We Are Holding the President Hostage

by Warren Adler

  “And we are just students of architecture,” the Padre said, if only to lighten the somber mood. It was understandable. There had to be something fatalistic about the atmosphere. It was not simply a matter of danger or courage. What the Padre had proposed would try the logic of even the most loyal and committed. One had to suspend the traditional judgments just to consider the possibility.

  Nor was he afraid to broach the unthinkable. Which was that this idea could turn out to be a suicide mission of epic proportions. But life, the Padre knew, was a suicide mission.

  Of all things, death itself could never be cheated. He saw himself in a race, trying to catch up with the man with the scythe who was chasing his daughter and grandson. The President’s present course could result only in the death of his daughter and grandson. Moreover, the Padre knew these terrorists were criminals and that the criminal mind would respond only to stimuli outside the President’s experience and inclination.

  “I don’t want to know from nothing,” Carlotti was saying, determined, despite the information he was providing, to prove his neutrality. “I only know how we serve the meals.”

  The Padre nodded, an obvious gesture of absolution designed to soothe the agitated little man. It didn’t.

  “All I do is cater. I work hard. I build a good business. My partner and me, we do all the good parties in Washington. They know that when you call Carlotti and Mills, they have the best. What you do here is your business. So I lose the account. That’s okay. It’s a showpiece business. No big money in it. Prestige. That’s all I get.”

  He seemed like a butterfly struggling to disimpale himself from a pin, not quite understanding that all his flapping was useless.

  “Where does the President sit?” the Padre asked.

  Carlotti frowned, glancing sharply at the Padre. If he was inclined to protest, it was for the briefest moment.

  “Usually here. In the table directly in front of the mantel. Under the Lincoln picture. With his back to it. He’ll have the Queen on his right.” He pointed a stubby finger at the plan.

  “And the First Lady?”

  “At the next table. She sits facing the President. The King of Spain will be on her right. They are the only two tables of eight.”

  The Padre concentrated on the plans. He noted two small elevators and a staircase. He pointed to an elevator next to a staircase. “Does this go to the second floor?” The Padre removed the first-floor plan. Under it was the second-floor plan. The problem was that there was no vouching for the accuracy of these plans. There could be hidden corridors, dead ends.

  “I don’t know.” Carlotti shrugged.

  “You’ve never been upstairs? To where they live?”

  “Never.”

  Somehow the Padre was not convinced.

  “Just to the First Lady’s office,” Carlotti added finally.

  “And where is that?”

  The caterer pointed to a room on the second floor.

  “None of the others?” The Padre had pointed to the rooms on the west side of the house, the living quarters. There, he had decided. Carlotti shook his head.

  “You went up on the elevator or the stairs?”

  “The front stairs.” He pointed. “Up this circular staircase.”

  “But these back stairs go up too.”

  Carlotti looked around helplessly.

  “I was there only that one time I was in her office. This area I know.” He pointed to the State Dining Room and the pantry area. “And the kitchen below.”

  The Padre looked directly at him. He hesitated and replaced the top plan. They had been enlarged from a book on the White House taken out of the public library.

  “How many men does it take to serve the meal?” the Padre asked gently.

  Carlotti brushed away droplets of sweat that had gathered on his upper lip. Some rolled onto his mustache.

  “In the front, eighteen waiters, one to a table. And remember, there are four tables in the Red Room. So four more makes twenty-two. And three bartenders at three stations.” He pointed. “Here. Here and here. They come off the receiving line and get a drink. At dinner we serve the wine. Three kinds. White, red, and champagne for the toasts. Everything is served French style.”

  “And the Secret Service men? Where are they?”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Like where?”

  “In the corners, I think. I don’t watch them.”

  “Are they in the dining rooms during the meal?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  Carlotti thought for a moment. Above all, he seemed to know that he must not appear evasive.

  “Six, maybe. But they are also in the other rooms.”

  “All told then?”

  “A dozen, maybe. I don’t count. They are very clever in the way they do this. They are all connected with these things in their ears and microphones that come out of their cuffs. You can barely see them.”

  “And they are armed?”

  “Of course.” Carlotti seemed to betray a more than casual curiosity about this point. “Uzis under their jackets. They are also clever in the way they are concealed.” Suddenly Carlotti showed some hopefulness. “There are all sorts of secret things they have.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. I heard.”

  The Padre rubbed his chin. He knew he would not get much more information from this man. To work, his plan must depend primarily on persuading the Secret Service that he and his men were walking bombs. If the Secret Service failed to believe this, then the plan would collapse. It must appear fatal for the President to resist. And the attack must come as a complete surprise.

  “Giuseppe,” the Padre asked, offering a smile. “This food you serve. It is good?”

  “The best.”

  “And the service, the waiters?”

  He paused and seemed to puff up with pride, as if he were pitching a prospective client. “My waiters are all Europe-trained. No finer in the city. White gloves. Immaculate. The works. I resisted all their efforts to have me use the staff butlers. The White House people are cheap as hell. But they want the best and I give it to them. So I lose money. It’s a calling card. I know my business.”

  The Padre nodded and offered a wan smile.

  “Now tell me, Giuseppe, how does the help get in?”

  “Get in?” Despite all the energy spent on denying the unthinkable, Carlotti could not contain his obvious wonder at the immensity of the idea. “My God.” For a moment he seemed to be struck dumb. The Padre had to prod him to answer.

  “How do they do it?” he snapped. No smiles now.

  Carlotti shook his head with a kind of shivery jerk.

  “We give their social security numbers, they investigate, and they get clearance. When they come through they show IDs to the guards. Then they pass through the security machines.” He looked about him suddenly, as if a new idea had miraculously emerged to save him. “They’re very very strict about this. They look into backgrounds.”

  When that information did not move the Padre, he tried another tack, suddenly lowering his voice. “I’m not supposed to say, but they got tasters too.”

  “Tasters?” Benjy asked.

  “Filipino mess men. They make sure the food isn’t poisoned.”

  Quite obviously, Carlotti was trying to build up the concept of White House invincibility, as if to further illustrate the madness of the idea, yet without letting on that he suspected what all this conversation meant.

  “No shit,” the Canary said.

  “Like for kings,” Vinnie pointed out.

  The exchange broke the tension in the room. But the Padre’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  “You must make room for four in your crew,” the Padre said without raising his eyes from the plan. His tone was emphatic. The blood drained from Carlotti’s face. The inevitable had finally struck. He looked as if he might faint. The Padre waited for him to recover.

  “But the clearances.
”

  “You do your business. We do ours.”

  There were ways, the Padre thought. Other men would be investigated, cleared, given permission. Angelo would know what to do.

  “I got family, Padre. . .I. . .” Carlotti began, his words swallowed in fear.

  “Surely you will be considered innocent,” Robert suddenly blurted. His face had gone ashen. The Padre shot him a glance of reproach, shaking his head. Keep out of this. Robert nodded, catching his meaning. But it did not restore his color.

  Carlotti’s face represented a kaleidoscope of conflicting expressions. A cowardly man, the Padre decided, but too fearful to betray them in advance. Later he would be the first to protest his innocence. On his knees, swearing on the life of his mother, he would tell them that the Padre had put a gun to his head. Poor little Giuseppe, the Padre sighed. I forgive you in advance.

  The Padre said, “All you know is that you must hire four outside men. Waiters. Bartenders.”

  “But are they experienced?” the little man asked, as if it were still another straw to grasp. The Padre suppressed a desire to smile.

  “They will learn,” the Padre said.

  “How can you serve a meal in the White House without experienced men? This takes training. This is French service. One hand pickups with a fork and spoon. They wear white gloves.”

  “You got to go to college to learn this?” Benjy said. It was an idea that added to the unreality of the scene. Carlotti shrugged.

  “They’ll get wise,” he said. “You can’t fool them. There’s this woman—”

  “This is our business,” the Padre said, putting an end to the discussion. There was no way Carlotti could keep this account. “We’ll take care of all the other details, social security cards, IDs.” He looked at the Pencil, who made his inevitable notes.

  “This is the White House, Padre,” Carlotti said, his little mouse eyes darting from face to face. He seemed to want to say more, to argue, to protest. The Padre reached out and patted his arm.

  “It’s all right. You know nothing,” the Padre said, as if it were an incantation. Carlotti nodded. But there were tears in his eyes. He no longer bothered to wipe the droplets of sweat that gravity forced over his mustache onto his lips and chin. As he turned, he seemed to stagger. But the Canary was quick, grasping him about the arms as he led him out the back door.

  “So who knows about waiting tables and being a bartender?” the Padre asked when the Canary returned. They all raised a hand.

  “You are all liars,” he said, but he was greatly pleased at their reaction.

  “Actually,” Robert said, “I waited on tables for three years when I was in college. Good restaurants. I was excellent. I’d be perfect casting.”

  “No way,” the Padre said.

  “I’d be more credible than these people,” Robert insisted.

  “We must end this, Robert,” the Padre said. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Why?”

  The Padre looked at him and smiled benignly.

  “In the first place,” he said, “you’re not Italian.”

  Benjy let out a high-pitched laugh. The others joined in.

  “That’s absurd,” Robert snapped, “and you know it. I have every right.”

  The Padre nodded, reached out and grasped Robert’s upper arm.

  “It is your personal life, Robert. I know that. I know how much Maria and Joey mean to you. But we are dealing here with what is not your business.”

  “It is my—” Robert said.

  The Padre shot him a stern glance that quieted him in mid-sentence.

  “It is not your professional business,” the Padre explained gently. “Besides—” he paused and sucked in a deep breath “—Maria and Joey will need you.”

  “Surely there is something useful I can do.”

  The Padre contemplated the request.

  “You will stay with Angelo at Mrs. Santorelli’s, Luigi’s sister.” He turned toward Angelo. “She is a good cook, yes?”

  Angelo kissed his fingers in confirmation. More important, the Padre knew, her apartment, just two blocks from Luigi’s Trattoria, was one of the organization’s many absolutely safe places in the neighborhood. A good church-going woman, Luigi’s sister was part of the early-warning network long established by the organization. Her husband, Giovanni, had been a made member until he had been gunned down by a rival family in less tranquil times. Aside from the Church, her loyalty was to the Padre and the organization.

  “I still say—” Robert began.

  “Enough,” the Padre said. It was a dismissal. The Padre turned to the others.

  “You, Rocco, must stay outside too.”

  Rocco nodded.

  The Padre would need both these men, Angelo to facilitate what was necessary and Rocco to keep the organization going in his absence, which could be forever. In any event, Rocco could be the only one to succeed him. And yet he could not simply put his mantle on him. Rocco would have to demonstrate his authority, as the Padre had demonstrated his ability to command after his father’s death.

  “Now someone call Luigi to teach us how to be good waiters,” the Padre said.

  13

  AMY PUT THE STUDS in her husband’s shirt and laid it neatly across the bed. He sat in his shorts on one of the rose chairs, legs crossed, going over his prepared toast.

  “Clichéd pap,” he muttered. Even though he would not read the toast word for word, it would reflect the usual flattery and innocuousness that characterized the tradition.

  “The King’s supposed to be a really nice guy,” Amy said, hoping to get her husband in a festive mood. Lately it had been impossible to jolt him out of a deep funk. The hostage thing was getting to him. He wasn’t sleeping. Last night she had awakened suddenly and found him gone. She was alarmed at first. Then the Secret Service man on all-night duty in the upstairs corridor informed her that the President was resting on the Truman balcony on the floor above.

  When she found him, he was seated on a straight-backed chair, with his feet on the railing, looking out toward the Potomac. It was a surprisingly clear summer night. At Camp David it wasn’t unusual for them to sit quietly on the porch of the main cabin, holding hands and staring into the dark shapes of the forest and listening to the crickets.

  They were both descendants of Midwestern porch people and knew the value of the soothing nature of quiet watchfulness. But it troubled her that he had not awakened her. She moved another chair, placed it beside him, and sat down, angling her legs on the railing so that her toes rested on his shins.

  “Generally speaking, it’s a beautiful planet,” he had whispered, touching her arm, but without taking his eyes off the night view. “Except for the people.”

  “Not all.”

  “Taking hostages is such an ugly business.” It was clear now where his mind was. More and more the awful reality absorbed his thoughts.

  He shook his head. “I really feel for those people and their families.” In the long silence, she turned and watched his profile silhouetted against a white portico. “They’re gonna die, Amy, and there’s no way in the world I can stop it from happening.”

  “Except to give in,” she said. She had deliberately posed the idea as an oblique comment, gentle and noninsistent. It had nothing to do with strategy or affairs of state. It was simply a wifely response. He was being devastated by the situation. It affected everything, permeated all other issues, political and personal. It exacted a fearful toll.

  “All day long I’ve been on the phone kissing the asses of those tinhorns who run those lousy countries. The Syrian is a polite little bastard. I get reassurances, sympathy. But no action. The Saudis? Masters of evasiveness. Talking to those people is like talking into a soft cloud. The Israelis love all this angst. I’ll give them this. They’re tough. They’ll take it all the way. A counterpunch is an acceptable state action, no matter who or how many get hurt. Not us. Couldn’t do it and get away with it. Not up front. And I’m afraid
to do it covertly. If it backfires, we’re finished. Had my way, I’d send everyone connected with those terrorist bastards a letter bomb airmail special delivery. Maybe even one of those small A jobs.”

  “Very funny,” she said. Considering that her husband was always shadowed by someone carrying that horrid little briefcase, she failed to respond to what he had intended as black humor. Only way you can preserve your sanity, he had argued, was to joke about “it.” He had never convinced her.

  “And this is only the third or fourth generation. Just wait until we get into the fifth or sixth.”

  “The fifth or sixth what?”

  “Generation of terrorism.” He turned to look at her, his eyes intense and liquid as they gathered the reflected light. He shivered. She waited, then seemed to catch his chill in the otherwise warm night. “That’s going to be nuclear blackmail. Guy will come in with a nuke on his back. Blow us all away unless we give in to whatever bullshit he has in his head. It’s coming. In fact, could be done right now. It’s a goddamned miracle it hasn’t happened yet. I pity the President who has to deal with that mess.”

  “So if you look at the bright side, your little problem isn’t so bad.”

  “I said I’d pity the guy,” the President said. “But now nobody pities me. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Problem is it’s a spectator sport. Everyone can be an armchair general.”

  “Except the general on the firing line.”

  “Nobody understands. Especially if it’s one of yours taken hostage.”

  “Well, I’m glad it’s not one of mine,” she said, thinking of her own children, Tad and Barbara.

  He patted her arm and was silent for a long time.

  “I can hack everything,” he said. “All the political crap, the endless rituals and ceremonies, the staff ego wars, all the tugging and pulling, dealing with those stubborn bastards in the Soviet Union and the pigheaded self-destructive fools of the third world. Even with the idea of the awesome power of that box in the briefcase. No sweat.” He paused, sighed, sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “It’s the crazies with these wacko burning causes, the ones who think they have ‘the answer.’” He was silent for a long time.