H.M.S. Unseen (47 page)

Inside the mansion the two admirals retired to a high summery room that faced out directly to the river and the distant Maryland shore. It was a familiar room to Arnold Morgan, and he settled himself into a wide, comfortable armchair expensively upholstered in a rose-patterned chintz, the unmistakable touch of the urbane Grace Dunsmore.

MAP

Admiral Dunsmore spoke first. “Well, Arnold. As the brains behind this operation, what do you think? Do we shoot him, jail him, or hire him?”

“Hire him…”

“Right. Let’s go and find some lunch now we’ve got that over with.”

They both laughed, still avoiding the magnitude of the subject. “Well, what did he say?” finally asked Admiral Dunsmore.

“As you and I both feared, the question of a trial is a total disaster area. He told me he would plead Not Guilty, drag the trial out, and reveal everything he knows to our disadvantage. He would deny ever having been in anyone’s navy and leave it to us to get the Iraqis to turn evidence against him.”

“Fat chance.”

“Which he knows as well as we do. He also added that he is now certain, thanks to his own information, that we have demolished a submarine illegally in international waters, drowned 50 people, and generally behaved like wild men before the world community.”

“In a sense the bastard’s right about that as well.”

“Only in a sense…and he also says we won’t get a scrap of help from the Israelis, who will be unwilling to be made to look ridiculous, because of him, for the biggest part of twenty years.”

“He’s got that right, too. Christ, you sure it
is
him?”

“Of course. Laura MacLean, remember?”

“Yes. Just kidding. Of course we have his passport. British, right? With a couple of South African stamps from Johannesburg Airport?”

“Yup. That’s it. And he says he’ll just leave it to us to prove who he really is and what he’s done. He also said he’ll say we tortured him to get an admission.”

“Which confirms what we both think. He’s a clever little bastard, and a trial is out of the question, correct?”

“Correct. It would be a huge embarrassment to the government and cause an uproar in the airline industry. The liberal media would have the best time since Watergate, bringing down this excellent administration.”

“Anyway, Arnold, we could just find him guilty ourselves and…er…dispense with him. It seems absurd staging some kind of a trial in order to seek revenge, with his life, against so many thousands of others. It’s not even a hundredth of the way toward a reasonable deal.”

“Absolutely. Which brings us to the real issue. Do we unload him, right now, and act as if nothing’s happened? Before you answer, I must tell you he has written out his whole story, the
Jefferson,
the aircraft, the submarine, and all, and has instructed his Swiss bank to release it to the media should he not report in every six weeks. God knows what else he has up his sleeve, but my instinct tells me to kill him would be damned nearly as bad as putting him on trial.”

“Sounds like it, Arnie. Except it might be worse.”

“Which brings us to the much more difficult, but more fruitful course of ‘running’ him, using him for our own purposes?”

“Well…‘running’ him is certainly the most appealing if you don’t care about your career. As I don’t, since I’m retiring at the end of this President’s tenure. You don’t, because you’re probably unsackable, and, anyway, you and Kathy have much to look forward to in retirement…with
your
pensions.”

“I don’t think the President cares either. He’s halfway through his second term…so I suppose we should all act in the best interest of the country, and if it goes wrong…we just take it on the chin and retire gracefully from the fray.

“That means we ‘run’ him,” said Arnold Morgan. “And that’s a hell of a challenge. He actually said this morning he could show us how to get Iraq out of our hair for good. Christ, he’d be useful, with all of our dealings in the Middle East. And he’s not expensive, relatively. And he says he wants to stay here. Nowhere else to go.”

“The danger is, of course, he might still be working for Iraq.”

“I know. And I did bring that subject up. And his reply was quite strange. He said he would prove to us conclusively that Iraq plainly tried to kill him. He also said that if he failed to prove it, he was quite prepared to take cyanide.”

“Hmmmm. If we were dealing with a normal person, that’d be impressive. But with Ben Adnam, there’s almost always going to be more to it than meets the eye….”

“I know. I’m just trying to think what that might be. All the evidence I have tells me I am wasting my time, which, paradoxically, is why I want him on our team.”

Lunch passed swiftly, as the two American admirals wrestled with the problem of the captive terrorist a dozen miles away. By the time they had worked their way through ham and cheese omelets and salad, they had agreed that Ben Adnam must live, for the moment. But a new problem emerged. Who, eventually, would ‘run’ the ex–Israeli submarine commander on a day-to-day basis? “Aside from the fact he needs a rock-solid Navy background, whoever it is has to be as clever as Adnam.”

“Maybe impossible. I shouldn’t think his Teacher would make himself available. But he’d do fine.”

“How about his Teacher’s son-in-law?”

“Bill? Can’t see that happening. He’s got that cattle operation to run, and he’s quite recently married. I shouldn’t think he’d want to up sticks and move to Washington. And Laura seems very happy out there in the wide-open spaces.”

“I know. Think he might do it, say for six months, while we get ourselves organized with a permanent guy?”

“Well…Arnold, the first six months will probably be the most difficult. I don’t think Bill would consider it, but you never know. I guess he might.”

“Okay. Let’s get back to the factory and see if the President has any strong views. If he does, this could become strictly academic. After we finish there, we’ll make a new plan.”

“Done.”

“Hey, Scott, thank Grace for a delicious lunch, will you? I caught a glimpse of her, but she looked like she was leaving.”

“She was. So are we. I’ll ride with you. My car’s meeting me at the White House.”

At 1600 precisely, Admirals Morgan and Dunsmore presented themselves to the President of the United States. He awaited them in the Oval Office and rose to greet them with his usual affability.

“Good to see you both. Thanks for coming. How’s our terrorist?”

“He’s not bad, sir,” said Arnold Morgan. “A bit awkward, as you’d expect, but nothing we can’t deal with.”

“Good. Now, I believe we are going to touch base on what to do with him?”

“Yessir. And it’s a very touchy subject. And I am not sure how deeply you want to be involved. If you wish, you can, of course, lay down the law right away. But I would not really advise that. And I wonder whether you might not consider whether the President actually needs to be involved in the nitty-gritty of our decisions with some foreign terrorist…all I’m saying, sir, is that you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“I hear you, Arnold. And I thank you for your consideration. Could you give me a very private rundown on the situation right now?”

“Scott’s damned good at that, sir. When I arrived at his house this morning, he just said, ‘Right. Are you gonna shoot him, jail him, or hire him?’”

The President chuckled. “That’s why he’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He never gets involved in trivia.”

“Exactly, sir. Anyway, the most complicated area is the prospect of a trial for either crimes against the U.S. or crimes against humanity. In our opinion, it is a political nightmare, a nowin situation, and anyway, Adnam told me he will deny everything…he did not think Iraq would be anxious to give evidence on our behalf.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” said the Chief Executive. “Forget a trial. It would take a year, and it would drive everyone mad. It would probably drive me out of office. The left-wing media would kill us, especially if the beans somehow got spilled about the
Jefferson.”

“Exactly, sir. It’s a total nonstarter. Especially since no one really knows what happened to either the carrier or the civilian airliners. And no one in this country knows Ben even exists. Just us, and our most trusted people.”

“Which means his removal would be extremely simple, hmmmm? No one would ever know anything.”

“It’s not quite that simple sir. He seems to have made quite elaborate arrangements for substantive disclosures as to our activities in the event of his sudden disappearance and failure to communicate. The hard way is the only way we’d ever find out for real. So, making him disappear might ultimately prove as embarrassing as putting him on public trial.

“We already believe he is a mine of information. We also know, to our considerable cost, that he has a brilliant mind. And I would dearly like to use him. He could change our lives in the Middle East.”

“I see. He seems to have thought it through, doesn’t he? The question is, do I need to know, or care, if you decide to remove him, or if you decide to use him.”

“I think not, sir,” said Admiral Dunsmore. “Let’s just suppose for the moment we have the man who hit the
Jefferson.
My own view is that it is unnecessary for you to be involved,
unless
we decide to go to trial,
or
if we decide to take any military action, in revenge, against another nation, based on information provided by Adnam. I don’t think we could avoid your involvement then.”

“I understand, Scott. And I realize you two do not want to have him executed privately. Rightly. Quite apart from the political consequences of postmortem exposure, it might be a waste of a major asset. Not to mention a purely futile act of revenge on our part. The crimes committed were so monstrous, there could be no proportionality anyway. Not with one man’s life. Therefore, my conclusion must be that I need not be involved at this stage. I will leave the fate of the mysterious Commander Adnam to the offices of my military commanders. But you will inform me, Arnold, should we consider a strike against anyone.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“One further point, before you go. Are we now certain that the airliners were knocked down by Iraq?”

“Yessir. Yes we are.”

“I would personally consider it very remiss of us if we failed to make known our extreme displeasure to that pariah of a government.”

“Understood, sir. I will keep you informed.”

The two admirals rose and said good-bye to the President, returning down the long corridors to Arnold Morgan’s office. Kathy O’Brien was at her post, on the telephone, and offered just a small wave of greeting as they arrived. “Coffee,” murmured her boss. “And hold all phone calls for a half hour.”

Inside his office, the admiral took off his coat, and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ! Did you hear that last remark?”

“I sure did, Arnold. He wants us to hit Iraq, obviously not publicly, but it sounded like he expected something impressive.”

“Fortuitous, huh? We just happen to have the very man we need to guide us through those tricky waters.”

“Isn’t it, though? Benjamin, old buddy, I think you just got yourself a job.”

“He might have, Scott. But I’m not sure what exactly he meant us to do. Bomb Baghdad? Take out a few streets? Knock down some missile sites in the desert? Hit their main seaport? Maybe a military airfield? A few oil wells? What do you think?”

“I’m not sure, but I presume he’s looking for something like their strikes against us. Too awful to be admitted, too much of a loss of face. And too secret for anyone to know
quite
who was responsible.”

“Guess so. But it’s a tall order.”

“No doubt, Arnold. But it was very Presidential. He is a man who just hates to see this country humiliated in any way whatsoever. And no one gets away with it. Not indefinitely.”

“Iraq got away with the
Jefferson.”

“
Not anymore. Not by the sound of things.”

“We better start thinking about plans. It just seems overwhelming at the minute. I’m not sure where to start…but this is military, Scott, and you’re the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs…I think this ball’s in your court…and I’m waiting for your creative input.”

“You think I’m a film director? Well, I’m not. Basically I’m an organizer. And this is what I propose. I think we have to get someone in here who’s going to work with Adnam on an initial plan, subject to your striking a deal, and reminding him of his words about Iraq.”

“Right. Who?”

“Bill Baldridge. For the following reasons. He’s in deep already. He’s damned smart. He knows Adnam, and you and he work very well together. He and Laura would certainly come to Washington for a few days if we make it quick and urgent. She could come and stay here with Grace, if necessary. Or else we’ll put ’em in a hotel. That way the three of you can try and thrash something out. We’ll pay Bill a fee; and if the mission is successful, it may just give us the opening to persuade him to ‘run’ Adnam for another six months.”

“Can’t fault any of that. Who’s gonna call Bill, you?”