” she said. “A lot.”

  “This isn’t how I meant to return to the Plaza Hotel.”

  “Stop it, Charley. Enjoy yourself.” She reached and touched his hand. “I feel all aglow.”

  “So do I. Are you still frightened?”

  “A little. What sort of craziness is on the schedule for today?”

  “We’re going to look for a comic named Howie King.”

  “I’ve heard of him. He’s an impersonator. Will we have an easy time finding him?”

  “The object is not to find him. We have to establish that he’s gone—and when he left. And how.”

  “Will that be easy?”

  “I don’t even know his address.”

  The waiter brought their champagne, with a decorous smile.

  “So what are we going to do?” she asked, when the man had left.

  “Actually, it may be easy. First we’re going to call the subscription department of Variety.”

  The village of Ahuancha, just forty miles from the El Salvadoran border, was in a lush, green valley attained by crossing a forested ridge over a rough, dirt track. They were in two Jeeps: Kreski, Sandoval, Colonel Victores, and a Honduran national guardsman driver in one—the American mercenary in fatigues, beret, and mirrored sunglasses Kreski had seen at the airport in the other, accompanied by two murderous-looking Hondurans in combat dress, but also lacking insignia. They were heavily armed, and their Jeep led the way. The mysterious American had not said a single word to Kreski on the entire journey.

  “Who is he?” Kreski asked Sandoval, as they bounced, slowing, around a steep, pitted curve in the road. The preceding jeep didn’t slow a bit, until the American in the beret saw he had to wait for them. He had done so several times on the trip out from Tegucigalpa.

  “A friend,” said Sandoval. The colonel, riding in front with the driver, nodded.

  “But I mean, who is he?”

  “If he wants to tell you, he will. It is not for us to do so. Feel safe with him, however, Señor Kreski. He is very, very good. He fought twice in Vietnam, and has been coming here for many, many years.”

  The American in the beret was carrying an M-16, two pistols, and a half dozen hand grenades. Kreski had been provided with a 9 mm Beretta automatic. In Washington it would have made him feel very confident. Here, he felt rather helpless.

  They roared into the village of Ahuancha, a long trail of dust hanging in the air behind them, at the height of the heat of the day. When they stopped it was to utter stillness. What few people had been squatting in doorways had withdrawn inside, doubtless wondering whether Kreski’s party was government or guerrillas, and feeling equally uncertain about either possibility. After they had sat there a moment, looking about but taking no threatening action, a few faces appeared in the paneless windows, and two children stepped out in the roadway, staring. They were barefoot, and skimpily clothed.

  “You said Huerta had a prosperous farm here,” Kreski said.

  “For Honduras, this village is quite prosperous,” said Sandoval. “For some regions of Mexico, it would be quite prosperous.”

  “Huerta had a large house, with louvered glass windows,” said the colonel. “It was outside the village, up on the plateau.”

  “Who would you like to speak with?” said Sandoval.

  “This visit was your idea,” Kreski said. “I’ll speak to anyone you suggest.”

  “I would suggest the mayor,” said the colonel. “He knew Huerta well.”

  “And the head of the local agricultural bank,” said Sandoval. “It’s a credit bank, up in that green building across the village square. You should also talk to the police chief, and any of the villagers you choose. I will be your translator.”

  “They won’t even come out of their houses,” Kreski said.

  “They will be happy to talk to you,” said the colonel. “We will make them so.”

  In the Jeep ahead of them, the mysterious American sat staring forward, the M-16 held upright on his knee. His Honduran companions were talking volubly among themselves, one of them glancing back at Kreski’s party.

  “I’ll talk to them all,” Kreski said. “But first I’d like to go on up and see where Huerta’s people were murdered. I’m still curious about his motivation.”

  “Oh, he was much motivated,” said the colonel. “Mucha locura.”

  He shouted something in Spanish to the lead Jeep, and instantly both vehicles jerked into motion, speeding up the grade and leaving a dust cloud that drifted over the village square.

  The bodies had, of course, all been removed and buried, but despite the passage of so many weeks, the ruination of the Huerta granja seemed just as intensely recent as it must have when he had first come upon it after the attack. Kreski could still smell the stench of the charred wood. He looked at the skeletal remains of the rafters and walls, and kicked at the debris. In the long building that had been the main house, he noted some burned remnants of furniture and kitchen utensils, but nothing else. No clothing, books, or papers. Many acres of the farm’s fields had been burned as well.

  “This fire was very intense,” he said. “Gasoline?”

  “Sí,” the colonel said, nodding.

  “But there are no traces of books or any other reading matter. Nothing. Not even gasoline would do that.”

  “Lieutenant Huerta was not known as a great reader.”

  Kreski looked around. “All the buildings are burned badly. They were all flamed at the same time, right? It was a hit by many men.”

  “Apparently so, señor.”

  “What did they do to the family?”

  Sandoval looked away. The colonel shook his head.

  “His wife was raped, many times. Then her throat was cut. The brother was beheaded, and his conjones, his privates, were stuffed in his mouth. One child was bayonetted. Others were simply shot. One had his head beaten in. There were other atrocities.”

  “Why?”

  “Simply revenge. And to send a message.”

  “Why the rape?”

  “A special insult.”

  “Huerta must have been especially hated.”

  “We are all hated, señor. On all sides. Huerta was especially famous. He should not have cal
led himself La Puño. He should not have murdered so many people in the night. There are enough official ways to do it, legally, in the light of day.”

  “And who claimed credit for this?”

  “A local Honduran group of leftist terrorists—La Izquierda Honduras. But there is no such group. We think the name is something made up by the El Salvadoran government. To keep them from blame for such things.”

  Kreski kicked again, sending a piece of charred wood spinning into some high weeds.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go back to the village. I will talk to those you suggest. But I would like to start with some villagers.”

  The colonel smiled. “Muy bien, Señor Director.”

  Copley, summoned to the White House, was directed by a marine guard to the windowless situation room in the basement. The vice president was there, alone except for his aides Shawcross and Neil Howard. Those two took little note of his arrival, their attention riveted on Atherton, who was pacing in random direction about the room. The passage of time since the bombing seemed to have worsened his condition rather than eased it. There were dark hollows under his eyes and a gauntness to his cheeks. The vice president’s shoulder muscles were hunched, and he kept smacking a fist against the palm of the other hand.

  “Steven, Steven Copley,” he said. “Here at last.”

  “I was going to come at seven P.M., my usual time,” said Copley. “Is something wrong?”

  Shawcross gave him an odd look.

  “Precisely,” said the vice president. “Something wrong. Where is Kreski?”

  “As I told you yesterday, Larry,” said Copley “he took a plane to Atlanta and changed for a flight to Texas. We lost him in the damned Dallas-Fort Worth airport.”

  “Find him. Is he at Camp David?”

  “No, Larry,” Copley said. “I told you. Our people report no one new at Camp David.”

  “What about Dubarry, our would-be president?”

  Atherton paused at the map display. The huge topographical map of Central America that had been there for weeks had been removed. In its place, at Atherton’s order, was one of the Washington metropolitan area. Jagged circles had been marked on it.

  “We found the apartment house in Rosslyn where they’d been keeping him, but he’d moved by then. He was sighted boarding a train at Union Station, a westbound Amtrak to Chicago. We put an agent on at Martinsburg, but he was no longer on the train.”

  Atherton turned to look at Copley hard, his eyes weak but glittering.

  “They took him off in Maryland, then. He’s at Camp David!”

  “Not that we’ve been able to detect, Larry,” Copley said. “They’re just trying to keep him out of trouble until January, until the vote for president pro tem of the Senate.”

  “They mean to make him president of the United States!” said the vice president. “After they blow the rest of us up! Where’s the speaker?”

  Copley glanced at his watch. “In his office in the Capitol. He’s been there every day.”

  “Find him!”

  “The speaker?”

  “Precisely!”

  Shawcross looked at Copley, shaking his head.

  Finding Howie King’s address did prove simple. Dresden called Variety’s subscription department, using King’s name, and complained that he’d not received a copy of the trade paper since he’d moved. He asked what address they had him listed under. The woman on the other end gave him the addresses of three Howard Kings in Manhattan. Charley seized upon one—a street number in the West Seventies just off Central Park—and said that was his address. He then churlishly demanded that she see to it that his copies got through, hanging up angrily.

  It was easy to determine that the two other addresses were not those he was seeking. One was for a Howard King theatrical agency in the West Forties. The other was in the East Village. Both were listed in the telephone directory. The one just off Central Park was not.

  They stopped first at a discount electronics store on Fifth Avenue, buying an expensive and highly reliable Sony pocket tape recorder, which Charley had Madeleine place in her purse, with the microphone facing out. Then they took a taxi to King’s building. It was old, mostly Jewish, a little worn at the edges, but, like all New York real estate property in that area, very expensive and something of a prestigious address. It had a doorman, who courteously admitted them; and a uniformed security guard at the lobby desk. They went up to him and, with a slightly irritated tone, Charley asked him to ring the King apartment.

  “Mr. King isn’t here,” the man replied. “He’s away. He’s been away for some time.”

  “So I gather,” Dresden said. “I’ve been calling him every day for weeks. He has an engagement with my television studio and has simply not appeared.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that, sir.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. Did he leave any word as to where he was going? When he might return?”

  “No sir.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “The police?”

  “Yes, the police. This is most irregular. A man who’s being paid what I’m paying Mr. King doesn’t simply not show up.”

  “Well, it is a little odd, his going away like this. When he left other times he always gave us notice. Had us hold his mail in the office. Things like that. This time, he just left. But I don’t think you need the police.”

  “Did he say anything, to anyone? Where he was going?”

  “No, but he … well, I don’t know I should be discussing this with you, sir. Mr. King is a very important man.”

  Dresden sighed with much exasperation. “I don’t know what it might take to overcome your undue discretion, but if this will help, here.” He handed the guard a fifty-dollar bill. “I need to find Howie King. He’s holding up my production. It’s a very expensive one and he’s making it even more so.”

  The guard studied Dresden’s face a moment, then quickly slipped the bill into his pocket. He glanced at Maddy, whose well-dressed blond beauty seemed to help convince him that Dresden was who he said he was.

  “Well, sir,” he said. “He left under kinda peculiar circumstances. He looked happy enough. I mean, he looked like he was going willingly. But it was with a bunch of men. One was an army general. The other was that TV talk show guy, you know, the one with all the big words.”

  “William F. Buckley?”

  “No, the other one. David Callister. I could tell it was him easy. He looked at me like I was a piece of dirt.”

  “Thank you,” said Dresden, turning. “I’ll call Callister’s office.”

  Out on the street, looking for a cab, they halted, as Maddy switched off the machine.

  “Does this help?” she said.

  “It certainly helps us decide what to do next.”

  Kreski talked to at least a dozen people in Ahuancha, ranging from the mayor and police chief to a woman doing laundry in the little river and the small boy with her. His Spanish was poor, but he guessed that Colonel Victores was giving a fair and honest translation. All those he spoke to said more or less the same thing, though the mayor and police chief tried to belittle the ferocity and effectiveness of the guerrilla raid and the villagers tended to speak with some contempt of the mayor and police chief.

  The consensus was that, though there was some affection for the women and children of the family, the Huerta brothers were considered something of local tyrants, engendering a dislike aggravated by their being outlanders from across the border in El Salvador, and people whom it was always expected would bring trouble on the village. They confirmed that Huerta liked to be talked about as “La Puño.” After the killings and the mass funeral, Huerta had remained in the village, drinking in the local cantina day and night, still wearing his Guardia Nacionale lieutenant’s uniform though he was no longer entitled to it. After a few days some Guardia officers who were friends of his came to see him, and a few days after that, a tall man named Jalisco, apparently Hondur
an, arrived in a relatively new American car. He and Huerta spent several hours drinking together, and by evening Huerta left with him, never to return.

  All of the villagers, excepting the two officials, asked Kreski if there would be more trouble for Ahuancha now that Huerta had shot the president of the United States. Kreski assured them there would not, though without any inner certainty. From the way the Central American conflict was proceeding, it was not a pledge he could have made with certainty even if Huerta had never set foot in the United States.

  “What can you tell me of this Jalisco?” Kreski asked Sandoval as they drove out of the village.

  Sandoval said nothing, nodding to the colonel, who finally turned in his seat.

  “Juan Pedro Jalisco,” the colonel recited, as though from some memorized police record. “Born in either Mexico or Guatemala. Active with the FDN and the Contras in the Reagan days; with the right-wing El Salvadoran refugee groups and the American mercenaries in this stage of the conflict. He showed up with Huerta in Barra Mono a week or so after they left Ahuancha. It is a fishing port on the east coast near the Nicaraguan border. Jalisco had something to do with shipping—the merchant marine, or warehouses. We’re not sure. He knew boats. Our suspicion is he got Huerta into the United States by boat.”

  “We will take you to Barra Mono tomorrow, if we can,” said Sandoval, coughing from the dust thrown up by the Jeep ahead. “Maybe not for a few days. There has been some fighting there. I know that does not worry you perhaps, but the American military in the town will be touchy. We don’t want them to inhibit you.”

  “Jalisco was also involved in some smuggling in this part of the country,” Colonel Victores said. “We are not altogether certain which side he truly served, if any. We do not know if the American military approved of him or not.”

  “We’re certain they don’t approve of him now,” Sandoval said.

  The sky was turning a dirty gray, but the heat seemed only to intensify. Kreski assumed coolness would come only with the rain the skies were promising. He noted neither Jeep carried a canvas top.