“He also has an unmatched record of hostage negotiation,” pointed out the Attorney General. “It says he can use skill and subtlety when dealing with kidnappers. Fourteen successful recoveries in Ireland, France, Holland, Germany, and Italy. Either done by him, or with him advising.”
“All we want,” said Odell, “is for him to get Simon Cormack back home in one piece. It doesn’t matter to me if he punches generals or screws sheep.”
“Please,” begged Donaldson. “By the way, I’ve forgotten. Why did he quit?”
“He retired,” said Brad Johnson. “Something about a little girl being killed in Sicily three years back. Took his severance pay, cashed in his life insurance policies, and bought himself a spread in the South of Spain.”
An aide from the Communications Center put his head around the door. It was 4:00 A.M., twenty-four hours since they had all been roused.
“The DDO and his companion have just landed at Andrews,” he said.
“Get them in here without delay,” ordered Odell, “and get the DCI, the Director of the FBI, and Mr. Kelly up here as well, by the time they arrive.”
Quinn still wore the clothes in which he had left Spain. Because of the cold he had pulled on a sweater from his gunnysack. His near-black trousers, part of his only suit, were adequate for attending mass in Alcántara del Rio, for in the villages of Andalusia, people still wear black for mass. But they were badly rumpled. The sweater had seen better days and he wore three days of stubble.
Despite their lack of sleep, the committee members looked in better shape. Relays of fresh laundry, pressed shirts, and suits had been ferried in from their distant homes; washroom facilities were right next door. Weintraub had not stopped the car between Andrews and the White House; Quinn looked like a reject from the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.
Weintraub walked in first, stood aside for Quinn, and closed the door. The Washington officials stared at Quinn in silence.
The tall man walked without a word to the chair at the end of the table, sat down without invitation, and said, “I’m Quinn.”
Vice President Odell cleared his throat.
“Mr. Quinn, we have asked you here because we are considering asking you to take on the task of negotiating the safe return of Simon Cormack.”
Quinn nodded. He assumed he had not been brought this distance to discuss football.
“You have an update on the situation in London?” he asked.
It was a relief to the committee to have a practical matter brought up so early. Brad Johnson pushed a teletype printout down the table to Quinn, who studied it in silence.
“Coffee, Mr. Quinn?” asked Hubert Reed. Treasury Secretaries did not normally serve coffee, but he rose and went to the urn that now stood on a table against the wall. A lot of coffee had been drunk.
“Black,” said Quinn, reading. “They haven’t been in touch yet?”
There was no need to ask who “they” were.
“No,” said Odell. “Total silence. Of course there have been hundreds of hoax calls. Some in Britain. We’ve logged seventeen hundred in Washington alone. The crazies are having a field day.”
Quinn went on reading. On the flight, Weintraub had given him the entire background. He was just coming up to date with developments since. There were precious few.
“Mr. Quinn, would you have any idea who might have done this?” asked Donaldson.
Quinn looked up.
“Gentlemen, there are four kinds of kidnapper. Only four. The best from our point of view would be amateurs. They plan badly. If they succeed in the snatch, they leave traces. They can usually be located. They have little nerve, which can be dangerous. Usually the hostage-recovery teams move in, outwit them, and get the hostage back unharmed. But these weren’t amateurs.”
There was no argument. He had their attention.
“Worst of all are the maniacs-people like the Manson gang. Unapproachable, illogical. They want nothing material; they kill for fun. The good news is, these people don’t smell like maniacs. The preparations were meticulous, the training precise.”
“And the other two kinds?” asked Bill Walters.
“Of the other two, the worse are the fanatics, political or religious. Their demands are sometimes impossible to meet-literally. They seek glory, publicity-that above all. They have a Cause. Some will die for it; all will kill for it. We may think their Cause is lunatic. They don’t. And they are not stupid-just filled with hate for the Establishment and therefore their victim, who comes from it. They kill as a gesture, not in self-defense.”
“Who is the fourth type?” asked Morton Stannard.
“The professional criminal,” said Quinn without hesitation. “They want money-that’s the easy part. They have made a big investment, now locked up in the hostage. They won’t easily destroy that investment.”
“And these people?” asked Odell.
“Whoever they are, they suffer from one great disadvantage, which may work out to be good or bad for us. The guerrillas of Central and South America, the Mafia in Sicily, the Camorra in Calabria, the mountain men of Sardinia, or the Hezb’Allah in South Beirut -all operate within a safe, native environment. They don’t have to kill because they are not in a hurry. They can hold out forever. These people are holed up in Britain of all places; a very hostile environment-for them. So the strain is on them already. They will want to make their deal quickly and get away, which is good. But they may be spooked by the fear of imminent discovery, and cut and run. Leaving a body behind them, which is bad.”
“Would you negotiate with them?” asked Reed.
“If possible. If they get in touch, someone has to.”
“It sticks in my craw to pay money to scum like these,” said Philip Kelly of the FBI’s Criminal Investigations Division. People come to the Bureau from a variety of backgrounds; Kelly’s route was via the New York Police Department.
“Do professional criminals show more mercy than fanatics?” asked Brad Johnson.
“No kidnappers show mercy,” said Quinn shortly. “It’s the filthiest crime in the book. Just hope for greed.”
Michael Odell looked around at his colleagues. There was a series of slow nods.
“Mr. Quinn, will you attempt to negotiate this boy’s release?”
“Assuming the abductors get in touch, yes. There are conditions.”
“Of course. Name them.”
“I don’t work for the U.S. government. I have its cooperation in all things, but I work for the parents. Just them.”
“Agreed.”
“I operate out of London, not here. It’s too far away. I have no profile at all, no publicity, nothing. I get my own apartment, the phone lines I need. And I get primacy in the negotiation process-that needs clearing with London. I don’t need a feud with Scotland Yard.”
Odell glanced at the Secretary of State.
“I think we can prevail on the British government to concede that,” said Donaldson. “They have primacy in the criminal investigation, which will continue in parallel with any direct negotiation. Anything else?”
“I operate my own way, make my own decisions how to handle these people. There may have to be money exchanged. It’s made available. My job is to get the boy returned. That’s all. After he’s free you can hunt them down to the ends of the earth.”
“Oh, we will,” said Kelly with quiet menace.
“Money is not the problem,” said Hubert Reed. “You may understand there is no financial limit to what we’ll pay.”
Quinn kept silent, though he realized that telling the kidnappers that would be the worst route to go.
“I want no crowding, no bird-dogging, no private initiatives. And before I leave, I want to see President Cormack. In private.”
“This is the President of the United States you’re talking about,” said Lee Alexander of the CIA.