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of the roof of the car behind him, and he went down unconscious.
“Put him in the car,” growled Brown when he had recovered his self-control.
There was no way Cramer could hold the American group. Seymour and Collins had diplomatic immunity; he let them all depart back to London in their two cars fifteen minutes later, warning them that he would want Quinn, for whom there was no diplomatic status, available for the taking of lengthy statements in London. Seymour gave his word Quinn would be available. When they had gone, Cramer used the phone in the garage to put through a call to Sir Harry Marriott at his home and give him the news; the phone was more secure than a police radio band.
The politician was shocked to his core. But he was still a politician.
“Mr. Cramer, were we, in the form of the British authorities, in any way involved in all this?”
“No, Home Secretary. From the time Quinn ran out of that apartment, this was wholly his affair. He handled it the way he wanted to, without involving us or his own people. He chose to play a lone hand, and it has failed.”
“I see,” said the Home Secretary. “I shall have to inform the Prime Minister at once. Of all aspects.” He meant that the British authorities had had no hand in the affair at all. “Keep the media out of it at all costs for the moment. At worst we will have to say that Simon Cormack has been found murdered. But not yet. And, of course, keep me in touch on every development, no matter how small.”
This time the news reached Washington from its own sources in London. Patrick Seymour telephoned Vice President Odell personally, on a secure line. Thinking he was taking a call from the FBI liaison man in London to announce Simon Cormack’s release, Michael Odell did not mind the hour—5:00 A.M. in Washington. When he heard what Seymour had to tell him, he went white.
“But how? Why? In God’s name, why?”
“We don’t know, sir,” said the voice from London. “The boy had been released safe and sound. He was running toward us, ninety yards away, when it happened. We don’t even know what ‘it’ was. But he’s dead, Mr. Vice President.”
The committee was convened within the hour. Every member felt ill with shock when told the news. The question was, who should tell the President. As chairman of the committee, the man saddled with the task of “Get my son back for me” twenty-four days earlier, it fell to Michael Odell. With a heavy heart he walked from the West Wing to the White House living quarters.
President Cormack did not need to be awakened. He had slept little these past three and a half weeks, often waking of his own accord in the predawn darkness, and walking through to his personal study to attempt to concentrate on papers of state. Hearing the Vice President was downstairs and wished to see him, President Cormack went into the Yellow Oval Room and said he would greet Odell there.
The Yellow Oval Room, on the second floor, is a spacious reception room between the study and the Treaty Room. Beyond its windows, looking over the South Lawn, is the Truman Balcony. Both are at the geometric center of the White House, beneath the cupola and right above the South Portico.
Odel entered. President Cormack was in the center of the room, facing him. Odell was silent. He could not bring himself to say it. The air of expectancy on the President’s face drained away.
“Well, Michael?” he said dully.
“He ... Simon ... has been found. I’m afraid he is dead.”
President Cormack did not move, not a muscle. His voice when it came was flat; clear but emotionless.
“Leave me, please.”
Odell turned and left, moving into the Center Hall. He closed the door and turned toward the stairs. From behind him he heard a single cry, like that of a wounded animal in mortal pain. He shuddered and walked on.
Secret Service agent Lepinsky was at the end of the hall, by a desk against the wall, a raised phone in his hand.
“It’s the British Prime Minister, Mr. Vice President,” he said.
“I’ll take it. Hello, this is Michael Odell. Yes, Prime Minister, I’ve just told him. No, ma’am, he’s not taking any calls right now. Any calls.”
There was a pause on the line.
“I understand,” she said quietly. Then: “Do you have a pencil and paper?”
Odell gestured to Lepinsky, who produced his duty notebook. Odell scribbled what he was asked.
President Cormack got the slip of paper at the hour most Washingtonians, unaware of what had happened, were drinking their first cup of coffee. He was still in a silk robe, in his office, staring dully at the gray morning beyond the windows. His wife slept on; she would wake and hear it later. He nodded as the servant left and flicked open the folded sheet from Lepinsky’s notebook.
It said just: Second Samuel XVIII 33.
After several minutes he rose and walked to the shelf where he kept some personal books, among them the family Bible, bearing the signatures of his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He found the verse toward the end of the Second Book of Samuel.
“And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
Chapter 11
