Kathy giggled at the admiral’s unfailing, irrepressible aim at any subject. Then she said, more seriously, “I suppose you don’t need reminding that you did not really catch Ben Adnam. He came here unaccompanied of his own accord, and effectively gave himself up. Plainly, he could have killed Bill, and he might have gotten Laura. But she says he never intended to kill anyone. He just wanted to get in touch with you. He’s probably regretting it right now.”
“The problem for all men like him, Kathy, is they end up having nowhere to turn. No one wants ’em. No one needs ’em. In the end, the only country that does want them is the one they have always worked against. Just because of what they know.” He paused for a moment. Then he said, “Men too deep in national intelligence can often become outcasts, because, finally, they just have no one to talk to.”
Kathy gazed at him quizzically. Then moved adroitly. “Are you really planning to use Ben on a long-term basis?”
“I do not have that authority. The question is, will I recommend something of the sort to the President of the United States?”
“Well. Will you?”
“Kathy, that’s the second item to which I don’t have an answer.”
“What’s the first?”
“Whatever would happen to me, without you?”
13
The final barrage of questions fired at Ben Adnam by the President’s national security advisor concluded the principal interrogation of the Iraqi terrorist. He was still under the control of the CIA, and under twenty-four-hour guard by the United States Marines, but he was now moved to a CIA safe house 15 miles south of Washington, west of the Potomac River.
He posed, obviously, the most enormous problem. The simple solution was to get rid of him, quickly, professionally, and illegally. The best solution was to use him in every possible way to guide U.S. military dealings in the Middle East. But the moral solution was to put him on trial, to answer publicly for his horrendous crimes against the American nation and others. Arnold Morgan hated Solution Three.
He hated it because it opened a zillion cans of worms. It would bring in the British judicial system to deal with the downing of Concorde; it would let the media run riot all over the world; it would cause desperate problems for the airline industry because the media would go on and on about “Could This Happen Again?” And, worse yet, it would cause U.S. government and military authorities to admit what had happened to the
In the interest of a quiet life, Admiral Morgan knew that Solution One was the simplest answer. Just get rid of the sonofabitch. Very few people in the States even knew he existed, never mind what he’d done. If he should suddenly disappear, the problems would vanish with him.
The trouble was, Arnold Morgan did not operate like some other military and political careerists. He operated only in the specific interests of the United States of America. And he knew, as surely as he knew the sun rises in the east, Ben Adnam had real possibilities. He knew of no one else in the world, indeed he had never met anyone in his long career, who could in such a short space of time have completely outwitted the entire political-military establishment of the United States. Not just once, but twice. Not to mention the Brits, the Russians, and the Israelis. Arnold Morgan reckoned Adnam was as close to priceless as makes no difference.
Arnold Morgan knew as well as anyone about the restrictions all governments place on classified information. But Ben Adnam was not just any old intelligence officer. Ben Adnam was some kind of a military genius, and in Arnold Morgan’s opinion he was likely to have found out
Before Ben Adnam had left Baghdad he had deposited the full story of his operations in three different safe- deposit vaults in Europe. The written account was split into several parts, no one of them complete. He had allowed the CIA to check out one part of one deposit in Paris. Neither the CIA, nor Arnold Morgan, who had spent a lifetime in the dogged pursuit of such data, was disappointed. The admiral could not bring himself to have commander Adnam eliminated; nor could he risk him going into a public trial before a jury. Admiral Morgan already knew, he wanted to “run” him.
Which was why, broadly speaking, he and two Secret Service agents were driving fast down Route 1 to the Woodley Hills district, the admiral himself at the wheel. Arnold Morgan sensed there was something in the nature of a showdown in the air between him and Adnam, because sooner or later someone was going to have to decide something. Right now the admiral did not know what course of action to advise the President, but he would by the end of the day.
They pulled into the tree-softened driveway that led through languorous lawns turning green with the advance of spring. At the end was the big, white, gabled house that represented the most unlikely-looking prison in the U.S.A. Only the presence of two uniformed Marine guards inside the glass of the front porch betrayed the secret nature of the location.
Admiral Morgan parked and walked into the house, nodding at the two guards. Inside, two CIA field officers met him and took him into a living room that enjoyed rural views out to the trees, and three more guards. Sitting in an armchair, reading the
He wore a blue shirt, dark grey trousers, and brown loafers, all of which he had bought in Helensburgh two and a half months before. He stood up immediately upon the arrival of the national security advisor and nodded a greeting. “Admiral”, he said calmly.
“Commander,” replied Arnold Morgan, unable to bring himself to reduce to the ranks the submarine genius he wanted to hire.
He turned to the Secret Servicemen and the CIA field officers who had accompanied him into the room, and said curtly, “I’ll let you know if I need you.”
One of the CIA men nodded to the Marine guard, who was plainly ready for this instruction, and, before leaving, he handcuffed the prisoner both to the chair, by the wrist, and to the table, by the ankle. Ben Adnam was not going anywhere, even if he had anywhere to go.
“I want to talk to you about your future, if any,” said the American gruffly.
“I’d be glad to join you,” said Adnam, smiling.
“We won’t waste each other’s time on trivialities, because we both know I could have you eliminated anytime I think suitable. And, like Laura Baldridge, I’d probably get a medal from a grateful nation.”
“If you say so, Admiral.”
“However, I would like to touch base with you on the question of a trial, should my government decide to charge you either with crimes of mass murder against the state, or alternately war crimes against humanity. What would your reaction be?”
“I should plead not guilty to everything. I should deny ever having been in anyone’s Navy. I should say I was just trying to get a job here. Then I would leave you to persuade the Iraqis to give evidence against me. You could ask them to swear I was the world’s greatest terrorist acting on their behalf. Or you could try Israel, get them to admit in front of that beleaguered nation that their military had been made to look absolutely ridiculous, by me, for the biggest part of twenty years.”
Arnold Morgan shook his head, frowning.
Then Adnam added, “You could, of course, try to nail me with the Royal Navy submarine, the one you have undoubtedly hit by now, illegally, in international waters, drowning the innocent crew, as if you were a group of gangsters. That would probably go down very well in the United Nations. And in your press, which has been told nothing of all this. Personally, I would not really know. You see, I’ve never been in a submarine. I’m in the mining
