by Warren Adler
“This is irrational, there is the country to think about, the people.”
“Stop it, Martin. Nobility does not become you.”
There was a long pause.
“And in the meantime, Mr. President, what are we supposed to do?”
“Hang in there.”
“I might if I knew what the hell was going on.”
The President hung up.
Harkins continued to tap away at his keyboard, watching the monitor.
“The boy?” the Padre asked.
“No. But here’s something. The Libyan. Right in their own backyard. In Tripoli. Now you’ve got to admit, Teheran, then Tripoli, that’s something. That’s one helluva coup. Damn, we’re good.”
He tapped the monitor. Then he looked at the President. “It’s what I kept telling you, Mr. President. We’ve got the means. We’ve got the reach. And we can move these people out of the country.”
“Like where?” the President asked.
Harkins smiled.
“The Libyan will be in Morocco in a few hours. The Iranian in Oman. All set up.”
“And they will not be hurt?”
“Those kids will never have it so good. They’ll come out loving the United States.”
“And when they get out will they know who did this to them?”
“Mr. President,” Harkins said. “This is a covert operation. And that’s the way it will remain. I’ve been telling you this for months. We’ve got the greatest underused weapon in the world.”
A braggart, the Padre thought. Yet there was something miraculous in the operation. A man directing a vast operation from a computer.
“Louder,” the President said, pointing to the television screen. “What is that man saying?” Benjy turned up the sound.
“Sonya Rashid, the daughter of the Syrian President, has disappeared.” The commentator’s voice was high-pitched with excitement. His forehead glistened with sweat.
“We have an open line to our Boston correspondent,” the commentator said. “Tell me, Bob, when was Miss Rashid last seen?”
“Last night,” the correspondent said. “She said she was going out to a movie. She loves the movies. She never came back to the dorm.”
“Was she alone?”
“She left alone.”
“Is there any evidence of foul play?”
“None whatsoever. The police are combing the area. For Miss Rashid not to return to her dorm for curfew is very uncharacteristic conduct. The police have concluded, at least unofficially, that she is a missing person.”
“Is it fair to speculate that she is another casualty of what is presently occurring, in other words, connected in some way to the hostage-taking of the President and the disappearance of the Saudi prince?” the correspondent asked.
“I would not want to speculate.”
Then came the usual round of comments as the busy satellite bounced signals around the world. Most agreed that the disappearance of the Saudi prince and the daughter of the President of Syria was, indeed, connected to the current situation. The interviews became repetitive. Voices droned on. The Padre got up and lowered the sound.
“Can’t understand it,” Harkins said. “We should have had it first.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” the President said, obviously enjoying the spectacle of Harkins’ tiny defeat. Then he turned to the Padre. “I don’t want those people hurt. Under any circumstances.”
“Mr. President. This is not a government operation,” Harkins said, glancing toward the Padre. “Not in our purview.”
The Padre stiffened. All were accounted for now, except the boy in Jordan.
“Only a fool will believe that these actions are not connected to us,” the President said.
“That’s the point, Mr. President. They will, however, have to draw their own conclusions,” Harkins said.
The Padre felt no remorse or pity for the hostages they had taken. As always, the Pencil had gotten the job done.
“The FBI is deeply involved,” Harkins said, watching the monitor. “They’ve dispatched investigative teams to Berkeley and Amherst.”
“You think I should talk to Joe Halloran, the head of our FBI?” the President asked tentatively.
“Why?” the Padre asked.
“I would advise that you keep your distance, Mr. President,” Harkins said.
“But they’ll think . . .”
“We want them to think that, Mr. President. It is the heart of the strategy.”
“And say nothing,” the Padre added.
“Then how will they know that these people are hostages?”
The Padre nodded to the television set.
“That will do our work for us.”
“But they will blame us,” the President said with mounting frustration. “Maybe . . .” He paused and bit his lip, as if trying to stop the words from coming. “Maybe we should put out a statement.”
“If asked, we deny. Only deny,” Harkins said.
“But suppose the FBI finds these people, the perpetrators as well? And they trace them back to here.” He shook his head.
“You are looking at the dark side, Mr. President,” the Padre said gently. What else is a politician if not an intriguer, the Padre thought. Of course he knew the consequences. For whose benefit was he making this speech? Perhaps his own.
“I hadn’t bargained for all this,” the President said.
“Yes you did, Mr. President,” the Padre said curtly.
28
DESPITE THE FAMILIAR domesticity of Mrs. Santorelli’s apartment, Robert’s anxiety was corroding his ability to defend himself from within. The separation from Maria and Joey, who represented the very core of his life, had left him dangling and inert. Helplessness and frustration had wreaked havoc on his nervous system.
Only a few weeks ago he had been content in his superiority. After all, wasn’t he privy to the most intimate secrets of an entire civilization, one that had defied the understanding of those who lived through it? The ancient Egyptians had believed that paying obeisance to a sacred animal or sending their dead into tombs with all their possessions would assure them immortality in paradise. If his academic discipline had allowed him to be judgmental by today’s values, he would have called them naive fools.
Lying awake in one of Mrs. Santorelli’s spare bedrooms, tossing and sweating on tumbled sheets, he tried to lift himself out of the contemporary world, push his sense of time forward a few thousand years, then look back with all the investigatory instincts of an archaeologist.
Civilization around the year 2000, he concluded, was technologically superior but morally bankrupt. People killed, maimed, and tortured each other indiscriminately. They worshiped the mechanics of destruction. They threw bombs in airports and bus stations. They took people hostage for obscure reasons. Murder was an honorable tactic in the service of political aspiration. Creatures of that era even showed pictures of murder and suffering as entertainment. If one were to be judgmental, one would conclude that they would have been better off worshiping dogs.
A light knock at the front door alerted him. He might have been dozing. He was never sure. Lifting himself off the damp sheets, he put on his pants and walked barefoot to the doorway, peering along the corridor. All night long he had heard whispered voices. Did these people ever sleep? Even Mrs. Santorelli’s flapping slippers seemed to echo perpetually through the apartment, a sound as ubiquitous as the garlicky smells of her cooking.
He had seen on television pictures of Maria in the cap and gown of her graduation. It was too painful to watch, too heartrending. It merely triggered his imagination, taking his thoughts down dark alleys of speculation. My Maria. My Joey. When he thought of them his body went numb with fright.
It was the Pencil who opened the door. A man entered. He was youngish, grim-faced. He carried a briefcase. Robert knew instantly that he was a stranger. The man followed the Pencil to the dining room. Robert moved cautiously along the corridor. He was sure the st
ranger’s presence had something to do with Maria and Joey, with the President. Perhaps it was part of the negotiation.
When he reached the edge of the dining room he flattened himself against the wall and listened. He heard the tearing of paper. Oddly, there was little conversation between them. It was possible the man was not even sitting down.
“And the Padre, he is all right?” the Pencil asked.
“I am only the courier,” the man said. “But it had to be put in your hands personally.”
“This place is still safe?” the Pencil asked.
“Apparently. Besides, your people seemed to have it well staked out. I was stopped three times.”
“Good,” the Pencil said. There was silence. They might have been shaking hands. Robert remained flattened against the wall as the man turned down the corridor and let himself out the door.
When he had gone, Robert went into the dining room. The Pencil looked up, startled, then quickly settled.
“Only a paper with names from the CIA,” he said.
“So something has begun to happen,” Robert said. He looked intently at the Pencil, who held the paper in his hands. “That then is my business.”
“They are only names.” He seemed oddly hesitant, then handed the paper to Robert. He looked at it, immediately recognizing both names and the references to Berkeley and Amherst. Robert watched as the paper trembled in his hands.
The Pencil shrugged. He would stonewall now, Robert knew. He saw his eyes dart to the telephone.
“If it gets Maria and Joey home, what difference does it make?” the Pencil said.
Incredibly, the Padre had gotten the government to act in tandem with his organization.
“Then there are things you must do,” Robert said. No, he decided, he would not be judgmental. It would be futile. The Padre did, indeed, have an acute understanding of human motivation. As Robert turned to leave the room, he stopped. The Pencil had picked up the phone. He had already dialed one number.
Suddenly Robert spoke. The Pencil’s dialing finger paused in midair.
“Please don’t hurt them,” he said.
The Pencil resumed his dialing.
29
“THEY’VE GONE BERSERK,” Chalmers was saying for the third or fourth time in the last hour. He was giving himself the once-over with a cordless electric razor. He had also changed his shirt three times since coming into the conference room nearly twenty-four hours before.
A number of television sets had been placed strategically around the room. Each passing moment brought a new and startling revelation. To make matters even more bizarre, the networks and the local stations had begun to run commercials again. He’s right, Foreman thought. They have gone berserk. Not just the little group in the White House. The whole country.
With cots brought in by the military, they had set up a kind of dormitory, utilizing various nearby rooms. Foreman had tried to get some rest. The National Security Advisor was not sure whether he had slept or merely floated in some subconscious haze on the murky edge of a nightmare. Concocting scenarios was the literal spine of his expertise. His job was to deal with present realities on the basis of an imagined future. His tools for this enterprise were logic, experience, knowledge, and intuition. Had somebody stolen his tools?
The military had also set up a mess kitchen. A duty roster had been posted outside the room. Since the crisis began, Foreman had been spending most of his time sitting around this table or talking to world leaders. Now, once again, he was reporting on his latest conversations with the Soviet Foreign Minister.
“And what does the President say?” Chalmers asked, nodding his head in the direction of the White House.
Foreman had been in touch with the President a number of times during the day. He had suggested that he speak directly with the Soviet General Secretary.
“Why?” the President had asked.
“To soothe his fears. They are getting more and more nervous, Mr. President. This nuclear thing has them up the wall.”
“Good,” the President had countered. “Teach them not to mess around with those terrorist crackpots.”
“And our own allies. I’ve been in touch with all of them. They’re terrified.”
“Their problem. They’ve never gone along with any of our ideas and suggestions about terrorism. Let them stew.”
“They’ve alerted their forces.”
“Let them,” the President had countered.
“You still do not want to put our forces on full alert,” Foreman said.
“No,” the President had said. “No more saber-rattling for us.” He recalled waiting for the President to complete what seemed to be a half-articulated thought. He didn’t, but, despite the denial, the message was clear. No more paralysis. Only action.
The media was adding fuel to the fire. What he reported to the group was almost simultaneous with the reportage on the tube. Information seemed to be careening forward like a brakeless truck going down a steep incline. It was almost impossible to absorb what was being said.
Khomeini, one of whose grandsons had been kidnapped, had fumed once more about the Great Satan and threatened massive retaliation. The Syrian President offered his own threats, and the Saudis, as always, expressed extreme caution. Qaddafi was ominously silent, as were the Israelis. With the four television sets blaring out their cacophony, it was the Tower of Babel come alive in the twentieth century.
They sat around the table going over the same ground endlessly. At one point Steve Potter, the President’s press secretary, burst into the room.
“Poll results are in,” he said, his face flushed with excitement. “A quickie, really. But the results are phenomenal.”
“Who authorized that?” Chalmers asked.
“The party people. Damned clever of them, too. The networks are also doing them. Gives us a good handle on the situation.”
No one in the room had the temerity to ask the results, although Potter’s face was an excellent barometer.
“Eighty-nine percent approval. Highest in history.”
“Jesus.” Chalmers swallowed any further comment.
“They figure the President knows what he’s doing,” Potter said.
“Politics as usual,” Vic Proctor said.
Nervous politicians would never risk disturbing any calibration that went against an enormously popular act by the President, hostage or not. But didn’t everyone know that the President was acting under duress? Nonsense, the polls indicated. It was the other way around. The President was manipulating the kidnappers. So the world was topsy-turvy, after all, Foreman decided. The country must be out for lunch.
“Might as well send everyone home,” Chalmers said. “The President is in charge.”
As if in response to his remarks, the other networks came on with their poll results. All were remarkably similar.
The system was eating itself from within, Foreman thought.
30
“SO NOW WE ARE international celebrities,” Ahmed said, upending yet another shot glass of scotch and tousling the blond boy’s hair. Maria, an arm thrown around Joey’s shoulders as he nestled at her side, squatted, her back against the wall.
A television set stood on a chair in a corner of the room blaring out, mostly in Arabic, bits and pieces of the number one news story in the world. She watched the panorama of images. The TV screen showed the White House, stock film of the President and his family, interviews with other international figures, with a heavy emphasis on Arab leaders.
Then a still picture of Ahmed flashed on the screen along with the sound of an interview done with him over the telephone in Arabic in which he reiterated his demand for an atomic bomb in return for the daughter and grandson of the Mafiosa boss. This segment was followed once again by a picture of her in her high school yearbook. She had begun to hate the picture.
“You did not seem very happy,” Ahmed said, his tongue thick with drink and laughter.
“I hated to smile then,” M
aria said.
“You look funny, Mommy,” Joey said.
“It’s the braces,” Maria said, trying to maintain a facade of indifference. “I hated them.”
It was ludicrous. The four of them sitting around in this barren place watching television. Yet she was determined not to show them her fear. However her father’s act might be characterized by others—mad, courageous, or cowardly—for her it had a deeper connotation. Out of simple fatherly love, he had sent her a message of hope. She no longer felt completely powerless and alone.
Earlier, under cover of darkness, they had moved them to this present apartment, which, she assumed, was also in one of the teeming nondescript blocks in the heart of West Beirut. From outside she could hear the sounds of a loud and raucous street life.
As before, they chained her and the boy to a pipe. Yet it was not too uncomfortable in their sleeping bags at night, and the food, mostly vegetables, had been, if not of gourmet quality, passable. Oddly, she felt herself adapting to the circumstances. Even Joey seemed to cry less in his sleep.
Apparently the arrangement between her and her captors had reached a certain plateau of understanding. She had even sensed a certain gratitude in herself for being allowed to watch television. Incomprehensible events were unfolding. Was this really about her and Joey, about her father? About this terrible man, Ahmed Safari? Why wasn’t she home with Robert? At times the events depicted seemed like some dream fantasy.
Ahmed took delight in making taunting sallies at the people pictured in the television images, providing a kind of multimedia entertainment system that both fascinated and disgusted her.
Satellites had picked up numerous remotes from all over the world in English as well as other languages, and she was able to follow the events. At first she had been frightened by her father’s action. Yet it did not baffle her. Except for the enormity of the act, it seemed absolutely consistent with his way of life, his motives and methods.
Her father’s love for her had always been obsessive, as it had been for her brothers and her mother. She knew what she and Joey represented to her father. The loss of her mother, hard on the heels of her brothers’ treachery and death, had left a deep hollowness in him, space that only she and Joey could fill.
