Run Around (27 page)

Sulafeh Nabulsi felt gripped by an inner warmth, an excitement that would not dissipate and that she did not want to go away: she was scarcely conscious of anything around her on the way back across the city to the Rue Barthelemy-Menn, switching between taxi and tram but not really trying to weave any sort of false trail.

So enclosed was she that she did not hear Mohammed Dajani when he first called out in the hotel foyer, and still frowned at him in apparent lack of recognition when he put himself in her path.

‘Where have you been?' Dajani demanded.

‘Out,' she said.

‘I've been waiting.'

‘What for?'

‘You. I thought we could explore the city, like we talked about.'

It took Sulafeh a great effort to concentrate. ‘I'm tired,' she said. Even to have the man near her was repulsive, after the ecstatic experiences of the afternoon.

Dajani's face tightened. ‘I thought we were going to be friends,' he said.

‘Leave me alone!' she said, stepping around him. ‘Just leave me alone!'

The arrogant, career-minded, over-sexed bitch needed to be taught a lesson, to learn to whom it was necessary to show the proper sort of deference, recognized Dajani. So she would be taught.

Chapter Twenty-four

The Secretary of State and his wife used the underground link to get from the old Executive Office Building into the White House. Martha Bell wore a startling red suit which she'd told her husband was Ungaro: he didn't know the significance but guessed it meant expensive. It usually did when she used designer names like that. The route meant they entered via the basement, working floor of the White House, and Martha enjoyed the obvious respect from the staff towards her husband, although of course she gave no indication. She'd hoped they would gather in the Oval Office, which she regarded as the fulcrum of the presidency, and so she was disappointed when they were directed instead to the small drawing room on the ground floor, overlooking the gardens and the fountain. The President and his wife were already there. Anderson came expansively forward, arms spread wide, and kissed her on both cheeks: as he did so she was aware of the odour of rye whisky on his breath competing with the sweeter smell of his cologne.

‘Good to see you, Martha!' he said, boom-voiced as always. ‘Looking forward to Europe?'

‘Very much, Mr President,' she said.

‘Going to be a great trip,' forecast the man. ‘A great trip.'

Janet Anderson had remained standing by the back of the two easy chairs set either side of the fireplace. She was wearing a pale lemon two-piece, with a matching hat, and Martha Bell decided it did nothing for her at all: the woman looked washed out and faded, like she always did.

Martha smiled and said: ‘Hello Janet' and Janet smiled back and said: ‘Hello Martha.'

Martha knew by now that such groupings were as formalized as medieval dances. She moved at once towards the other woman, leaving the men by themselves.

‘You look wonderful,' she said to the President's wife.

‘So do you, dear,' said Janet Anderson.

‘I gather there are some sightseeing arrangements for us?'

‘If I can fit them in,' qualified the President's wife, wanting at once to establish the gap between them. ‘I've got a visit to a children's orphanage in Berlin and separate receptions with the Presidents' wives, both there and in Venice.'

‘I don't think anyone realizes how hard you work,' said Martha, in seeming admiration.

‘But of course,' said the other woman, in apparent recollection, ‘you're not coming immediately to Venice, after Berlin, are you?'

‘Geneva,' confirmed Martha, going along with the charade. ‘And afterwards we're going to stay on.'

‘Stay on?'

‘Paris for a few days. Then London …' She smiled. ‘You must miss the freedom, as the President's wife, of not being able to go out without a mob of Secret Service guards? Just wander about a store, like an ordinary person? Poor Janet.'

‘You learn to adjust,' said the other woman, tightly.

Across the room Martha saw her husband refuse a Jack Daniels that early in the day and watched the President add to his own glass and wondered what Anderson was celebrating. Bell caught his wife's attention and gestured her towards him. He said: ‘We're going in the first helicopter.'

So that Anderson and his wife could by themselves get the maximum television and photographic coverage, Martha knew. She let Bell lead the way from the small room, out of the French doors on to the lawn where the naval helicopters were waiting, but halfway towards them she eased her way through the phalanx of State Department officials to get alongside the man, so that they arrived at the steps together. She timed it perfectly. Bell, who was an inherently polite man, hesitated to make non-committal replies to the shouted questions from the cordoned-off journalists and there was the clatter of camera shutters and the sudden yellowing of television lights. It kept up as they mounted the steps and continued when Bell paused at the top, to look back and wave, before ushering his wife ahead of him into the machine.

‘That'll catch prime time television, won't it?' demanded Martha, as they buckled themselves in for the flight to Andrews Air Force base.

‘Every newscast, this early,' agreed Bell.

‘Did you see Janet's outfit?'

‘Not really.' He wondered if that were Ungaro, too.

‘Looks like a dish rag that's been boiled too often.'

The helicopter snatched up and went towards the Washington Monument, before turning south. The route took them over the Mall and just to the right of the Capitol Building itself. Further away to the right Martha could make out the traffic-clogged Beltway roped around the city: poor, ordinary people with poor ordinary lives, she thought.

At the Andrews base the boarding procedures were reversed. They had to wait until Anderson and his wife arrived and boarded Air Force One first, again surrounded by cameras, this time those of the journalists actually travelling with them to Europe. There was still some camera sound when Bell and his wife followed and the television lights stayed on but Martha guessed the coverage to be less than it had been leaving the White House.

The interior of Air Force One is quite unlike that of a normal airliner. The rear has seats set out in the customary design, for the support staffs and a few selected journalists elevated from the accompanying press plane but there is a division a little over halfway along the fuselage beyond which the layout is that of a set of luxury hotel suites. Couches line the bulkhead in an outer room, where there are television sets that work through satellite connection. The telephone and communication apparatus operate also through a satellite, facility, although separate from that to which the televisions are aligned. The President's private quarters include a sitting room and dining area, with couches and easy chairs, a full-sized bed with an adjoining bathroom and a kitchen in which food is individually prepared. At Anderson's insistence some of the kitchen space had been modified to accommodate additional wine and alcohol: before take-off Dom Perignon champagne was being served with the caviar boats and Bell caught his wife's eye and smiled, knowing she would be pleased that every fantasy was being fulfilled.

Anderson was the consummate political communicator. He disdained the caution of seatbelts at take-off and carried his glass to the rear of the aircraft, thanking the support staff for being with him, as if they had any choice in the matter, and arranging off-the-record background briefings for the political correspondents of the
New York Times
, the
Los Angeles Times, Newsweek
and NBC. The pilot was identifying Chesapeake down to their left when Anderson wandered back, empty glass in hand, gazing expectantly for it to be refilled, which it was. ‘Been keeping the natives happy,' he announced, to the Secretary of State. ‘We got things to talk about, Jim?'

‘I think so, Mr President.'

Anderson led the way further forward, to his inner sanctum, throwing off his jacket and sitting feet outstretched behind the desk. ‘Isn't this the damnedest way to travel!' he said.

‘Martha enjoys it,' admitted the Secretary of State.

‘Janet, too,' said Anderson. ‘Martha looks very striking today, incidentally. Janet remarked on it.'

‘Thank you,' said Bell. He hoped the President's wife didn't feel upstaged.

‘What's on the agenda, then?'

‘The British warning in Geneva hasn't been resolved,' said Bell.

‘You said—' The President stopped, snapping his fingers for recollection. ‘Giles,' he remembered. ‘You said Giles was on top of it.'

‘Which is why I'm raising it now,' said Bell. ‘Seems the Englishman there wants to make the running.'

‘The guy that screwed our people?'

‘Yes.'

‘You asked London what the hell they think they're doing, involving that son of a bitch in the first place?'

‘I think Langley have,' said the Secretary of State.

‘You should do it too,' decided Anderson. ‘What's come up, new?'

It did not take Bell long to outline the few developments and the President said: ‘That all!'

‘So far.'

‘What about beyond Geneva?' demanded Anderson. ‘Have the CIA thrown out all the nets?'

‘Everywhere they could think of,' assured Bell.

‘And?'

‘Not a whisper of confirmation from anywhere that Geneva is the target: not even a suggestion that Moscow are mounting an operation.'

‘Would they have expected to get one?'

‘They think so.'

‘And they haven't?' insisted Anderson.

‘Not a thing.'

‘So what have we got that's positive?' demanded the President, rhetorically. ‘Something that can't be checked out, from a Soviet defector to the British. And the pickup, from a Soviet drop in London. That's all I can see. From then on we spin off into the circumstantial. The sighting aboard the Swissair plane could be wrong, with no connection whatsoever with London. And the mysterious Herr Schmidt at the Bellevue Hotel could be any sort of nickel and dime crook living in a dream world of false identities.'

‘What about the logged sighting at the Bern embassy?' asked the Secretary of State, dogmatically.

‘What about it?' came back the President. ‘Again what provably connects it to anything going on in London?'

It
was
inconclusive, conceded Bell: circumstantial, just like the President said. Yet Bell was concerned that Anderson was being overly dismissive. He said: ‘That embassy sighting might have been more worthwhile if the Swiss had accepted our help.'

‘National pride, Jim,' reminded Anderson. ‘Would we have accepted Swiss volunteers in Washington in a similar situation?'

‘I would have expected us to do better in a similar situation,' said the Secretary of State.

‘What's the Englishman suggesting?'

‘What he suggested before: publication of the photograph.'

‘Within an hour of which everyone would be running so fast from Geneva, whether with good reason or not, that there would be scorch marks on the ground behind them,' said Anderson.

‘I don't imagine it would be possible to continue with the conference,' agreed Bell.

‘Then no,' decided Anderson, positively, ‘If the evidence were stronger then we'd have to take it more seriously but I don't think it
is
strong.' The man paused and said: ‘What do you think, Jim? Don't take any sort of lead from me: your honest opinion.'

The Secretary of State did not hurry with his reply. At last he said: ‘I think you're right, Mr President. I don't think the evidence is convincing enough.'

Anderson smiled, pleased at his friend's support. He said: ‘And we've already recognized how we can't lose if something happens, haven't we?'

‘I guess we have,' said Bell.

‘Tell the British to go and suck ass,' said Anderson. He allowed a long pause and said: ‘If I were a suspicious man, which I am not, I could almost be persuaded into thinking that their interfering in Geneva is nothing more than mischief-making. Every time I've met them I've pegged them as people pissed off at being the world's doorman rather than its policeman.'

‘I'll let them know how you feel,' promised Bell.

Anderson pulled himself heavily from the chair. ‘Let's go back and join the ladies,' he said. ‘Have a few drinks: this is a triumphal tour, after all!'

It was thirty minutes in the larger, outer cabin before Martha Beil could be sure of talking to her husband without being overheard. She said: ‘We saw the departure on television: the White House as well as Andrews! We were on both times!'

‘Great,' said Bell. Although he had committed himself to the President's opinion back there he was not completely convinced that the warning should not at least be extended.

‘This outfit looked fantastic!' Martha enthused. ‘Janet was hardly given any air time.'

Reminded, Bell said: ‘You did check about clothes with her secretary, didn't you?'

‘Of course I did,' assured the woman. ‘Why did you ask?'

‘Just wanted to be sure,' said the Secretary of State.

‘Darling!' said Martha. ‘You don't think I'd do anything to embarrass you, do you?'

‘No,' said Bell. ‘I don't think that.'

‘I don't think I've ever been so happy!' she said.

The luncheon hors d'oeuvres were being served aboard Air Force One when Barbara Giles disembarked at Washington Dulles airport from the courtesy bus upon which she had travelled from the city terminal. She wore jeans and a workshirt but checked three cases holding her good clothes, because she wanted to look wonderful every moment of the re-union with Roger. She did not think she had ever been so happy, either.