“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but we can’t be sure,” Kolesnik countered. He handed the President a list of all the Special Olympians expected for the games. “There’re nearly three thousand of them, plus relatives or guardians and coaches. At least four hundred are Muslims. But that’s not the worst of it. Bin Laden has supporters just about everywhere, which means that the assassin or assassins could be German or Italian, or Japanese, even American.”
The President flipped through the lengthy list, knowing exactly who these people were. Down syndrome runners, paraplegic swimmers, blind discus throwers, palsied high jumpers; athletes with dozens of afflictions doing the best they could. “That’s exactly why bin Laden won’t make his strike in San Francisco. He’d be killing Muslims. His own people. He’d never survive such an attack.”
“In a strange way, Mr. President, you may be wrong for all the right reasons,” Kolesnik said. “By killing his own people he would be sending a very clear message that absolutely no one is safe from him. It could dramatically increase his stature and that of the NIF, if anyone can follow such logic.”
“Well, I for one cannot.”
“The psychologists on our staff brought it up as a possibility, sir.” Kolesnik was frustrated, but it was clear that he’d expected to run into a brick wall. “If it came to that, Mr. President, the Secret Service could supersede your orders.” Under certain circumstances in which the President’s life was clearly in danger, the Secret Service did have the power to override a President’s wishes, even by gentle force if necessary, and take him out of harm’s way.
“Don’t even try to go there, Henry,” Haynes warned.
Kolesnik straightened up. “Until you fire me, Mr. President, I’ll do my job the best way I know how even if it means disagreeing with you.”
The President handed the list back. “Is there any evidence that bin Laden is planning to hit us in San Francisco?”
“No, sir.” Kolesnik replaced the list in his file folder. “But the bomb is already here in the States.” “Anything on that from the FBI or CIA that I haven’t seen?”
“No, sir.”
“They tried to get McGarvey’s wife and daughter and they failed. Maybe that’s it,” the President said. “Bring me some hard information and I’ll cancel the entire ISO. Until then do what you can.” Haynes softened. “I want you to know, Henry, that I’m not trying to be a bastard here. I appreciate the extraordinary efforts that your people take every day to keep me and my family safe. But you have to understand what I’m faced with. Whoever sits in this chair still has to go out and press the flesh on occasion, even if it means putting his life on the line. And that’s just the way it is.”
“Yes, Mr. President, we do understand,” Kolesnik replied. “We’ll do the best we can.”
“That’s all I can ask from anybody.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“There’s something damned funny going on, if you ask me,” Captain Panagiotopolous told his deck officer. It was after breakfast and they were steaming north at seventeen knots about two hundred miles off the Baja California peninsula. They were slightly ahead of schedule and if the weather held they’d be in San Francisco at least eight hours early.
The entire trip starting in Karachi three months ago had been a cocked-up affair, in the captain’s estimation, although nothing terribly untoward had happened to them other than the brief but intense storm in the Arabian Sea. But there’d been an odd flavor to the home office communiques from Paris, a vagueness that the captain had never noticed before in his twenty-five years at sea. It was the new executives probably; kids who’d never been to sea themselves and yet felt competent to run a shipping company with a fleet of thirty-eight vessels that stopped at just about every port in the world. But the snot noses did know computers.
For two months while the Margo was in dry dock at the Tampa Marine Yards in Florida, Panagiotopolous had gone home to visit his family in Athens. But after just a few days he remembered why he had left in the first place. He took a small boat out to Delos where he worked up a sweat helping prune olive trees. Honest labor. Appreciated labor. When he got back to his ship he was refreshed, ready to go. But after a brief inspection he saw that none of the repairs done to the ship had been necessary. Some painting, a new reefer in the galley, a few new pieces of navigation equipment on the bridge; nothing essential.
He got to wondering what the hell was really going on. For instance, why had the Margo been yanked from service at that particular moment for unnecessary repairs. Instead of earning money, the company had lost a bundle. And, why had the deck cargo bound for San Francisco been unloaded and stored at the shipyard instead of being transferred to another ship?
Or what the hell were they doing with a helicopter tied down on the rear deck?
Panagiotopolous wasn’t surprised by taking on last minute cargo. It happened all the time. But it was the way in which it had been handled in Colon at the eastern terminus of the Panama Canal that was odd. They were ordered to drop anchor in the holding basin, and within the hour the self-loading cargo vessel Antilles Trader out of Havana came alongside. A company representative came aboard with a bill of lading. The helicopter was to be loaded on the Margo’s afterdeck for delivery to M. L. Murty, Ltd.” in San Francisco. The documents were in order, but since it was Cuban equipment bound for a U.S. port a special clearance was needed, something the representative didn’t have. When the captain called the company on SSB he was told in no uncertain terms that the Margo was his ship and his responsibility. He would either have to sail without the papers, or a new captain would be found to replace him. The clearance papers, he was promised, would be delivered to the ship with the harbor pilot in San Francisco Bay. If he was stopped in U.S. waters by the Coast Guard he would have to talk his way out of his problem.
“It makes no sense,” he said.
“I agree,” Schumatz replied. They stood on the port wing looking aft. “I could fray the cables and let the sonofabitch fall overboard. Nobody would be any the wiser. The insurance company would bitch, that’s if the company even made a claim. Without the proper papers we shouldn’t be carrying it, so if it simply disappeared they might say nothing.”
“Why are they taking the risk? That’s what I don’t get. The ship and our cargo could be impounded.”
“Obviously the company thinks it’s worth it. Hell, even if we deliver the chopper the new owners will never get it registered with the FAA. Not without the proper documents. Does that make any sense to you?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Panagiotopolous said. He stared at the machine. It was a small helicopter, capable of carrying only the pilot and three passengers. But it was apparently in serviceable condition. According to Schumatz, who had supervised its loading, there was even fuel in the tank. Another thought struck him. “There’s plenty of clearance for the rotors. Someone could pull the lines free and take off, couldn’t they?”
Schumatz’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
“Does anybody aboard know how to fly one of those things?”
“I don’t. Do you?”
Panagiotopolous shook his head thoughtfully. Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t adding up. There was some element that he was missing.
First Officer Green came from the bridge with a message flimsy. “We just received this,” he said, handing it to the captain.
“Thank you,” Panagiotopolous said. “Do you know how to fly a helicopter, by any chance, Mr. Green?”
Green’s face brightened. “As a matter of fact I do, sir. The company has a couple of Bell Rangers, which I’ve used.”
“Could you fly that one?” the captain asked, indicating the Cuban helicopter on the aft deck.
“They all fly pretty much the same, so I suppose so. But I took a look at it when it came aboard, and it’s a piece of junk. Doesn’t have much of a range, either, so I wouldn’t get very far.”
“Anyone else aboard know how to fly one of those things?”
Green shook his head. “I don’t think so, Captain. They cost a ton of money to maintain, let alone fly, and I
