Warren Murphy: Ship Of Death

He let the Lebanese press aide leave to join the others lest the American press run "another lopsided story about trigger-happy Arabs."

Haloub called a meeting of the Lebanese delegation. Back home, many of them would have shot each other on sight. But here, away from their homeland, each who had tasted civil war and who had learned in their grief that dead bodies solved very little and who understood better than most what killing was about listened intently to Haloub, a Maronite Christian.

"Gentlemen," said Pierre Haloub, "this ship is a coffin."

There were no charges of conspiracy, just serious listening by serious men.

"There were murders on this ship last night. It is a big ship with thousands of people. Yet these murders look like the work of terrorists. Now terrorists can strike anyplace. They do not bother me much. That is not why I call this Goliath a coffin. No. This ship is a coffin because it has secret passages not known to us, but known to the people who committed the murders."

There were questions about how Pierre Haloub knew this thing. And he explained about the cross fire and the trail of blood to the closet door, and the absence of anyone from inside the supposedly sealed closet.

"I think this ship was designed to kill many people."

"Arabs?"

"No. All. Everyone," said Pierre Haloub on the last day of his life.

In Washington, the president of the United States assured the National Security Council, two visiting ambassadors, eight United States senators and an interviewer that he had great faith in the safety of the vessel called Ship of States.

"While of course we regret the decision of the United Nations to leave New York—particularly coming, as it did, as a result of a dispute over free parking and the veto by our representative of the UN resolution demanding an additional fifty-percent income tax on Americans to help the emerging nations 'find themselves'—we still look to the UN as the hope for peace through negotiation, progress through reason, and change through love and mutual respect."

"What about the beheadings, the gun battle and the horror in the Lebanese consulate section?"

"I'm glad you asked me that," the president told the interviewer. "It just shows how badly we need peace." He excused himself and raged into the office of his top assistant. Why hadn't he been told about the horrors on the Ship of States? And what happened at the Lebanese consulate section aboard the ship?

"Burned alive, sir. The entire consulate turned into flames. They were cooked. Apparently fire bombs."

"Oh, that's great. That's really great. We needed that. We really needed that. I wish those bastards, if they want to start frying each other, would wait until they get the hell out of New York Harbor so we don't get blamed for it."

"What's our position, sir? For the press."

"We're against frying as a way of solving international disputes. I'm going to my bedroom."

He had a half hour to wait in the bedroom and every ten minutes he looked toward the top drawer of a bureau. He drummed his fingers on the arm of a Chippendale. At precisely 6:15 P.M., he dialed a red telephone secreted in the top drawer of the bureau he had been staring at.

"You assured me," said the president coldly, "that those two would be assigned to that ship. You gave me your word on it. Today I hear about massacres aboard that ship. We and every nation I can think of are committed to the safety of that ship. Who, what and why went wrong? I want to know."

"Hello, hello," came a voice through the receiver, a voice fatty with the thick consonants of the Bronx in New York. "Is that you, Selma? Selma? Selma?"

"Who is this?" demanded the president.

"Who are you? I'm trying to get Selma Wachsberg. Who are you?"

"I'm the president of the United States."

"A great imitation, Mel. Really great. Get Selma for me, will you, please?"

"There's no Selma here."

"Look, Mr. Smarty-pants. I'm not looking for an impersonations single. Get me Selma."

"This is the White House. There's no Selma here."

"C'mon, already."

"I am the president of the United States and I want you to get off this line."

"Give me Selma and I'll get off the line."

Another voice came on and this one was taut and lemony. He explained there was a mix-up.

"You bet there is," said the woman in the Bronx. "I want Selma Wachsberg."

"I want an explanation," said the president.

"Madame," said the man with the lemony voice, "this is a government line. There has been a mix-up. I need privacy. It is important."

"My call's important too. What's yours about?" said the Bronx woman,

"The possible survival of the world," said the lemony voice.

"Mine's more important. Get off."

"Madame, this is your president and he is asking for your help. Not only on behalf of your country do I ask this but on behalf of the world."

"Hello, hello?" It was a new woman's voice, younger than the first.

"Selma. Is that you?"

"What I want to know is what went wrong in New York Harbor?" said the president. It was a chance, to be sure. But he knew he could not reach this man again until early morning and he could not wait until then to find out what had happened. The telephone lines worked in such a way that their two home numbers only existed during specific times. Moreover, if he were not too specific, the two women wouldn't know what they were talking about anyway. Nothing went right in America anymore, he thought.

"Ruth, Ruth, is that you?"

"It's me, Selma. Who is that jerk on your line?"

"We didn't have our people there," said Dr. Harold W. Smith, the only director the secret agency CURE had ever had.

"What people there?" asked Selma Wachsberg, thinking there might have been a party to which she had not been invited.

"Why not? You had given me assurances," said the president of the United States who, the previous week, had been assured by Smith that his two-man special unit would be launched as a floating security team, unidentified to other security agencies.

"Will you two get off this line? I've got something important to talk about," said Ruth Rosenstein of 2720 Grand Concourse, the Bronx, who had found an unmarried accountant who said he might be interested in meeting a lovely charming young girl named Selma, who was, of course, a fantastic cook.

"Small disorder. Unit doesn't want to work for us anymore." Smith knew two women on an accidentally open line could not possibly perform a trace, nor even understand what was being talked about.

"Say, are you two married?" asked Ruth Rosenstein, who understood that good matches had been made from greater accidents.

"Yes," said the president of United States.

"Yes," replied Dr. Harold W. Smith of CURE.

"Ruth, how could you be so crass?" Selma Wachsberg cried, secretly glad the question had been asked directly, so she wouldn't have to do it with cuteness.

"You Jewish?" queried Ruth Rosenstein, who understood that one never knew when someone was getting divorced, and why waste a phone call.

"No," said Smith.

"No," replied the president.

"Then it doesn't matter," said Ruth Rosenstein.

"Ruth!" Selma Wachsberg, who at thirty-four realized the main priority in life was sex, not sect, cried.

"Well, get someone on it," commanded the president.

"They are our only someones, sir. We're not an army."

"Are you saying we're helpless?" the president asked.

"Probably," Smith said.

"Have you tried Transcendental Meditation?" asked Selma.

"To hell with TM. I use Nytol," said Ruth, who had found that most problems become less difficult after a good night's sleep.

"Do you have any suggestions?" the president asked.

"Me?" asked Ruth.

"No, not you," the president said.