We Are Holding the President Hostage (7 page)

THE PRESIDENT PUT HIS FEET UP on the desk and leaned back
to the full extent of the swivel so that his eyes could see how cleverly the
low relief of the presidential seal had been worked into the white ceiling with
its trim of dental work. Was this the power and the glory?

It was a question he asked himself often. From the very
moment when he knew that the presidency belonged to him, his elation had
deflated. Suddenly he was frightened. It had taken him all of that election
night to understand the sensation. He and Amy had clung to each other in their
own bed back home, as if the touch of mutual flesh was necessary to validate
reality.

Just suppose when he got there on top of the mountain,
sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, finger on the trigger of a
holocaust, responsible for the preservation of the living world, protector of
the concept of human rights, of a free people, of representative government, of
the Judeo-Christian value system, that he suddenly discovered that he was
ineffective, unsure, unwise, inadequate.

"No way."

It was a chorus of protest, echoing and reechoing in his
mind. In that chorus were the raised voices of his cheerleaders. His parents,
his grandparents, his wife, his children, his teachers, his teammates, his
friends. It was his secret assumption that, long ago, perhaps at the moment of
his conception, he had been marked and registered for high purpose. It was even
embarrassing sometimes to hear the echo of such a presumption in his own mind.

And yet the evidence was inescapable. Paul Bernard was,
indeed, chosen, anointed. Then why the hell was it getting harder and harder to
hear the chorus of voices? Where the hell had all the cheerleaders gone?

Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair and looked across
the room to the portrait of George Washington in his full-dress uniform. It had
been painted by Charles Wilson Peale and was said to be the only full-sized
portrait done of Washington from life. The father of our country. Had someone
left it there to mock him?

"What would you do, wise guy?" he said aloud,
actually waiting for an answer. "Avoid foreign entanglements, you say?
Good advice, George. Send Martha my best."

He hadn't seen his secretary, Barbara Higgins, come in.
Looking up, he blushed. His gaze moved to the tall clock. In fact, the hands on
the clock had dominated his life all day. He had signed three important bills,
taken the usual picture with the congressional leadership, given away the usual
quota of pens, had a long meeting with the Secretary of Defense, posed with the
poster girl for Juvenile Diabetes, made a round robin of calls to senators
pushing his export bill, had a cheese sandwich and a Coke at his desk, both of
which were sending back reminders. But it was that damned clock, that
relentless tick-tock. Harkins had assured him that he would hear by two at the
latest. Well, it was after two.

"Mr. Harkins and Mr. Foreman are waiting in the outer
room, Mr. President."

"Well then..." He made a waving motion and his
secretary scurried out.

He rose to move to one of the wing chairs in front of the
mantel while the CIA Director and Foreman sat down together on opposite
couches. He read the news in their faces.

"Damn," the President muttered.

"They had the house staked out," Harkins said.
"They were dead sure. So we let them have it all. They were bitching about
our interference. You remember what happened that last time when we offered to
go in with them in Malta. Hell, it was a simple house assault. Nothing
more."

The President tapped his fingers on the arm of a chair. The
damned thing was bedeviling him. He felt a stab of pain in his midsection and
popped an antacid in his mouth. The recovery of the woman and her child would
have bought him a temporary reprieve. He had even discussed it at length with
the Egyptian President, that frightened fool. They were sinking billions into the
Egyptian pit. What the hell were they getting for their money?

"So let's have it straight," the President said.

"They went in on schedule," Harkins said.
"Object was to move in, get the woman and her kid, and, if possible, get
the hostage-takers alive, parade them in front of the cameras. A real glory
scene. They had all the backup needed. Helicopters. The works. Only when they
got there, the bastards had flown the coop."

"How come?"

"Must have been an inside tip," the CIA Director
said.

"They've got a massive search going," his
National Security Advisor said lamely.

"The Egyptians couldn't find an elephant in a hog
pond," the President said. The antacid hadn't started to work and the pain
was now getting him just below the heart. It occurred to him suddenly that
maybe he was having a heart attack. Then he belched and the pain disappeared.
No such luck, he told himself.

"Their people assure me—" Foreman began.

"Their people are full of shit."

"Unfortunately, they're also stupid. They were so
sure, they invited media," Harkins said. "Then they tried to put a
cap on it, which only made the media more determined to get a story out. Any
story. With them, they love failure better than success. By evening it will be
spread over the tube."

"Another needle in Uncle's rump," the President
said. He stood up suddenly, as if he felt the physical pain in exactly that
part of his own anatomy. Then he began to walk aimlessly around the office,
skirting the couches, over the pale gold oval rug. He secretly avoided stepping
on the turquoise rosettes, as if they were cow pats, like a superstitious
child. Except that disaster had already struck. He looked out at the Rose
Garden through the high windows, a peaceful scene, tranquil. It did not calm
his agitation.

"With friends like that..." he began, then
swallowed the cliché.

"It's not fatal, Mr. President," Foreman said.
"It's not our blunder."

"What's the truth got to do with it," the
President said. "Name of the game is perception. Guilt by association.
Only one Teflon President a century."

He turned away from the window and looked down at the
forest of family pictures on the little table behind his desk. Amy and the
kids. His mother and dad, long dead. Mom, he thought, then shrugged away the
image, suddenly remembering himself as a small boy hiding his head in her
apron, her sweet dough-smelling starchy apron.

"Is it a good time to bring it up?" Harkins
asked.

"Oh Jesus," the President said. He turned away
from the window and slipped into the chair behind his desk.

"It's not exactly another Iran," Foreman said.
"Don't let it get out of proportion."

He rifled through his desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of
papers. Lifting it, he waved it at the two men.

"Polls, gentlemen." He slapped them on his desk.
"If the vote was today, I wouldn't be elected dogcatcher. Imagine what it
will be tomorrow." Again he stood up. With the tips of his fingers, he
balanced himself on the surface of his desk.

"Listen. We've got one helluva prosperous country out
there. We're rolling in dough. Incomes are up. Unemployment is down. We're fat
and happy."

He sucked in a deep breath in an effort to slow down his
accelerating agitation. "All that mean anything? Hell no. The box score
shows an indecisive, cowardly man chasing phantoms. We're talking about only
twenty-one American hostages. But it's not the numbers. It's that this yo-yo
who runs the most powerful country on earth can't come up with a way to stop
our people from getting hijacked and free them when they do. It's the pimple on
your ass that always hurts the most." He stopped in mid-sentence, spent.

It was futile, he knew, to berate the wind. Simple
explanation, he decided. His luck was running out.

"Well then, why not let me excise that pimple?"
Harkins asked.

The telephone rang at his desk. He looked at his watch. He
was scheduled for a meeting with his Chief of Staff and his domestic affairs
counselor. He picked up the phone, turning his eyes away from Harkins' hopeful
gaze. No. Not now, he told himself. Never.

"In a minute," he said, thankful that he could
get on to another subject. Oddly, the men on the couches did not move. They
exchanged troubled glances. There was something more, the President speculated,
something that neither of them wanted to talk about.

"Why don't you toss a coin?" the President asked.

"We already did," Harkins said. "I won. I
got to tell you the good news."

"Well?"

"The mother and her boy are both well," Harkins
replied.

"So where's the punch line?" the President asked.

"They're in Lebanon," Foreman said.

EVEN WHEN HE STOOD UP and stretched his arm, Giuseppe
Carlotti's shaking fingers could not touch every point of the White House floor
plan that required illustration. He was a small round man with a short narrow
mustache, slick black hair, and tiny mouse eyes that blinked continuously, a
condition that was obviously greatly aggravated by his present state of extreme
nervousness. It was quite obvious that this was not his choice of an ideal
situation.

"The pantry is here," he said, pointing to the
plan. "But the food comes up from the floor below. What we do there is
assemble, then we move it to the pantry, then we bring it through the door and
serve. It is not an efficient way. Even so, everything must be timed
precisely."

The Padre studied the plan silently. The others waited for.
his reaction. Robert seemed to concentrate on the plan so intently that his
eyeglasses fogged. He took them off and wiped them with a bit of tissue.

The Padre nodded and stroked his chin. Like a magnifying
glass that gathers the rays of the sun and focuses down to a single pinprick of
intense heat, the Padre had thought of nothing else for the past week. The idea
had germinated, bloomed, and flowered.

Events had transformed a once preposterous idea into a
possibility. Everyone and everything was vulnerable. This was the axiom of his
life. Nothing could be foreclosed if one's purpose was single-minded. And
anxiety was a forceful stimulant.

The killing of the three hostages, the unsuccessful
storming of the villa by the Egyptians, the announcement that Maria and Joey
were in Lebanon, all events that had hastened his decision, made action
essential. Of all things, the pain of inaction was unbearable. He felt like a
conspirator in his daughter and grandson's agony.

"There is no choice, Robert," he had told his
son-in-law. Nor had he asked for his approval.

"I won't presume to tell you your business,
Salvatore," Robert had said.

Certain decisions, once made, were irrevocable. This one
would take every drop of his concentration, his friendships, alliances, and
experience. Above all, he had complete faith in the reliability and efficiency
of the network of families and their various and diverse interlocking
relationships.

Tongue to tongue, mind to mind, the system radiated
outward, a giant eye fixing on selective targets stashed in crevices
everywhere. The vast extended family, knit by blood, obligation, fear, and,
above all, honor, would spit out the needed ingredients from its great maw.
This, in his mind, would be the ultimate test for the organization. Like the
blood of his father, he knew it could not fail him.

Giuseppe Carlotti was an old marker, like all the others,
waiting to be called. He was a cousin of Bernotti, brother of Connie, who had
married an uncle of Vincent Moroni, son of his father's trusted capo Leonardo,
whose family had been supported after Leonardo had been gunned down in a West
Side alley.

Old family markers were better than gold, currency waiting
willingly for the moment when the debt would be called. They were irrevocable.
New generations had to assume payment. Long lists of such obligations were
committed to memory, handed down from father to son, uncle to nephew, brother
to brother, down through the generations on the river of blood. No questions
asked. To renege was a high crime, demanding a punishment that was equal in
retribution for that meted out by betrayal. It was simply a matter of honor.

The technical aspects of getting into the White House
became moot the more the Padre explored them. He believed, as a matter of
principle, that all security precautions created by the authorities could be
breached by flaws both human and mechanical.

Inquiries among people who made a living out of foiling
such technology had come up with an easy method of getting weapons through the
technological barrier. The weapon would be liquid explosives carried as a kind
of clothes lining in flat plastic containers that followed the body contours.

Metal detectors simply could not pick up liquid explosives,
of which there were a number of common compounds. The most reliable consisted
of that old standby, pure nitroglycerin, which could be exploded on impact.

Of course the carrier of these weapons would also be
demolished, but that was a mere technicality. In the context of the White
House, and specifically the President, the actual use of any weapon by an
interloper meant automatic death. In this case, if the liquid explosives chosen
by the Padre for this job were detonated, everyone within a radius of twenty
feet would be also killed.

Such a possibility had to be the ultimate nightmare for
anyone in the business of protecting life and limb. Naturally, the plan's
effectiveness as a persuader depended on the perception of the protectors. The
Padre had to be able to convince the Secret Service that he and his men were
willing to die in order to save the lives of the Padre's daughter and grandson.

The Padre had absolutely no doubts about the men he had
chosen to accompany him.

"Not you, Robert," he had told his son-in-law.

"But I must," he had responded. "She is my
wife. Joey is my child."

"And if we die?"

"Am I not worthy to risk my life for my loved
ones?" Robert asked.

"That's ridiculous."

"Then you don't trust me."

"That is not the question," the old man replied.
"She will need someone to be here when she comes home."

"But she would never forgive herself if you died
because of her. The others as well."

"And would she forgive you if you died there? Would
Joey forgive you?"

Robert did not respond, although the Padre knew he had not
provided the last word.

There was an even more important question: How can four men
get inside the White House and come within the required lethal proximity to the
President of the United States?

Giuseppe Carlotti, his fear at war with his reluctance, was
telling them how. They were sitting around the table in the back room of
Luigi's restaurant. If Giuseppe suspected the real motives behind the rapt
attention he was shown by his audience, he did not offer a clue. In fact, his
avoidance of the subject was palpable.

"I'm just a caterer," he told them repeatedly.

"And we are just students of architecture," the
Padre said, if only to lighten the somber mood. It was understandable. There
had to be something fatalistic about the atmosphere. It was not simply a matter
of danger or courage. What the Padre had proposed would try the logic of even
the most loyal and committed. One had to suspend the traditional judgments just
to consider the possibility.

Nor was he afraid to broach the unthinkable. Which was that
this idea could turn out to be a suicide mission of epic proportions. But life,
the Padre knew, was a suicide mission.

Of all things, death itself could never be cheated. He saw
himself in a race, trying to catch up with the man with the scythe who was
chasing his daughter and grandson. The President's present course could result
only in the death of his daughter and grandson. Moreover, the Padre knew these
terrorists were criminals and that the criminal mind would respond only to
stimuli outside the President's experience and inclination.

"I don't want to know from nothing," Carlotti was
saying, determined, despite the information he was providing, to prove his
neutrality. "I only know how we serve the meals."

The Padre nodded, an obvious gesture of absolution designed
to soothe the agitated little man. It didn't.

"All I do is cater. I work hard. I build a good
business. My partner and me, we do all the good parties in Washington. They
know that when you call Carlotti and Mills, they have the best. What you do
here is your business. So I lose the account. That's okay. It's a showpiece
business. No big money in it. Prestige. That's all I get."

He seemed like a butterfly struggling to disimpale himself
from a pin, not quite understanding that all his flapping was useless.

"Where does the President sit?" the Padre asked.

Carlotti frowned, glancing sharply at the Padre. If he was
inclined to protest, it was for the briefest moment.

"Usually here. In the table directly in front of the
mantel. Under the Lincoln picture. With his back to it. He'll have the Queen on
his right." He pointed a stubby finger at the plan.

"And the First Lady?"

"At the next table. She sits facing the President. The
King of Spain will be on her right. They are the only two tables of
eight."

The Padre concentrated on the plans. He noted two small
elevators and a staircase. He pointed to an elevator next to a staircase.
"Does this go to the second floor?" The Padre removed the first-floor
plan. Under it was the second-floor plan. The problem was that there was no vouching
for the accuracy of these plans. There could be hidden corridors, dead ends.

"I don't know." Carlotti shrugged.

"You've never been upstairs? To where they live?"

"Never."

Somehow the Padre was not convinced.

"Just to the First Lady's office," Carlotti added
finally.

"And where is that?"

The caterer pointed to a room on the second floor.

"None of the others?" The Padre had pointed to
the rooms on the west side of the house, the living quarters. There, he had
decided. Carlotti shook his head.

"You went up on the elevator or the stairs?"

"The front stairs." He pointed. "Up this
circular staircase."

"But these back stairs go up too."

Carlotti looked around helplessly.

"I was there only that one time I was in her office.
This area I know." He pointed to the State Dining Room and the pantry
area. "And the kitchen below."

The Padre looked directly at him. He hesitated and replaced
the top plan. They had been enlarged from a book on the White House taken out
of the public library.

"How many men does it take to serve the meal?"
the Padre asked gently.

Carlotti brushed away droplets of sweat that had gathered
on his upper lip. Some rolled onto his mustache.

"In the front, eighteen waiters, one to a table. And
remember, there are four tables in the Red Room. So four more makes twenty-two.
And three bartenders at three stations." He pointed. "Here. Here and
here. They come off the receiving line and get a drink. At dinner we serve the
wine. Three kinds. White, red, and champagne for the toasts. Everything is
served French style."

"And the Secret Service men? Where are they?"

"Everywhere?"

"Like where?"

"In the corners, I think. I don't watch them."

"Are they in the dining rooms during the meal?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

Carlotti thought for a moment. Above all, he seemed to know
that he must not appear evasive.

"Six, maybe. But they are also in the other
rooms."

"All told then?"

"A dozen, maybe. I don't count. They are very clever
in the way they do this. They are all connected with these things in their ears
and microphones that come out of their cuffs. You can barely see them."

"And they are armed?"

"Of course." Carlotti seemed to betray a more
than casual curiosity about this point. "Uzis under their jackets. They
are also clever in the way they are concealed." Suddenly Carlotti showed
some hopefulness. "There are all sorts of secret things they have."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure. I heard."

The Padre rubbed his chin. He knew he would not get much
more information from this man. To work, his plan must depend primarily on
persuading the Secret Service that he and his men were walking bombs. If the
Secret Service failed to believe this, then the plan would collapse. It must
appear fatal for the President to resist. And the attack must come as a
complete surprise.

"Giuseppe," the Padre asked, offering a smile.
"This food you serve. It is good?"

"The best."

"And the service, the waiters?"

He paused and seemed to puff up with pride, as if he were
pitching a prospective client. "My waiters are all Europe-trained. No
finer in the city. White gloves. Immaculate. The works. I resisted all their
efforts to have me use the staff butlers. The White House people are cheap as
hell. But they want the best and I give it to them. So I lose money. It's a
calling card. I know my business."

The Padre nodded and offered a wan smile.

"Now tell me, Giuseppe, how does the help get
in?"

"Get in?" Despite all the energy spent on denying
the unthinkable, Carlotti could not contain his obvious wonder at the immensity
of the idea. "My God." For a moment he seemed to be struck dumb. The
Padre had to prod him to answer.

"How do they do it?" he snapped. No smiles now.

Carlotti shook his head with a kind of shivery jerk.

"We give their social security numbers, they
investigate, and they get clearance. When they come through they show IDs to
the guards. Then they pass through the security machines." He looked about
him suddenly, as if a new idea had miraculously emerged to save him.
"They're very very strict about this. They look into backgrounds."

When that information did not move the Padre, he tried
another tack, suddenly lowering his voice. "I'm not supposed to say, but
they got tasters too."

"Tasters?" Benjy asked.

"Filipino mess men. They make sure the food isn't
poisoned."

Quite obviously, Carlotti was trying to build up the
concept of White House invincibility, as if to further illustrate the madness
of the idea, yet without letting on that he suspected what all this
conversation meant.

"No shit," the Canary said.

"Like for kings," Vinnie pointed out.

The exchange broke the tension in the room. But the Padre's
thoughts were elsewhere.