Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (35 page)

 
          
 
"I may want you to—" The President
whirled at the sound of a door opening behind him.

 
          
 
Burnham peered around the President and saw
Mario Epstein, accompanied by the National Security Advisor, Dennis Duggan.
They had entered through the small office that adjoined the Oval Office, the
sanctuary where the President went to relax, for it had a bar and a bathroom
and a television set and a favorite sofa on which he could stretch out and nap.
Burnham had heard that the President called it his “flatter palace," for
there he would entertain guests who could be cajoled into doing his bidding by
being stroked and fed Jack Daniels in the President's private retreat.

 
          
 
Epstein was one of four people with
unrestricted access to the President (the others were his Appointments
Secretary, his wife and Evelyn Witt), and it was known that he did not abuse
the privilege. Something was up.

 
          
 
Burnham knew that he should stand and make a
discreet exit before being asked to leave, but the prospect of being privy to a
crisis—even to the first few sentences of a crisis— was irresistibly seductive.
He stayed seated.

 
          
 
"What is it?" the President said
sharply.

 
          
 
"Got a problem," Epstein said,
waving a piece of paper. Duggan stayed a step behind Epstein. He was in his
early fifties, contemplative and professorial, with a silver-gray crew cut and
a pipe that never left his mouth except when he gestured with it. He was
Epstein's man. He never communicated with the President except through Epstein,
never visited with the President except in Epstein's company, never ventured an
opinion unfamiliar or unacceptable to Epstein. In effect, he was Epstein's
National Security Advisor.

 
          
 
"What else is new?" the President
said. "The world is full of problems."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir," Epstein said, apparently
perplexed at the President's obduracy. "But I'm afraid this one needs the
President's attention right away."

 
          
 
Burnham was surprised that the President
didn't turn and ask him to leave. Nor did he cross the room and huddle with

 
          
 
Epstein and Duggan by the signing table. He
stayed where he was and said, "Okay. What is it?"

 
          
 
Epstein held up the paper again. "I'm
afraid this is for the President's ears only."

 
          
 
There it is, Burnham thought. Okay. He started
to stand.

 
          
 
But the President pushed him back down on the
couch. "Bullshit, Mario. Feel free to speak in front of Tim." He took
a step to the side, and for the first time Epstein saw Burnham.

 
          
 
"You!" Epstein all but shouted. His
mouth hung open for a fraction of a second.

 
          
 
Duggan looked at Burnham, then at Epstein,
then back at Burnham. He sucked on his pipe. He had no idea what was going on,
but he knew better than to get mixed up in it.

 
          
 
Burnham raised a tentative hand and said,
"Hi again."

 
          
 
"I figured you two knew each other,"
said the President. "Go ahead, Mario."

 
          
 
"But who is he?" Epstein fought to
suppress the outrage that bubbled beneath his skin.

 
          
 
Good question, Burnham thought. I've been
wondering myself.

 
          
 
"A friend, Mario," the President
said, and he winked at Burnham. "A real good friend, come to help me in my
hour of need."

 
          
 
Burnham was sure he was mistaken: The
President of the
United States
could not have winked at him. He had a
fleeting fantasy that he was a player in a remake of The Prince and the Pauper.
Lurking somewhere in the corridors of the mansion must be the genuine dauphin.

 
          
 
"Who does he work for?" asked
Epstein the inquisitor.

 
          
 
"Me, Mario." The President paused.
"Just like you do."

 
          
 
"Yessir," Epstein said quickly.

 
          
 
The President cast a satisfied glance in Burnham's
direction, as if he was pleased to discover that Epstein was as ignorant about
Burnham as he was. "What you need to know, you know," he said.
"And what you don't know can't hurt you."

 
          
 
I'm his secret weapon, Burnham concluded. He
doesn't know anything about me, and he's glad. He must think that my cover is
so perfect that no one knows anything about me.

 
          
 
"Now, Mario, what's on your mind?"

 
          
 
Epstein was staring at Burnham, willing his
eyes to pierce the shell of mystery. He exhaled, visibly, and the air hissed as
it passed through his teeth. "
Cuba
," he said to the President.

 
          
 
"
Cuba
? What's that stogie-smoking hippie up to
now?"

 
          
 
"An American-flag vessel, a yacht, is in
Havana
Harbor
."

 
          
 
"Castro captured it?"

 
          
 
"No, sir. It came in there on its own.
Apparently, it broke down offshore and sailed in."

 
          
 
"Why didn't it go to
Guantanamo
? There're Americans there."

 
          
 
"I don't know, sir. This came in to
Dennis an hour ago, from the Marine general down there. We don't know any of
the 'whys.' "

 
          
 
"Castro won't let him go?"

 
          
 
Epstein shook his head. "The captain
won't leave. He—so to speak—is requesting asylum. But somebody's yelling out of
a porthole that he doesn't want asylum. He's yelling 'rape' and 'kidnap' and
bloody murder. So Castro's just sitting back—watching, I guess, and laughing
his head off."

 
          
 
"What do you mean, 'so to speak'?"

 
          
 
"Apparently, sir," Epstein cleared
his throat, "this whole operation, the whole crew, everybody on board is .
. . well . . . gay ... but even ..."

 
          
 
"Fags?" the President roared.

 
          
 
"Not exactly, sir." Epstein looked
like a child who had just wet his pants.

 
          
 
Sitting on the couch, Bumham delighted in
watching Epstein squirm.

 
          
 
"It seems that there are transsexuals
aboard—one, maybe two. Transsexuals are—"

 
          
 
"I know what they are!" The
President sighed. "Christ on a flaming crutch! I got the Russians want to
blow me up, the Senate wants to cut my balls off, a cannibal coming for supper,
and now a ship of fairies has run aground. Well, my decision is, let 'em
rot."

 
          
 
"I'm afraid that's not an option, Mr.
President."

 
          
 
"Why not?"

 
          
 
"They're American citizens."

 
          
 
“That's beside the point."

 
          
 
"No, sir. That is the point."

 
          
 
Loath though he was to do it, Burnham awarded
a point to Epstein.

 
          
 
Epstein continued. "You see, sir, the
captain has rafted his boat to a Russian oil tanker. He says if he doesn't get
asylum, he'll blow everything up—tanker, boat, Russians, everything."

 
          
 
"Can he do it?"

 
          
 
Epstein looked to Duggan, who eased the pipe
from his mouth and said slowly, "We doubt it, sir. He's forty-eight feet
long, the tanker's over six hundred feet. Even if he was a hundred percent
ballasted with C-4 explosive—extremely unlikely, in our estimation—he'd have to
position himself perfectly in order to inflict substantial damage on the
tanker. The chances of him actually sinking the tanker are, we judge,
nil."

 
          
 
"But," said Epstein, "we can't
take the chance. Even if he puts a hole in it, the Russians will raise holy
hell."

 
          
 
The President sighed. "So what are our
options?"

 
          
 
"Two," Epstein said, "and
neither very attractive. One, go through the Swiss and try to convince Castro
to give them asylum, just temporarily, to defuse the situation."

 
          
 
"Sure, why not? The prick sent us all his
fairies—and a thousand lunatics to boot—from Mariel."

 
          
 
"We don't think he'll do it. Why should
he? He'd love to see some crazy Americans blow up a Russian tanker. Two,
General Starkweather, the Marine general, wants to send a SEAL team in tonight
and take the Bilitis—that's the name of the yacht—from the water. The problem
there is . . ."

 
          
 
Burnham stopped listening. He was frozen.
Bilitis. He should have guessed. There couldn't be two such bizarre crews, not
even on a planet with four and a half billion people, and though some of the
details were different, the substance was unmistakably similar. But he had been
so beguiled by the intoxicating brew of international crisis, had heard it with
such fascinated detachment, that he had never made the connection.

 
          
 
Epstein was concluding. "... constitute
an invasion of Cuban territory."

 
          
 
"So," said the President. "What
do you recommend?"

 
          
 
"Dennis and I think you should tell
General Starkweather to go ahead and send the SEALs. But we have to try to buy
time. The . . . captain . . . says he's going to blow everything sky-high at
five o'clock
."

 
          
 
"Call him and tell him we're working on
it."

 
          
 
"He won't speak to us, sir. He says he
won't speak to anybody but Castro himself."

 
          
 
"Maybe he'll speak to me. I hate to put
the presidency on the line for a bunch of fruits, but if^"

 
          
 
"No, sir. I'm afraid he specifically
excluded you. He made a statement on his radio saying that you were prejudiced
against ... his kind."

 
          
 
"I'm not prejudiced. I'm biased. There's
a difference."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."