Алистер Маклин - Goodbye California

Morro and Dubois greeted them. There were others in the unofficial welcoming committee, but they hardly counted as all they did was to stand around watchfully with Ingram machine-guns in their hands. They were in civilian clothes. To have worn their customary robes would have been to wear too much.

Morro was unexpectedly deferential. ‘You are welcome, Mr President.’

‘Renegade!’

‘Come, come.’ Morro smiled. ‘We have met together to negotiate, not recriminate. And as a non-American how can I be a renegade?’

‘Worse! A man who is capable of doing today what you did to Los Angeles is capable of anything. Capable, perhaps, of kidnapping the President of the United States and holding him to ransom?’ Hillary laughed contemptuously and it was more than possible that he was even enjoying himself. ‘I have put my life at risk, sir.’

‘If you care to, you may leave now. Call me what you wish – renegade, rogue, criminal, murderer, a man, as you say, totally without any humanitarian scruples. But my personal integrity, even though it may be that of what you would term an international bandit, my word of honour, is not for question. You could not be safer, sir, in the Oval Room.’

‘Ha!’ Hillary went slowly red in the face with anger, an achievement which the world would have regarded as a remarkable thespian feat and for which he was widely renowned: in fact, many people can do just that by holding their breath and expanding the stomach muscles to the maximum extent. Slowly, imperceptibly, Hillary relaxed his muscles and began, again unobtrusively, to breathe again. His colour returned to normal. ‘Damned if I couldn’t even begin to believe you.’

Morro bowed. It wasn’t much of a bow, an inch at the most, but it was nevertheless a token of appreciation. ‘You do me an honour. The photographs, Abraham.’

Dubois handed across several blown-up pictures of the presidential party. Morro went from man to man, carefully scrutinizing both man and picture in turn. When he was finished he returned to Hillary. ‘A word apart, if you please?’

Whatever emotion Hillary felt his thirty-five years’ acting experience concealed it perfectly. He had not been briefed for this. Morro said: ‘Your Assistant Treasury Secretary. Why is he here? I recognize him, of course, but why?’

Hillary’s face slowly congealed until both it and his eyes were positively glacial. ‘Look at Muldoon.’

‘I take your point. You have come, perhaps, to discuss, shall we say, financial matters?’

‘Among other things.’

‘That man with the brown hair and moustache. He looks like a policeman.’

‘Damn it to hell, he is a policeman. A Secret Service guard. Don’t you know that the President always has a Secret Service guard?’

‘He didn’t accompany you on the plane today.’

‘Of course he didn’t. He’s the head of my west coast Secret Service. I thought you’d be better informed than that. Don’t you know that in flight I never–’ He broke off. ‘How did you know–’

Morro smiled. ‘Perhaps my intelligence is almost as good as yours. Come, let us rejoin the others.’ They walked back and Morro said to one of the guards: ‘Bring the doctor.’

It was a bad moment. Morro could have sent for the doctor, Ryder thought, to check on Muldoon. No one had thought of this possibility.

Morro said: ‘I am afraid, gentlemen, that it will be necessary to search you.’

‘Search me? Search the President?’ Hillary did his turkey-cock act again, then unbuttoned his overcoat and coat and flung them wide. ‘I have never been subjected to such damnable humiliation in my life. Do it yourself.’

‘My apologies. On second thoughts it will not be necessary. Not for the other gentlemen. Except one. Ah, Doctor.’ Peggy’s physician had appeared on the scene. He pointed to Jeff. ‘This young man is alleged to be a physician. Would you examine his case?’

Ryder breathed freely again and was quite unmoved when Morro pointed a finger at him. ‘This, Abraham, is the President’s Secret Service agent. He might, perhaps, be a walking armoury.’

The giant approached. Unbidden Ryder removed both overcoat and coat and dropped them to the floor. Dubois searched him with an embarrassing thoroughness, smiling at the sight of Ryder’s tightly clenched fists, even going to the lengths of poking inside his socks and examining his shoes for false heels. He looked at Morro and said: ‘So far, so good.’

He then picked up Ryder’s overcoat and coat and examined them with excruciating thoroughness, paying particular attention to the linings and the hemmed stitching. Finally he returned them both to Ryder, keeping only the two ballpoints he had taken from the coat’s breast pocket.

During the time of this examination Morro’s physician was examining Jeff’s case with a thoroughness that matched Dubois’s examination of Ryder.

Dubois crossed to Morro, took a photograph, pulled a particularly unpleasant gun from his waist, reversed the photograph, handed one of the pens to Ryder and said: ‘The point is retracted. I do not care to press the button. People can do all sorts of things with ballpoints these days. I mean no offence, of course. Perhaps you would care to write something. My gun is on your heart.’

‘Jesus!’ Ryder took photograph and pen, pressed the button, wrote, retracted the point and handed both back to Dubois. Dubois glanced at it and said to Morro: ‘This is not a very friendly message. It says: “The Hell with you all”.’ He handed the other pen to Ryder. ‘My gun is still on your heart.’

Ryder wrote and handed the photograph back to Dubois, who turned to Morro and smiled. ‘ “In triplicate”, he says.’ He handed both pens back.

Morro’s physician returned and handed the case back to Jeff. He looked at Morro and smiled gently. ‘Some day, sir, you will supply me with a medical case as superb as this one.’

‘We can’t all be the President of the United States.’ The doctor smiled, bowed and left.

Hillary said: ‘Now that all this needless tomfoolery is over may I ask you if you know something about the late evening habits of the President? I know we haven’t all night, but surely there is time–’

‘I am aware that I have been most remiss in my hospitality. But I had to observe certain precautions. You must know that. Gentlemen.’

Settled in Morro’s private office suite the company might have been sampling the sybaritic comforts of some exclusive country club. Two of Morro’s staff, incongruously – for them – in black-tied evening suits, moved around with drinks. Morro kept his usually impassive but occasionally smiling calm. It could have been the greatest moment of his life, but he wasn’t letting it show. He was sitting beside Hillary.

Hillary said: ‘I am the President of the United States.’

‘I am aware of that.’

‘I am also a politician and, above all, I hope, a statesman. I have learned to accept the inevitable. You will appreciate that I am in a dreadfully embarrassing position.’

‘I am aware of that also.’

‘I have come to bargain.’ There was a long pause. ‘A famous British Foreign Secretary once demanded: “Would you send me naked to the conference table?” ’

Morro said nothing.

‘One request. Before I commit myself publicly, even to my cabinet, may I talk to you privately?’

Morro hesitated.

‘I bear no arms. Bring that giant with you if you will. Or do I ask too much?’

‘No.’

‘You agree?’

‘In the circumstances, I can do no less.’

‘Thank you.’ An irritable note crept into Hillary’s voice. ‘Is it necessary that we have three armed guards to watch eight defenceless men?’