We Are Holding the President Hostage (24 page)

"You and I. No question about it."

Foreman took Vashevsky's hand.

"This Chalmers..." he began.

But Foreman had already turned and started back up the
path.

IN THE DINING ROOM, the Padre sat in his creased and now
spotted waiter's uniform, his back to the draperies. His features were
immobile. His beard had become sprouts of gray patches. Sacks of mottled
chicken skin hung below his eyes. He had not slept. The television set was on,
but playing only silent images. The antique clock on the buffet registered the
time. Ahmed Safari's deadline was now only three hours away.

"My wife?" the President asked.

"She is comfortable," the Padre said.
"Carmine has given me reports. She is resting in her dressing room."

The President nodded, annoyed at his sudden feeling of
gratitude. Harkins was still seated in front of his computer terminal. He was
animated now, still plugged in to his covert jungle. When the President had come
into the room, he and the Padre had exchanged their usual conspiratorial
glances. Private transactions that did not include him seemed to pass between
them.

The telephone console on the table had a shut-off switch
for all incoming calls, with the exception of the so-called hot line.
Throughout the crisis it had remained remarkably silent. The Soviets, he knew
through his brief discussions with Foreman, were exceedingly edgy, but
apparently not anxious enough to communicate with him directly. A wise course
for them, he knew. They would not wish to be overtly involved.

He flicked the switch and the incoming buttons lit up
immediately. He looked at the buttons with disinterest. He had no stomach to
talk to anyone. Another fraudulent feather to put in his hat. He no longer
governed. The country was spinning on its own.

He studied the faces of Harkins and the Padre. Lie down
with dogs, he sighed, too filled with self-disgust to finish the homily.
Inserting his hand in his pocket, he felt the thin blade, oddly cold to the
touch. He drew his hand out of his pocket.

"Anything I should know?" he asked.

"Can't find Safari's hideout," Harkins said with
obvious reluctance. "Clever bastard. He knows how to use the rabbit
warrens of West Beirut. Our people are searching for him." He paused.
"So is everybody else."

"And our hostages?" the President asked.

Harkins looked toward the Padre for assistance.

"We have them," the Padre said hoarsely. It was
obvious to him that they were holding something back.

"The Saudis." Harkins coughed, clearing his
throat. It was a blatant attempt to sidetrack the conversation. The President
said nothing, knowing the value of measured silences. He must gather his
concentration.

"They've threatened to pull out all their dollars from
the States, our people in Riyadh have confirmed." Harkins looked toward
the flashing lights of the telephone console. "I expect one of those calls
to be the bearer of the news."

"Can't blame them," the President said pointedly
to the Padre, who remained impassive. "There's a lot more to this than
your own interests, Padre."

"Not for me," the Padre said.

"That's because you're not responsible for the general
welfare and protection of anyone outside your group. The Saudi King has his own
people to worry about, and I've got to think about two hundred and thirty
million Americans," the President said.

"The Syrians are missing in front of the Golan
Heights," Harkins interjected without looking up from his screen.

"Hear that, Padre?" the President said.
"What about the Iranians?"

"All they can mount are hit teams. No big military or
economic threat. They're all tied up with Iraq."

"And the Libyans?"

"They've got planes, guns, and bombs. Not overly
efficient, but from their perspective they might see this action as the straw
that broke their camel's back."

The President looked at the Padre. "You know," he
said, clearing his throat, "you reach a point when your own life means
shit to you."

"I know."

At that moment Amy came into the room, followed by Benjy.
He looked at her and shook his head.

"So you see," the old man said, "everything
one does is in relationship to one's fear of death." The Padre got up from
his chair. He was surprisingly agile for a man who had hardly moved a muscle
for some time. He began pacing the room, then he stopped and looked at Harkins,
"Tell him."

Harkins seemed to tremble. His eyes blinked nervously.

"He's got Safari's son," he said to the
President.

"You let him?"

"I suppose I did," Harkins said. For the first
time since he had met the man Harkins looked shaken.

"How?"

"Friends in Italy."

"That's why you had him delivered there," the
President said.

"I didn't know the boy was that sick." Harkins
protested. "My people were very careful. When they saw he was having an
attack they took him to a hospital in Rome. That's why it took so long for them
to report in. They had a safe house prepared, but they wouldn't chance it.
I—" he looked helplessly at the Padre "—I sent word to his people
where he was."

"Why?"

"He asked me to."

"Gave you an order you couldn't refuse?"

"Sometimes you have to cast your bread upon the
waters."

"You gave no orders, Mr. President. Nor did I,"
Harkins said. So the pattern was revealed. Once again, he had reacted to future
accountability. The President let it pass.

"These postmortems are not important, Mr.
President," the Padre said. "It is out of your hands. This man Safari
must know that we have his son. He must know that we will kill the boy if he
harms my daughter or my grandson."

"Only the boy?" the President asked.

The Padre lowered his eyes but said nothing. He did not
have to.

"It is a devil's bargain," the President said.

"A father's bargain," the Padre whispered.

The President looked at the console's flashing buttons,
then at the television set showing images without sound. He glanced at Amy who
stared uncomprehendingly. As if in self-defense, he picked up the phone and
punched in a button.

"A moment please, Mr. President," an operator's
voice said. He listened briefly to the statical sounds of an empty line.

"Go ahead please, Mr. Halloran."

Halloran! The President was confused. He had expected
Chalmers. Not the head of the FBI.

"Mr. President."

"Yes, Halloran."

The Padre had moved back to the table and sat down. The
telephone conversation echoed over the speaker-phone.

"Are you all right?" Halloran asked, his voice
strained and hoarse.

"Yes," the President answered.

"We have a problem." His voice fell to a whisper.
"I know we're being taped and the speaker-phone is on. But this one is the
hottest potato of all, and frankly I need some direction on this. No one knows
yet. Of course, after this conversation, they'll all know." The man
sighed. "I'm not suggesting a cover-up."

"What the hell are you talking about, Halloran?"

"We think we found the Saudi boy," he blurted.

The President felt a freezing sensation in his stomach. The
implication of Halloran's tone was quite clear. He looked swiftly at the Padre,
who was impassive.

"Where?" the President asked.

"In the front seat of a car in the middle of Union
Square in San Francisco. Body is badly riddled with bullets, barely
recognizable. We have his wallet, all his credit cards, and wads of dough from
the pockets. Nothing was touched. The message seems clear as hell. Just in
case, we've sent for dental records and rushed the body to autopsy."
Halloran had talked fast. Now he hesitated, then spoke again, more slowly.
"Point is, Mr. President, I could try to stonewall it."

The President held down a wave of nausea.

"Stonewall it," the President said vaguely, as if
his mind had not fully absorbed the information. Again he looked at the Padre.
So this was what they had kept hidden. This was the message. Ruthless, devious,
cold-blooded bastards. He sucked in deep breaths. Hold on, he urged himself.

"I could try, Mr. President," Halloran said tentatively.
"After all, the ID is not totally confirmed. And the MO, well it's not
ritual gangland. Usually one bullet in the back of the head. Might use that as
a hook. Flimsy, though. The facts are too obvious. And the damned news people
are crawling all over us. These local cops leak like hell. Mostly, I'm worried
about all the Americans at risk in Saudi Arabia. I thought, even if this is not
in my jurisdiction, I did not want to make the situation worse."

The President did not respond. He looked at the Padre, then
at Harkins. Both showed no expression.

"No cover-ups, Halloran," the President said,
clearing his throat.

"I just thought—"

"The buck stops here," the President said.

"YOU DON'T EAT, YOU GET WEAK," Mrs. Santorelli
scolded. Yet another bowl of pasta had gotten cold on the table in front of
him.

"I'm sorry," Robert said, his attention riveted
to the television set.

"You watch too much TV. Like my Giovanni."

It was incredible how little these momentous events
interested her. He was sure she would simply dismiss what was happening as
"man's work." The fact was that this "man's work" was going
on directly under her nose. Over her telephone lines orders were given that had
a direct impact on the lives of millions of people. It was all so banal. A little
man sitting at an ancient table, using an old-fashioned black dial telephone to
set in motion brutal and illegal activities.

The man who had arrived with a letter earlier that day had
come again late in the evening and given the Pencil another letter. This time
Robert did not press his interest. There was no point in getting information
that would upset him. He would know soon enough.

The television news was nonstop, the speculation endless
and repetitive. But the announcement of the death of the Saudi brought him out
of his chair.

"You've murdered him," Robert shouted at the
Pencil, who was on the phone at the time. The Pencil waved him quiet. He
pictured Maria and Joey meeting the same fate, riddled with bullet holes,
dumped by the roadside like garbage.

"You must calm down, Robert," the Pencil said
gently.

Not a word came out of the White House, except that the
President continued to deny to his top officials that he had anything to do
with these events. More lies. He was on the point of shutting off the set when
another bulletin stopped him.

He turned up the volume. The commentator, with great
excitement, announced that the Syrian, Libyan, and Iranian leaders had jointly
and unilaterally forced the release of all hostages being held with groups with
whom they could hold a dialogue. The language was stilted but the meaning
unmistakable. They had buckled. His heart pounded with joy.

"He's done it," he shouted.

The Pencil, too, showed rare emotion. He rose and came into
the kitchen to watch the television. But the events still did not lure Mrs.
Santorelli, who remained at her stove stirring a pot with a wooden spoon.

The coverage centered now on scenes of hostages being bused
to airports, giving thanks for their release. There was even coverage of men
identified as terrorists shooting their guns in the air. It was bizarre. As a
gesture of acknowledgment, world leaders were now calling for a release of the
new hostages by "whoever was responsible."

Robert let the images flow over his consciousness. His
elation had quickly subsided. He waited for word of Maria and Joey. The
commentators speculated, but no word was forthcoming. Time passed and still no
word came. The waiting was torture. The Pencil went back to his telephone.

"Maybe it wasn't enough," Robert said to the
Pencil.

The Pencil understood, looked at Robert, and nodded.

"We still have the Syrian girl," Robert said. He
was surprised, for he felt no shame.

ABOVE ALL, MARIA TRIED to preserve her sense of time. She
forced herself to note outside noises, lengthening shadows, cooking smells,
even the biological clock of her own body. She was in a dank basement, locked
in a small room with walls of cinder block and a metal door. It was, she knew,
an unfinished building, one of the many in West Beirut, its construction long
ago abandoned.

She pressed her body against Joey. He slept, but it was a
troubled dream-filled sleep. Occasionally he cried out, "Mama," and
she kissed him on the head. "It's all right, sweets. Mama is here."

They had moved three times since yesterday. Or was it
yesterday? Except for the blond boy, the others had vanished. It was her own
euphemism. She had no doubts that Ahmed had killed them. It was only a matter
of time before the blond boy met the same fate. Then her. They had dispensed with
chains.

For food, they had given her stale bread loaves, chocolate
bars, and a canteen of water. At first, in this new place, she had assumed that
they had left her alone and she had pounded on the metal door. It had been
opened by the blond boy, who had put the muzzle of his gun to Joey's head.

The knowledge that Ahmed's boy had been taken from his home
in Jordan had been a surprise. It was impossible to believe that this man, a
killer, had fathered a son. That possibility granted, it was still impossible
to believe that he could be so emotionally moved.

After he had absorbed the shock, he had gone on a rampage,
breaking the television set, pounding the walls with his fist, shouting, and
cursing. Oddly, he had refrained from any violent action against her or Joey.
This omission was a source of hope.

Weeks before, in the comfort of her home, her son playing
on the rug before the television set, her husband sitting in his favorite chair
reading a book, she might have characterized these acts as despicable. Violence
begets violence, she might have said, turning off the set.

Suddenly the metal door opened. Ahmed's figure was
silhouetted against the light from a flickering bulb jerry-rigged on a strand
of wire. Beside him she could make out the outlines of the blond boy. They
walked into the room. She sat up quickly, releasing the boy, who continued to
sleep.

"Again?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

She could not make out his features, but his tone was flat,
tired. She rose from the bare mattress and straightened her clothes. They had
given her a pair of men's jeans, a denim shirt, and a wool sweater. He handed
her a package of material held together by string.

"Put this on," he said.

She looked at it.

"Disguise?"

"Galabia."

He stood over her as she rose. The blond boy next to him
moved. She could hear the click of metal, perhaps the sound of his gun clashing
against the cartridge case around his shoulder. For the first time since her
captivity, she felt, somehow, less intimidated. They needed her to be obedient,
to play her role.

Up to then they had manipulated her by threatening her
child. Above all, she decided, they needed him. Machismo, she decided. The male
disease. Her father, too, would be its victim. She felt more trapped, more
entangled in that idea than in this web of physical captivity.

"Who are we running from?" she asked.

She saw him look toward the boy.

"All sides," he said.

"Why don't you just exchange us for your boy?"

"I don't trust them," he said. His attitude
alarmed her.

"Who is them?" she asked cautiously.

"Your father."

"But look at the lengths to which he has gone. He
wants us back. What could be more obvious." She knew what he meant.
Certain assumptions had already been accepted by both of them. Whatever was
happening, both knew that it was her father's work.

"The Saudi boy is dead," Ahmed said suddenly.

"I'm very sorry about that."

"They are releasing all the others taken hostage by
our people."

"So there it is. It's all over. Just release us and
they'll release your boy."

"You don't understand," Ahmed sighed. He tapped
his forehead. "The mentality."

"Considering my blood lines, I wouldn't be so
sure."

"A man like your father will want to leave his mark.
He will extract vengeance. It is his nature."

"Yours, too," she said.

"Everything must be paid for."

"What are you saying?"

"These Syrians and Libyans. They are demanding all
hostages be released. But they are secretly promising that things will start
again as soon as their people are sent home. Nothing will change with the
others as well. They have offered me all kinds of money, all kinds of
bribes."

"Well then, take them, for crying out loud, and let us
go."

"First, I must get my boy." His voice quivered
with emotion. "It is the only thing of real value I have."

"Put me in touch with my father. I'm sure it could be
arranged. I will make him promise. He will also provide money, as much as you
need for a lifetime."

"I won't believe him."

"I'm his daughter. He won't lie to me."

"I will not believe any promises made to women."

She turned away from him with disgust. She began, with slow
deliberation, to put on the black galabia while her mind groped back and forth
in time, searching for a way out.

"The veil, too," he said, watching her.

"Ridiculous," she said, holding the veil in front
of her, trying to make sense of how it was to be worn. By then Joey had
awakened and stood up. He was watching them with fear and curiosity. However
things turned out, his scars would be deep and lasting.

"We have a little costume for the boy as well,"
Ahmed said, signaling to his companion, who produced a small package from under
his arm. Ahmed took off the wrappings. It was striped pajamas and a Kaffiyen,
the Arab headdress. He started to reach out for the boy.

"No," she cried. "Don't touch him."

Ahmed hesitated, glared at her, then stepped back. He
tossed the package on the floor. Something in his gesture suggested the thread
of an idea. For the moment she put aside the veil and dressed the boy.

"Why do I have to wear this, Mommy?" Joey asked.

"It's a new kind of game," she said. "A
masquerade."

"I don't want to play." Joey pouted.

"Neither do I, sweets," Maria said. She stopped
dressing him and gripped him by his thin, bony shoulders. "You've been the
bravest most wonderful boy a mother could ask for." Her eyes misted and she
made no effort to hide them from her son. A tear rolled over her eyelid. His
little hand reached out and touched it.

"You mustn't cry, Mommy," Joey said.
"Remember what you said."

"Not to cry," Maria said with effort. Her lip
trembled. She nodded and tried to smile. "Damned right," she said,
brushing away her tears. "We won't show them."

"No we won't, Mommy," the boy said emphatically,
with a tone that belied his years. The experience had aged him. She gathered
him in her arms and crushed him against her breast.

"I love you, my dear little boy."

"And I love you, Mommy."

"We must leave immediately," Ahmed said.

"It's gotten out of hand, hasn't it?" she asked,
looking up at him. He did not answer.

She finished dressing him. "There," she said.
"You look like a little Arab boy." Then she turned to her captor.

"Suppose I don't cooperate?" she asked
cautiously. It was, she realized, a carefully measured speculation of defiance.
He must know that she was testing the waters.

"Believe me..." he began, but he did not finish
the sentence, leaving her to interpret. He glanced toward his blond boy, then
back at her. "Death means nothing to me," he said. "I have lived
with it all my life."

In the next moment time lost all meaning. A minisecond or a
lifetime. It played out simultaneously before her eyes and in her mind in very
slow motion. She saw the muzzle of the gun move, like the baton of an orchestra
leader, pointing suddenly downward, then, like an unexpected drumroll, it
tapped out a fiery message. Color and sound overwhelmed the semidarkness, a
surreal sight as the blond boy's head disappeared in the sparkling shower of
light.