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The camera panned to show the massive crowds gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue, huddled inside their overcoats against the bitter January wind, listening to the ceremony on loudspeakers set up around the podium. Jason Merlin, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, finished the swearing-in oath, and the new President shook his hand and stepped up to the microphone.
‘Look at those idiots standing out there freezing their asses off,’ Ben Cohn commented. ‘Do you know why they aren’t home, like normal human beings, watching it on television?’
‘Why?’
‘Because a man is making history, my friends. One day all those people are going to tell their children and grandchildren that they were there the day Paul Ellison was sworn in. And they’re all going to brag “I was so close to him I could have touched him.”’
‘You’re a cynic, Cohn.’
‘And proud of it. Every politician in the world comes out of the same cookie cutter. They’re all in it for what they can get out of it. Face it, fellas, our new President is a liberal and an idealist. That’s enough to give any intelligent man nightmares. My definition of a liberal is a man who has his ass firmly stuck in clouds of cotton wool.’
The truth was that Ben Cohn was not as cynical as he sounded. He had covered Paul Ellison’s career from the beginning and, while it was true that Cohn had not been impressed at first, as Ellison moved up the political ladder, Ben Cohn began to change his opinion. This politician was nobody’s ‘yes’ man. He was an oak in a forest of willows.
Outside, the sky exploded into icy sheets of rain. Ben Cohn hoped the weather was not an omen of the four years that lay ahead. He turned his attention back to the television set.
‘The Presidency of the United States is a torch lit by the American people and passed from hand to hand every four years. The torch that has been entrusted to my care is the most powerful weapon in the world. It is powerful enough to burn down civilization as we know it, or to be a beacon that will light the future for us and for the rest of the world. It is our choice to make. I speak today not only to our allies, but to those countries in the Soviet camp. I say to them now, as we prepare to move into the twenty-first century, that there is no longer any room for confrontation, that we must learn to make the phrase “one world” become a reality. Any other course can only create a holocaust from which no nation would ever recover. I am well aware of the vast chasms that lie between us and the Iron Curtain countries, but the first priority of this administration will be to build unshakeable bridges across those chasms.’
His words rang out with a deep, heartfelt sincerity. He means it, Ben Cohn thought. I hope no one assassinates the bastard.
In Junction City, Kansas, it was a pot-bellied stove kind of day, bleak and raw, and snowing so hard that the visibility on Highway 6 was almost zero. Mary Ashley cautiously steered her old station wagon towards the centre of the highway, where the snowploughs had been at work. The storm was going to make her late for the class she was teaching. She drove slowly, careful not to let the car go into a skid.
From the car radio came the President’s voice: ‘… are many in government as well as in private life who insist that America build more moats instead of bridges. My answer to that is that we can no longer afford to condemn ourselves or our children to a future threatened by global confrontations and nuclear war.’
Mary Ashley thought: I’m glad I voted for him. Paul Ellison is going to make a great President.
Her grip tightened on the wheel as the snow became a blinding white whirlwind.
In St Croix, a tropical sun was shining in a cloudless, azure sky, but Harry Lantz had no intention of going outside. He was having too much fun indoors. He was in bed, naked, sandwiched between the Dolly sisters. Lantz had empirical evidence that they were not truly sisters. Annette was a tall, natural brunette, and Sally was a tall, natural blonde. Not that Harry Lantz gave a damn whether they were blood relatives. What was important was that they were both expert at what they did, and what they were doing made Lantz groan aloud with pleasure.
At the far end of the motel room, the image of the President flickered on the television set.
‘… because I believe that there is no problem that cannot be solved by genuine goodwill on both sides, the concrete wall around East Berlin and the Iron Curtain that surrounds the other Soviet Union satellite countries must come down.’
Sally stopped her activities long enough to ask, ‘Do you want me to turn that fuckin’ thing off, hon?’
‘Leave it alone. I wanna hear what he has to say.’
Annette raised her head. ‘Did you vote for him?’
Harry Lantz yelled, ‘Hey, you two! Get back to work …’
‘As you are aware, three years ago, upon the death of Romania’s President, Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. I want to inform you now that we have approached the government of Romania and its President, Alexandros Ionescu, and he has agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations with our country.’
There was a cheer from the crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Harry Lantz sat upright so suddenly that Annette’s teeth sank into his penis. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Lantz screamed. ‘I’ve already been circumcised! What the fuck are you trying to do?’
‘What did you move for, hon?’
Lantz did not hear her. His eyes were glued to the television set.
‘One of our first official acts,’ the President was saying, ‘will be to send an Ambassador to Romania. And that is merely the beginning …’
In Bucharest, it was evening. The winter weather had turned unexpectedly mild and the streets of the late marketplaces were crowded with citizens lined up to shop in the unseasonably warm weather.
Romanian President Alexandros Ionescu sat in his office in Peles, the old palace, on Calea Victoriei, surrounded by half a dozen aides, listening to the broadcast on a short-wave radio.
‘… I have no intention of stopping there,’ the American President was saying. ‘Albania broke off all diplomatic relations with the United States in 1946. I intend to re-establish those ties. In addition, I intend to strengthen our diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, with Czechoslovakia, and with East Germany.’
Over the radio came the sounds of cheers and applause.
‘Sending our Ambassador to Romania is the beginning of a worldwide people-to-people movement. Let us never forget that all mankind shares a common origin, common problems, and a common ultimate fate. Let us remember that the problems we share are greater than the problems that divide us, and that what divides us is of our own making.’
In a heavily guarded villa in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, the Romanian revolutionary leader, Marin Groza, was watching the President on Chaine 2 Television.
‘… I promise you now, that I will do my best, and that I will seek out the best in others …’
The applause lasted fully five minutes.
Marin Groza said thoughtfully, ‘I think our time has come, Lev. He really means it.’
Lev Pasternak, his security chief, replied, ‘Won’t this help Ionescu?’
Marin Groza shook his head. ‘Ionescu is a tyrant, so in the end, nothing will help him. But I must be very careful with my timing. I failed when I tried to overthrow Ceausescu. I must not fail again.’
Peter Connors was not drunk – not as drunk as he intended to get. He had finished almost a fifth of Scotch when Nancy, the secretary he lived with, said, ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Pete?’ He smiled and slapped her.
‘Our President’s talkin’. You gotta show some respect.’ He turned to look at the image on the television set. ‘You communist son-of-a-bitch,’ he yelled at the screen. ‘This is my country, and the CIA’s not gonna let you give it away. We’re gonna stop you, Charlie. You can bet your ass on it.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_9770dce8-c4de-586c-bd6f-437cbaa4bca6)
Paul Ellison said, ‘I’m going to need a lot of help from you, old friend.’
‘You’ll get it,’ Stanton Rogers replied quietly.
They were seated in the Oval Office, the President at his desk with the American flag behind him. It was their first meeting together in this office, and President Ellison was uncomfortable.
If Stanton hadn’t made that one mistake, Paul Ellison thought, he would be sitting at this desk instead of me.
As though reading his mind, Stanton Rogers said, ‘I have a confession to make. The day you were nominated for the Presidency, I was as jealous as hell, Paul. It was my dream, and you were living it. But do you know something? I finally came to realize that if I couldn’t sit in that chair, there was no one else in the world I would want to sit there but you. That chair suits you.’
Paul Ellison smiled at his friend and said, ‘To tell you the truth, Stan, this room scares the hell out of me. I feel the ghosts of Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson.’
‘We’ve also had Presidents who –’
‘I know. But it’s the great ones we have to try to live up to.’
He pressed the button on his desk, and seconds later a white-jacketed steward came into the room.
‘Yes, Mr President?’
Paul Ellison turned to Rogers. ‘Coffee?’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Want anything with it?’
‘No, thanks. Barbara wants me to watch my waistline.’
The President nodded to Henry, the steward, and he quietly left the room.
Barbara. She had surprised everyone. The gossip around Washington was that the marriage would not last out the first year. But it had been almost fifteen years now, and it was a success. Stanton Rogers had built up a prestigious law practice in Washington, and Barbara had earned the reputation of being a gracious hostess.
Paul Ellison rose and began to pace. ‘My people-to-people speech seems to have caused quite an uproar. I suppose you’ve seen all the newspapers.’
Stanton Rogers shrugged. ‘You know how they are. They love to build up heroes so they can knock them down.’
‘Frankly, I don’t give a damn what the papers say. I’m interested in what people are saying.’
‘Quite candidly, you’re putting the fear of God into a lot of people, Paul. The armed forces are against your plan, and some powerful movers and shakers would like to see it fail.’
‘It’s not going to fail.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you know the biggest problem with the world today? There are no more statesmen. Countries are being run by politicians. There was a time not too long ago when this earth was peopled with giants. Some were good, and some were evil – but, by God, they were giants. Roosevelt and Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini. Charles de Gaulle and Joseph Stalin. Why did they all live at that one particular time? Why aren’t there any statesmen today?’
‘It’s pretty hard to be a world giant on a twenty-one-inch screen.’
The door opened and the steward appeared, bearing a silver tray with a pot of coffee and two cups, each imprinted with the Presidential seal. He skilfully poured the coffee. ‘Can I get you something else, Mr President?’
‘No. That’s it, Henry. Thank you.’
The President waited until the steward had gone. ‘I want to talk to you about finding the right Ambassador to Romania.’
‘Right.’
‘I don’t have to tell you how important this is. I want you to move on it as quickly as possible.’
Stanton Rogers took a sip of his coffee and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll get State on it right away.’
In the little suburb of Neuilly, it was 2 a.m. Marin Groza’s villa lay in ebon darkness, the moon nested in a thick layer of storm clouds. The streets were hushed at this hour, with only the sound of an occasional passer-by rippling the silence. A black-clad figure moved noiselessly through the trees towards the brick wall that surrounded the villa. Over one shoulder he carried a rope and a blanket, and in his arms was cradled an Uzi with a silencer and a dart gun. When he reached the wall, he stopped and listened. He waited, motionless, for five minutes. Finally, satisfied, he uncoiled the nylon rope and tossed up the scaling hook attached to the end of it until it caught on the far edge of the wall. Swiftly, the man began to climb. When he reached the top of the wall, he flung the blanket across it to protect himself against the poisoned-tip metal spikes embedded on top. He stopped again to listen. He reversed the hook, shifting the rope to the inside of the wall, and slid down into the grounds. He checked the balisong at his waist; the deadly Filipino folding knife that could be flicked open or closed with one hand.
The attack dogs would be next. The intruder crouched there, waiting for them to pick up his scent. There were three Dobermans, trained to kill. But they were only the first obstacle. The grounds and the villa were filled with electronic devices, and continuously monitored by television cameras. All mail and packages were received at the gatehouse and opened there by the guards. The doors of the villa were bomb-proof. The villa had its own water supply, and Marin Groza had a food taster. The villa was impregnable. Supposedly. The figure in black was here this night to prove that it was not.
He heard the sounds of the dogs rushing at him before he saw them. They came flying out of the darkness, charging at his throat. There were two of them. He aimed the dart gun and shot the nearest one on his left first, and then the one on his right, dodging out of the way of their hurtling bodies. He spun around, alert for the third dog, and when it came, he fired again, and then there was only stillness.
The intruder knew where the sonic traps were buried in the ground, and he skirted them. He silently glided through the areas of the grounds that the television cameras did not cover, and in less than two minutes after he had gone over the wall, he was at the back door of the villa.
As he reached for the handle of the door, he was caught in the sudden glare of half a dozen floodlights. A voice called out, ‘Freeze! Drop your gun and raise your hands.’
The figure in black carefully dropped his gun and looked up. There were half a dozen men spread out on the roof, with a variety of weapons pointed at him.
The man in black growled, ‘What the fuck took you so long? I never should have got this far.’
‘You didn’t,’ the head guard informed him. ‘We started tracking you before you got over the wall.’
Lev Pasternak was not mollified. ‘Then you should have stopped me sooner. I could have been on a suicide mission with a load of grenades or a god-damn mortar. I want a meeting of the entire staff tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp. The dogs have been stunned. Have someone keep an eye on them until they wake up.’
Lev Pasternak prided himself on being the best security guard in the world. He had been a pilot in the Israeli six-day war and, after the war, had become a top agent in Mossad, one of Israel’s five secret services.
He would never forget the morning, two years earlier, when his colonel had called him into his office.
‘Lev, someone wants to borrow you for a few weeks.’
‘I hope it’s a blonde,’ Lev quipped.
‘It’s Marin Groza.’
Mossad had a complete file on the Romanian dissident. Groza had been the leader of a popular Romanian movement to depose Alexandros Ionescu and was about to stage a coup when he had been betrayed by one of his men. More than two dozen underground fighters had been executed, and Groza had barely escaped the country with his life. France had given him sanctuary. Ionescu denounced Marin Groza as a traitor to his country and put a price on his head. So far half a dozen attempts to assassinate Groza had failed, but he had been wounded in the latest attack.
‘What does he want with me?’ Pasternak asked. ‘He has government protection.’
‘Not good enough. He needs someone to set up a fool-proof security system. He came to us. I recommended you.’
‘I’d have to go to France?’
‘It will only take you a few weeks.’
‘I don’t –’
‘Lev, we’re talking about a mensch. He’s the guy in the white hat. Our information is that he has enough popular support in his home country to knock over Ionescu. When the timing is right, he’ll make his move. Meanwhile, we have to keep the man alive.’
Lev Pasternak thought about it. ‘A few weeks, you said?’
‘That’s all.’
The Colonel had been wrong about the time, but he had been right about Marin Groza. He was a thin, fragile-looking man with an ascetic air about him and a face etched with sorrow. He had an aquiline nose, a firm chin, and a broad forehead, topped by a spray of white hair. He had deep, black eyes, and when he spoke, they blazed with passion.
‘I don’t give a damn whether I live or die,’ he told Lev at their first meeting. ‘We’re all going to die. It’s the when that I’m concerned about. I have to stay alive for another year or two. That’s all the time I need to drive Ionescu out of my country.’ He ran his hand absently across a livid scar on his cheek. ‘No man has the right to enslave a country. We have to free Romania and let the people decide their own fate.’
Lev Pasternak went to work on the security system at the villa in Neuilly. He used some of his own men, and the outsiders he hired were checked out thoroughly. Every single piece of equipment was state-of-the-art.
Pasternak saw the Romanian rebel leader every day, and the more time he spent with him, the more he came to admire him. When Marin Groza asked Pasternak to stay on as his security chief, Pasternak did not hesitate.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, ‘until you’re ready to make your move. Then I will return to Israel.’
They struck a deal.
At irregular intervals, Pasternak staged surprise attacks on the villa, testing its security. Now, he thought: Some of the guards are getting careless. I’ll have to replace them.
He walked through the hallways, carefully checking the heat sensors, the electronic warning systems, and the infrared beams at the sill of each door. As he reached Marin Groza’s bedroom, he heard a loud crash, and a moment later Groza began screaming out in agony.
