We Are Holding the President Hostage (14 page)

The room filled with silence.

"Problem is..." Foreman said. The elusive notion
hiding in his mind suddenly burst into his consciousness along with the words
of the Russian: They have a great prize. They could demand the impossible.
"They will up the ante," Foreman finished.

"In the end, we'll have to meet whatever they
ask," Halloran said.

"And if not?" Foreman asked. Awful scenarios were
dancing in his head. One in particular. It was definitely the wrong time to put
it into words.

"Then you've got, among others, one very dead
president up there," Halloran said solemnly.

EVERY MAN WAS GIVEN a moment, Jack Harkins believed. It
could only be defined as a lightning bolt. If the tip of the bolt reached out
and touched you, then you were obliged to slip through the seam of the flash
into the void of destiny. Jack Harkins was certain that such a moment had
arrived.

As he walked up the winding stairway of the White House to
the central hall, he felt the adrenaline of anticipation. All the vectors of
his life were converging, the Phi Beta Kappa key, the four athletic letters,
the six-year doctorate in political science, his slog through the maze of
government service. If this new phase was life-threatening, so be it. It added
all the more excitement to the joy and pleasure of it.

Harkins walked through a gauntlet of armed men. Another
line ranged itself across the upstairs width of the central hall. The men wore
helmets and battle gear, an incongruous form of dress in the elegant hallway.
Between this line and the closed door of the west sitting room was a kind of
no-man's-land.

Moments before, the CIA Director had been in the basement
command post at the Executive Office Building, where the Secretary of State had
briefed him on the situation. The man had been apologetic, weary, but not vague
by choice. It was, Harkins thought, an astonishing can of worms.

"You realize the risk you are taking," the
Secretary of State said gloomily.

"I think you might be exaggerating. They need contact
with the outside. That's essential to them."

Without hesitating, Harkins walked through the line of men,
across the no-man's-land to the closed west-sitting-room entrance. He looked
back at the faces of the tense men across the hall, smiled, then rapped on the
door. He waited, rapped again.

He heard movement within. The door slid open slowly. Just a
sliver at first. He saw an eye staring at him. The door opened farther. He
sensed the tension rise behind him, imagined movement, the leveling of guns.
The door opened farther. Hands came out and scooped him in. He felt himself
embraced by the arms of a big man. Another moved furniture into place behind
the closed door.

Locked in position, he waited until the job was completed.
Then the man who had moved the furniture, an older man, turned directly toward
him. A calm face, he thought, stubbled, with alert eyes, which studied him. He
knew at once it was the Padre referred to in his briefing.

"If you'll follow me, Mr. Harkins," the man said.
He waited while the bigger man, behind him, frisked him thoroughly.

"Don't be silly," he said.

There was no response. He followed the older man into the
dining room. The setting was serene, peculiar. The President sat at one end of
the table, Mrs. Bernard at the other. They looked at him with expressions that
might have been characterized as wry amusement.

Two men sat at either side of the table. It took him a few
seconds more to see the attachments of cord. Beyond that, there was little sign
of disarray. What was most bizarre were the waiters' uniforms the men wore.
They somehow clashed with the stark seriousness of the situation.

The man he had followed went toward the wall with the
sideboard, pulled another chair forward, and waved for him to sit down. He did
so. The chandelier above them glistened, its reflection scattered into
thousands of sparkles on the crystal, plates, and silver. The situation did not
even strike him as threatening to the President.

"Sorry about this, Jack. It's definitely not my
idea," the President said.

"Nor mine," the First Lady said.

Harkins shrugged.

"Caused a bit of a stir out there..." the
President said, also looking toward the Padre, who remained silent, listening
to the exchange.

"A bit," Harkins said.

"They know what we have here..." the President
said.

"Apparently," Harkins said.

"Crazy, right?"

"Different," Harkins said.

"You'll find this fellow very polite."

"There's little enough of that," Harkins
responded, looking at the Padre, whose face was impassive.

"You know why we've been taken?" the President
asked.

"Yes. I've been informed."

The Padre rubbed his chin, his eyes vague, as they looked
downward at the table. Then suddenly he lifted his head, fully alert.

"Do you know where my daughter and my grandson are
being kept?"

Harkins looked at the President. There were numerous
questions still to be considered. How forthright must he be? How accurate? When
should evasions begin? Yes, he knew approximately where the woman and child
were being held. Indeed, he knew a lot more than he had ever told the
President.

"Information is very vague," Harkins said,
stalling for time to assemble a strategy.

"But you have some information?"

Harkins nodded.

"He has assets," the President said. The Padre
seemed confused by the word.

"People on the inside," the President explained.
"It's in the computer." Harkins did not like the President's mocking
tone. He wished he would hold his tongue.

"We can hook into this computer here?" the Padre
asked.

"Yes." No point in evading that answer, Harkins
thought. The man might be a rough diamond on the outside, but he was no fool.
He must be prepared to accept that fact as an axiom.

Harkins' attention became acute, his mind's antenna tuned
to its most sensitive frequency. As always, he had trained himself to confront
every man without preconditions. His mind would eventually categorize him, but
at the beginning he started with a clean slate. Although this man called Padre
came packaged in a carton of media clichés, the wrapping seemed inappropriate.
Perhaps his strategy was to present himself as scrupulously unimpressive, badly
groomed, world-weary.

Yet this man could not be evaluated in a vacuum. He was,
after all, holding hostage the President of the United States in the White
House. The method of entry was not simply a lucky guess. Beating the security
machine was the stock-in-trade of men who earned their living going into places
where they did not belong. Everything and everyone was vulnerable. Rule one of
the spook game. But the actual hostage-taking required both inspired loyalty
and, in the case of the caterer, pinpointed intimidation. For that kind of
intimidation, history was important and had to be respected.

"Who are the people who have taken them?" the
Padre asked.

"A radical Arab group," he answered. There were
so many he had eschewed committing them to memory.

"Is there someone in charge of this group?"

Harkins saw a crossroad ahead. He took the one that would
make it simple, cut and dried.

"Yes."

"And you know who he is?"

"Yes."

The Padre prodded, paused, then began again.

"Where does the money come from?"

Harkins hadn't expected that question. It threw him off for
a moment. He hesitated, something he had not intended to do.

"The money," the Padre prodded.

Harkins backtracked to the crossroad. The explanation
defied simplicity.

"We are dealing here with the byzantine ways of Middle
East politics. I guess you could begin at the beginning. There is a kind of
blackmail in this. The conservative states—"

"Please," the Padre said. "I have no
interest in the history of these things."

Harkins felt at a disadvantage. He was annoyed with
himself. He looked helplessly at the President, who wore a thin sardonic smile,
as if he were enjoying the proceedings.

"Well, for one, the Saudis. They pay a kind of ransom
to these people. The Iranians. The Libyans. Those are the principal
bankers." Harkins paused long enough to see if he had the Padre's
attention, confirmed it, then slogged on.

"But even that does not explain everything. These
people have emissaries who meet with each other. They plot and plan. And they
are united, allegedly, in one public idea. Their hatred of Israel. But to many
of them, the existence of Israel is merely the fuel that drives the engine.
Each has diverse goals. And there are others who try to get into the fray for
their own ends. The Druse, the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Maronite Christians,
their splinter groups, and the splinter groups of the splinter groups. And the
Western powers and the Soviets and profiteers. It is a smorgasbord of competing
interests. Then there are the Syrians who hide behind their own sinister facade
of respectability. I'm sorry. I'm compressing it as best I can."

"So you think, those countries you mentioned, they are
the money people?"

"Yes." Futile to go beyond that explanation,
Harkins thought. The man went right for the jugular. His logic was beginning to
emerge.

"These people on the inside," the Padre said.
"You can reach them?"

He looked at the President. The smile had disappeared. The
man was cutting very close to the famous bone of contention. Harkins felt his
adrenaline surge.

"We have a highly efficient covert action
organization. What you call people on the inside."

"They can get things done?"

"Absolutely." He looked at the President.
"Once set in motion."

"Anywhere in the world?"

"Most places where it counts. Like the Middle
East," Harkins said cautiously. He was sure now he was catching the man's
drift, locking into his mind set.

"You give them orders, they obey?" the Padre
asked.

"That's the general idea," Harkins responded,
pausing. Again he looked at the President, who evaded his eyes. "But in
specific terms you can't set any action in motion without an order to pursue a
covert operation coming directly from the President of the United States."

"I wouldn't get any ideas in that direction," the
President interjected. "Besides, my presidency is a moot point."

"You ordered them to get you this man," the Padre
said calmly. "They did."

"Tell him about the Twenty-fifth Amendment," the
President said, thrusting a thumb in Harkins' direction.

"What is that?" the Padre asked.

"It spells out a method of succession," Harkins
began.

"You should have read it before you began this ...
this absurdity," the President interrupted. "You'd know that there
are provisions for a situation in which I cannot perform my official duties or
functions. Which means I will be replaced, at least temporarily. You may hold
me hostage, of course. Which puts this situation in another category."

It was, Harkins saw, an obvious setback for the Padre. It
could not be glossed over or hidden. He got up from the table and walked around
it, rubbing his chin.

The President turned to Harkins, who addressed the Padre.
"Soon the cabinet will be meeting. Perhaps to pick another man under Section
Four of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. The Vice President is constitutionally next
in line for the presidency. He is also in charge of the committee assessing
this problem. At this moment he is on his way back from the Far East. When he
lands the Cabinet will hold its meeting."

Harkins turned to face the President. Play this ploy
gingerly, he cautioned himself. "Could be that in a few hours Chalmers
will be the President of the United States."

"Chalmers. Pity us all," the President muttered.

"A temporary measure, Mr. President," Harkins
said. He looked at the Padre. "Until this matter is resolved."

"So what you have in your power is a potential
has-been, Mr. Padre," the President said. His tone struck Harkins as a
blend of sarcasm and regret.

The Padre had remained silent for a long time. His thoughts
and desires were, of course, setting the pace. No action could be performed
without his consent. Harkins turned this over in his mind and waited. Was it
possible to break the lock this man had over them? He looked so benign. The
others were thugs, human weapons of the Padre's will.

"What does this mean, official duties?" the Padre
asked, directing his question to the President.

Once again he had come to the heart of the matter. Now
Harkins locked himself into the Padre's wavelength. The President answered it
too eagerly, heading blindly into the trap the Padre had set. Instantly,
Harkins knew the role he had been assigned.

"Be available to function. The Executive department is
a vast bureaucracy. There are decisions to be made," the President said.
"How can I be expected to operate tied to these, this human bomb. You'll
have to admit, it does hamper the decision-making process."

Harkins noted that the President was growing bolder.
"The fact is, you're finished. There's nothing I can do for you. Oh, you
might hold out to trade me for your daughter and grandson. But don't bank on
them playing your game. Our enemies love this situation. They love seeing the
President of the United States in this position."

The President smiled. He enjoyed telescoping the sardonic
message he was about to launch. "If I were you, considering the realities,
I would be better off bargaining for a presidential pardon."

The Padre listened patiently. "You have your mind,
your brains," the Padre said. "You can speak."

The President seemed confused. He turned to Harkins.
"What the hell is he getting at?"

Harkins was having no trouble understanding where the Padre
was going. But he chose to remain silent, let his ideas sink in.

"I have no intention of preventing you from doing your
official duties," the Padre said.

"You're releasing me then?" the President asked.

The Padre ignored the question.

"We have telephones here. People can come." He
pointed to Harkins. "Here is your CIA chief. Anyone you need, we
get."

"One of your fans," Amy said. "He wants you
to stay in office. Better than having Chalmers." She giggled compulsively,
as if confused by her own remark.

"So where am I wrong?" the Padre asked.