The Lie (24 page)

“Can Mainz cover this office from the surveillance room?” said Cortlandt.

“No. We’re secure here.”

The chancellor and the secretary of state sat down. The others chose to stay on their feet.

Dechen hit some buttons on his desk phone. “This is Major Dechen at Wannsee,” he told someone at the other end. “We’re ready
to take the vice president’s call.”

A moment later the telephone audio box carried Vice President Jayson Fleming’s voice. “Who do you have there with you, Major?”

Dechen told him.

“Who’s John Hendricks?” Fleming asked.

“He’s one of my people, Jay,” said Cortlandt.

“Hello, Tommy.” The vice president cleared a slight hoarseness from his throat. “I can’t believe this whole thing. What the
devil was the president doing at Wannsee in the first place? And why didn’t I or anyone else here even know about it?”

“Let’s save all that,” said the CIA director. “Right now let’s just worry about getting Jimmy out in one piece. I assume you’ve
already taken over for him.”

“Officially, eighteen minutes ago. Bud and Charlie are still right here with me in the Oval Office.”

Bud and Charlie were Bradford Gaynor and Charles Rifkin, the president’s national security adviser and White House chief of
staff, respectively.

“What can you tell us,” said the pro tempore president of the United States, “that we haven’t been getting by satellite?”

“Not a thing. But we’ll be going back for further information in about twenty minutes.”

“Is there anything we can do from here?” asked Fleming.

“Not right now,” said the CIA director. “Unless there’s something Chancellor Eisner or Major Dechen want. They’re the ones
in charge at this end anyway.”

A sharp line of static crackled through the audio box.

“What I can’t quite get through my head, Major Dechen,” said Fleming, “is how you and your people could have allowed two men
to walk into that building carrying loaded pistols.”

Dechen flushed. “Every precaution was taken, sir. The most rigid body checks were made. I absolutely don’t understand how
those weapons could have gotten through.”

Paulie Walters felt compelled to break in.

“I don’t think they did get through your body searches,” he said. “I think those guns were planted inside the building sometime
before today.”

Everyone looked at Paulie.

“Who said that?” asked the vice president.

“I did, sir. John Hendricks.”

“You mean you think the guns were planted in anticipation of President Dunster’s visit?” said Fleming.

“No, sir. Mainz and his grandfather couldn’t have known about that. I think they were planning to take
other
hostages. Then they saw President Dunster walk in and decided to take advantage of the windfall.”

“Where would they have been able to pick up the guns without being seen?” the major asked. “Our cameras cover almost every
square foot of the building.”

“Do you have cameras in the men’s room off the main lobby?” asked Secretary of State Green.

“Yes. Even there.”

“What about in the toilet stalls?” inquired the secretary.

Dechen slowly shook his head. “No.”

“I don’t know if it means a thing,” said Green. “But I did see Professor Mainz in the men’s room just before the meeting started.
When I left, he was still there. And he was alone.”

Paulie was halfway to the door before Arthur Green stopped talking.

When Paulie returned moments later, no one in the security office seemed to have moved.

“You hit it, Mr. Secretary,” he said. “I found this masking tape under the ceiling ventilator grill of one of the toilet stalls.
That’s where the guns were cached.”

“Congratulations,” said the vice president dryly. “But I want to know what we’re going to do
now
.”

“Quite frankly, Mr. Vice President,” said Chancellor Eisner, “until we know a lot more than we do at this moment, I can’t
really see us doing very much of anything. Not if you want your president alive.”

T
HE BREAK WAS OVER
at three-thirty, and delegates, press, and frustrated security were reconvening in the conference room.

From her place in the media section, Kate Dinneson watched everyone settling in. A lesson was being taught, she thought. If
you were smart and paid close enough attention, you might even be able to learn something.

Like what?

Like how to make the mere threat of violence work for you. Look around
.

Kate looked. Suddenly the entire place seemed to be one big free-fire zone. And without a single gun in sight.

Then her eyes fixed on Paulie, staring at her from across the room, and she looked at nothing else.

What must he be thinking and feeling? Had he not been so concerned about Klaus’s threat to
her
, he would have put Klaus away days ago and no part of this catastrophe would have happened.
Dear God, I’ve become a one-woman plague on his house
.

Thus absorbed, she was unaware of the room quieting until she heard Klaus Logefeld’s voice resuming its earlier dialogue with
Wannsee’s chief of security.

“To begin with, Major, an important warning. We know everything you and your people can go for in the way of heroics, and
none of them will get you the president alive. That includes every kind of smoke, gas, and explosive device available. You’ll
just end up with bodies.
His
among them.”

Major Dechen was silent.

“Next, a few housekeeping details,” said Klaus. “Our sanitary facilities are fine, but we need food, drink, toiletries, things
like that. We’ll be slipping a list under the door.”

How banal
, Kate thought dimly.
While the earth quakes
.

“As for the conference itself,” Klaus continued, “work sessions will run four hours on and four off, around the clock. Delegates
may come and go as they choose. Let everyone just remember that the seventy-two-hour countdown for reaching an acceptable
agreement will start at midnight tonight.”

The room was quiet as the words settled.

“You haven’t told us yet, Professor,” Major Dechen said. “Exactly what will make the agreement acceptable?”

“You’ll soon be getting a detailed draft of what we want. But first, my grandfather has something to say.”

There were the small, scratchy sounds of a microphone being adjusted.

“This is Helmut Schadt,” said the old man. “Earlier, we were asked how we would keep any agreement from being broken once
President Dunster was safely out of our hands. I’m going to answer that now.

“In each of the seven countries represented here, a major high-rise has been mined with enough explosives to cause devastating
tragedy. If any agreement reached here is broken, one of these buildings will be blown without advance warning. Other buildings
will follow unless the agreement is reinstated.”

The old man coughed dryly.

“My grandson and I abhor wanton killing,” he said. “But if we ourselves are forced to kill in order to help end such killing,
we’ll do it. So please. Let no mistake be made about that.”

The major’s voice cut into a sudden murmur in the air.

“One more thing. If those in the conference room will please go to the north windows and look out, we’d like to show you exactly
how serious we are about all this.”

Feeling herself being played like an instrument, Kate rose and moved toward the windows along with everyone else. She saw
a cluster of outbuildings, one far bigger than the rest, but all finished in the same sparkling white facing as the villa
itself.

Suddenly, with a great crackling roar, the largest of the outbuildings burst into the air in a great cloud of smoke.

The villa’s windows blew and pieces of glass rained in the conference room.

Kate found herself on the floor.

Slowly, tiredly, she sat up and picked tiny fragments of glass from her hair and clothing.

All this
, she thought.

As if anyone had doubted their seriousness
.

T
HERE WERE NO WINDOWS
in the surveillance room, but those inside it watched and heard the explosion on the closed-circuit monitors and felt its
vibrations shudder through them.

They watched in silence. Maggie Dunster involuntarily cried out at the initial shock.

On one of the monitors, Jimmy Dunster saw billowing smoke, blackened ruins, utter devastation. Where moments before there
had been a large, useful building, now there was nothing. Dunster did not know if anyone had been inside the building. Even
without injury or loss of life, the act struck him as a baneful waste.

On another monitor, the president was able to look into the conference room. He saw people picking themselves up from the
floor and helping those still too dazed to move. There were a few cuts from shattered window glass, but no one appeared to
be seriously hurt.

The real damage, thought Dunster, being inside their heads, did not show.

Calmer now, he was beginning to appreciate the full implications of Mainz’s act.
Let them know fear. If you frighten them enough at the start, they’ll give you less trouble later on
.

The thought made him feel better. It had not been just a depraved, reasonless burst of destruction. At least there was a semblance
of purpose behind it.

Small consolation.

Dunster reached for his wife’s hand and felt it cool, moist, and minutely trembling against his own. Sitting side by side,
this was their only means of touching. They were each manacled to their chairs by one hand. They were not uncomfortable and
their captors had apologized for the need, but it was still the ultimate indignity.

Jimmy Dunster faced the very real possibility that in seventy-two hours or less, they could both be dead. Maggie, he saw,
knew it too. So of course she smiled.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he said, his words so quiet they were almost lost.

Maggie nodded.

“Then out of gratitude alone will you please do me a big favor?”

“No,” she said.

“But you don’t even know what I want.”

“Yes I do. And the answer is still no. I’m not walking out of here until you’re with me.”

“That’s so crazy, Maggie. It doesn’t help anyone.”

“You’re wrong, love. It helps
me.”

They looked off to where their two jailers sat facing the banks of monitor screens, studying everything going on both inside
and outside the building. Sound arrived from half a dozen different locations, and the room was filled with sirens, cries,
angry and frightened voices. Fires were burning in the rubble of the blasted building and the smoke spread like a gray veil
over fields and woods.

“Just out of curiosity,” said the president, “how did you find out we were going to be here?”

“We didn’t,” said Klaus Logefeld. “We were just as surprised as everyone else when you walked in.”

It was barely half an hour since the bombing, but things had quieted on the monitors. Hoses were wetting down what remained
of the fires, the conference hall was being cleared of broken glass and returned to a semblance of order, and those in the
surveillance room were taking advantage of their first real chance to talk.

“But you obviously had everything planned and set up well in advance,” said Jimmy Dunster.

“Yes, sir. But not for you.”

“Then for whom?”

“We couldn’t really be firm on that. It hung on too many variables. But if all went well, it probably would have been Chancellor
Eisner or your own Secretary Green.”

Klaus Logefeld laughed. “Then God decided to gift us with you, Mr. President. And we knew there was no way we were ever going
to do any better than that.”

“How can you laugh?” Maggie broke in. “How can you think something like this is funny?”

Klaus looked evenly at her. “Do you really believe I think this is funny, Mrs. Dunster?”

Maggie sat very still. Then she slowly shook her head. “No. It’s just that I don’t understand how someone like you could have
put himself in this position to begin with.”

“Someone like
me
?”

“A professor. An intelligent, educated man.”

“You mean only
un
intelligent,
un
educated men should take action against reasonless hate and killing?”

“It’s what could have driven you to this
kind
of action that I don’t understand, Professor.”

“It’s called desperation, Mrs. Dunster. And I’d be willing to swear that of all people, your husband understands it.”

“A
S WE UNDERSTAND IT
, Dr. Vorelli,” said Major Dechen, “Professor Mainz and his grandfather were appointed to the Italian delegation at your request.
Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

It was 4:35
P.M.
and Nicko Vorelli had been wondering how long it would take them to get to this.

He looked at the two men who were in the security office along with Major Dechen and himself. One of them was Director Cortlandt
of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The other, younger man, apparently an agent of Cortlandt’s, had been introduced
as John Hendricks. But Nicko had the feeling he had seen or met him someplace before. Possibly under a different name.

“Please tell us this,” he heard Cortlandt say. “Of all the people you might have recommended for your delegation, what made
you approach these two?”

“My infallible good judgment,” said Nicko.

No one smiled.

“Actually,” Nicko continued, “Professor Mainz approached
me
. The man could sell anyone anything. He projects the ultimate in passion and intelligence. That he’s also proven to be a
dangerous fanatic came as a big shock.”

The man who called himself Hendricks stared at him. His antagonism was so open and intense that Nicko almost felt it was personal.

So where have I seen him before?

“I’m making no excuses,” he said. “This has to be the most costly mistake of my life.”