Hauk was not going to like working with him. Politicians were wait-and-see folks; they were let’s-check-it- out-in-the-polls-and-then-compromise-it folks, who weren’t used to any real decision-making.
The man came to his feet when Hauk walked in. His spirit lightened, almost as if he were literally transferring his burden over to the Commissioner.
“Mister Secretary,” Hauk said.
The man was around the desk and vigorously pumping Hauk’s hand. That was something the man could relate to. “Bill Prather,” he said, and fixed Hauk with a professional stare. “Am I glad to see you.”
Hauk looked the man over. He had a full head of silver hair, but it didn’t mean that he was old. He was of very indeterminate age, probably somewhere between forty and sixty. He had a good set of teeth and the easily accessible face of a favorite uncle, back when people still had uncles who weren’t crazy.
“Bob Hauk,” he responded, and broke the Secretary’s grip on his hand.
“What’s the news?” Prather asked.
“Not very good, I’m afraid,” Hauk answered.
The Secretary walked back to the desk and took a cigarette out of the pack, even though another one was still smoldering in the cut glass ashtray. He fidgeted getting the thing into his mouth, his hand visibly shaking when he lit it “Give it to me,” he mumbled around the smoker.
Hauk walked up to the opposite side of the table, resting his hands on its top. “The President went down in the prison,” he said, then moved away from the table, over to the big map.
He pointed to Battery Park. “He went down around here. We sent a task force in immediately, but it was too late. They already had him.”
The Secretary exhaled a lungful of smoke. “They?”
“The prisoners,” Hauk answered.
Prather shrugged broadly. “Well surely, Commissioner, you must just go in and take him out.”
Hauk walked back to the table again. “It’s not that simple,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“These people are very dangerous, I…”
“Come on, Hauk,” Prather said, and his tone was condescending. “This is your prison. Don’t you have any control over your own prison?”
Hauk felt the anger rise up his throat. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cloth-wrapped finger and tossed it onto the table. The wrapping came loose as he did so.
“No, sir,” he said. “I don’t”
Prather’s mouth fell open when he saw the finger. His body convulsed slightly and he turned his head. “Hauk,” he choked. “Put it away. Please.”
Hauk stuck the finger back into his pocket “Those people rule themselves in there, Mister Secretary. All we do here is keep them from getting out.”
The man turned back around, breathing deeply. The false bravado was gone completely; all that was exposed now was the frightened shell of a petty bureaucrat who was in over his head. “How could such a situation…”
Hauk put up a hand to silence him. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t invent the fucking system, you people did.”
“I don’t think I like your tone of voice.”
Hauk drew himself up full. “Fine,” he said, and turned to the door. “You handle things then. I’m going to go home and get some sleep.”
He started for the door, wishing, really wishing, that Prather would let him go. He knew that he wouldn’t, though.
“No,” the man said, before Hauk even got halfway across the room.
He turned back around.
“P-please,” Prather stammered. “I need your help. I can’t handle anything like this.”
“Yeah,” Hauk said, and returned to the table. He sat down in the chair opposite the Secretary.
Prather took short, nervous pulls on his cigarette. He didn’t offer one to the Commissioner, so Hauk just reached across the table and took one.
“What have we got?” Prather asked.
Hauk lit up and took a deep drag. It tasted stale, metallic. “We’ve got two choices,” he replied. “We can either try to go in and get him out, or we can wait on the prisoners. They’re holding him for something, some kind of ransom. As soon as they figure out what they want, they’ll try to deal for him.”
He sat back, watching the glowing, dead ash build up on the end of the smoker, “It’s a big city,” he said, “in case you haven’t noticed. I seriously doubt that we could even find him if we went in, much less rescue him alive. So, I strongly suggest that we wait for the ransom demands.”
“We can’t,” Prather said softly.
“What do you mean, we can’t?”
Prather pursed his lips, his eyes once again drifting to the city map. “John Harker is on a very delicate mission right now. He was on his way to a summit meeting in Hartford that will, most likely, determine the final outcome of the war.”
Hauk closed his eyes and leaned back. He didn’t want to hear this. “What sort of mission?”
Prather looked around, as if somebody might be eavesdropping. He lowered his nervous voice. “There is a briefcase cuffed to his arm that holds a cassette. The cassette talks about a powerful new bomb, a fusion bomb that…”
“Never mind,” Hauk snapped. “I don’t need to know. How much time have you got to get him there?”
“Just about twenty-four hours,” Prather answered. “After that, the Russians and Chinese go back home and things get crazy again. We’ve worked for years to set up this meeting. I doubt that we could ever get another chance.”
Hauk stood up and began pacing. “Who’s making the top end decisions right now?” he asked after a minute.
“The Vice President,” Prather answered, and rested his hand on the red phone. “He’s waiting on the other end of this line to hear from us.”
“Will he be cooperative?”
“What have you got in mind?”
Hauk stopped pacing and stood, staring at the map, his hands at parade rest behind him. “We could never get in there with troops,” he said over his shoulder. “We’d never even find enough of him to bury.”
“Then, what?”
“One person could get in,” he said. “One person could move around unnoticed.”
“Have you got someone in mind?”
Hauk turned around, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. “Maybe,” he said, and crushed the smoldering butt with the heel of his shoe.
He moved across the room to a phone by the map. He picked it up and spoke as soon as the operator came on. “Cronenberg,” was all he said.
He waited while the receiver buzzed in his ear. After several rings, a craggy voice came through the line. “Medical,” it said.
“Cronenberg, this is Hauk.”
“Hello, Commissioner, I haven’t heard from you in…”
“Do you have a prisoner down there named Plissken?”
“Why, yes, he’s a…”
“I’ve got no time, Doctor. Just listen to me: detain Plissken in processing. I may have something for him. Can you do that?”
“Well, yes. I…”
“No time, Doctor. Are you still working on that Stinger Project?”
“On and off.”
“Does it work?”
“Theoretically.”
“Get it ready. We may be testing it out.”
