We Are Holding the President Hostage Read online

  “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 blond 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.

  5

  THE PADRE SAT SLUMPED in his chair in the darkened front parlor of his house. He had watched the shadows lengthen and disappear along the much-worn oriental rug, his wife’s, Rosa’s, favorite. He had changed nothing in the house since her death, had not removed the family pictures. Not even those of his sons who had betrayed him. Nothing ever changed the fact of family. They had died before they had married and their seed had dried out in their coffins.

  “Damn,” he muttered, raising his eyes to the ceiling. He poked a finger into the darkness. “You want an eye for eye. You got it.”

  Robert’s voice on the telephone was a hammer blow. The Padre’s feet became weights, as if all the blood of his body had drained downward. He had to lean against the wall for support and, for a brief moment, he was certain he had fainted, sustained upright only by the fear of showing weakness to his men.

  Despite the whooshing sound in the telephone line, the Padre heard Robert’s words distinctly. His first reaction, he remembered now with shame, was to direct his wrath at his son-in-law.

  “Bastard. I trusted you to take care of them,” he cried. “You take them to this foreign place and then you let this happen. I cut your heart out. . . .”

  Then he had slammed his fist into the wall. Alarmed, Rocco and Benjy came rushing in from the main dining room.

  Luigi ran in from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron. He was waved away by Vinnie, who had, as a misguided gesture of protection, drawn his Magnum, his face a mass of prunelike wrinkles. The Canary, imitating his colleague, had also drawn his gun in the face of this intangible enemy. But the Padre’s misplaced anger quickly dissipated.

  “Maria told me th
is did not happen in Egypt,” the Padre said, trying desperately to calm himself.

  “I know how you feel, Salvatore,” Robert said with a sob in his throat. “I love them. They are my life.”

  The Padre searched himself for some lever of control. The pain seeped into his gut. The long training of reacting to crisis forced his voice to respond. Was it because of me? he thought. The organization? In Egypt? Impossible, he concluded.

  “Who are these people?”

  “No one knows. They say Islamic Jihad. Someone called a television station. It’s madness. Maria and Joey. They’ve done nothing.”

  “They gave no reason?”

  “They wanted someone else, an Assistant Secretary of State. She was waiting for me in front of the museum.” His voice faltered. “They want their people released.”

  “What people?”

  “Their own. Their brothers.”

  “For Maria and Joey?”

  “I know, Salvatore. It makes no sense at all. It has to do with hating America.”

  “My Maria.” The Padre swallowed hard, keeping the pain on the inside. “My grandson.”

  “Oh, Salvatore. I’m so sorry,” Robert said.

  The Padre held back his own grief.

  “What can we do?” he asked hoarsely.

  “There are others.” Again Robert’s voice faltered. “Some have been killed. Few have been released. Most of them rot. It’s very cruel, Salvatore.”

  “If they touch one hair on her head,” the Padre said. “If they put one finger on my grandson.” Rage smoldered. Then an idea occurred to him. “We make a deal. Buy her out. Any money they want.”

  “I would do that in a minute, Salvatore. Unfortunately, it’s a political thing. Our own government takes the position . . .”

  Helplessness was besieging the Padre now. He felt his anger shifting to the old familiar target—governments, authority.

  “Our own government. Like a helpless giant.” He could hear the persistent choking in his son-in-law’s voice. Then the long, statical silence as Robert fought for control. His own tears were flowing like a river of burning oil, inside himself.

  “They came to me,” Robert continued. “The ambassador himself. They said they would do everything possible.”

  “Bullshit,” the Padre said. He spat on the floor, an old-country gesture of his father’s. He had not done that for many years.

  “I just don’t know what to say, Salvatore. I feel so helpless. I have no idea what to do next.”

  “Do they know where they are?”

  “They say no. We must do something, Salvatore.”

  “We will think of something, Robert.”

  “I’ll keep calling,” Robert said. “Can I call you at home?”

  “You call me anywhere.”

  “We’ll find a way, won’t we, Salvatore?”

  “If there’s a way to get them, we’ll get them.”

  “Please, Salvatore.”

  His son-in-law’s words continued to echo in his ears. He paid little attention to the darkness descending in the room. The present was too painful to accept. It was more comforting to deal with memories. They were filled with both joy and pain. But the real incurable pain was in confronting the reality of his own loneliness.

  Yet all around him loyal people fawned and scraped and depended upon him. No. It was not the same. What he wanted near him, to touch, was Maria, his little girl, his grandson, Joey, Rosa, his boys.

  Finally he stood up and shook himself like an old dog. When the knock came, he knew he had recovered, although the aching pain remained inside him. Mrs. Santos opened the door quietly. Even in the darkness he could imagine her sour, perpetually frowning dark face. Their relationship was based on sarcasm, mutual disdain, and absolute fealty to each other’s welfare.

  “You can’t starve, you old goat,” she croaked. Her skin was wrinkled, her body bowed. But her eyes were clear, her look fierce. Bent and wiry, she was as tough as aged leather.

  “Put the light on.”

  She flicked the switch. Suddenly the room was bathed in light.

  “The boys?” he asked.

  She made a movement with her head.

  “You bring me food and tell them to come in.”

  He waited as they filed in, filling the small room. With the exception of Benjy, they were an aging, gray, bulky-looking group. In this atmosphere, pushed close together on the couch and chairs, they looked like overripe fruit that had rolled out of its sack and rearranged itself helter-skelter in the room.

  “We saw it on the television,” Vinnie said, his voice gruff and rasping. “A statement from the President. He said they better stop pushin’ us, that they better release our people. All of them.”

  “Same old shit,” Benjy said. “We should go in an nuke ’em all. Crazy shits.”

  “They showed pictures,” Angelo said, as always his pencil and pad at the ready. “Maria and the boy.”

  He was glad he hadn’t seen them. What he needed most now was to contain his emotions.

  “Did they say she was my daughter?” the Padre asked.

  The men looked at each other, as if they were not quite certain what answer would please him. Finally it was Rocco who spoke.

  “Nothing. We would remember.”

  The Padre was not sure whether the knowledge of their relationship would make Maria and Joey’s situation better or worse.

  Robert and Maria had gone to great pains to keep Maria’s identity hidden. He had, of course, secretly disapproved. But he understood. It wouldn’t have helped Robert’s career if the university people knew he was married to the daughter of a so-called Mafiosa boss. It crossed his mind that, had their captors known who he was, they might have thought twice about kidnapping Maria and Joey.

  “We got something in Egypt?” the Padre asked Angelo.

  “They got gambling there. And junk. Girls. Not too organized. Too many cooks, too much religious shit. Lot of rackets but heavy stuff. Arms. Things like that. Lotta Sicilian connections.”

  “We take some of theirs, we get them back. Right, Padre?” Carmine, the Canary, said, the deep creases in his bovine face showing his concern.

  “Like who?” the Padre asked gently.

  “Everybody got somebody.”

  “We need the horses,” the Padre said.

  “Then we’ll get ’em,” Vinnie snapped.

  He knew they all shared his frustration and it made him feel better to hear their talk, their bravado. Naturally, he would send word to the other American families. All would be eager to help, to return his many favors. Perhaps someone would even have an idea, a connection, the ability to make a deal. He would pay any price, of course. What were worldly goods compared to the life of his daughter and grandson?

  The men stayed with him half the night, for which he was grateful. Although he had first sought seclusion, he now dreaded it. But his mind had finally begun to operate and he had ordered the Pencil to send emissaries to the families, mostly to learn about connections in the Arab world. He also ordered a sweep of all their inside contacts on the federal level. From long experience he knew that before anything could be done, information was needed. Information always came before action.

  He stayed near the phone in his house, afraid he might miss a call on his way between the house and Luigi’s. And, of course, he continued to make decisions for the organization. Above all, the organization must continue to operate. Any hint of faltering leadership or weakness was dangerous. Anyone taking advantage of his situation would receive swift punishment.

  Stories about Maria and Joey’s kidnapping appeared on television and in the papers for three days, then faded as regular fare. It surprised him that no one had, as yet, revealed their relationship to him. Maria had covered her tracks well.

  Only years later did he learn that she had used another name, Panelli, when she worked as a buyer for Bloomingdale’s before she was married. She had even had her own apartment on the East Side in those days. W
ith pride, he remembered her stubbornness. Not that she had defied him. She simply stuck to her guns.

  “I am an independent woman, Daddy. Which does not mean I will ever stop loving you.”

  There was no way to stem the flood of memories. My little girl. He also could not stop the burning tears that flowed inside him.

  Robert called with little to report. He was standing by in Cairo. The officials in Egypt, he told the Padre, were becoming increasingly annoyed by his aggressive inquiries.

  “Can’t even get them on the phone now,” Robert said, his voice heavy with despair. “It’s pretty rough, Salvatore. I go back to our apartment, see their things. God it’s awful.”

  “I know,” the Padre responded. But it was faint comfort for them both.

  The Padre watched the television news, saw the President’s handsome, smiling face. Once he was pictured at a dinner, his pretty wife beside him. He was telling a joke. While his daughter and grandson were locked away in some terrible hole. He had wanted to kick out the screen.

  Occasionally, one of the relatives of the hostages would make a public query to the government and a spokesman from the State Department would respond that the government was doing everything it could to free the hostages. Unfortunately, the Padre had learned, everything meant nothing.

  Two weeks after Maria and Joey had been taken, Robert appeared at the Padre’s door looking pale and exhausted. His house in Princeton was rented and he had no desire to stay with friends.

  It had been years since he had been to the Padre’s home, although Maria and Joey had been frequent visitors. He did not seem too happy to be there now. Yet, inexplicably, he had brought his suitcase and the Padre understood. Maria, they both knew, would have wanted them to be together.

  “The President has agreed to a meeting with all the hostage families the day after tomorrow,” he announced, as if that bit of information made it all right in his own mind to be with the father-in-law he had avoided all of his married life.

  “You want me to go with you?” the Padre asked, but only as a formality, since he knew the answer in advance. Robert’s response was surprisingly gentle.