Harvey Hudson, the director of the FBI’s New York office, clambered up the steps of the auditorium, followed by the Police Commissioner and his Chief of Detectives. While the New Yorkers settled into chairs between the American flag and the blue-and-gold banner of the Bureau, Hudson moved to the speaker’s lectern. It was not yet nine o’clock in the morning of Monday, December 14. Hudson looked at the gathering for a second, took a slow breath and leaned toward the microphone.
“Gentlemen, we have a crisis on our hands.”
His words produced a nervous rustle, then dead silence. “A group of Palestinian terrorists have hidden a barrel of chlorine gas somewhere in New York, almost certainly here on Manhattan Island.” Behind Hudson, Bannion studied the faces of his detectives, watching for their reaction to the FBI director’s words.
“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the toxic qualities of chlorine gas. You probably all remember what happened up in Canada not so long ago when they had that chlorine gas spill after a train accident and had to move a quarter of a million people. It’s deadly, dangerous stuff.
“The fact that it’s here and we’re looking for it must be kept a total secret. We’re explaining it to you because you’re all intelligent, responsible police officers, but if it ever got out to the public, the panic the news might cause could be devastating.”
Bannion’s experienced eyes read the worry and concern on his detectives’ faces. Christ, he thought, what would have happened if we’d told them the truth?
Hudson moved through the remaining details of the cover story: a Palestinian commando was somewhere in the area with orders to detonate the barrel of gas if the Israelis didn’t release ten of their fellow terrorists being held in Israeli jails. “The lives of an awful lot of people are going to depend on our getting to that barrel before they can blow it up. This is what it looks like.”
A blowup of Los Alamos’ sketch of Qaddafi’s bomb, its nuclear details carefully masked, appeared on the screen behind Hudson. “Some of you will be assigned to try to run down the perpetrators, others will do an area-by-area combing operation; the rest of you will scour the piers and docks to see if we can pick up some trace of how it came in. We’ll do a one on one, NYPD with fed, Bomb Squad with Bomb Squad, major case with major case, kidnap with kidnap, and so on down the line.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” a voice called out from the rear of the auditorium, “why doesn’t someone just tell the Israelis to give the Arabs their goddamn prisoners back and get off our backs?”
Bannion stirred at the sound of the New York accent ringing through the anonymous speaker’s voice. He bad expected that reaction. He gestured to Hudson, then strode to the lectern and took the microphone from the FBI director’s hands. “That’s the Israelis’ problem, not yours.” The dead air in the auditorium seemed to quiver under the impact of his angry words.
“Your job is to find that goddamn barrel.” The Police Commissioner paused, trying to infuse his voice with just the right blend of urgency and anger.
“And find it in one God-awful hurry.”
The Secret Service agent waiting outside the main entrance of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., moved up to the two men as soon as they got out of their black government Ford. He verified with a discreet glance their papers identifying them as senior officials of the Department of Defense, then gestured to them to follow him into the busy Treasury lobby. He led them along its marble hall to a heavy door marked “Exit,” down two flights of stairs to the building’s cellar, then along a dimly lit corridor to a second door, this one locked.
That door gave onto an almost unknown aspect of the American White House, a tunnel running underneath East Executive Avenue into the basement of the East Wing. The passage had been employed for years to keep the identity of participants in affairs of state-and occasionally that of individuals involved in affairs other than those of state-a secret. Already it had been used a dozen times in this crisis to bring people into the White House without anyone in the press or the public becoming aware that they were there.
Preceded by their Secret Service escort, the two men entered the tunnel.
From overhead, the rumble of traffic rang through the shadowy passage like a clap of distant thunder.
David Hannon was a senior civil servant in the Civil Preparedness Agency; Jim Dixon was his assistant for research into the effects of nuclear weapons. Each had devoted the major part of his adult life to the study of one horrifying subject: the devastation that nuclear and tbermonuclear weapons could wreak on the plains, the cities and the people of the United States. The unthinkable was as familiar to them as a balance sheet to a CPA. They had been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed the test shots in the Nevada deserts, helped plan and construct the tidy Colonial homes, the cute bungalows, the lifelike John and Jane dolls on which the military planners of the fifties had measured the effects of each successive generation of nuclear warheads.
Their escort took them through the East Wing basement under the White House itself and into the West Wing offices of the National Security Council, where he turned them over to a Marine Corps major.
“The meeting’s just started,” the major informed them, indicating a couple of folding chairs near the NSC conference-room door. “They’ll be getting to you in a few minutes.”
Inside the conference room, the President had just waved Abe Stern into the chair beside his, while the regular members of the NSC Crisis Committee took their places at the table. The black bar of white numerals on the wall recorded the time, 9:03.
“We’re keeping the Governor of New York informed by phone of the crisis,” the President began. “I personally gave the Mayor a very brief review of what’s happened a few moments ago and asked him to join us here. Because it’s his city and his people who are at risk, we’ll waive our normal classification procedures for him.”
He nodded to Tap Bennington. By tradition, the NSC Crisis meetings began with a briefing by the director of the CIA.
“First of all, our request to the Soviets to intervene with the Israelis following the call to our people in Tel Aviv worked. Sixth Fleet Intelligence reports the Israelis stood down an assault on Libya at three-twenty-seven A.M. I think we can now consider them contained.”
A tilt of the CIA director’s head acknowledged the approving mumble his words had produced. “The thrust of the Agency’s efforts right now is to uncover some precise indication of who physically could have put this in New York for Qaddafi, to aid the Bureau’s search for the device.” He paused. “Unfortunately, thus far we have nothing concrete.”
“Has there been any answer from the charge in Tripoli to Eastman’s message?” the President asked.
“Not yet, sir. The plane is now on station, though. We’re ready to set up a communications channel as soon as we have Qaddafi’s reply.”
“Good.” The swiftness with which the President articulated the word was revealing of his deeply held conviction that once he had contacted Qaddafi be would be able to reason with him, to lead him, through the power of the faith and logic in which he himself so firmly believed, to some acceptable resolution of the crisis.
“Tap, how much lateral movement has Qaddafi got? Does he run his own ship?
Are there any constraints on his options?”
“No, sir. He’s under no constraints at all. Not from his military. Nor from his public. He runs it all himself.”