We Are Holding the President Hostage (21 page)

"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.

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 stranger'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.

"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.

"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," Maria 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.

Ahmed's admiration for her father's action did not surprise
her. The criminal mind, too, was susceptible to role models, and her father was
made to order. The effect on Ahmed of his sudden ascendancy into the
international limelight was dramatic. His ruthlessness had graduated to
self-importance.

Somehow he had come to believe that his lucky hit was a
product of his own genius. The man was now reveling in his notoriety. American
television commentators, with their penchant for hyperbole, had dubbed him the
most resourceful, cunning, and cruel of all the terrorists, which, as Arab
commentators attested, merely boosted his stock in the Arab world.

"I am the hero of the hour," he had told her.

It was the denouement that worried her. She had tried to
barter herself for Joey's freedom, but that hadn't worked. And she thought
longingly about Robert. There was hardly a word about him on the television.
Undoubtedly, he was frantic.

Ahmed's taunts at the television screen had accelerated
with his drinking. Whenever his name was not mentioned for some period of time,
he would rant and rave.

"They are ignoring me." He would toss her a look
of complicity. "You, as well, my little prizes." Then he would laugh
and toss off another shot of whiskey.

But beneath the mask of arrogance, she could detect a tiny
sliver of uncertainty, barely a crease really, but promising.

There was no telephone in this new hideout. Alert to every
nuance of her captivity, Maria noted that Ahmed had taken elaborate precautions
to keep their whereabouts secret.

They had been shuttled around from one place to another.
She noted, too, that the number of young men around Ahmed had decreased. She
counted only five now, from what had been a high of around a dozen. There was
the uncommon blond boy, Ahmed's obvious favorite, and four scrubby and dour men
in their twenties, all interchangeable look-alikes, with just enough
differences in their dress to tell them apart. One wore a red bandanna around
his neck, another a heavy gold Muslim half-moon. One was balding, and the
fourth wore a carefully trimmed goatee, the only aspect of him that was neat.

One or another of them brought in their food. At some point
in the day, Ahmed had stopped one of the men, the fellow with the red bandanna.
He had whispered something in his ear that she could not hear. They had looked
in her direction for a moment. Ahmed had smiled and the young man had left the
room.

"We will be an international sensation," Ahmed
said, slapping the table. The blond boy giggled.

"You already are," Maria sneered.

"We are talking show business," Ahmed said.
"The three of us." He leered. "The hostage sisters. I have sent
for the equipment."

She grasped where his hints were leading. He would tape
some sort of interview, sell it to the television people, greedy for
information. The idea disgusted her. No. She would not allow herself to be sold
for such purposes.

The boy with the red bandanna returned to the apartment
carrying two large boxes. In one was a television camera, in the other a VCR.
Incredible, she thought, adding a further factor to the reality of her
incarceration. With impunity, they could simply go into a store and buy this
equipment.

They shut off the television set to connect the VCR, then
tested the equipment. With great delight, the blond young man mugged for the
camera, watching gleefully as he appeared on the screen.

"Now," Ahmed said, turning to her, "you must
clean yourself up. You still have some makeup?"

She nodded hesitantly, her gaze alighting on her
pocketbook, which they had let her keep. "You and the boy must look
healthy, smiling, a visitor enjoying our hospitality."

"You'll never get away with it," she said, unable
to raise her voice above a whisper.

"A little gasoline here." He touched Joey's ear.
"A dab here. Believe me, one more child's dead body would make little
difference in this lovely country."

The trembling in her body increased. Her breath came in
short gasps.

"You can't." Her rage finally defeated her and
tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks.

He reached out and pulled her up roughly. He seemed to have
sobered completely. She wanted to lash out at him, gouge out his eyes. The boy
tried to move beside her. Ahmed restrained him.

"Leave the boy here," Ahmed said. The boy
struggled to be released. He patted the boy's head while he held him securely
in an iron grip. "Just get ready."

Her legs shook so hard, she could barely move. With his
freed hand he grabbed her under the elbow and directed her toward the bathroom.

"If you hurt him..." she began. His response was
to thrust her forward. He threw her pocketbook after her.

"A good job, Maria," he ordered, still holding
the boy in his grip. The boy did not make it easy for him, squirming like an
eel, until the grip tightened and he was quiet. Yet he did not cry. For that
she was grateful.

In the mirror, she saw her ashen face. Her hair was
unkempt. She looked awful. Nevertheless, she made an attempt to put herself in
order. He was too ruthless, too unmerciful, quite capable of carrying out any
threats to hurt Joey. There was nothing to do but surrender. Patience, she
urged herself. Play his game. Hurry, Daddy, she cried to herself. Hurry.

She came back into the room. They had set up a kind of
makeshift set, two chairs, catty-corner. Joey, frightened and sad, looking like
a whipped puppy, sat on the floor.

"You must tell him to be a good little boy, to look
smiling into the camera."

"Please," she whispered. "I promise you. He
will be a good boy."

She bent over the boy, embraced him and kissed him. He was
shivering. "It's all right, sweets. All right."

"Sure, Mommy."

"He is a very mean man," she whispered. "But
we must do as he says."

"I hate him," Joey said.

"You wait. He'll be punished," she told him.

"Yeah. Grandpa will get him." She was not sure he
had fully understood the events he had seen on television. His response
surprised her. She smiled and hugged him.

"No question about that, sweets. No question at
all."

The boy clung to her neck and she kissed his face.

"Enough," Ahmed called. "We're ready."

Like an automaton, she obeyed his instructions to the
letter. She sat on the chair opposite him and composed herself. Anything, she
thought. I will say anything. Joey climbed on her lap. "Smile," she
whispered. The boy obediently arranged his features to resemble a smile. The
room was quiet now. They had turned off the television set. The blond boy stood
behind the camera.

"And after, we will go on a nice little trip."

So he was running again, she thought. What did that mean? She
was still too overwrought to analyze it.

"Now, my little prizes, let us start the
interview," Ahmed said, nodding toward the blond boy. She heard the low
moan of the camera's mechanism as he switched it on.

"Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?" Ahmed
asked.

She looked at him and forced a smile. But she could not
stop her lips from trembling.

"Stop," Ahmed said, gentle now, like a director
imposing his charm to extract a good performance from one of his actors.
"You must calm down."

"I am calm," she said.

"A broader smile, please."

"I'm doing my best."

He nodded toward the blond boy.

"Again."

The camera mechanism purred, Ahmed smiled broadly into the
lens, then turned toward her.

"Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?"

"Oh yes. It is wonderful—"

"Dammit," Ahmed said. "It sounds
unnatural."

"Too enthusiastic?" she asked innocently. She
felt her courage rising.

"You must seem natural. After all, you are making the
best of a bad situation for yourself. But you understand why this is being done
to you. That is the feeling we must have."

"Of course," she said.

"Now!"

Again the camera purred.

"Are we treating you well, Mrs. Michaels?"

But before she could begin, another boy, a surly type, the
one with the gold half-moon around his neck, rushed into the room. His dark
eyes seemed to mirror his fear. He was nervous and upset. He conversed with
Ahmed in brief bursts of Arabic. Ahmed stood up, grabbed a handful of the boy's
shirt, and pulled him menacingly toward him. The boy rose on his toes and
pleaded. Then Ahmed let him go and paced the room. He was angry. Beads of sweat
rolled down his cheeks. It was obvious to Maria that the boy had brought him
news that did not please him. She held Joey closer and patted his arm.

"Everything will be fine, sweets," she whispered.
"We mustn't let him frighten us." Joey's response was to press his
body closer to her.

The blond boy had put down the camera and picked up his
automatic weapon, pointing it menacingly at Maria and the boy. Maria forced
herself not to react. They had done this to her before. A few moments more
pacing and Ahmed walked toward the television and flicked the switch. He seemed
to have forgotten her presence.

Again the images crowded into the room as the
information-gathering juggernaut hopped around the world at a dizzying pace.
There was Ahmed's picture flashed across the screen, but one look at him told
her that he was not pleased. A grim commentator stood in front of a backdrop
that appeared to be an Arab city street. Children peeked into the camera behind
him.

"The linkage has now come full circle. The son of
Ahmed Safari, the man identified as the kidnapper of Maria and Joseph Michaels,
daughter and grandson of the man who holds the President of the United States
hostage, has vanished from—" the man turned and pointed with his head
"—this home in Amman. There are no witnesses. Speculation centers on the
obvious."

Ahmed banged the top of the television set. The screen
cracked and went blank. "Liars, Bastards. A sick boy." He pointed his
finger at the blank screen. "You touch one hair. You will see what I can
do." He was livid with rage.

"We must not be afraid," she whispered to her
son. He nodded, showing that he understood.

It took some time for Ahmed to get himself under control.
Finally he acknowledged her presence again.

"They touch him, you are a dead woman," he said.

"They have already touched him," Maria whispered,
studying his reactions, forcing her mind to divorce itself from emotion. They
had found his Achilles' heel.