Frederick Forsyth: The Negotiator

“Flight Two-ten for London,” he said, and put down his ticket. The clerk dragged her eyes away from the TV set and studied the ticket, punching her desktop terminal to confirm the booking.

“You’re changing at London for Málaga?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

The voice of John Cormack came across the unusually silent hall.

“In order to destroy the Nantucket Treaty, these men believed they must first destroy me…”

The clerk issued his boarding pass, staring at the screen.

“I can go through to departure?” asked Quinn.

“Oh… yes, sure… have a nice day.”

Past immigration control there was a waiting area with a duty-free bar. Another television set was behind the bar. All the passengers were grouped together, staring at it.

“Because they could not get at me, they took my son, my only and much-loved son, and they killed him.”

In the mobile lounge rolling out to the waiting Boeing, in the red-white-and-blue livery of British Airways, there was a man with a transistor. No one spoke. At the entrance to the airplane Quinn offered his boarding pass to a steward, who gestured him toward first class. Quinn was allowing himself the luxury by using up the last of his Russian money. He heard the President’s voice coming from the mobile lounge behind him as he ducked his head into the cabin.

“That is what happened. Now it is over. But of this I give you my word. Fellow Americans, you have a President again…”

Quinn buckled himself into the window seat, declined a glass of champagne, and asked for red wine instead. He accepted a copy of the Washington Post and began to read. The aisle seat beside him remained empty at takeoff.

The 747 lifted off and turned her nose toward the Atlantic and Europe. All around Quinn there was an excited buzz as incredulous passengers discussed the presidential speech, which had lasted almost an hour. Quinn sat in silence and read his newspaper.

The lead article on the front page announced the broadcast the world had just heard, assuring readers that the President would use the occasion to inform the world of his departure from office.

“Is there anything else I can offer you, sir, anything at all?” drawled a honeyed voice in his ear.

He turned and grinned with relief. Sam stood in the aisle, leaning over him.

“Just you, baby.”

He folded the paper on his lap. On the back page was a story neither of them noticed. It said, in the strange code of headline writers: VIET VETS XMAS WINDFALL. The subhead amplified the code: PARAPLEGIC HOSPITAL GETS NO-NAME $5M.

Sam sat down in the aisle seat.

“Got your message, Mr. Quinn. And yes, I will come to Spain with you. And yes, I will marry you.”

“Good,” he said. “I hate indecision.”

“This place where you live… what’s it like?”

“Small place, little white houses, little old church, little old priest…”

“Just so long as he recalls the words of the marriage ceremony.”

She reached her arms behind his head and pulled it down to her own for a long lingering kiss. The newspaper slipped off his lap and fell to the floor, back page upward. A stewardess, smiling indulgently, retrieved it. She failed to notice, nor would she have cared if she had, the lead story on the page. It was headed:

PRIVATE FUNERAL FOR TREASURY SECRETARY

HUBERT REED:

CONTINUING MYSTERY OF LATE-NIGHT DRIVE

INTO POTOMAC.

FREDERICK FORSYTHis the author of eight best-selling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver , and The Fist of God . He has also written an acclaimed collection of short fiction, No Comebacks , He lives outside London.