“My friends, my fellow Americans, everywhere.”
Though his present audience was overwhelmingly composed of Texans, he was aiming through the lens of the television camera at a much larger audience.
“We may come from different parts of this great nation of ours. We may have different backgrounds, inhabit different walks of life, possess different hopes, fears, and aspirations. But one thing we share, wherever we may be, whatever we may do-we are all, men, women, and children, patriots of this great land…”
The statement was undeniable and the cheering testified to that.
“This above all we share: We want our nation to be strong…” More cheering. “… and proud…” Ecstasy.
He talked for an hour. The evening newscasts across the United States would use between thirty seconds and one minute, according to taste. When he had finished and sat down, the breeze scarcely ruffling his snow-white, blow-dried, and spray-fixed hair above the cattleman’s suntan, the Citizens for a Strong America movement was well and truly launched.
Dedicated, in broad terms, to the regeneration of national pride and honor through strength-the notion that it had never perceivably degenerated was overlooked-the CSA would specifically oppose the Nantucket Treaty root and branch, and demand its repudiation in Congress.
The enemy to pride and honor through strength had been clearly and incontrovertibly identified; it was Communism, meaning socialism, which ran from Medicaid through welfare checks to tax increases. Those fellow travelers of Communism who sought to dupe the American people into arms control at lower levels were not identified, but implied. The campaign would be conducted at every level-regional offices, media-oriented information kits, lobbying at the national and constituency levels, and public appearances by true patriots who would speak against the treaty and its progenitor-an oblique reference to the stricken man in the White House.
By the time the crowd was invited to sample the barbecues scattered around the periphery of the park, and made available by the generosity of a local philanthropist and patriot, Plan Crockett, the second campaign to destabilize John Cormack to the point of resignation, was on the road.
Quinn and the President’s son spent a fitful night in the cellar. The boy took the bed, at Quinn’s insistence, but could not sleep. Quinn sat on the floor, his back against the hard wall, and would have dozed but for the questions from Simon.
“Mr. Quinn?”
“It’s Quinn. Just Quinn.”
“Did you see my dad? Personally?”
“Sure. He told me about Aunt Emily… and Mr. Spot.”
“How was he?”
“Fine. Worried of course. It was just after the kidnap.”
“Did you see Mom?”
“No, she was with the White House doctor. Worried but okay.”
“Do they know I’m okay?”
“As of two days ago, I told them you were still alive. Try and get some sleep.”
“Okay… When do you figure we’ll get out of here?”
“Depends. In the morning, I hope, they’ll quit and run. If they make a phone call twelve hours later, the British police should be here minutes afterward. It depends on Zack.”
“Zack? He’s the leader?”
“Yep.”
At two in the morning the overstrung youth finally ran out of questions and dozed. Quinn stayed awake, straining to identify the muffled sounds from upstairs. It was almost 4:00 A.M. when the three loud knocks came at the door.
Simon swung his legs off the bed and whispered, “The hoods.” Both men pulled oft the cowled hoods to prevent their seeing the abductors. When they were blindfolded, Zack entered the cellar with two men behind him. Each carried a pair of handcuffs. He nodded toward the two captives. They were turned around and their wrists cuffed behind their backs.
What they did not know was that the examination of the diamonds had finished before midnight, to the complete satisfaction of Zack and his accomplices. The four men had spent the night scouring their living quarters from top to bottom. Every surface that might have had a fingerprint was wiped; every trace they could think of, expunged. They did not bother to dismantle the cellar of its bolted-down bed or the length of chain that had tethered Simon to it for over three weeks. Their concern was not that others might come here one day and identify the place as having been the kidnappers’ hideout; rather, that those examiners would never discover who the kidnappers had been.
Simon Cormack was detached from his ankle chain and both men were led upstairs, through the house, and into the garage. The Volvo awaited. Its trunk was stuffed with the carryalls of the kidnappers and had no room left. Quinn was forced into the backseat and down to the floor, then covered with a blanket. He was uncomfortable but optimistic.
If the kidnappers had intended to kill them both, the cellar would have been the place. He had proposed they be left in the cellar, to be liberated later by the police following a phone call from abroad. That was evidently not to be. He guessed, rightly, that the kidnappers did not want their hideout discovered, at least not yet. So he lay hunched on the floor of the car and breathed as best he could through the thick hood.
He felt the depression of the seat cushions above him as Simon Cormack was made to lie along the backseat. He, too, was covered by a blanket. The two smallest men climbed in the back, sitting on the edge of the seat with the slim body of Simon behind their backs, their feet on Quinn. The giant climbed into the passenger seat; Zack took the wheel.
At his command all four took off their masks and track-suit tops and threw them through the windows onto the garage floor. Zack started the engine and operated the door-opener. He backed out into the driveway, closed the garage door, reversed into the street, and drove off. No one saw the car. It was still dark, with another two and a half hours to dawn.
The car ran steadily for about two hours. Quinn had no idea where he was or where he was going. Eventually (it would later be established it must have been within a few minutes of six-thirty), the car slowed to a halt. No one had spoken during the drive. They all sat bolt upright in their seats, in business suits and ties, and remained silent. When they stopped, Quinn heard the rear near-side door open and the two sets of feet on his body were removed. Someone dragged him out of the car by the feet. He felt wet grass under his cuffed hands, knew he was on the grassy edge of a road somewhere. He scrambled to his knees, then his feet, and stood up. He heard two men reentering the rear of the car and the slamming of the door.
“Zack,”he called. “What about the boy?”
Zack was standing on the road by the driver’s open door, looking at him across the roof of the car.
“Ten miles up the road,” he said, “by the roadside, same as you.”
There was the purr of a powerful engine and the crunch of gravel under wheels. Then the car was gone. Quinn felt the chill of a November morning on his shirt-sleeved torso. The moment the car was gone, he got to work.
Hard labor in the vineyards had kept him in shape. His hips were narrow, like those of a man fifteen years his junior, and his arms were long. When the handcuffs went on he had braced the sinews of his wrists to secure the maximum space when he relaxed. Tugging the cuffs down over his hands as far as they would go, he worked his cuffed wrists down his back and around his behind. Then he sat in the grass, brought his wrists up under his knees, kicked off his shoes, and worked his legs through his locked arms, one after the other. With his wrists now in front of him he tore off the hood.
The road was long, narrow, straight, and utterly deserted in the predawn half-light. He sucked in lungsful of the cool fresh air and looked around for human habitation. There was none. He pulled on his shoes, rose, and began to jog along the road in the direction the car had taken.