“Nossir. The supply ship serviced us at sea in the Atlantic. I stayed with the submarine when the missile system was fitted.”
“Very well…”
The admiral then conferred for the first time with Stephen Hart and Frank Reidel, discussing briefly the formalities of the arrest. Admiral Morgan suggested that since Adnam was plainly a seagoing military enemy of the United States, he should be taken into custody under the direct auspices of the U.S. Navy. The Central Intelligence Agency would then be entrusted to undertake the debriefing, working in conjunction with the U.S. Joint Command.
Frank Reidel thus became a key man in the operation, working as he did as the senior liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. All three agreed that the matter ought properly to be kept under the tightest imaginable secrecy rules throughout. The admiral thought the interrogation should take place at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and that the commander from Iraq should thus be held securely during the entire time, under the normal procedures governing the arrest of an “enemy of the United States.”
In point of fact, he would be held more securely than anyone had ever been held before. Guards from the U.S. Marines would supervise his captivity, night and day, though they would never be told who they were guarding. Accommodations would be organized by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The admiral then returned to Commander Adnam and addressed him formally. “Commander, on behalf of the government of the United States of America, I place you under arrest. Your crimes against this nation and against humanity are of a dimension to deny you any rights whatsoever, under any treaty ever entered into by the member nations of the UN. You will be held on an indefinite basis until it is decided whether you should stand trial or simply be made to disappear.
“At this stage we shall not be working with any other nation, but you may assume that Her Majesty’s Government in London will be informed in due course that we are presently holding the Iraqi terrorist who destroyed Concorde Flight 001 in February. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir.”
“Okay. Untie his hands and someone feed the fucker. Bread and coffee…don’t want him to get too comfortable. Bill, I’m gonna beg Laura for a roast beef sandwich, then I’m gonna sit in the kitchen and annoy her for a half hour…maybe we can send down to the local town for lunch for these guys.”
Bill Baldridge and Arnold Morgan returned to the house, both men heading for the kitchen, where the dark- haired daughter of Admiral Sir Iain MacLean was supervising the production of sandwiches. “Just us, Laura,” said the admiral. “The rest of the crew are eating out…in the barn, that is…I don’t expect you to feed half of Washington. In my view you’ve already done quite enough.”
“Well, Admiral that’s very kind of you. Now…why don’t you and Bill go and sit by the fire in the hall. I’ll bring lunch in, and perhaps I might join you for a while.”
“That’s the only reason I came out here,” said the admiral. “I just wanted to have lunch with you…these other ruffians can take care of the business.”
Laura laughed. “Will I assume Benjamin will not be joining us?”
“That’d be safe.” Arnold Morgan chuckled. “By the way, have you called your father?”
“Yes. I did that at around two this morning…right after Ray and Skip tied Ben up and carried him over to the barn for the night. It was eight in the morning in Scotland, so it was not too bad.”
“What did Iain say?”
“Well, he was just so relieved we were both safe — but he laughed like hell when I told him I’d captured Ben with Grandpa’s shotgun…and he did ask me to pass on his best regards to you and Kathy.”
“But not to Ben?”
“Certainly not to Ben.” She laughed.
“Do you realize, Laura, your father and I called this one almost a year ago? We both somehow sensed that if
“What will happen to him?”
“Now that is the question. Men like him, and there aren’t many…I really mean spies like him, even without his operational brilliance…they rarely get executed. They just know too much. They are too useful alive.”
“But surely a man who has committed such shocking crimes, brought that much grief to so many families… surely he must be executed.”
“Not necessarily. What would execution achieve? Although Bill does not quite agree with me…yet.” And he smiled at the proprietor of the B/B.
“He’s just too darned notorious, Arnold. There’d be a public outcry if you were found to have him kept alive.”
The admiral nodded, was silent for a moment, and took a sportsman-sized bite out of his roast beef sandwich. After stirring his coffee and taking a couple of swigs, he spoke. To Laura.
“What would
“I’d spare him. And take his damned knowledge and use him as long as he was useful. Not a day longer.”
“And that, my dear, is why agents like him rarely get executed.”
“There are no agents like him,” said Bill. “He’s completely different. He’s a one-man demolition squad. And he’s brought endless desolation to endless families.”
“But there is one difference.”
“What is it?”
“Hardly anyone knows who he is, or what he has done. The public do not even know the
“True,” said Bill Baldridge. “It just seems such a gigantic secret to keep under wraps…and if he somehow escaped and got out from under our control and did something dreadful…like blow up the Pentagon or something… then it would all come out…that this administration had been working under cover with the most evil terrorist in the history of the world, and now look what’s happened?…You’d end up more reviled than Ben.”
“That is indeed a risk. But I’d cope with my disgrace in the private knowledge that I had probably saved thousands of lives and that I had acted in accordance with my beliefs and my conscience.”
“You’re a big man, Arnold Morgan,” said Laura. “Just don’t let him get out of your control.”
“Not I,” said the admiral. “And when I’m done with him, I’ll probably still have him eliminated.”
“That’s my man,” said Bill. “And that’s the way to look at it. Ben Adnam deserves nothing. Certainly not fairness. Ask the friends of Martin Beckman.”
“The biggest problem with Ben,” said the admiral, “is his unbelievable cleverness. When you think about it, he’s been a couple of jumps ahead of everyone in all his projects…ahead of Israel…ahead of me…I suspect ahead of the Iraqis…certainly ahead of the U.S. Navy…and the Royal Navy…and, even now, of the entire U.S. government. Remember, he came here determined to get in front of people in high office to plead for his life…and he did it. First time. He was a couple of jumps in front of the immigration authorities…a couple of jumps ahead of the CIA guys… certainly a couple of jumps ahead of me, again.”
“He wasn’t always far in front of me,” said Bill, quietly.
“No, he wasn’t. But he was far enough. You did identify him. And basically caught him, or at least you caught his ship, but only with his help. You and Laura’s dad, between you…the problem is, is he just too clever, and too devious for any of us to work with?”
“Probably,” said Bill. “But you have to try and wring him out. And then decide, I guess, what further use he can be.”
“That’s about it,” said the admiral. “And now I think we have to get him out of here.” He rose from the
