John Abbott - Scimitar

“I don’t care it’s a president or some sheek fum an Arab nation, it don’t make no never-mind to me.”

“Nossir.”

“I don’t like this last-minute sputterfuss, I got to send a team to New York, beef up the security there.”

Dobbs was thinking he didn’t much like it himself. He had promised Sally they’d take a trip to Pennsylvania next weekend, have a sort of second honeymoon in Bucks County. Booked the room and everything, his wife had been looking forward to it since early May. Now Phillips was telling him he’d have to leave for New York this afternoon, take five other agents with him, be there all weekend and through the first of July. And for what? To make sure security at the goddamn Plaza Hotel would be tight enough to suit the goddamn Republicans, and then to give the New-York field office a hand at the goddamn Canada Day banquet, whatever the hell that was.

Dobbs hated Republican presidents.

He’d learned to hate Reagan and his witchy wife when he was working for them as part of the White House detail, hated all the things the President and his fine lady had stood for. Alone in bed with Sally, Dobbs would rage at how Nixon had only tried to steal the goddamn country whereas Reagan was now trying to murder it. Sally would tell him to hush, Sam, he’d lose his job or something.

He told Sally the only way he’d get out of this rotten job was to throw himself across that son of a bitch when another crazy bastard like Hinckley tried to kill him. That was more than eleven years ago, before he got transferred to the Omaha field office, where he learned how much better it was to be in Washington, even working for Republican presidents. He never stopped believing it was Nancy who’d had him transferred because one day he was thirty seconds late opening a goddamn door for her!

Hating them both, he’d loved all the Reagan jokes they began telling...

There’s this banquet at the White House, okay?

And Reagan is sitting next to Nancy, and one of the White House waiters appears by her side to take her order, explaining that they’re serving either roast beef or filet of sole, which would she prefer?

And Nancy says, “I’ll have the roast beef, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter says. “And the vegetable?”

“He’ll have the same,” Nancy says.

... rejoiced when the son of a bitch got caught with his hand in the Iran-Contra cookie jar, but knew he’d wiggle out of it somehow — gosh, I’m terribly sorry, I just don’t remember.

God, how Dobbs had hated him, still hated him.

But if Reagan had merely killed the nation, it was Bush who was now attempting to bury it, and Dobbs hated him even more than he had his predecessor. In fact, it was a good thing he was no longer part of the White House Secret Service detail; he might have killed this president himself.

Got a domestic crisis?

Just bomb a foreign country.

Follow in the footsteps of the Great Communicator, who’d used military force against Lebanon in 1982, and Grenada in 1983, and Libya in 1986 and finally in Honduras in 1988. The Great Communicator. Who’d once sent a Bible as a gift to the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of a Moslem nation. Bombs and bibles, how stupid could a person get?

So along comes Haji Bush, hero to millions, conqueror of Iraq, a fearsome nation with the gross national product of Kentucky, still bloated with his Commander-in-Chief importance, still managing to ignore the minor problems like dope, crime, collapsing cities, and civil rights so long as the Big Parade went on and on and on. The Washington newspapers were full of scathing editorials about him running off to New York where, golly, he could stand before that lady in the harbor on the Fourth of July, and, gee, wrap himself in the flag yet another time, and, wow, take advantage of all those big patriotic sound bites in an election year.

Reagan and Bush.

Two presidents too many.

Dobbs hated them both.

“Here’re your plane tickets,” Phillips said. “Enjoy the trip.”

They each had different agendas.

Sonny was here to observe and to record.

Elita was here on an outing.

In the distance, they could both see the Statue of Liberty sitting far out on the water, the sky clear behind it. But Sonny was registering a sign advising that Battery Park closed at 1:00 A.M., and Elita was noticing a pair of lovers strolling hand in hand, one white, the other Asian. On her right, Elita saw a man selling green, foam-rubber, Statue-of-Liberty crowns, and wondered if she would appear childish buying one. On his left, Sonny saw a low, greyish-brick building with the metallic letters UNITED STATES COAST GUARD across its facade — and wondered if there would be Coast Guard cruisers circling the island when the President made his Independence Day speech.

They bought tickets for the ferry in a round, red brick building that reminded Elita of a sun-washed cloister, and Sonny of a roofless fortress. The tickets cost six dollars each. Sonny had a camera around his neck. He posed her in front of a large posterlike sign headlined PLANNING YOUR VISIT TO LIBERTY ISLAND.

They boarded the ferry at two-fifteen.

Elita was wearing running shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals. Sonny noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He was wearing chinos, a striped polo shirt and jogging shoes. She thought he looked exceedingly handsome, dressed so casually. She did not know that he had dressed to blend in with what he’d suspected would be a tourist crowd.

There was a babble of foreign tongues everywhere around them. Elita found the mix of nationalities exciting; Sonny found them boring. He understood many of the languages, but did not reveal this fact to Elita. A French girl reading aloud from a guidebook to New York City was informing her friends that the island they were heading toward was once called Bedloe’s Island and was the site of the old Fort Hood, the outlines of which now formed the starlike base of the statue. Sonny found her voice monotonous. A German girl approached a man whom she’d heard speaking in her own language, and asked if she could have a single cigarette — eine einzige Zigarette, bitte — because there was no place to buy any on the boat. Sonny found her bold. The man gave her the cigarette she’d begged, and then, in English, asked, “Do you have fire?”

“ Danke ja, ich habe ,” she said, and went back to where she’d been sitting on the port side of the ferry.

The ferry was called Miss Liberty. It was moving out from Battery Park now in a southwesterly direction, approaching toward the distant copper statue from her right, where she clutched a tablet in the crook of her arm...

“... sur laquelle est écrite la date du quatre juillet, dix-sept cent soixante-seize ...”

“How thrilling it must have been,” Elita said over the sound of the French girl’s voice. “Approaching her as they came into the harbor.”

“Yes,” Sonny said.

“The immigrants, I mean.”

“Yes.”

He was wondering how he would get back to the mainland once he’d accomplished his mission.

The soaring downtown towers of the financial district were behind them now; the island and Liberty were coming closer and closer. A Japanese girl sat beside him and began changing the film in her camera. She was wearing a T-shirt that read DISNEYLAND, TOKYO. Her friend said something to her in Japanese, which Sonny could not understand. A Hassidic Jew in a black suit, flat black hat, and snowy white beard stood at the railing, staring beyond Liberty to where Ellis Island sat on the horizon. The French girl kept babbling from the guide book...