Headwind (2001)

by John J. Nance

  The deputy minister smiled, cocking his head as he folded his hands over his not inconsiderable belly and leaned back in his chair. “I suppose I could send you scurrying all over the government asking the same question, Mr. Reinhart . . .”

  Jay leaned forward, supporting himself on the edge of the man’s desk.

  “Look, this problem is about to fly into your airspace, and it will be a very large political problem with major foreign policy and legal and treaty ramifications, and it will run the risk of deeply affecting U.S.-British relations. I need your help in finding the person or persons who can tell me, point blank, what the British Government will do when presented with this warrant.”

  The man nodded slowly. “Well, Mr. Reinhart, you just effectively and eloquently enunciated most of the reasons why your questions are so far above my level as to be effectively unanswerable.” He hauled himself up and walked around the desk with his hand outstretched. “Sorry I can’t help you, old man. I always admired President Harris, by the way. The gentleman has true style.”

  “Who, then? Whom do I see?”

  The man sighed. “Very well. Let me write down four names. You will most likely be wasting your time, of course.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  The deputy minister pulled a pad of paper across the desk and uncapped a Montblanc pen, inscribing the names and office locations, then tore it off and handed it over.

  Jay thanked him and left, going in succession to the first three offices and finding the same distant and indeterminate response from each.

  Back in another corridor he looked at the fourth name and decided he’d had enough. He ducked into an office at random and asked to see the government phone directory, copying down a particular number before begging the use of a phone.

  What he was contemplating probably would be a complete waste of time. Pure desperation. Maybe even a small act of defiance.

  But he was determined to try.

  Jay dialed the number and waited.

  “Office of the Prime Minister,” a cultured female voice said.

  “Please listen carefully,” Jay began. “I’m Jay Reinhart, attorney for Mr. John Harris, former President of the United States of America. I have a matter of urgent national security affecting both the United States and Great Britain, and I need to personally come over and discuss this with the Prime Minister or one of his immediate deputies as soon as possible.”

  There would be a long pause or a dial tone on the other end, he figured, but the woman answered him cheerfully. “We’ve been expecting your call, Mr. Reinhart.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Won’t you please hold?”

  Jay stood in abject confusion holding the phone. Within a minute an aide to the Deputy Prime Minister came on the line and confirmed an immediate appointment.

  “I was told you were expecting me,” Jay asked, thoroughly confused. “Might I ask, how, and by whom?”

  “I’d rather discuss that in person when you get here, Mr. Reinhart. I don’t particularly trust open telephone lines.”

  “Ah, certainly. I understand. How do I find you?” Jay asked after passing his location.

  “A car will be out in front of the building to collect you, Mr. Reinhart, in five minutes. The driver’s name is Alfred. He’s in a black Daim-ler.”

  “Thank you very much,” Jay replied, hanging up and taking a deep breath, his mind spinning with unanswered questions.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  In Flight, 5 miles south of London—Tuesday—11:45 A.M.

  Stuart Campbell knelt in the aisle just behind the two pilot seats of his Lear 35, a scowl on his face as he looked at the red splotches covering the radar scope on the forward panel. “I don’t have time for this, Jean-Paul!” he said to the captain.

  “I’m sorry, Sir William,” the pilot replied, “but a storm cell is moving directly toward the Luton airport and an approach simply isn’t wise. Stansted is also in a rainstorm, but we can hold for Luton and wait until the storm passes, if you like.”

  “I don’t have time!” Campbell snapped again. “I need to be in the Covent Garden area almost immediately. At the speed that storm’s moving, we’ll be on the ramp and in our cars before it gets close.”

  “You forget the gust front that precedes a thunderstorm. Such gust fronts can hide windshear.”

  “Well, blast it, let’s divert to Heathrow then.”

  “We don’t have a slot for going into Heathrow.”

  “So we’re stuck with waiting for Luton?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Jean-Paul, for heaven’s sake, we’re five miles from the runway! At least be so good as to try an approach, will you?”

  “Take the airplane, Gina,” Jean-Paul Charat said quietly in French to his wife in the copilot’s seat.

  “Oui,” she replied. “Remain in holding?”

  “Oui.”

  Jean-Paul slid his seat back and snapped off his seat belt as he looked around at his employer. “Sir William, may I speak to you in the cabin?”

  “Why? You can say anything you’d like right here,” Stuart Campbell grumbled, backing up when he realized the captain wasn’t taking no for an answer. Jean-Paul swung his body out of the command seat, and Campbell retreated to the cabin ahead of him and sat down, aware that his pilot was angry.

  “Permit me to apologize, Jean-Paul,” Campbell began, but the pilot was shaking his head and his jaw was set as he settled onto the compact couch opposite Campbell’s seat and faced him, his hands clasped in front of him.

  “This is a very serious occurrence, Sir William. When you employed Gina and me, you made us a solemn promise that you would never attempt to put pressure on us to override our better judgment as pilots, and that is exactly what you have just attempted to do.”

  “I said I’m sorry, old boy. It shan’t happen again.”

  “I will require a blood oath from you, Sir William, or as soon as we park this aircraft, we will leave your employ.”

  Stuart Campbell shook his head and held his hand up. “I humbly apologize, Jean-Paul! You are correct. I made you that very promise, and I let my own scheduling anxieties get the best of me.”

  “I must have your renewed promise,” the pilot said, his eyes boring into Stuart Campbell’s.

  “You have it,” Campbell replied, extending his hand. “You have my word this will not happen again.” He started to get out of the seat. “I’ll go up and apologize to Gina as well.”

  Jean-Paul stopped him from standing as he shook Campbell’s hand with formality. “No. I shall reassure Gina. But you do have a choice to make, Sir William. We have another hour and ten minutes of holding fuel, and if the storm clears the airport we might be able to land then, or we can proceed immediately to Gatwick and have a car or a helicopter waiting for you.”

  “Let’s go to Gatwick,” Campbell said without hesitation.

  “Very well. And a helicopter, perhaps?”

  “No. A car will be fine.”

  Jean-Paul nodded and got up as Stuart Campbell lightly touched his arm.

  “Jean-Paul? I really do value your professionalism and your conservative thinking. Thank you for keeping us safe.”

  “You’re welcome, Sir William,” Jean-Paul said evenly, studying his employer’s face and hesitating. “This situation . . . with the American President . . . it has you agitated, no?”

  “It does,” Campbell agreed with a sigh. “It’s a very serious, precedent-setting action, this. Very important to the development of international law.”

  “And, I think to you, personally, it is important,” the captain offered.

  “You mean, is there some old score to settle? There will be that criticism, but the truth is plain and simple, Jean-Paul. He’s guilty . . . although I’m not even sure John Harris knows it.”

  Stuart Campbell waited until Jean-Paul returned to the cockpit before pulling the phone out of its cradle. He punched in a string of numbers and waited for a male
voice to answer.

  “What’s our status, Henri?” he asked.

  “We have the judge for four o’clock in the Bow Street Magistrate Court. That’s the court that by law will eventually have to rule on extradition.”

  “The committal hearing, as we call it for some obscure reason?” Campbell added.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Henri, please double-check my memory of the extradition procedure. First we’re essentially asking the municipal police to take the Interpol warrant to the magistrate and apply for a British arrest warrant.”

  “That’s correct, Sir William. When we get the warrant, the police make the arrest, and then Peru has to send a formal request to the Secretary of State for extradition . . .”

  “Already been done,” Campbell said, stopping the other man.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Last week. Go on.”

  “Very well. Once the arrest has been made, the Secretary will decide whether to sign the so-called Authority to Proceed.”

  “He will.”

  “And . . . then we deal with the committal hearing, which could drag on for several days. With Pinochet, it tied up the Bow Street Court for a week.”

  “True, but Amnesty International was there, as was Spain, all represented by a gaggle of QC’s.”

  “Well, once that’s over and it goes against Harris, his counsel may ask the Divisional Court

  for a habeas corpus writ.”

  “Which he will not get.”

  “Sir William, with Harris still on the ground at Sigonella, is there any chance the Italians will change their minds?”

  Stuart laughed. “None. Anselmo is praying that Harris escapes as quickly as possible. He has no reason to guess that I’m hoping the same thing.”

  “No flight plan has been filed as yet. You’re certain they’ll come to London?”

  “It was John Harris’s own idea,” Stuart chuckled, “although he’s obviously misread the political climate.”

  “Rather badly, I would say. Any chance he’ll discover that in time?”

  “I would think not. Now, in the meantime, I want you to proceed with the plan I gave you this morning.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, Henri. Right now. The sooner we flush them out of there, the less time they’ll have to think it over. Make the call.”

  Residence of the Prime Minister, London, England

  Being chauffeured to #10 Downing Street

  was a baffling turn of events, Jay Reinhart thought, as he got out of the government car and followed a grim-faced man in a gray suit into a compact conference room to wait for the Deputy PM. Why they would have been expecting his call was even more of a mystery, although it was probably a result of White House efforts to help.

  Hopefully that’s it, Jay thought. Hopefully the British want John Harris out of this, too.

  Perhaps he could arrange a quiet little deal to give the chartered 737 time to refuel at some British airport and be on its way before the courts could get involved. That might work, he thought, provided Stuart Campbell hadn’t already taken the warrant to a British magistrate. He couldn’t expect the government of Great Britain to defy its own courts.

  The fact that the aircraft couldn’t make it back to the United States without another refueling stop in Iceland or Greenland was still a significant problem. He wondered if they could charter another, longer-range aircraft, or even shift the President to a regular commercial flight at Heathrow.

  If not, perhaps they could make Canada in one hop, although the reaction of the Canadian Government couldn’t be taken for granted either. They, too, had ratified the treaty.

  Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Sheffield entered suddenly with two aides and shook Jay’s hand warmly before sitting in a chair across the table.

  “Let me get right to the point, Mr. Reinhart. Her Majesty’s government is aware of your mission to defend Mr. Harris from the international arrest warrant issued by Peru. We’re aware he’s at this moment in Sicily and the circumstances of that presence. We understand the Italian government’s stance, and we’re aware that you’ve been making inquiries about our official attitude toward the Peruvian warrant if Mr. Harris should arrive on these shores.”

  Jay nodded. “That’s all quite correct.”

  “Very well. While we will need several hours to give you a formal answer, as a lawyer I’m sure you understand fully that, whatever our point of view, it is in no way controlling. I know you’re aware that our courts are independent, as are yours in the States. This matter will be decided by judges.”

  “Well, sir, unless something has changed drastically in the last few weeks, the Secretary of State still has final authority.”

  “Yes, but only after the judiciary.”

  “Has the warrant already been presented to a magistrate court, Mr. Sheffield?”

  “I really don’t know,” Sheffield replied. “But I should think we would be wise to expect that step at any moment.”

  “I do believe that the government’s attitude, and your degree of interest, will very likely weigh in the thinking of any judges who get this case.”

  “Again, I firmly doubt that,” Sheffield replied. “Let me ask, is your plan to fly President Harris here this afternoon?”

  “Yes,” Jay said cautiously, “provided . . .”

  “Provided our position is not interpreted by you as a threat?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can guarantee nothing, you understand, and I cannot even give you an idea until the PM has had time to consider the situation. We have been in touch with the White House, of course.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “And we are, as you might guess, very distressed to hear a legal process under a treaty to which we are a party, and to which we have unavoidable obligations, has been initiated against an American ex-President.”

  Jay studied Sheffield’s eyes, looking for the deeper meaning behind his chillingly phrased words.

  “As you can imagine, President Harris was equally distressed,” Jay replied. “Mr. Sheffield, let me emphasize that this . . . this warrant is a ridiculous and fraudulent instrument in essence, and one that will ultimately be quashed for lack of credible charges. But . . . in the meantime, we need to ask that there be no government support for any short-circuiting or speedup of the extradition process. That is your governmental province, and the Secretary of State is certainly a member of your government.”

  “I understand.”

  “May I tell the President he can count on that?”

  “No, Mr. Reinhart, you may not. Only the PM can decide what, if anything, we can do from this level, and what, if anything, should be communicated to the Secretary, whose obligation is primarily legal, and not political. Now, how may I contact you later this afternoon?”

  Jay hesitated a few seconds, slowly accepting the reality that nothing more of substance was going to be said. He was already alarmed by the distance Sheffield had placed between John Harris and the British leadership.

  “I have a rented cell phone,” Jay said at last.

  “Splendid,” the Deputy PM said, motioning to one of his aides to write down the number Jay repeated.

  “Where are you staying, Mr. Reinhart?”

  “I . . . don’t have a hotel yet. I came straight from the airport.”

  “Well, I shall be happy to arrange one for you, and transportation to the hotel as well.” Sheffield got to his feet. “I’ll ring you in a few hours.” He began to turn.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Sheffield.”

  “Yes?” Sheffield turned back, balancing himself with one hand on the table as he waited for the verbal postscript.

  “You. . .indicated you would answer my question when I got here . . . how did the PM’s office know to expect my call?”

  Sheffield laughed. “Oh, that! Well, Mr. Reinhart, let’s just say that we had some advance information that President Harris had retained you, we knew you arrived this morning at Heathr
ow, and no lawyer in your position would fail to contact Her Majesty’s government. So . . .”

  Jay met the man’s gaze, feeling a small chill run up his back at the obvious sidestep.

  “Who told you, sir?”

  There was a telling hesitation and a frozen smile.

  “I’m not really at liberty to say, Mr. Reinhart. But it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, now does it? Good day, Mr. Reinhart.”