The Fourth K (18 page)

“Now, as to the fifty-billion-dollar loss to American stockholders. Bert Audick heads the consortium that owns that property. He has already made his fifty billion dollars and more. We will do our best to help him, of course. I will permit Mr. Audick an opportunity to save his investment in another way. I am sending a plane to Sherhaben to pick up the hostages and a military plane to transport the terrorists to this country to stand trial. The Secretary of State will invite Mr. Audick to go to Sherhaben on one of those planes. His job will be to help persuade the Sultan to accept my terms. To persuade him that the only way to save the city of Dak, the country of Sherhaben and the American oil in that country is to accede to my demands. That’s the deal.”

The Secretary of Defense said, “If the Sultan does not agree, that means we lose two more planes, Audick, and the hostages.”

Kennedy said, “Most likely. Let’s see if Audick has the balls. But he’s smart. He will know, as I do, that the Sultan must agree. I’m so sure that I am also sending the national security adviser, Mr. Wix.”

The CIA chief said, “Mr. President, you must know that the antiaircraft guns around Dak are manned by Americans on civilian contract to the Sherhaben government and the American oil companies. Specially trained Americans who man missile sites. They may put up a fight.”

Kennedy smiled. “Audick will order them to evacuate. Of course, as Americans, if they fight us they will be traitors, and the Americans who pay them will also be prosecuted as traitors.”

He paused to let that sink in. Audick would be prosecuted.
He turned to Christian. “Chris, you can start working on the legal end.”

Among those present were two members of the legislative branch. The Senate majority leader, Thomas Lambertino, and the Speaker of the House, Alfred Jintz. It was the senator who spoke first. He said, “I think this too drastic a course of action to be taken without a full discussion in both houses of the Congress.”

Kennedy said to him courteously, “With all due respect, there is no time. And it is within my power as the chief executive to take this action. Without question the legislative branch can review it later and take action as they see fit. But I sincerely hope that Congress will support me and this nation in its extremity.”

Senator Lambertino said almost sorrowfully, “This is dire, the consequences severe. I implore you, Mr. President, not to act so quickly.”

For the first time Francis Kennedy became less than courteous. “Congress has always opposed me,” he said. “We can argue all the complicated options until the hostages are dead and the United States is ridiculed in every nation and every little village in the world. I hold by my analysis and my solution; my decision is within my power as chief executive. When the crisis is over, I will go before the people and give them a full report. Until then, I remind you all again, this discussion is of the highest classification. Now, I know you all have work to do. Report your progress to my chief of staff.”

It was Alfred Jintz who answered. “Mr. President,” he said, “I had hoped not to have to say this. But Congress now insists that you remove yourself from these negotiations. Therefore, I must give notice that this very day the Congress and the Senate will do everything to prevent your course of
action on the grounds that your personal tragedy makes you incompetent.”

Kennedy stood over them. His face with its beautiful planes and lines were frozen into a mask, his blue eyes as blind as a statue’s. “You do so at your peril,” he said, “and America’s.” He left the room.

In the Cabinet Room, there was a flurry of movement, a babble of voices. Oddblood Gray huddled with Senator Lambertino and Congressman Jintz. But their faces were grim, their voices cold. The congressman said, “We can’t allow this to happen. I think the President’s staff has been delinquent in not dissuading him from this course of action.”

Oddblood Gray said, “He convinced me he was not acting out of personal anger. That it was the most effective solution to the problem. It is dire, of course, but so are the times. We can’t let the situation be drawn out. That could be catastrophic.”

Senator Lambertino said, “This is the first time that I have ever known Francis Kennedy to act in so high-handed a fashion. He was always a courteous President to the legislative branch. He could at least have pretended that we were party to the decision process.”

“He’s under a great deal of stress,” Oddblood Gray said. “It would be helpful if the Congress did not add to that stress.” Fat chance, he thought as he said it.

Congressman Jintz said worriedly, “Stress may be the issue here.” Oddblood Gray thought, Oh shit, hastily said a cordial farewell and ran back to his office to make the hundreds of calls to members of the Congress. Though he was privately dismayed at Kennedy’s rashness, he was determined to sell Kennedy’s policy on the Hill.

The national security adviser, Arthur Wix, was trying to
sound out the Secretary of Defense. And making sure that there would be an immediate meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the Secretary of Defense seemed to be stunned by events and mumbled his answers, agreeing but not volunteering anything.

Eugene Dazzy had noted Oddblood Gray’s difficulties with the legislators. There was going to be big trouble.

Dazzy turned to Helen Du Pray. “What do you think?” he asked her.

She looked at him coolly. She was a very beautiful woman, Dazzy thought. He must invite her to dinner. Then she said, “I think you and the rest of the President’s staff have let him down. His response to this crisis is far too drastic. And where the hell is Christian Klee to deal with this right now?” Klee had vanished, which surprised Du Pray, it was not like him to disappear at a crucial moment like this.

Dazzy was angry. “His position has logic, and even if we disagree we have to support him.”

Helen Du Pray said, “It’s how Francis presented it. Obviously, Congress will try to take the negotiations out of his hands. They will try to suspend him from office.”

“Over the graves of his staff,” Dazzy said.

Helen Du Pray said to him quietly, “Please be careful. Our country is in great danger.”

On this Wednesday afternoon Peter Cloot was certainly the only official in Washington who paid almost no attention to the news that the President’s daughter had been murdered. His energies were focused on the nuclear bomb threat.

As deputy chief of the FBI, he had almost full responsibility for that agency. Christian Klee was the titular head but only to hold the reins of power, to bring it more firmly under the direction of the Attorney General’s office, which Klee also held. That combination of offices had always bothered Peter Cloot. It also bothered him that the Secret Service had also been placed under Klee. That was too much concentration of power for Cloot’s taste. He also knew that there was a separate elite branch ostensibly in the FBI table of organization that Klee administered directly, and that this special security branch was composed of Christian Klee’s former colleagues in the CIA. That affronted him.

But this nuclear threat was Peter Cloot’s baby. He would run this show. And luckily there were specific directives to guide him, and he had attended the think-tank seminars that directly addressed the problem of internal nuclear threats. If anyone was an expert on this particular situation, it was Cloot. And there was no shortage of manpower. During Klee’s tenure the number of FBI personnel had increased threefold.

When he had first seen the threatening letter with its accompanying diagrams Cloot had taken the immediate action as outlined in the standing directives. He had also felt a thrill of fear. Up to this time there had been hundreds of such threats, only a few of them plausible, but none so convincing as this. All these threats had been kept secret, again according to directives.

Immediately, Cloot forwarded the letter to the Department of Energy command post in Maryland, using the special communications facilities for this purpose only. He also alerted the Department of Energy search teams based in Las Vegas called NEST. NEST was already flying their pod containing tools and detection equipment to New York. Other planes would be flying specially trained personnel into the city, where they would use disguised vans loaded with sophisticated equipment to explore the streets of New York. Helicopters would be used; men on foot carrying Geiger counter briefcases would cover the city. But all this was not Cloot’s headache. All he would have to do was supply armed FBI guards to protect the NEST searchers. Cloot’s job was to find the villains.

The Maryland Department of Energy people had studied the letter and sent him a psychological profile of the writer. Those guys were really amazing, Cloot thought—he didn’t
know how they did it. Of course, one of the obvious clues was that the letter did not ask for money. Also it did define a definite political position. As soon as he got the profile Cloot sent a thousand men checking.

The profile had said that the letter writer was probably very young and highly educated. That he was probably a student of physics in a highly rated university. And on this information alone Cloot in a matter of hours had two very good suspects and after that it was amazingly easy. He had worked all through the night, directing his field office teams. When he was informed of the murder of Theresa Kennedy, he had resolutely put it out of his mind except for the flash that all this stuff might be linked together in some way. But his job tonight was to find the author of the nuclear bomb threat. Thank God, the bastard was an idealist. It made him easier to track down. There were a million greedy sons of bitches who would do something like this for money and it would have been tough to find them.

While he waited for the information to come in, he put the files of all previous nuclear threats through his computer. There had never been a nuclear weapon found, and those blackmailers who had been caught while trying to collect their bribe money had confessed that there had never been one. Some of them had been men with a smattering of science. Others had picked up convincing information from a left-wing magazine that had printed an article describing how to make a nuclear weapon. The magazine had been leaned on not to publish that article, but it had gone to the Supreme Court, which had ruled that suppression would be a violation of free speech. Even thinking of that now made Peter Cloot tremble with rage. The fucking country was going to destroy itself. One thing he noted with interest: none
of the over two hundred cases had involved a woman or a black or even a foreign terrorist. They were all fucking true-blue greedy American men.

When he finished with the computer files he thought a minute about his boss, Christian Klee. He really didn’t like the way Klee was running things. Klee thought the whole job of the FBI was to guard the President of the United States. Klee used not only the Secret Service Division but had special squads in every FBI office in the country whose main job was to sniff out possible dangers to the office of the President. Klee diverted a great deal of manpower from other operations of the FBI to do this.

Cloot was leery of Klee’s power, his special division of ex-CIA men. What the hell did they do? Peter Cloot didn’t know and he had every right to know. That division reported directly to Klee, and that was a very bad thing in a government agency so sensitive to public opinion as the FBI. So far nothing had happened. Cloot spent a great deal of time covering his ass, making sure that he could not be caught in the fireworks when that special division pulled some shit that would bring the Congress down on their heads with their special investigation committees.

At 1:00
A.M
. Cloot’s assistant deputy came in to report that two suspects were under surveillance. Proof was in hand that confirmed the psychological profile, and there was other circumstantial evidence. Only the order to make the arrest was needed.

Cloot said to his deputy, “I have to brief Klee first. Stay here while I call him.”

Cloot knew that Klee would be in the President’s chief of staff’s office or that the omnipotent White House telephone operators would track him down if he was not. He got Klee on his first try.

“We have that special case all wrapped up,” Cloot told him. “But I think I should brief you before we bring them in—can you come over?”

Klee’s voice was strained. “No, I cannot. I have to be with the President now, surely you understand that.”

“Shall I just go ahead and fill you in later?” Cloot asked. There was a long pause at the other end. Then Klee said, “I think we have time for you to come over here. If I’m not available, just wait. But you have to rush.”

“I’m on my way,” Cloot said.

It had not been necessary for either of them to suggest doing the briefing over the phone. That was out of the question. Anybody could pick messages out of the infinite trail-ways of airspace.

Cloot got to the White House and was escorted into a small briefing room. Klee was waiting for him; his prosthesis was off and he was massaging his stump through his stocking.

“I only have a few minutes,” Klee said. “Big meeting with the President.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry about that,” Cloot said. “How is he taking it?”

Klee shook his head. “You can’t ever tell with Francis. He seems OK.” He shook his head in a sort of bewilderment, then said briskly, “OK, let’s have it.” He looked at Cloot with a sort of distaste. The man’s physical exterior always irritated him. Cloot never looked tired, and he was one of those men whose shirt and suit never got wrinkled. He always wore ties of knitted wool with square knots, usually of a light gray color and sometimes a sort of bloody black.

“We spotted them,” Cloot said. “Two young kids, twenty years old, in MIT nuclear labs. Geniuses, IQ’s in the 160s, come from wealthy families, left-wing, marched with the
nuclear protesters. These kids have access to classified memorandums. They fit the think-tank profile. They are sitting in their lab up in Boston, working on some government and university project. A couple of months ago they came to New York and a buddy got them laid and they loved it. He was sure it was their first time. A deadly combination, idealism and the raging hormones of youth. Right now I have them sealed off.”