“Mr. President, the log cabin in Vermont. We recovered an Armalite rifle and a Colt forty-five automatic, as described. Along with the bodies of Irving Moss and Duncan McCrea, both formerly of the CIA. They have been identified.”
David Weintraub nodded in agreement. “We have tested the Colt at Quantico. The Belgian police sent us blow-üp prints of the lands on the forty-five bullet they dug out of the upholstery of a Ferris wheel seat in Wavre. They check out: The Colt fired the bullet that killed the mercenary Marchais, alias Lefort. The Dutch police found a slug in the woodwork of an old barrel in the cellar beneath a bar in Den Bosch. Slightly distorted, but the lands were still visible. Same Colt forty-five. Finally, the Paris police recovered six intact bullets from the plaster of a bar in the Passage de Vautrin. We have identified these as having come from the Armalite. Both weapons were bought, under a false name, from a gun shop in Galveston, Texas. The owner has identified the buyer, from his photograph, as Irving Moss.”
“So it checks.”
“Yes, Mr. President, everything.”
“Mr. Weintraub?”
“I regret I have to confirm that Duncan McCrea was indeed hired locally in Central America on the recommendation of Irving Moss. He was used as a gofer down there for two years, then brought to America and sent to Camp Peary for training. After Moss was fired, any of his protégés should have been checked out. They weren’t. A lapse. I’m sorry.”
“You were not Deputy Director of Operations in those years, Mr. Weintraub. Please go on.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. We have learned from ... sources ... enough to confirm what the KGB rezident in New York told us unofficially. A certain Marshal Kozlov has been detained for interrogation concerning the supplying of the belt that killed your son. Officially, he has resigned on grounds of health.”
“He will confess, do you think?”
“At Lefortovo prison, sir, the KGB has its little ways,” Weintraub admitted.
“Mr. Kelly?”
“Some things, Mr. President, will never be prova
ble. There is no trace of the body of Dominique Orsini, but the Corsican police have established that two rounds of buckshot were indeed fired into a rear bedroom above a bar in Castelblanc. The Smith & Wesson pistol we issued to Special Agent Somerville must be presumed lost forever in the Prunelli River. But everything that is provable, has been proved. The whole lot. The manuscript is accurate to the last detail, sir.”
“And the five men, the so-called Alamo Five?”
“We have three in custody, Mr. President. Cyrus Miller can almost certainly never stand trial. He is deemed to be clinically insane. Melville Scanlon has confessed everything, including the details of a further conspiracy to topple the monarchy of Saudi Arabia. I believe the State Department has already taken care of that side of things.”
“It has,” said the President. “The Saudi government has been informed and has taken appropriate measures. And the other men of the Alamo Five?”
“Salkind appears to have vanished—we believe to Latin America. Cobb was found hanged in his garage, by his own hand. Moir confirms everything admitted by Scanlon.”
“No details still adrift, Mr. Kelly?”
“None that we can discern, Mr. President. In the time allowed we have checked everything in Mr. Quinn’s manuscript. Names, dates, times, places, car rentals, airline tickets, apartment rentals, hotel bookings, the vehicles used, the weapons—everything. The police and immigration authorities in Ireland, Britain, Belgium, Holland, and France have sent us every record. It all checks.”
President Cormack glanced briefly toward the empty chair on his side of the table.
“And my ... my former colleague?”
The Director of the FBI nodded toward Philip Kelly.
“The last three pages of the manuscript make claims to a conversation between the two men on the night in question of which there is no confirmation, Mr. President. We still have no trace of Mr. Quinn. But we have checked the staff at the house in Georgetown. The official chauffeur was sent home on the grounds that the car would not be used again that night. Two of the staff recall being awakened around half past one by the sound of the garage doors opening. One looked out and saw the car going down the street. He thought it might have been stolen, so he went to rouse his master. He was gone—with the car.
“We have checked all the stock portfolios in his blind trusts, and there are huge holdings in a number of defense contractors whose share values would undoubtedly be affected by the terms of the Nantucket Treaty. It’s true—what Quinn claims. As to what the man said, we will never know for sure. One can either believe Quinn or not.”
President Cormack rose.
“Then I do, gentlemen. I do. Call off the manhunt for him, please. That is an executive order. Thank you for your efforts.”
He left by the door opposite the fireplace, crossed the office of his personal secretary, asking that he not be disturbed, entered the Oval Office, and closed the door behind him.
He took his seat behind the great desk under the green-tinted windows of five-inch bulletproof glass that give onto the Rose Garden, and leaned back in the high swivel chair. It had been seventy-three days since he had last taken this seat.
On his desk was a silver-framed photograph. It showed Simon, a picture taken at Yale in the fall before he left for England. He was twenty then, his young face full of vitality and zest for life and great expectations.
The President took the picture in both hands and gazed at it a long time. Finally he opened a drawer on his left.