Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

It is unlikely that Anselmo knew the story. He cared nothing for the past, read nothing but current newspapers. But as he exercised in his cell his thoughts often echoed those of Henry Clay.

If there were only two Anselmos, one could surely spring the other from this cursed jail.

But it didn’trequire a second Anselmo, as it turned out. All it took was a nuclear bomb.

The bomb itself was stolen from a NATO installation forty miles from Antwerp. A theft of this sort is perhaps the most difficult way of obtaining such a weapon. Nuclear technology is such that anyone with a good grounding in college-level science can put together a rudimentary atomic bomb in his own basement workshop, given access to the essential elements. Security precautions being what they are, it is worlds easier to steal the component parts of a bomb than the assembled bomb itself. But in this case it was necessary not merely to have a bomb but to let the world know that one had a bomb. Hence the theft via a daring and dramatic dead-of-night raid. While media publicity was kept to a minimum, people whose job it was to know such things knew overnight that a bomb had been stolen, and that the thieves had in all likelihood been members of the Peridot Gang.

The Peridot Gang was based in Paris, although its membership was international in nature. The gang was organized to practice terrorism in the Anselmo mode. Its politics were of the left, but very little ideology lay beneath the commitment to extremist activism. Security personnel throughout Europe and the Middle East shuddered at the thought of a nuclear device in the hands of the Peridots. Clearly they had not stolen the bomb for the sheer fun of it. Clearly they intended to make use of it, and clearly they were capable of almost any outrage.

Removing the bomb from the Belgian NATO installation had been reasonably difficult. In comparison, disassembling it and smuggling it into the United States, then transporting it into New York City and reassembling it and finally installing it in the interfaith meditation chamber of the United Nations — all of that was simplicity itself.

Once the meditation chamber had been secured, a Peridot emissary presented a full complement of demands. Several of these had to do with guaranteeing the eventual safety of gang members at the time of their withdrawal from the chamber, the UN building, and New York itself. Another, directed at the General Assembly of the United Nations, called for changes in international policy toward insurgent movements and revolutionary organizations. Various individual member nations were called upon to liberate specific political prisoners, including several dozen persons belonging to or allied with the Peridot organization. Specifically, the government of Israel was instructed to grant liberty to the man called Anselmo.

Any attempt to seize the bomb would be met by its detonation. Any effort to evacuate the United Nations building or New York itself would similarly prompt the Peridots to set the bomb off. If all demands were not met within ten days of their publication, the bomb would go off.

Authorities differed in their estimates of the bomb’s lethal range. But the lowest estimate of probable deaths was in excess of one million.

Throughout the world, those governments blackmailed by the Peridots faced up to reality. One after the other they made arrangements to do what they could not avoid doing. Whatever their avowed policy toward extortion, however great their reluctance to liberate terrorists, they could not avoid recognizing a fairly simple fact: they had no choice.

Anselmo could notresist a smile when the two men came into the room. How nice, he thought, that it was these two who came to him. They had captured him in the first place, they had attempted to interrogate him time and time again, and now they were on hand to make arrangements for his release. It seemed to him that there was something fitting in all of this.

“Well,” he said. “I guess I won’t be with you much longer, eh?”

“Not much longer,” the older man said.

“When do you release me?”

“The day after tomorrow. In the morning. You are to be turned over to Palestinians at the Syrian border. A private jet will fly you to one of the North African countries, either Algeria or Libya. I don’t have the details. I don’t believe they have been finalized as yet.”

“It hardly matters.”

The younger of the Israelis, dark-eyed and olive-skinned, cleared his throat. “You won’t want to leave here in prison clothes,” he said. “We can give you what you wore when you were captured or you may have western dress. It’s your choice.”

“You are very accommodating,” Anselmo told him.

The man’s face colored. “The choice is yours.”

“It’s of no importance to me.”

“Then you’ll walk out as you walked in.”

“It doesn’t matter what I wear.” He touched his gray denim clothing. “Just so it’s not this.” And he favored them with a smile again.

The older man unclasped a small black bag, drew out a hypodermic needle. Anselmo raised his eyebrows. “Pentothal,” the man said.

“You could have used it before.”

“It was against policy.”

“And has your policy changed?”

“Obviously.”

“A great deal has changed,” the younger man added. “A package bill passed the Knesset last evening. There was a special session called for the purpose. The death penalty has been restored.”

“Ah.”

“For certain crimes only. Crimes of political terrorism. Any terrorists captured alive will be brought to trial within three days after capture. If convicted, sentence will be carried out within twenty-four hours after it has been pronounced.”

“Was there much opposition to this bill?”

“There was considerable debate. But when it came to a vote the margin was overwhelming for passage.”

Anselmo considered this in the abstract. “It seems to me that it is an intelligent bill,” he said at length. “I inspired it, eh?”

“You might say that.”

“So you will avoid this sort of situation in the future. But of course there is a loss all the same. No doubt that explains the debate. You will not look good to the rest of the world, executing prisoners so quickly after capture. There will be talk of kangaroo courts, star chamber hearings, that sort of thing.” He flashed his teeth. “But what choice did you have? None.”

“There’s another change that did not require legislation,” the older man said. “An unofficial change of policy for troops and police officers. We will have slower reflexes when it comes to noticing that a man is attempting to surrender.”

Anselmo laughed aloud at the phrasing. “Slower reflexes! You mean you will shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Something along those lines.”

“Also an intelligent policy. I shall make my own plans accordingly. But I don’t think it will do you very much good, you know.”

The man shrugged. The hypodermic needle looked small in his big gnarled hand. “The pentothal,” he said. “Will it be necessary to restrain you? Or will you cooperate?”

“Why should I require restraint? We are both professionals, after all. I’ll cooperate.”

“That simplifies things.”

Anselmo extended his arm. The younger man took him by the wrist while the other one readied the needle. “This won’t do you any good either,” Anselmo said conversationally. “I’ve had pentothal before. It’s not effective on me.”

“We’ll have to establish that for ourselves.”

“As you will.”

“At least you’ll get a pleasant nap out of it.”

“I never have trouble sleeping,” Anselmo said. “I sleep like a baby.”