December Ultimatum (22 page)

She could hear his voice clearly and she hesitated. He understood why and pulled off his hood. ‘It’s Franklin . . . your one-night stand. Anna, believe me, it’s over . . . we know about Kieran and the canister. You’re beaten . . . you can only kill the valley now . . . you’re too late.’

Her blood was spreading like a red rug across the snow to join the mare’s. She began to speak, hesitated again and then heaved herself on to the mare’s flanks and with her right hand began smashing the detonator against the lead canister, trying to break the timing spring inside. Franklin ran forward and threw himself on top of her, grabbing her round the neck, trying to pull her away. She twisted and kicked and then swung the detonator round and hit him first in the side of the face and then slammed it again into his head. He rolled away, just as the dying mare, in her final convulsion of life before death, shivered violently, lifted her head and shook herself as she had done on so many summer valley afternoons. Then she kicked feebly and rolled over on to her back and over again on to her left side, burying the canister beneath her deep in the snow.

The suddenness of the horse’s movement threw Schneider up and forward to the edge of the track and the sheer drop a thousand feet to the valley road below. Still she had the detonator clasped to her.

Franklin reached for his rifle. ‘Now it’s really over, Anna. Throw it down . . . into the valley. No harm down there. Throw it down.’

She sat leaning into the wind. Her face was going grey and her hair looked quite yellow in the snow that covered her head. Blood from her shoulder wounds began forming a new red patch beneath her.

‘Will you do a deal, Mr Franklin?’ she shouted.

‘A deal?’

‘For old times’ sake. You owe me a favour, I think?’ ‘What deal?’

‘You have a grenade around your neck—’

‘It stays there.’

‘I give you the detonator. I get the grenade.’

‘No!’

‘It’s my way out, as they say in the films.’

‘In the films they would simply kill you.’

‘Then will you simply kill me?’

‘We’re not made of the same meat, Anna.’

‘Same meat?’

‘I don’t simply kill.’

‘Then give me your grenade.’

‘You’re playing for time, Anna. You know when that thing’s going off.’

‘Just one final favour, Mr Franklin. For the one-night stand. You enjoyed it.’

‘Anna, give it to me.’

‘You liked it . . . didn’t you, though? You liked what I did.’

‘Now, Anna—’

‘You liked Swiss-German sex? All those new ideas of mine?’

‘Anna . . .’

‘Come on, Matt, my pound of flesh . . . I won’t be taken back . . . Fair’s fair, for an enthusiastic night of. .

‘Anna, throw it down. You’re playing with me. You know its timing. It can still blow the canister.’

Now she was laughing at him. ‘Matt, Matt, Matt, you crazy lover . . . Next time get yourself a . . .’

‘Schneider!’

‘Why not again, Matt? For the last time, here in the snow with a bleeding woman. Doesn’t that . . .’

He fired from ten yards and the bullet went through the bottom of her neck, an inch from her scar, hitting her with such velocity it threw her three yards back. Still upright, she sat in an obscene position with her legs wide apart, the detonator still clasped tight in her lap, her eyes wide open, as if she had just heard the most shocking story.

Another bullet sent her backwards over the edge, into the void and the thousand feet of snow.

But the body of Anna Schneider never reached the valley road. As Franklin dropped to his knees the explosion shook him and the ground and the blast of air did strange things to the snow. He would never be able to remember later whether it was four seconds, or six, but only he knew how close Anna Schneider had come to success.

The nearest soldier was over four hundred yards away when he heard the explosion. And the men drinking mugs of cocoa in the farmhouse heard it too. The soldier fired three shots in the air in three directions to indicate his position and he heard others fire back in answer. But he didn’t kneel and pray as he had intended to do in the last moments of expected life. Instead, he moved blind through the snow towards the explosion and an hour later he found the horse and the lead canister strapped to the underside of it. And Matt Franklin heaping snow over the dead mare’s face. But it would not be until the following morning, in the bright Cumbrian sunlight and blue skies and a still mountain that they would find the remains of Anna Schneider buried beneath the night’s shallow grave of snow.

Christmas Eve

WASHINGTON

‘The Good News Day’

The President was new again and for the first time since his mother’s death he left the knitted black tie in his dresser drawer.

‘I repeat what I said last night, Admiral. Had it been the Midway or a wartime Atlantic convoy we would have asked the same of them. Captain Hanks and his brave men did nothing more and nothing less than their country expected.’ The President’s voice was booming.

‘But more than I had expected. Much, much more.’

Admiral Holliwell had aged ten years in the one night, just as his President had grown suddenly younger. He looked frail and his hands shook slightly as he spoke. He had forgotten to shave, or had not bothered, and the grey stubble and the grey eyes set deep in their grey sockets and the uncombed grey hair set him apart from normal business as he sat in the Oval Office watching his President.

Bright low December sunlight streamed in through the windows. The President had opened one and the early morning air was crisp and smelt of the new snow that had fallen overnight and now covered the White House lawns. A secretary had placed a bowl of white and yellow daffodils on a side table but the President, in keeping with his Good News Day mood, had picked them up and placed them dead centre on his desk.

‘You must not fret unduly, Admiral,’ he said, but not looking at Holliwell. ‘They were your orders, I know, but they had my backing. The Generals knew that. And you cannot blame yourself for the casualties. They were high, much higher than I or anyone could have foreseen, but the sacrifice had to be made. Every man on that ship knew the odds and not a man turned away. You can bet on it.’

‘But that’s not true, Mr President,’ said Admiral Holliwell in his frail grey voice. ‘According to first reports there was talk of mutiny just before—’

‘Admiral Holliwell,’ cut in the President. ‘These are obscene rumours. I don’t have to tell you the enormous damage these lies could do if they are given any credibility. You will soon receive eighty-two survivors and you will hospitalize and convalesce them all. And you will keep them that way until we recover. I will dote on them, I will give them medals, I will promote them, I will make every momma, wife, sister and girlfriend, every American, so goddamned proud of them, there’ll not be a man among them who’ll step out of line. I’m going to have their families here together, a White House New Year’s party for the families of every survivor. Hartmann’s already making the arrangements. We’re going to have it on television and we will make sure that every man off that ship who can watch
TV
is watching my party for his folks. You understand what we’re after Admiral?’

‘Yes, Mr President, I understand what you’re after.’

Admiral Holliwell was not known as a drinker but that lunchtime he sat on his own in the private dining suite of the Pentagon and emptied an entire bottle of vintage Cockburn’s Port. He was driven to his apartment in North Street, Georgetown and somehow he managed to climb the stairs. Somehow he managed to run a bath.

Whatever the reason—and few cared later—he ran only the hot tap and because of his age or his mood, the port or simply carelessness, he fell headfirst into the scalding water and was dead within ten seconds.

His naked and blistered body was found that afternoon by the Admiral’s young aide who, responding to an instinct, made the decision to report the detail directly to Jack Hartmann, the White House Chief of Staff. It was inevitably to assure him rapid promotion.

The President decided the discovery was to be kept a secret, and so for another twenty-four hours, Admiral Holliwell was left floating.

The Admiral’s death was the only blemish on what the President now referred to openly as his ‘Good News Day’. Nothing—at least nothing else, it seemed—could go wrong.

The Good News Day had begun early with the signal from Snowball control, Adana, Turkey confirming that the Rapid Deployment Force was on the ground and active. Except for the aircraft that had crashed from engine failure on the way and the one hundred and eight men who had died, there had been no other US casualties. Only three Saudis had died in an exchange of small arms fire. All the wells had been taken without damage and pumping was continuing undisturbed, three tankers were ready for sailing from the Ras Tunara refinery and would clear the Gulf for their journey to the United States just as soon as the wreckage of the sunken
Okinawa
could be blown apart and the pieces towed well clear of the deep water channel.

A second signal was brought to the President shortly after nine o’clock Washington time, relayed via the Admiralty in London from British Naval Intelligence in Oman. It reported the movement of twenty-two warships of the Soviet Seventh Fleet—led by the
Minsk
and the
Ivan Rogov
—out of the Strait of Hormuz and into the Indian Ocean, bound, it was thought, for the port of Aden in South Yemen for anchorage, refuelling and resupply. According to the British report, the only flight activity off the carrier
Minsk
had been helicopters taking the
Okinawa’s
survivors to Muscat in Oman. There had not, the report had concluded, been any other air movements.

At just before ten o’clock, another message was brought into the Oval Office with the President’s fifth pot of coffee. It was from the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. It read:

International outrage at
Okinawa’s
sinking reflected immediately at
UN
with Security Council’s call for emergency debate of entire Assembly scheduled this afternoon at four local time. Our resolution to declare the Persian Gulf an International Zone has multiple backers including Yugoslavia and Rumania plus Arabs and non-aligned. Sultan of Oman has offered full facilities at Muscat for
US
military.

I
will make a strong appeal for maintenance of
US
forces on the ground at oilfields until United Nations peacekeeping force arrives in expected ten to fourteen days. We are certain of success. This time it’s ours.

The President beamed, and tossed the slip of paper across his desk to Peter Schlesinger, his Press Secretary and White

House spokesman.

‘Good News Day, Peter,’ he said. Schlesinger read and beamed back.

‘The world is indignant, Mr President, rightly indignant and we must press it to advantage quickly before the anger goes. Indignation is not a foreign policy nor a strategy but with strong plain American words we can use it well. Strong words. You’ve got to use them tonight, in your speech at the Cathedral.’

The President leaned forward. ‘What words Peter?’

‘This country is not prepared to sound retreat, it is ready to advance; it is willing to make its stand, it is willing to be on the march again. They’re great words, Mr President, great words with a great meaning. They are the spirit of this day.’

The President smiled. ‘That’s the trouble with having other men write your speeches, Peter. You can never remember them.’

‘Your speechwriter’s coming?’

‘He’s working on the first draft now. But call him. Tell him what you want. You’re right, Peter. That’s the theme. Not just going to the brink, but vaulting it and taking the rest of the free world with us.’

Twenty minutes past one o’clock, as the President was finishing a light tray lunch of yoghurt, avocado pear stuffed with lobster, and strawberries with caramel cream, there was a telephone call from Richard Johns, Director of the
CIA,
from Cairo. The President swirled the antacid powder in the glass of water with a long thin ivory letter opener. ‘Hi! Richard.’

‘Good afternoon, Mr President.’

‘You’ve got good news?’

‘Yes, sir, very good.’

‘That’s take four then.’

‘Say again, sir?’

‘No matter,’ said the President, laughing. ‘What’s new, Richard? Fahd alive and well?’

‘Alive, Mr President, and feeling better by the minute. I flew with him from London and put it to him just as we planned.’

‘He’s with us of course?’

‘All the way. Announced it at Cairo airport. We got the speech finished for him by the time we landed. And we’ve set up a press conference at the airport, just about to start now. So you’ll have it on tapes any minute. It’ll be announced simultaneously in Mecca, Medina and out on Riyadh Radio throughout the Middle East.’

‘And Rahbar?’

‘Already out. The Iraqis came for him just before midday our time. A signal from Baghdad was waiting for me here.’

‘That’s where I give you bad news, Richard.’

‘I think I may already have it, sir.’

‘Karim?’

‘Yessir.’

‘It’s confirmed there?’

‘They broke into their radio programmes a few minutes ago to announce it. Karim in as Life President.’

‘A Soviet Iraq?’

‘In time, sir. For sure.’

‘So they’ve won there. And maybe where it matters most.’

‘Don’t know about the most, Mr President. But certainly it matters.’

‘But today’s ours, Richard. Today’s our win.’

‘All the way, Mr President.’

‘Come on home.’

‘Be there tonight, sir.’

‘Be sure to. I’m doing something at the Cathedral for the
Okinawa
boys—Sorenson and Schlesinger are working on it. They reckon it’ll be better from the church.’

‘I like it, sir.’

‘And Richard.’

‘Sir?’

‘I’m proud of the way you worked it out.’

‘Thank you, sir. See you at the carols.’

The President kicked off his left shoe and scratched his instep with the toe of his right. He stretched, yawned, slapped his hands together over his head and shouted, ‘Jack.’ Seconds later Jack Hartmann came through his door.

‘Sorry to bawl you, Jack, but it doesn’t seem right just now for whisperings into intercoms.’

‘I fully agree,’ said Hartmann. ‘Absolutely, Mr President.’ ‘Jack, get Schlesinger and Sorenson back here. Tell them I want to start on the draft of the speech. And I want a for sure on the
TV
nets, if they’re covering outside I want to know where they’ll be and who’s doing the commentating and you’re gonna give me, remember, the names of the survivors’ families who’ll be there. I’ll have a radio mike with me and I’m depending on you to give me the names as I move in on each one of them.’

‘Yes, sir, we’re working on them now. Everyone’s on it, and I expect to have photographic idents on all we’re expecting. The Cathedral people tell me that it’ll be a candlelight service, but the
TV
crews are insisting on some lights in there.’

‘Let them have lights, you tell everybody I want no balls-ups. How will it go?’

‘You read the lesson, sir, and then lead into your address.’

‘Great!’

And just one hymn.’

‘Sure.’

“‘For Those in Peril on the Sea”.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘And your favourite carol.’

‘I have a favourite carol?’

‘“Oh Great and Mighty Wonder”, Neale’s St Germanus translation.’

‘That’s my favourite carol?’

‘There will also be carol singers on the Cathedral steps as you leave, sir. After you’ve met with the families a little girl will come forward and give you a small wreath of holly and ivy.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Her name’s Mary.’

‘You think of everything.’

Hartmann turned on the ball of his right foot in the centre of the gold embossed crest on the blue carpet. The President waited for the door to close then took off his jacket and loosened his tie. Outside it was only two degrees above freezing but the sky was a brilliant blue.

He closed his eyes. Johns had done a good job. He had been told to put Fahd back on the throne but he had gone one better. Fahd was a pliable man with a proper understanding of
realpolitik,
returning with the promise of reform, and a new broom to sweep cleaner. Under American guidance he would pick up on the newly fired enthusiasm for Rahbar’s Islamic reforms without destroying the Royal Family and the alliances.

What Fahd was now promising at his Cairo Press Conference was not only the survival of the Kingdom and the continuity of the House of Ibn Saud. He was promising something more, something new, something yet untried. Encouraged by Johns, he was to announce the formation of a
Majlis Ashura
, a consultative council made up of seventy or more commoners who would share legislative responsibility under the Crown and whose first duty would be to draw up a set of constitutional guidelines to assist, not direct, but assist King Fahd steer a straighter fairer course of government. The
Majlis Ashura
would sit symbolically at the King’s right hand. He had announced the date for its inception, and also the name of its first chairman, Saudi Arabia’s most famous international commoner, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the King’s ally, lawyer, negotiator, ambassador and oil minister extraordinaire.

The United States Middle Eastern Intelligence Service was convinced that King Fahd’s Council of Commoners would galvanize and consolidate the dissident Saudi poor, the envious Saudi middle class and the outraged Saudi devotees of Islamic fundamentalism. It would quickly make them forget Rahbar and his Islamic People’s Democratic Republic. At his press conference at the Hilton Hotel on the banks of the Nile, King Fahd was not only spelling out the New Grand Design, he was detailing the reforms that would bring Saudi Moslems back into the lap of God, back where they belonged within the severe and intolerant confines of Koranic law.

Hotel and other public swimming pools would be emptied forthwith to discourage mixed bathing. Dolls would be banned from the toyshops—dolls were idolatrous— frozen meat banned from public sale because it was considered unclean. The sale of dog food was banned— dogs were also considered unclean. Television, radio and cinema were henceforth to be forbidden as means of entertainment. In future they would only be used for religious and educational purposes. Purdah was to be reintroduced. No part of a woman’s skin was hereafter to be shown in public. Public flogging, the cutting off of hands, arms and feet and public execution by beheading would continue by order of the magistrates or mullahs.