The Negotiator (14 page)

Sir Harry had no children and had not been in office in January 1982, so, unlike the retired Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong, who would not have been surprised, he had not witnessed Margaret Thatcher’s anguish when her son Mark had gone missing on the Dakar Rally in the Algerian desert. Then, in the privacy of the night, she had cried from that pure and very special pain felt by a parent whose child is in danger. Mark Thatcher had been found alive by a patrol after six days.

When she raised her head she had recovered; she pressed a button on her intercom.

“Charlie, I want you to put through a personal call to President Cormack. From me. Tell the White House it is urgent and cannot wait. Yes, of
course
I know what time it is in Washington.”

“There is the American ambassador, via the Foreign Secretary,” ventured Sir Harry Marriott. “He could ... perhaps ...”

“No, I will do it myself,” insisted the Prime Minister. “You will please form the COBRA, Harry. Reports every hour on the hour, please.”

There is nothing particularly hot about the so-called hotline between Downing Street and the White House. It is in fact a dedicated telephone link, via satellite, but with unbreakable scramblers fitted at both ends to ensure privacy. A hotline link normally takes about five minutes to set up. Margaret Thatcher pushed her papers to one side, stared out of the bulletproof windows of her private office, and waited.

Shotover Plain was crawling, literally, with activity. The two men of the patrol car Delta Bravo knew enough to keep everyone else off the area and to walk extremely carefully even as they examined the three bodies for signs of life. When they saw none, they left the bodies alone. Investigations can all too easily be ruined at the outset because someone walked all over evidence that would have been treasures to the forensic people, or a big foot pushed a spent cartridge into the mud, wiping off any fingerprints it might still have contained.

The uniformed men had cordoned off the area, the whole track from Littleworth down the hill to the east along to the steel bridge crossing the Ring Road between Shotover and Oxford City. Within this area the SOCOs, scene-of-crime officers, looked for anything and everything. They found that the British SB sergeant had fired twice; a metal detector got one slug out of the mud in front of him—he had slumped forward on his knees, firing as he went down. They could not find the other slug. It might have hit one of the kidnappers, they would report. (It hadn’t, but they did not know that.)

There were the spent cases from the Skorpion, twenty-eight of them, all in the same pool; each was photographed where it lay, picked up with tweezers, and bagged for the lab boys. One American was still slumped behind the wheel of the car; the other lay where he had died beside the passenger door, his bloodied hands over the three holes in his belly, the hand mike swinging free. Everything was photographed from every angle before anything was moved. The bodies went to the Radcliffe Infirmary while a Home Office pathologist sped down from London.

The tracks in the mud were of special interest: the smear where Simon Cormack had crashed down with two men on top of him, the prints of the kidnappers’ shoes—they would turn out to be from ultracommon running shoes and untraceable—and the tire tracks from the getaway vehicle, quickly identified as some kind of van. And there was the jack, brand-new and purchasable from any of the Unipart chain of stores. Like the Skorpion 9mm cartridges, it would turn out to bear no prints.

There were thirty detectives seeking witnesses— wearisome but vital work that yielded some first descriptions. Two hundred yards east of the reservoir on the lane into Littleworth were two cottages. The lady in one, brewing up tea, had heard “some popping noises” down the lane about seven o’clock but had seen nothing. A man in Littleworth had seen a green van go by just after seven, heading toward Wheatley. The detectives would find the newspaper delivery boy and the milk-van driver just before nine, the boy at school, the milkman having breakfast.

He was the best witness. Medium-green, battered Ford Transit with the Barlow’s logo on the side. The marketing manager at Barlow confirmed they had had no vans in that area at that hour. All were accounted for. The police had their getaway vehicle; an all-points alert went out. No reason; just find it. No one connected it with a burning barn on the Islip road—yet.

Other detectives were around the house in Summer-town, knocking on doors in Woodstock Road and its vicinity. Had anyone seen parked cars, vans, other vehicles? Anyone seen observing the house down the street? They followed the route of Simon’s run right into the center of Oxford and out the other side. About twenty people reported they
had
seen the young runner being tailed by men in a car, but it always turned out to be the Secret Service car.

By nine o’clock the ACC Ops was getting the familiar feeling: There would be no rapid windup now, no lucky breaks, no quick catch. They were away, whoever they were. The Chief Constable, in full uniform, joined him at Shotover Plain and watched the teams at work.

“London seems to want to take over,” said the Chief Constable.

The ACC grunted. It was a snub, but also the removal of a hellish responsibility. The inquiry into the past would be tough enough, but to fail in the future ...

“Whitehall seems to feel they may have quit our patch, don’t you see. The powers might want the Met. to be in charge. Any press?”

The ACC shook his head. “Not yet, sir. But it won’t stay quiet for long. Too big.”

He did not know that the lady walking her dog who had been shooed away from the scene by the men of Delta Bravo at 7:16 had seen two of the three bodies, had run home badly frightened, and told her husband. Or that he was a printer on the
Oxford Mail
. Although a technician, he thought he ought to mention it to the duty editor when he arrived.

The call from Downing Street was taken by the senior duty officer in the Communications Center of the White House, situated in the subground level of the West Wing, right next to the Situation Room. It was logged at 3:34
A.M
. Washington time. Hearing who it was, the SDO bravely agreed to call the senior ranking Secret Service agent of the shift, at his post over in the Mansion.

The Secret Service man was patrolling the Center Hall at the time, quite close to the family quarters on the second floor. He responded when the phone at his desk opposite the First Family’s gilded elevator trilled discreetly.

“She wants what?” he whispered into the receiver. “Do those Brits know what time it is over here?”

He listened a while longer. He could not recall when last someone had awakened a President at that hour. Must have happened, he thought, in case of war, say. Maybe that was what this was about. He could be in for one bad time from Burbank if he got it wrong. On the other hand ... the British Prime Minister herself ...

“I’ll hang up now, call you back,” he told the Communications Room. London was told the President was being roused; they should hang on. They did.

The Secret Service guard, whose name was Lepinsky, went through the double doors into the West Sitting Hall and faced the door to the Cormacks’ bedroom on his left. He paused, took a deep breath, and knocked gently. No reply. He tried the handle. Unlocked. With, as he saw it, his career up for grabs, he entered. In the large double bed he could make out two sleeping forms, guessed the President would be nearer the window. He tiptoed around the bed, identified the maroon cotton pajama top, and shook the President’s shoulder.

“Mr. President, sir. Would you wake up, sir, please?”

John Cormack came awake, identified the man standing timorously over him, glanced at his wife, and did not put on the light.

“What time is it, Mr. Lepinsky?”

“Just after half past three, sir. I’m sorry about this ... Er, Mr. President, the British Prime Minister is on the line. She says it cannot wait. I’m sorry about this, sir.”

John Cormack thought for a moment, then swung his legs out of the bed—gently, so as not to wake Myra. Lepinsky handed him a nearby robe. After nearly three years in power Cormack knew the British Prime Minister well enough. He had twice seen her in England—the second time on a two-hour stopover on his return from Vnukovo—and she had been twice to the States. They were both decisive people; they got on well. If it was she, it had to be important. He would catch up on sleep later.

“Return to the Center Hall, Mr. Lepinsky,” he whispered. “Don’t worry. You have done well. I’ll take the call in my study.”

The President’s study is sandwiched between the master bedroom and the Yellow Oval Room, which is under the central rotunda. Like the bedroom, its windows look out over the lawn toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He closed the communicating door, put on the light, blinked several times, seated himself at his desk, and lifted the phone. She was on the line in ten seconds.

“Has anyone else been in touch with you yet?”

Something seemed to punch him in the stomach.

“No ... no one. Why?”

“I believe Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Burbank must know by now,” she said. “I’m sorry to have to be the first ...”

Then she told him. He held the phone very tightly and stared at the curtains, not seeing them. His mouth went dry and he could not swallow. He heard the phrases: everything, but everything being done ... Scotland Yard’s best teams ... no escape ... He said yes, and thank you, and put the phone down. It was like being punched hard in the chest. He thought of Myra, still asleep. He would have to tell her. It would hit her very hard.

“Oh, Simon,” he whispered. “Simon, my boy.”

He knew he could not handle this himself. He needed a friend who could step in while he looked after Myra. After several minutes he called the operator, kept his voice very steady.

“Get me Vice President Odell, please. Yes, now.”

In his residence at the Naval Observatory, Michael Odell was roused the same way, by a Secret Service man. The telephoned summons was unequivocal and unexplained. Please come straight to the Executive Mansion. Second floor. The study. Now, Michael, now, please.

Odell heard the phone go dead, replaced his own, scratched his head, and peeled the wrapper off a stick of spearmint gum. It helped him concentrate. He called for his car and went to the closet for his clothes. A widower, Odell slept alone, so there was no one to disturb. Ten minutes later, in slacks, shoes, and a sweater over his shirt, he was in the back of the stretch limousine, staring at the clipped back of the Navy driver’s head or the lights of nighttime Washington until the illuminated mass of the White House came into view. He avoided the South Portico and the South Entrance and entered the ground-floor corridor by the door at its western end. He told his driver to wait; he would not be long. He was wrong. The time was 4:07
A.M
.

Crisis management at the top level in Britain falls to a hastily convened committee whose membership varies according to the nature of the crisis. But its place of meeting rarely changes. The chosen conference hall is almost always the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, a quiet air-conditioned chamber two floors below ground level, under the Cabinet Office adjacent to Downing Street. From the initials these committees are known as COBRA.

It had taken Sir Harry Marriott and his staff just over an hour to get the “bodies,” as he called his cast list, out of their homes, off their commuter trains, or from their scattered offices and into the Cabinet Office. He took the chair at 9:56
A.M
.

The kidnapping was clearly a crime and a matter for the police, which came under the Home Office. But in this case there were many further ramifications. Apart from the Home Office, there was a Minister of State from the Foreign Office, which would try to maintain relationships with the State Department in Washington and thus the White House. Furthermore, if Simon Cormack had been spirited to Europe, their involvement would be vital at a political level. Answering to the Foreign Office was the Secret Intelligence Service, MI-6—“the Firm”—and their input would concern the possibility of foreign terrorist groups being involved. Their man had come across the river from Century House and would report back to the Chief.

Also coming under the Home Office, separate from the police, was the Security Service, MI-5, the counterintelligence arm with more than a passing interest in terrorism as it affected Britain internally. Their man had come from Curzon Street in Mayfair, where files on likely candidates were already being vetted by the score and a number of “sleepers” contacted to answer a particularly burning question: who?

There was a senior civil servant from the Defense Ministry, in charge of the Special Air Service regiment at Hereford. In the event that Simon Cormack and his abductors were located quickly and a siege situation developed, the SAS might well be needed for hostage recovery, one of their arcane specialties. No one needed to be told that already the troop on permanent half-hour standby—in this case, according to the rotation, Seven Troop, the free-fall men of B Squadron—had quietly moved up to Amber Alert, ten minutes, and their backup moved from two-hour standby to sixty minutes.

There was a man from the Ministry of Transport, controlling Britain’s ports and airports. Liaising with the Coastguards and Customs, his department would operate a blanket port-watch, for a prime concern now was to keep Simon Cormack inside the country in case the kidnappers had other ideas. He had already spoken to the Department of Trade and Industry, who had made plain that to examine every single sealed and bonded freight container heading out of the country was quite literally impossible. Still, any private airplane, yacht or cruiser, fishing smack, camper, or motor home heading out with a large crate on board, or someone on a stretcher or simply drugged and insensible, would find a Customs officer or Coastguard taking more than a passing interest.

The key man, however, sat at Sir Harry’s right: Nigel Cramer.

Unlike Britain’s provincial county constabularies and police authorities, London’s police force—the Metropolitan Police, known as “the Met.”—is headed not by a chief constable but by a commissioner and is the largest force in the country. The commissioner, in this case Sir Peter Imbert, is assisted in his task by four assistant commissioners, each in charge of one of the four departments. Second of these is Specialist Operations, or S.O.