The Negotiator

?Please, Quinn, don’t be naïve. It always comes down to money. This entire nation is about money. No one can change that. Always has been, always will. We worship the almighty dollar. Everything and everyone in this land can be bought—bought and paid for.”

Quinn nodded. He thought of the fifty-eight thousand names on the black marble four hundred yards behind him. Bought and paid for. He sighed and reached inside his sheepskin bomber jacket. The smaller man jumped back, startled.

“No need for that, Quinn. You said, no guns.”

But when Quinn’s hand emerged it clutched two hundred sheets of white typescript. He held out the manuscript. The other man relaxed, took the sheaf.

“You won’t regret it, Quinn. The money is yours. Enjoy it.”

Quinn nodded again. “There is just one thing ...”

“Anything.”

“I paid off my cab on Constitution Avenue. Could you give me a ride back to the Circle?”

For the first time the other man smiled. With relief.

“No problem,” he said.

Chapter 19

The men in the long leather coats decided to discharge their duties during the weekend. There were fewer people about, and their instructions were to be very discreet. They had observers up the street from the Moscow office building who told them by radio when the quarry left the city that Friday evening.

The arrest party waited patiently on the long, narrow road by the curve of the Moskva River, just a mile short of the turning into Peredelkino village where the senior members of the Central Committee, the most prestigious academicians, and the military chiefs have their weekend dachas.

When the car they were awaiting came in sight, the lead vehicle of the arresting party pulled across the road, blocking it completely. The speeding Chaika slowed, then came to a halt. The driver and bodyguard, both men from the CRU and with Spetsnaz training, had no chance. Men with machine pistols came from both sides of the road, and the two soldiers found themselves staring through the glass straight into the muzzles.

The senior plainclothes officer approached the rear passenger door, jerked it open, and looked inside. The man within glanced up with indifference, a touch of testiness, from the dossier he was reading.

“Marshal Kozlov?” the leather-coated KGB man asked.

“Yes.”

“Please dismount. Make no attempt at resistance. Order your soldiers to do the same. You are under arrest.”

The burly marshal muttered an order to his driver and bodyguard and climbed out. His breath frosted in the icy air. He wondered when he would breathe the crisp air of winter again. If he was afraid he gave no sign.

“If you have no authority for this, you will answer to the Politburo, Chekistl.” He used the contemptuous Russian word for a secret policeman.

“We act on the Politburo’s orders,” said the KGB man with satisfaction. He was a full colonel of the Second Chief Directorate. That was when the old marshal knew he had just run out of ammunition for the last time.

Two days later the Saudi security police quietly surrounded a modest private house in Riyadh in the deep darkness before dawn. Not quietly enough. One of them kicked over a tin can and a dog barked. A Yemeni house servant, already awake to brew the first strong dark coffee of the day, looked out and went to inform his master.

Colonel Easterhouse had been very well trained with the U.S. Airborne units. He also knew his Saudi Arabia, and that the threat of betrayal for a conspirator was never to be disregarded. His defenses were strong and always ready. By the time the great timber gate to his courtyard had come crashing down and his two Yemeni protectors had died for him, he had taken his own road to avoid the agonies he knew must await him. The security police heard the single shot as they raced up the stairs to the upper-floor living quarters.

They found him sprawled facedown in his study, an airy room furnished in exquisite Arab taste, his blood ruining a beautiful Kochan rug. The colonel in charge of the arrest group glanced around the room; his eye fell on a single Arabic word that formed the motif of a silk wall-hanging behind the desk. It said, Insh’Allah. If it is the will of Allah.

The following day Philip Kelly himself led the FBI team that surrounded the estate in the foothills outside Austin. Cyrus Miller received Kelly courteously and listened to the reading of his rights. When told he was under arrest he began to pray loudly and earnestly, calling down the divine vengeance of his personal Friend upon the idolaters and Antichrists who so clearly failed to comprehend the will of the Almighty as expressed through the actions of His chosen vessel.

Kevin Brown was in charge of the team that took Melville Scanlon into custody almost at the same minute at his palatial home outside Houston. Different FBI teams visited Lionel Moir in Dallas, and sought to arrest Ben Salkind at Palo Alto and Peter Cobb at Pasadena. Whether by intuition or coincidence, Salkind had boarded a flight the previous day for Mexico City. Cobb was believed to be at his desk in his office at the hour scheduled for the arrest. In fact a head cold had detained him at home that morning. It was one of those chances that stultify the best-planned operations. Policemen and soldiers know them well. A loyal secretary phoned him as the FBI team sped to his private house. He rose from his bed, kissed his wife and children, and went into the garage that adjoined his house. The FBI men found him there twenty minutes later.

Four days later President John Cormack walked into the Cabinet Room and took his seat at the center of the table, the place reserved for the Chief Executive. His inner circle of Cabinet members and advisers was already in place, flanking him. They noticed that his back was straight, his head high, his eyes clear.

Across the table were ranged Lee Alexander and David Weintraub of the CIA, beside Don Edmonds, Philip Kelly, and Kevin Brown from the FBI. John Cormack nodded to them as he took his seat.

“Your reports, if you please, gentlemen.”

Kevin Brown spoke first, at a glance from his Director.