Frederick Forsyth - The Negotiator

The argument was over Zack’s decision to close with the negotiator called Quinn and have done with the whole thing at $2 million ransom.

The Corsican objected, and because they both spoke French, the Belgian tended to agree with him. The South African was fed up, wanted to get home, and agreed with Zack. The main argument from the Corsican was that they could hold out forever. Zack knew this was not true, but he was aware he could have a very dangerous situation on his hands if he told them they were beginning to show cracks, and could not take more than another six days of numbing boredom and inactivity.

So he appeased them, placated them, told them they had done brilliantly and would all be very rich men in just a few more days. The thought of all that money calmed them down and they subsided. Zack was relieved it had ended without blows. Unlike the three men in the house, his problem was not boredom but stress. Every time he drove the big Volvo along the crowded motorways he knew that one random police check, one brush with another car, one moment of inattention, would have a blue-capped officer leaning in his window, wondering why he wore a wig and false moustache. His disguise would pass in a crowded street, but not at six inches’ range.

Every time he went into one of those phone booths, he had a mental image of something going wrong, of a faster-than-usual trace, of a plainclothes policeman being only a few yards away, taking the alarm on his personal radio and walking up to the phone booth. Zack carried a gun, and knew he would use it to get away. If he did, he would have to abandon the Volvo, always parked a few hundred yards away, and escape on foot. Some idiot member of the public might even try to tackle him. It was getting to the point that whenever he saw a policeman sauntering along the crowded streets he chose for his phone calls, his stomach turned over.

“Go give the kid his supper,” he told the South African.

Simon Cormack had been fifteen days in his underground cell, and thirteen since he had answered the question about Aunt Emily and known that his father was trying to get him out. He realized now what solitary confinement must be like and wondered how people could survive months, even years of it. At least in the prisons he had heard of, inmates in solitary had writing materials, books, sometimes television, something to occupy the mind. He had nothing. But he was a tough boy and he determined not to go to pieces.

He exercised regularly, forcing himself to overcome the prisoner’s lethargy, doing his push-ups ten times a day, jogging in place a dozen times. He still wore his same running shoes, socks, shorts, and T-shirt, and was aware he must smell awful. He used the toilet bucket carefully, so as not to soil the floor, and was grateful it was removed every second day.

The food was boring, mainly fried or cold, but it was enough. He had no razor, of course, so he sported a straggly beard and moustache. His hair had grown; he tried to comb it with his fingers. He had asked for, and eventually been given, a plastic bucket of cold water and a sponge. He never realized how grateful a man could be for the chance to wash. He had stripped naked, running his shorts halfway up the ankle-chain to keep them dry, and sponged himself from head to foot, scouring his skin with the sponge to try to keep clean. After it he felt transformed. But he tried no escape maneuvers. The chain was impossible to break; the door solid and bolted from the outside.

Between exercises he tried to keep his mind occupied in a number of ways: reciting every poem he could remember, pretending to dictate his autobiography to an invisible stenographer so that he could go over everything that had ever happened to him in his twenty-one years. And he thought of home, of New Haven and Nantucket and Yale and the White House. He thought of his mom and dad and how they were; he hoped they weren’t worried about him, but expected they were. If only he could tell them he was all right, in good shape, considering…

There were three loud knocks on the cellar door. He reached for his black hood and put it on. Supper time-or was it breakfast…?

That same evening, but after Simon Cormack had fallen asleep, and Sam Somerville lay in Quinn’s arms while the tape recorder breathed into the wall outlet, five time zones farther west, the White House committee met in the late evening. Apart from the usual Cabinet members and department heads, Philip Kelly of the FBI and David Weintraub of the CIA also attended.

They heard the tapes of Zack on the phone to Quinn, the rasping tones of the British criminal and the reassuring drawl of the American trying to appease him, as they had done almost every day for two weeks.

When Zack had finished, Hubert Reed was pale with shock.

“My God,” he said, “cold chisel and hammer. The man’s an animal.”

“We know that,” said Odell. “But at least now we have an agreed ransom. Two million dollars. In diamonds. Any objections?”

“Of course not,” said Jim Donaldson. “This country will pay that easily, for the President’s son. I’m just surprised it’s taken two weeks.”

“Actually, that’s pretty fast, or so I’m told,” said Bill Walters. Don Edmonds of the FBI nodded his agreement.

“We want to rehear the rest, the tapes from the apartment?” asked the Vice President.

No one needed to.

“Mr. Edmonds, what about what Mr. Cramer, the Scotland Yard man, told Quinn? Any comments from your people?”

Edmonds cast a sidelong glance at Philip Kelly, but answered for the Bureau.

“Our people at Quantico agree with their British colleagues,” he said. “This Zack is at the end of his tether, wants to close it down, make an exchange. The strain in his voice is coming through, hence the threats most probably. They also agree with the analysts over there on another thing. Which is that Quinn appears to have established some kind of wary empathy with this animal Zack. It seems his efforts-which are what has taken two weeks”-he glanced at Jim Donaldson as he spoke-“to portray himself as the guy trying to help Zack, and all the rest of us here and there as the bad guys making problems, has worked. Zack has an element of trust for Quinn, but for no one else. That may prove crucial at the safe-handover process. At least, that’s what the voice analysts and behavioral psychologists are saying.”

“Lord, what a job, having to sweet-talk scum like that,” observed Jim Donaldson with distaste.

David Weintraub, who had been staring at the ceiling, cast an eye toward the Secretary of State. To keep these amateurs in their high office, he might have said but did not, he and his people sometimes had to deal with creatures just as nasty as Zack.

“Okay, gentlemen,” said Odell, “we go with the deal. At last the ball is back with us in America, so let’s make it fast. Personally I think this Quinn has done a pretty good job. If he can get the boy back safe and sound, we owe him. Now, diamonds. Where do we get them?”

“ New York,” said Weintraub, “diamond center of the country.”

“Morton, you’re from New York. Have you got any discreet contacts you could tap into fast?” Odell asked the ex-banker.

“Certainly,” Stannard said. “When I was with Rockman-Queens we had a number of clients who were high in the diamond trade. Very discreet-they have to be. You want me to handle it? How about the money?”

“The President has insisted he will personally pay the ransom, won’t have it any other way,” said Odell. “But I don’t see why he should be troubled by these details. Hubert, could the Treasury make a personal loan until the President can liquidate trust funds?”

“No problem,” said Hubert Reed. “You’ll have your money, Morton.”