The Negotiator (15 page)

S.O. Department has thirteen branches, One through Fourteen, excluding Five, which, for no known reason, does not exist. Among the thirteen are the Covert Squad, Serious Crimes Squad, Flying Squad, Fraud Squad, and Regional Crimes Squad. And the Special Branch (counterintelligence), the Criminal Intelligence Branch (S.O. 11), and the Anti-Terrorist Branch (S.O. 13).

The man designated by Sir Peter Imbert to represent the Met. on the COBRA committee was the Deputy Assistant Commissioner, S.O. Department, Nigel Cramer. Cramer would report in two directions: upward, to his Assistant Commissioner and the Commissioner himself; sideways, to the COBRA committee. Toward him would flow the input from the official investigating officer, the I.O., who in turn would be using all the branches and squads of the department, as appropriate.

It takes a political decision to superimpose the Met. on a provincial force, but the Prime Minister had already taken that decision, justified by the suspicion that Simon Cormack might well by now be out of the Thames Valley area; and Sir Harry Marriott had just informed the Chief Constable of that decision. Cramer’s men were already on the outskirts of Oxford.

There were two non-British invited to sit with the COBRA. One was Patrick Seymour, the FBI man at the American embassy; the other was Lou Collins, the London-based liaison officer of the CIA. Their inclusion was more than just courtesy; they were there so they could keep their own organizations aware of the level of effort being put in at London to solve the outrage, and maybe to contribute any nuggets their own people might unearth.

Sir Harry opened the meeting with a brief report of what was known so far. The abduction was just three hours old. At this point he felt it necessary to make two assumptions. One was that Simon Cormack had been driven away from Shotover Plain and was by now sequestered in a secret place; the second was that the perpetrators were terrorists of some kind who had not yet made any form of contact with the authorities.

The man from Secret Intelligence volunteered that his people were trying to contact a variety of penetration agents inside known European terrorist groups in an attempt to identify the group behind the snatch. It would take some days.

“These penetration agents lead very dangerous lives,” he added. “We can’t just ring them up and ask for Jimmy. Covert meetings will take place in various places over the next week to see if we can get a lead.”

The Security Service man added that his department was doing the same with home-grown groups who might be involved, or know something. He doubted that the perpetrators were local. Apart from the I.R.A. and the INLA—both Irish—the British Isles had its fair share of weirdos, but the level of ruthless professionalism shown at Shotover Plain seemed to exclude the usual noisy malcontents. Still, his own penetration agents would also be activated.

Nigel Cramer reported that the first clues were likely to come from forensic examination or a chance witness not yet interviewed.

“We know the van used,” he said. “A green-painted, far-from-new Ford Transit, bearing on both sides the familiar logo—in Oxfordshire—of the Barlow fruit company. It was seen heading east through Wheatley, away from the scene of the crime, about five minutes after the attack. And it was not a Barlow van—that is confirmed. The witness did not note the registration number. Obviously, a major search is on for anyone else who saw that van, its direction of travel, or the men in the front seat. Apparently there were two—just vague shadows behind the glass—but the milkman believes one had a beard.

“On forensics, we have a car jack, perfect tire prints from the van—the Thames Valley people established exactly where it stood—and a collection of spent brass casings, apparently from a submachine carbine. They are going to the Army experts at Fort Halstead. Ditto the slugs when they come out of the bodies of the two Secret Service men and Sergeant Dunn of the Oxford Special Branch. Fort Halstead will tell us exactly, but at first glance they look like Warsaw Pact ordnance. Almost every European terrorist group except the I.R.A. uses East Bloc weaponry.

“The forensic people at Oxford are good, but I’m still bringing every piece of evidence back to our own labs at Fulham. Thames Valley will continue to look for witnesses.

“So, gentlemen, we have four lines of enquiry. The getaway van, witnesses at or near the scene, the evidence they left behind, and—another for the Thames Valley people—a search for anyone seen observing the house off the Woodstock Road. Apparently”—he glanced at the two Americans—“Simon Cormack made the same run over the same ground each morning at the same hour for several days.”

At that point the phone rang. It was for Cramer. He took the call, asked several questions, listened for some minutes, then came back to the table.

“I’ve appointed Commander Peter Williams, head of S.O. 13, the Anti-Terrorist Branch, the official investigating officer. That was he. We think we have the van.”

The owner of Whitehill Farm, close to Fox Covert on the Islip road, had called the fire brigade at 8:10 after seeing smoke and flames rising from a near-derelict timber barn he owned. It was situated in a meadow close to the road but five hundred yards from his farmhouse and he seldom visited it. The Oxford Fire Brigade had responded, but too late to save the barn. The farmer had been standing helplessly by and had watched the flames consume the timber structure, bringing down first the roof and then the walls.

As the firemen were damping down the debris, they observed what appeared to be the gutted wreck of a van underneath the charred timbers. That was at 8:41. The farmer was adamant there had not been a vehicle stored in the barn. Fearing there might have been people—gypsies, tinkers, even campers—inside the van, the firemen stayed on to pull the timbers away. They peered inside the van when they could get near to it, but saw no evidence of bodies. But it was definitely the wreck of a Ford Transit.

On returning to the Brigade headquarters, a smart leading officer heard on the radio that the Thames Valley Police were looking for a Transit, believed to have participated in “an offense involving firearms” earlier that morning. He had rung Kidlington.

“I’m afraid it’s gutted,” said Cramer. “Tires probably burnt out, fingerprints erased. Still, engine block and chassis numbers will not be affected. My Vehicles Section people are on their way. If there’s anything—and I do mean anything—left, we’ll get it.”

Vehicles Section at Scotland Yard comes under the Serious Crimes Squad, part of S.O. Department.

The COBRA stayed in session, but some of its leading participants left to get on with other matters, handing over to subordinates who would report if there was a break. The chair was taken by a junior Minister from the Home Office.

In a perfect world, which it never is, Nigel Cramer would have preferred to keep the press out of things, for a while at least. By 11:00
A.M
. Clive Empson of the
Oxford Mail
was at Kidlington asking about reports of a shooting and killing on Shotover Plain just about sunrise. Three things then surprised him. One was that he was soon taken to a detective chief superintendent, who asked him where he had got this report. He refused to say. The second was that there was an air of genuine fear among the junior officers at the Thames Valley Police headquarters. The third was that he was given no help at all. For a double shooting—the print technician’s wife had seen only two bodies—the police would normally be asking for press cooperation and issuing a statement, not to mention holding a press conference.

Driving back to Oxford, Empson mulled things over. A “natural causes” would go to the city morgue. But a shooting would mean the more sophisticated facilities of the Radcliffe Infirmary. By chance he was having a rather agreeable affair with a nurse at the Radcliffe; she was not in the “bodies” section, but she might know someone who was.

By the lunch hour he had been told there was a big flap going on at the Radcliffe. There were three bodies in the morgue; two were apparently American and one was a British policeman. There was a forensic pathologist all the way from London, and someone from the American embassy. That puzzled him.

Servicemen from nearby Upper Heyford base would bring uniformed USAF to the Infirmary; American tourists on a slab might bring someone from the embassy; but why would Kidlington not say so? He thought of Simon Cormack, widely known to be a student these past nine months, and went to Balliol College. Here he met a pretty Welsh student called Jenny.

She confirmed that Simon Cormack had not come to tutorials that day but took it lightly. He was probably knocking himself out with all that cross-country running. Running? “Yes, he’s the main hope to beat Cambridge in December. Goes for brutal training runs every morning. Usually on Shotover Plain.”

Clive Empson thought he had been kicked in the belly. Accustomed to the idea of spending his life covering affairs for the
Oxford Mail
, he suddenly saw the bright lights of Fleet Street, London, beckoning. He almost got it right, but he assumed Simon Cormack had been shot. That was the report he filed to a major London newspaper in the late afternoon. It had the effect of forcing the government to make a statement.

Washington insiders will sometimes, in complete privacy, admit to British friends that they would give their right arms for the British governmental system.

The British system is fairly simple. The Queen is the head of state and she stays in place. The head of government is the Prime Minister, who is always the leader of the party that wins the general election. This has two advantages. The nation’s chief executive cannot be at loggerheads with a majority from the opposing political party in Parliament (which facilitates necessary, though not always popular, legislation) and the incoming Prime Minister after an election victory is almost always a skilled and experienced politician at the national level, and probably a former Cabinet Minister in a previous administration. The experience, the know-how, the awareness of how things happen and how to make them happen, are always there.

In London there is a third advantage. Behind the politicians stands an array of senior civil servants who probably served the previous administration, the one before that, and the one before that. With a hundred years of experience at the top between a dozen of them, these “mandarins” are of vital help to the new winners. They know what happened last time and why; they keep the records; they know where the land mines are situated.

In Washington the outgoing incumbent takes almost everything with him—the experience, the advisers, and the records—or, at any rate, those that some congenial colonel has not shredded. The incoming man starts cold, often with experience in government only at the state level, bringing his own team of advisers, who may come in “cold turkey,” just as he does, not quite sure which are the footballs and which the land mines. It accounts for quite a few Washington reputations soon walking around with a permanent limp.

Thus when a stunned Vice President Odell left the Mansion and crossed to the West Wing at 5:05 that October morning, he realized that he was not entirely certain what to do or whom to ask.

“I cannot handle this thing alone, Michael,” the President had told him. “I will try to carry on the duties of the President. I retain the Oval Office. But I cannot chair the Crisis Management Committee. I am too involved, in any case. ... Get him back for me, Michael. Get my son back for me.”

Odell was a much more emotional man than John Cormack. He had never seen his wry, dry, academic friend so distraught, nor ever thought to. He had embraced his President and sworn it would be done. Cormack had returned to the bedroom where the White House physician was administering sedation to a weeping First Lady.

Odell now sat in the center chair at the Cabinet Room table, ordered coffee, and started to make phone calls himself. The snatch had taken place in Britain; that was abroad; he would need the Secretary of State. He called Jim Donaldson and woke him up. He did not tell him why, just to come straight to the Cabinet Room. Donaldson protested. He would be there at nine.

“Jim, get your butt in here
now
. It’s an emergency. And don’t call the President to check. He can’t take your call, and he’s asked me to handle it.”

While he had been governor of Texas, Michael Odell had always considered foreign affairs a closed book. But he had been in Washington, and Vice President, long enough to have had numberless briefings on foreign affairs issues and to have learned a lot. Those who fell for the deliberately folksy image he liked to cultivate did Odell an injustice, often to their later regret. Michael Odell had not gained the trust and respect of a man like John Cormack because he was a fool. In fact, he was very smart indeed.

He called Bill Walters, the Attorney General, political chief of the FBI. Walters was up and dressed, having taken a call from Don Edmonds, Director of the Bureau. Walters knew already.

“I’m on my way, Michael,” he said. “I want Don Edmonds on hand as well. We’re going to need the Bureau’s expertise here. Also, Don’s man in London is keeping him posted on an hourly basis. We need up-to-date reports. Okay?”

“That’s great,” said Odell with relief. “Bring Edmonds.”

When the full group was present by 6:00
A.M
., it also included Hubert Reed of Treasury (responsible for the Secret Service); Morton Stannard of Defense; Brad Johnson, the National Security Adviser; and Lee Alexander, Director of Central Intelligence. Waiting and available in addition to Don Edmonds were Creighton Burbank of the Secret Service, and the Deputy Director for Operations of the CIA.

Lee Alexander was aware that although he was DCI, he was a political appointee, not a career intelligence officer. The man who headed up the entire operational area of the Agency was the DDO, David Weintraub. He waited outside with the others.

Don Edmonds had also brought one of his top men. Under the Director of the FBI come three executive assistant directors, heading respectively Law Enforcement Services, Administration, and Investigations. Within Investigations were three divisions—Intelligence, International Liaison (from which came Patrick Seymour in London), and Criminal Investigations Division. The EAD for Investigations, Buck Revell, was away sick, so Edmonds had brought the assistant director in charge of the CID, Philip Kelly.