We Are Holding the President Hostage (3 page)

"Mark him," the Padre whispered, narrowing his
green eyes, focusing on the younger man. "I want everyone who sees his
face to know." Benjy flushed, accepting the assessment.

"Hell, Tameleo should be wasted and dumped. The
bastard."

It was Benjy who had sponsored him. The Padre studied him.
Was his indignation genuine?

"Then go down the chain and finish it," the Padre
said.

This meant that everyone who touched the goods would be
eliminated. Purely business, the Padre sighed. Tameleo's facial scars would
mark him forever. They would be deep and ugly, but they would send the message
that would cause him to live in fear for the rest of his life. His legacy, to
become a living example.

Luigi came in and took away the Padre's uneaten food. He
also brought him another bottle of Chianti, a peeled peach in ice water, and a
knife. It was approaching late afternoon. There were still many other people to
see.

As he sliced his peach, the Talker came in followed by a
large rough-looking man. He was about forty, with old-fashioned stained jeans
and an oil-specked khaki shirt, a size or two too small, which showed off both
his enormous biceps and a hard, pooching beer gut.

"Mozak," the Talker said.

The big man stood hovering over the table, looking down at
the Padre, who searched him carefully for any signs of potential violence. The
two men at the table behind them also tensed. The Padre saw Mozak take in the
situation. He seemed to seethe with repressed anger.

"I got no choice. That's why I come here," he
said. He had one of those flat Slavic faces, with deep eyes set wide apart.

"You must sit down, Mr. Mozak," the Padre said
expansively, waving toward a seat. "Have some wine."

"I stand," the big man said. "One of your
guinea boys come to my place and tell me I gotta shut down my trucks 'cause I
got no permission to make my airport runs. I say shit to that. I work hard, buy
five trucks, and I run where I want. There's enough business at the airport for
everybody."

"Come sit down," the Padre said soothingly.
"No problem that cannot be worked out."

The Padre's conciliatory attitude must have taken him by
surprise. He stepped forward, then stopped abruptly, as if his legs had to be
suddenly commanded to cease all movement.

"Look," the Padre said. "We're talking
business. Like gentlemen."

The display of camaraderie seemed to placate the man for a
moment. With caution, he moved to the table and sat. He looked at the Chianti
bottle, which the Padre had just lifted, and sneered.

"I don't drink that piss," he said.

The Padre put the bottle down and called for Luigi. The man
ordered double whiskeys.

"Just 'cause I drink your fucking whiskey don't mean
I'm gonna take orders from anyone."

"I think you misunderstood our people," the Padre
said, after Luigi had swiftly brought the man his drinks. "And maybe they
were a little too, you know, pushy. They meant to say they wanted to buy out
your business at a handsome profit."

"Why should I sell to you? I don't need no shit from
bosses," the man grunted.

The Padre, from behind his tranquil smile, assessed the
man. An immigrant. Ignorant. A hard case. But even the most brutish man was
entitled to his say.

"The offer wasn't good enough?" the Padre asked
politely.

"I don't remember no numbers," the man muttered.

The Padre looked toward the Pencil.

"More than he would make in five years," the
Pencil said.

"That's a wonderful offer," the Padre said.
"You want to work your ass off? You could start something elsewhere and
still have some bread in your pocket."

"Shit," Mozak sneered. He slammed the shot glass
on the table as if to emphasize his defiance.

The effort to ingratiate abruptly terminated. Why were
people so opposed to reality, the Padre wondered. Airport cargo was the
organization's franchise at Kennedy and La Guardia. Everybody knew that.

"You got a family?" the Padre asked. The change
of tone confused Mozak.

"Yeah, I gotta family."

"You're not doing right by them."

The man stood up, his heavy bovine face flushed, his hands
balled into fists. Behind the Padre the two men stood up, opening their
jackets, displaying their Magnums.

"I ain't afraid," Mozak said, but his courage had
waned.

At that moment the pay phone rang. It was such an uncommon
happening that the Padre turned to it as if it were something human that had
just made an insulting remark. But the ring was persistent. The men in the room
froze, waiting for the Padre to react. He looked at the Pencil and signaled
with his eyes. The Pencil rose and walked to the phone, lifting the receiver.

"Yeah," the Pencil said.

The Padre watched him.

"Who?"

"What about me?" Mozak snapped.

"I can't hear you too good," the Pencil shouted.

"I ain't afraid of you guys," Mozak said with
bravado, trying to stare down the two men who had stood up. The Padre ignored
him, watching the Pencil at the pay phone.

"Robert..." The Pencil was confused. He scratched
his head. Then it dawned on him. "Robert!" He looked toward the
Padre, whose heartbeat had already accelerated. The Padre stood up abruptly,
rattling the table. Drops of Chianti fell on the white tablecloth.

"So what about me?" Mozak shouted.

"You?" the Padre said, shaking his head as he
moved toward the outstretched receiver. "We'll fix it tomorrow," he
said. "You go home."

You're finished, he thought. By tomorrow he would have no
trucks left. He looked at the two men standing by the table. Without a movement
of his features, the message passed between him and them. Mozak's eyes searched
the faces of the men in the room, then he shrugged and stormed out, muttering
under his breath.

With trepidation, the Padre took the earpiece from the
Pencil. Sweat had already broken out on his back.

"Robert? This is your father-in-law," the Padre
said, hearing the familiar whoosh of international long-distance.

"I didn't want you to hear it first from anyone but
me," Robert began.

BIRDS. FROM WHERE SHE LAY, one leg strung out along Paul's
bare thigh, the other at an angle that dangled one foot over the edge of the
king-sized bed, Amy Bernard saw birds. Most of them flew, glided, or dove helter-skelter
over the white hand-painted Chinese wallpaper that her predecessor had
installed in the bedroom. Some merely primped and exhibited themselves. One
that looked suspiciously like a lowly barnyard rooster pecked at the ground
near the hand-carved marble mantel. There were sound effects, too, birdsongs
from the live chorus of winged creatures that occupied the magnolia that Andrew
Jackson himself had planted just outside their windows.

After more than three years of sleeping in this place, the
painted birds and the background songs had become reassuring, validating as she
awoke each morning, that she had, indeed, spent yet another night under the
roof of the most powerful house in the land. She raised her head and squinted
at the ornate gold clock on the mantel, more out of habit than purpose. She
never could see the numbers clearly. But the clock looked so good on the
mantel. Must be six or thereabouts, she thought. They rarely slept past
six-thirty.

She raised herself on one elbow and looked at her husband.
She watched his face in repose, the features relaxed, the skin taut against his
skull.

More than three decades slipped away. He looked that much
younger when he slept, a reminder of the eager young student she had first met
at the University of Minnesota, the gangling, blond, blue-eyed, intensely
motivated competitor who she had seen for the first time when he beat the
bejesus out of all comers on the debating team from the University of Iowa. Of all memories, this first-time image persisted.

His eyes fluttered. He was dreaming. She frequently
wondered what his dreams were like. When she asked, he could not remember. With
her finger barely touching, she traced his lips, pursed slightly, as if he were
smiling at his good fortune.

Often he told her, "I am the luckiest bastard in the
world."

Her response was to tap her forehead. "Brains,
too."

Also those, she told herself, drawing an imaginary line
down to his crotch, which set off erotic signals. Her arm crept around his bare
middle, fingers fluttering, brushing delicately like birds' wings along the
thatch of hair that surrounded the presidential phallus. Just thinking that way
made her giggle. Considering their life in the goldfish bowl, it was delicious
to be wickedly uninhibited in private.

Paul stirred, grunted, his conscious mind still tucked away
in some mysterious fog. But other parts were reacting. Certain of her own as
well. The giggle flattened inside of her. It was this morning moment she
cherished the most, as it always came before the giant tide of
"responsibility" that would carry them off to the fantasy world of
the presidential stage.

What good was power as an aphrodisiac if you never had time
to harvest its rewards? she thought, sensing the feathery tickle of sensuality.
This moment was the only special private unscheduled frame of time in the
waking day. Or was it scheduled? Had some aide penciled in "Six to six
forty-five. The President and the First Lady engage in recreational
copulation." Perhaps there was a code name for it. Like Jellyroll.

Her nightgown was rolled to her waist and she slowly
undulated against him, her hand growing bolder, her upper leg cradling his
thigh.

"Stop faking," she whispered. "You're
up."

She caressed him with growing eagerness, her sensual
motions accelerating. He turned toward her and in the half-light she could see
his smile and the moist glistening of the white space in his opened eyes. He
snuggled against her, his hands busy, his head moving to her bosom. Her arms
embraced his head, held it to her breasts as his tongue rolled over a nipple,
sending thrills of expectation through her body.

So precious, she thought. There was no other way to
describe this stolen moment. They rolled slightly in the big bed as she
positioned herself under him in the missionary way. Middle-of-the-road in every
way, she happily thought as she concentrated on the serious business of giving
and taking pleasure.

"Fuck me, Mr. President," she whispered, biting
his earlobe, lightly, playfully.

With her hands she directed the course of his movements,
each obeying private signals that three decades of marriage had taught. Like
most marriages, there wasn't a jackpot in it every time, but the act itself and
its frequency gave the lie to those who said that political marriages were
rocky in the sack.

Not mine. Not now. She felt it begin, somewhere deep, as if
a centipede were crawling over exposed nerves. Her mind stopped looking for its
source as she lifted her legs and raised her hips to meet his, concentrating on
the foamy curl of the breaking wave. Then it began. For him, too.

But somewhere in the tangle of impressions a faraway sound
intruded, rhythmical, urgent, the nightmare tapping of the inevitable spoiler.
She removed her hands from his buttocks and put them against the sides of his head,
pinning his ears, hiding the sound. Not yet, she cried, bringing his lips down
to hers, waiting for the waves of primary pleasure to subside. A victory of
sorts, she decided, recognizing the persistent knuckling on the bedroom door.
She had beat the bastards to the punch.

"They really flew this time," she said in his
ear, eyes opening to the flocks on the wallpaper.

"I heard the flapping," he said, lifting his head
to focus on her face. "But you had the better view."

"Just an old-fashioned couple."

The knocking continued.

"Mr. President," a voice said.

"Go away," she whispered in his ear. "You're
robbing me of afterplay."

"Meet you same time, same place tomorrow."

"A date."

"I better go," he said, disengaging from the
tangle of extremities. He gave her a smacking kiss and bounded out of bed,
hustling into his paisley robe. She pulled the covers up to her neck and
watched him pad across the room in his bare feet and unlock the door.

She heard urgent whispers, recognized them as those of the
redoubtable Bob Nickels, Paul's Chief of Staff. Then the voices moved in the
direction of the office that adjoined the bedroom.

She flung away the covers, slipped out of her nightgown,
and moved naked across the room. She peered into the mirror over the mantel and
fluffed up her short-cropped blonde hair. Not bad for two and a half score, she
assured herself, patting the underside of her chin, which was still,
miraculously, firm and tight.

She heard the door close. After a while, it opened again.
Paul was alone. In the mirror, she saw him frown and shake his head.

"Crazies," he said, striding across the room to
the windows. He drew the draperies and looked out onto the lawn. Sunlight
streamed into the room, but it apparently did not brighten his mood. "Look
at those godforsaken things."

She knew he meant the ugly cement globs that blocked the
gates. Of all the things that annoyed him, the cement barricades were the most
irritating, the ultimate symbols of the siege mentality. He continued to look
out of the window, shaking his head.

"They got two more. A mother and son. Picked them off
in Cairo. Badly wounded an Assistant Secretary of State. At least they got four
of the bastards. Damned cowards. Too good for them. A woman and a child, for
chrissakes."

She knew the count, of course. That made twenty-four in
all, an even two dozen Americans. Now the media could say "dozens."
No more groping for euphemisms of exaggeration. It wasn't just the numbers. It
was the paralysis, the inability to act.

"Who is it this time?"

"Everyone and no one. Islamic Jihad, a cover for every
nut case in the Middle East. They got pros on the payroll now. You never know
who's who and what's what." He shook his head. "Egypt is supposed to be a buddy of ours. Where the hell is their intelligence?"

"And ours?" she asked, which wasn't entirely
fair, since he had told her that the CIA had it pretty well sorted out.

She had read the memos. Maybe it wasn't entirely legal, but
they had resolved that problem early on. No secrets, baby. No fun sharing the
triumphs if she couldn't share the frustrations and defeats. Maybe she didn't
know quite everything he knew, but she did get a charge out of reading Jack
Harkins' clever little memos where the real challenge came in spotting the
signposts of sly manipulation.

The CIA Director's prose was impeccably subtle. But it did
inform, and there were issues, terrorism and hostage-taking, among an array of
thorny problems, that she was determined to be informed about. An ignorant
wife, especially in her position, could be downright dangerous.

"Makes me look so damned helpless. You saw that
cartoon in the
Post
. Me tied up like Gulliver while all those
Lilliputians wearing khafis and sporting AK47's were climbing all over
me."

"Very clever idea," Amy said. Sometimes a
wisecrack might cajole him into a good humor. This time he ignored her, and she
knew he was heading swiftly into a black funk.

"It's either bomb the bastards..." He blew air
through his teeth. "Not like that Libyan tea party Reagan ordered. I mean
really bomb them. Never mind where they go. Or send in the coverts. That's
Harkins' broken record. Him and his damned computers."

She understood the reference. The CIA Director boasted of
the best covert operation in the world, all computerized. It frightened her to
think about it. And worried Paul. Once he stepped across that line, he had
little control over it. She tried to deflect his thoughts from going down that
path.

"A five-year-old kid. That's a new wrinkle."

"A woman, too. That's also new. To them, women aren't
supposed to be worth the trouble." She sensed an element of sarcasm in her
tone. She wondered if it had occurred to him.

"Don't get the female consciousness all fired up.
Taking hostages supersedes gender."

"Just an indication that they're broadening the attack,"
she said defensively.

By the time she had retreated, his thoughts seemed to have
drifted elsewhere.

Mustn't, she berated herself. Be a good First Lady,
helpmate, soulmate, bedmate. It was her only job now. After three years, she
was still prone to forget. She watched him as he began to dress. Unlike past
Presidents, he eschewed valets, trusting to her judgment on how he should
present himself to the world.

"I'll tell you what I'd like to do about it," he
muttered as he paced the room, thrusting his shirt in his pants.

"I don't want to hear it," Amy said.

"It's going to come. Encourage them by doing nothing,
they'll rub our noses in it."

"I suppose that's the prevailing theory."

"One of many," Paul said. He pulled a tie from
the rack and showed it to her.

"Not that one," she said. He pulled another and
held it up.

"The Wedgwood blue with the olive stripes."

He looked for it, found it, and began to tie it.

"Better," she said.

He put on his jacket, then turned and kissed her on the
forehead, always a signal for their little good-bye ritual.

"Off to the salt mines," he said.

"Wouldn't have your job for all the tea in China."

He winked, patted her naked butt, and left the room.

When Paul had gone, she put on her robe and pressed the
bedside button. In a few moments, Farmer, the family butler, would arrive with
coffee and rolls. She sat down at the desk and put on her half-glasses and
looked over the neatly typed sheet that outlined her chores for the day. One of
them read "Preparation for the state dinner for the King of Spain."

Well, that was something, she thought with amusement.
Something pleasant to look forward to. It was nearly a month away, but the
planning had to be long-term and scrupulous.

The gloomy hostage business moved further from her
consciousness. Entertaining royalty would be fun, all that pomp. We must do
something special for the King. She had already begun to draw up a list of
names when the coffee and rolls arrived.