The Lie (25 page)

No one spoke. For several moments Nicko sat patiently in his chair, studying Paulie’s face.

“How well do you know these two men?” asked Tommy Cortlandt.

“Obviously not well enough.”

“But still a lot better than the rest of us,” said the CIA director. “So let’s talk a little. What about those seven buildings
they claim they’ve set to blow? Do you think it’s a bluff?”

“No. They’re capable of it.”

“Do you believe they’ll release the president if they get what they want?”

“Absolutely. Why wouldn’t they? They may be zealots, but they’re not crazy.”

“Do you have any idea what they’ll be asking for?” said Major Dechen.

“Yes. And unless Professor Mainz was lying when he told me some of his ideas, I’d be happy to vote for every point he mentioned.”

Nicko Vorelli half turned, met John Hendricks’s curiously personalized rancor straight on, and suddenly remembered where he
had seen him.

It had been in Peggy Walters’s Sorrento art gallery. Although Nicko had never actually been introduced to the young man, someone
had pointed him out as Peggy Walters’s son, as well as an outstanding artist in his own right.

It was an odd coincidence, thought Vorelli, but still did nothing to explain the depth of the man’s malice.

Until it came to him.
Kate had shot both his parents
.

Which meant what?

Another odd coincidence?

Nicko Vorelli did not believe so.

A
T
5:15 P
AUL
W
ALTERS WAS BACK
in the conference hall awaiting a previously announced appearance by Professor Mainz.

Thunder rolled. A storm had come in and a driving rain rattled against the plastic sheeting that hung where the north windows
had been.

Paulie breathed deeply, feeling the air heavy in his chest. He heard the rain behind him and let his glance drift back and
forth between Kate Dinneson and Nicko Vorelli.

Looking for what?

Hot images of them fucking on Nicko’s couch?

Idiot
, he thought, and was disgusted with himself all over again for his stupidly abrasive behavior in Major Dechen’s office.

Paulie could not help but be impressed by the grace and control of the man in dealing with his own far from happy plight.
In an all too real sense, Nicko was as much a victim of Klaus Logefeld’s nefarious plotting as Kate herself. Maybe more so,
inasmuch as his personal sponsorship of Logefeld and his grandfather had the potential for making him an accessory to every
criminal act they might commit. If his true reason for bringing them to Wannsee ever came out, it could well destroy him.

Klaus Logefeld appeared at exactly 5:20
P.M.

Paulie watched him walk across the conference hall with
Major Dechen, the two of them side by side. Then Logefeld approached the microphones alone, as strobe lights flashed and camcorders
whirred.

“I hope we’re finished with the ugly part,” he said. “I hope the guns, the bombing, the melodrama are all behind us now. I
hope now we can just get down to the business of taking some of the hatred and pain out of the world.”

Klaus’s eyes glittered in the lights.

“As promised,” he continued, “we’ve given Major Dechen a full transcript of our treaty terms for President Dunster’s release.
Your photocopies are being made at this moment. When you read the terms, you’ll find a lot to study and talk over. But these
are mostly details and can be worked out. So all I’m going to mention right now are the three core commandments. If we can
get agreement on these, there should be few problems with the rest.”

Commandments
, thought Paulie.

The sweet sound of reason delivered from Mount Sinai
.

“All right,” said Klaus. “Then what absolutely must be included are an autonomous executive committee, a strong, rapid-reaction
strike force to carry out their decisions, and a multibillion-dollar revolving fund to make the whole thing viable. There’ll
be no compromise.”

Klaus paused, tall and straight-backed behind the microphones.

“Now we come to the one group of killing fields we have to do something about right now. Not that we don’t have plenty of
choices. There are currently fifty-two places on earth where organized murder is going on. But we have to begin somewhere,
and the wholesale butchery going on in parts of central and western Africa has been filling mass graves for years. So those
places are going to be our starting points for an immediate cease-fire.

“What’s wrong with us?” he asked. “We watch the bodies piling up—men, women, children—and we don’t even bother to shake our
heads. My God, it’s within our sight.

“And that’s probably the most depressing part of all,” he continued. “We see it. Nothing is even kept from us anymore.
Now we just turn on the seven o’clock news and see dead Africans stretched out across the fields, lying along the rivers and
roads, curled up in streets, houses, and churches.”

Klaus was silent for a moment.

“And what do we do?” he asked. “We turn away as indifferently as we do no place else on earth. Why? Because they’re all
black
.”

Klaus Logefeld gazed abstractedly over the heads of those listening to him.

“But we’re not turning away anymore.”

J
AYSON
F
LEMING HAD ARRANGED TO BE ALONE
in the Oval Office when Deputy CIA Director Harris was shown in. In the mind of the new pro tempore president, the impending
meeting with his friend loomed as perhaps the most important in his life. He wanted no interruptions.

It was 12:23
P.M.
Washington time. The two men had last spoken during the early morning hours, when Harris had called Fleming with news of
the aborted assassination in Brussels.

Then the heavens had opened up at Wannsee, Fleming was swept into the Oval Office as pro tempore president, and he had barely
been able to take a full breath since.

“Can you believe any part of it?” pondered Harris.

Fleming shook his head. “All I want to do is stare at that stupid tube in the corner.”

“You and the rest of the world,” said the deputy director.

The sound was tuned so low that it was barely audible, but the television screen was still glowing brightly. Both men turned
to look at it.

About half an hour had passed since Professor Alfred Mainz had made his chilling statement. Now the cameras were focused on
several of Wannsee’s uniformed guards as they passed out transcripts of the professor’s draft treaty. Some of the delegates
had already started to read their copies. Others were gathered in small groups, talking.

In the telecast’s audio, an English-language commentator with a British accent was reviewing the highlights of everything
that had happened so far. He had been at it for hours and his voice sounded tired and hoarse.

Jayson Fleming stood staring fixedly at the lit screen. He had been staring for so long that he had begun to feel a kind of
shimmering incomprehension. In the entire two hundred and twenty years of the country’s existence, no American president had
ever been taken hostage at gunpoint.

“Ah, enough of this,” said Fleming, and cut off the audio entirely. “Let’s talk.”

Ken Harris glanced about the big room. “You’re sure we can talk here?”

“You’ve been running spooks too long. We’re in the Oval Office.”

“Okay. As pro tempore president, what do you know that I don’t?”

“Have you been watching the telecast?”

“Every minute.”

“Then you know about as much as I do.”

“Whom have you spoken to at Wannsee?”

Fleming told Harris about his conference call with Wannsee’s security office, told him who was present and what was said.

“That’s all they gave you?”

The pro tempore president nodded. He was staring off at the silent television screen. At that moment a reprise was being shown
of President Dunster standing at a bank of microphones with one handgun pressed to his throat and another piece jammed against
his right temple. For strictly dramatic purposes, the timing could not have been more perfect.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

They watched in silence until the sequence ended.

“What’s the protocol here?” asked Fleming. “Do I make some sort of attempt to get him out, or what?”

“There
is
no protocol for this. You’re in uncharted territory. Whatever you try, good or bad luck and the hindsight of
pundits can turn you into a hero, an ass, or a cold-blooded killer who’ll do anything to make himself president.”

“So I do nothing?”

The country’s second-ranking intelligence officer took his time in answering.

“No,” he said finally. “You do what’s in your own best interest. And we both know what that is. In fact, with the right move,
this entire Wannsee cataclysm could wind up as your personal hand of God.”

“So why can’t I just leave it to God and the two Germans?”

Harris shrugged. “There
is
always that.”

“But you’d rather see me giving them some help?”

“This has been dropped right in your lap, Jay. It’s a one in a million opportunity. And there’s nothing like running with
it and making sure.”

Jayson Fleming slowly stood up, walked across the big oval room, and turned. “With how much risk?”

“Almost none.”

“How do you figure that?”

“A single blast under the surveillance room would do it. Which would be blamed, of course, on some sort of accident, or tragic
miscalculation by Mainz and the old man, who have already established their predilection for using explosives.”

The pro tempore president could all but feel himself entering some new alley of the night.

“And your same good friend would be able to handle it?”

“Absolutely.” Ken Harris smiled coldly. “In fact I’ve already briefed him.”

T
HREE HOURS AFTER
Deputy Director Harris left the Oval Office, his alleged friend, Daniel Archer, boarded an American military transport at
Andrews Air Force Base shortly before its scheduled takeoff for Berlin. His only luggage was a small canvas bag, which he
stowed in an overhead bin. Then he fastened his seat belt and settled back for what had to be the quickest turnaround he had
ever made for a return trip to Europe.

Staring out of his window moments later, Archer saw the edges of the runway blur and fall away. Soon there was brilliant sunlight
on rolling clouds, a brief glimpse of city buildings far below, and finally a flash of light on Chesapeake Bay.

Good jump weather, he thought, and felt old sensations return. Even after so many years it was always the early drops he thought
about most. How it felt waiting for the signal at the open door, the sinking fear as he went into the void, the sharp jarring
as the chute filled and he sailed like a winged god. What could equal it?

Yet less than two hours earlier, Archer had felt some of that same mix of fear and exhilaration the moment he saw Ken Harris’s
face. The deputy director had come straight from his meeting with the pro tempore president, and it was all still in his eyes.

“It’s all systems go,” the deputy director had told him right off.

They were in Archer’s car on a wooded trail not far from the airport.

“Did Fleming need much convincing?”

“Not really. I think his having gone along with the Brussels try made this one easier for him. And now that he’s actually
sitting in that office, he practically feels it’s his.”

Harris glanced at Archer’s bag in the backseat. “You’re all set?”

“I just have to get rid of the car and board the plane. What about the Berlin end of things?”

“You’ll be met at the usual place. It will be a single man in a black Audi. He’s tried and trusted and he’ll have everything
you’ll need.”

“He’s German?”

“Yes.”

“What about the blueprints?”

Ken Harris opened a briefcase and handed Archer a manila folder. “Here’s a reduced-size set and a magnifying glass. You can
study them during the flight.”

Ken Harris had wished him good luck at the end and shook his hand with warmth and feeling.

Good luck
, Archer thought now, remembering their last attempt and wondering how much the luck factor would finally have to do with
whatever was about to happen. What he did not have to wonder about was his sudden loss of that curious sense of lightness
he had felt when the Brussels hit on the president was aborted.

This time he knew.

Because even if everything does go off exactly as planned
, Archer thought coldly,
and the president, his wife, and their two captors do finally end up dead, how long will Ken Harris be comfortable with my
knowing he was the one behind the whole operation?

A big question and a complex one, inasmuch as he and Harris not only went back a long way together, but shared feelings that
had deepened into trust, respect, and even a unique sort of friendship. Yet there was no avoiding the fact that if this hit
went off, he would be a loaded gun aimed at
the deputy director’s head for the rest of his life. How would Ken Harris ever be able to live with something like
that
?

Daniel Archer had no idea. Even if he thought he did, there was still no way he could be absolutely sure.

Unless he could
partially
carry it off: he could blast the two Germans, rescue the president and First Lady, and turn himself into a big national hero.

Certainly an interesting idea.

If a bit hard to explain to Harris.

Yet why would he have to explain anything at all? Wouldn’t the deputy director end up looking equally heroic for supposedly
masterminding the whole rescue operation?

Archer smiled dimly.

For a change it might be nice to be a genuine hero. Once, he had actually been one, thirty years ago in Vietnam, when he was
seventeen years old and full of lovely illusions. All of which had finally turned to shit.