“I am sorry. I was hoping it would prove successful.”
“Perhaps another time.”
“Yes, perhaps. But you also mentioned a message.”
Arifi nodded and withdrew a stiff buff-colored envelope from his inside breast pocket and handed it over. It also was sealed with a wad of pink chewing gum. The Ambassador sniffed and could smell cinnamon.
“It, too, of course, is confidential,” Arifi said, the tic near his left eye now throbbing erratically.
“But of vital importance to... uh... civilization?”
“Colonel Mourabet thinks so,” Arifi said in a cold voice. “If I were you, Your Excellency, I would not discount the importance of our request because of its melodramatic nature. Great events often seem melodramatic while happening, but tragic in retrospect.”
He’s completely mad, the Ambassador thought, staring at Arifi’s tic, which now threatened to turn into an uncontrollable twitch.
“I appreciate your confidence in my discretion,” the Ambassador murmured and heaved himself up out of the chair.
Arifi rose, too, and laid a cautionary hand on the Ambassador’s arm. “One more thing, Your Excellency. We would be exceedingly grateful if you would wait until, say, ten o’clock before calling on the President.”
That would give them nearly six hours, the Ambassador thought. At, say, 550 miles per hour, that would put them over — what? Morocco, or perhaps Algeria, if they go that way.
“The President is, as you know, a very busy man,” he said. “I am not at all sure when my appointment can be scheduled.”
“As long as it’s no sooner than ten o’clock.”
“I shall do my best.”
Arifi smiled. His tic throbbed wildly. “One cannot possibly ask for more.”
It was not until 11:45 that morning that Ambassador Dokubo was ushered into the Oval Office. The appointment had been arranged through the urging of the Secretary of State, whom the Ambassador had telephoned at home at 7 A.M. Although Dokubo had been cautiously vague about his reasons for requesting the extraordinary meeting with the President, his reputation for sound common sense and his country’s enormous oil reserves had convinced the Secretary that the meeting should take place.
“You can’t tell me any more than you’ve already told me, I take it?” the Secretary had said.
“No, I don’t see how I really can, Mr. Secretary, and still keep my word.”
“Of course. I understand. Although their tour was unofficial we naturally are deeply disappointed that they canceled the balance of it. Did they give you any inkling as to why they decided to cancel?”
“Only that it was not a success. I believe I’m quoting exactly.”
“I’ve always found this new crop of Libyans to be quite? strange,” the Secretary had said.
“Quite mad, really.”
“Yes. Well, I’ll see what I can arrange.”
After the telephone conversation, Ambassador Dokubo summoned his principal aide, who came in and stood before the large carved desk on which rested the small Gucci box.
“I don’t suppose you have any chewing gum.”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Do you think you might hunt up a stick or two?”
“Any particular kind, sir?”
“Do you have any idea about what kind this might be?” Dokubo said, indicating that the aide should examine the box.
The aide picked it up and sniffed the chewing gum. “Dentyne, I’d say, sir. Or close to it.”
“See what you can do.”
In a few minutes the aide had returned with a package of Dentyne gum that he had obtained from a youth in the Embassy mail room.
“Chew up a couple of sticks,” the Ambassador said.
The aide peeled the wrapping off two sticks and popped them into his mouth. While he was chewing, the Ambassador carefully examined the Gucci box. He weighed it in the palm of one hand.
“I don’t think it could be a bomb, do you?”
“There are such things as letter bombs,” the aide said.
“Well, we shall soon see,” the Ambassador said. He peeled away the chewing gum that had been stuck to the box’s edges. Then he carefully untied the string. After that, he looked up at his aide and said, “You may leave the room, if you wish.”
The aide swallowed. “No, sir, that won’t be necessary.”
The Ambassador nodded and carefully lifted off the top of the small box.
“Good God!” the aide said.
Ambassador Dokubo’s 11:45 A.M. meeting with President McKay had been sandwiched in between a photo opportunity with a band of 4-H prize winners from Valley City, North Dakota, and a meeting between the President and the Director of the FBI, whose west coast special agents had been alerted to start a search for Bingo McKay and Eleanor Rhodes after repeated calls to the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim had failed to locate them.
There was always the chance, of course, that Bingo, a resolute bachelor, could have bedded himself down with a companion or two in the farther reaches of Hollywood or Malibu or the Marina del Rey. But if he had, he normally would have arranged for Eleanor Rhodes to cover for him. But when neither she nor Bingo could be located by the resourceful operators on the White House switchboard, the President, in view of the Libyans’ hasty departure, had once again silently goddamned his brother’s stubborn refusal to accept Secret Service protection.
He grew even more concerned when the Secretary of State telephoned with the news of the Libyans’ strange early-morning meeting with the Nigerian Ambassador. “Have we done anything to piss them off — anything at all?” the President had asked.
The Secretary was careful in his reply. “Nothing that I am aware of, Mr. President.”
“That leaves a whole lot of territory unexplored, doesn’t it?”
“An immense amount, sir.”
“Well, check around and see what you can find out. And I suppose I’d better see Dokubo at — let’s make it eleven forty-five. Maybe he’ll have something I can pass on to the FBI.”
“I’ll inform the Ambassador of the time.”
“And don’t forget to check out what we’ve done to upset that Libyan bunch — you know, like serving them pork chops for lunch.”
“I’ll see to it immediately, Mr. President.”
When Ambassador Dokubo was ushered into the Oval Office at precisely 11:45, the President was quick to note the Nigerian’s grim expression. After they shook hands and exchanged routine pleasantries, the President said, “You’ve brought me bad news, haven’t you?”
Dokubo nodded. “I don’t believe it will be good.” He picked up his attaché case, put it on his lap, and opened it. He took out the buff envelope first and then the Gucci box and placed them on the President’s desk.
“I took the precaution of having my security people examine both of these,” he said. “They assure me that they contain no explosives.”
The President examined the small box first and looked up. “Chewing gum.”
“They apologized for having no sealing wax.”
“They say what was in it?”
“A token — according to Ali Arifi.”
“He’s the Minister of Defense, right?”
“Yes.”
“He say what kind of token?”
“No, Mr. President, he didn’t.”
The President snipped the red string binding the box with a pair of scissors, then peeled away the chewing gum and lifted off the lid. He was a tall man with a tennis pro’s rangy body and the careless good looks of a man who for some reason had always assumed that he was ugly and didn’t particularly care. In a few years, possibly as many as ten, he would look far more distinguished than he did now, but perhaps not as capable. He had a high, wide forehead and deep-set greenish eyes, an unremarkable nose, a mouth that in repose appeared sardonic, but not when he smiled, and an almost perfect chin, which compensated for the batwing ears that had been handed down to McKay men for generations along with enough thick blondish-gray hair to cover them up.