AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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 t
he 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.
