H.M.S. Unseen

comfortable armchair expensively upholstered in a rose-patterned chintz, the unmistakable touch of the urbane Grace Dunsmore.

^MAP

Admiral Dunsmore spoke first. “Well, Arnold. As the brains behind this operation, what do you think? Do we shoot him, jail him, or hire him?”

“Hire him…”

“Right. Let’s go and find some lunch now we’ve got that over with.”

They both laughed, still avoiding the magnitude of the subject. “Well, what did he say?” finally asked Admiral Dunsmore.

“As you and I both feared, the question of a trial is a total disaster area. He told me he would plead Not Guilty, drag the trial out, and reveal everything he knows to our disadvantage. He would deny ever having been in anyone’s navy and leave it to us to get the Iraqis to turn evidence against him.”

“Fat chance.”

“Which he knows as well as we do. He also added that he is now certain, thanks to his own information, that we have demolished a submarine illegally in international waters, drowned 50 people, and generally behaved like wild men before the world community.”

“In a sense the bastard’s right about that as well.”

“Only in a sense…and he also says we won’t get a scrap of help from the Israelis, who will be unwilling to be made to look ridiculous, because of him, for the biggest part of twenty years.”

“He’s got that right, too. Christ, you sure it is him?”

“Of course. Laura MacLean, remember?”

“Yes. Just kidding. Of course we have his passport. British, right? With a couple of South African stamps from Johannesburg Airport?”

“Yup. That’s it. And he says he’ll just leave it to us to prove who he really is and what he’s done. He also said he’ll say we tortured him to get an admission.”

“Which confirms what we both think. He’s a clever little bastard, and a trial is out of the question, correct?”

“Correct. It would be a huge embarrassment to the government and cause an uproar in the airline industry. The liberal media would have the best time since Watergate, bringing down this excellent administration.”

“Anyway, Arnold, we could just find him guilty ourselves and…er…dispense with him. It seems absurd staging some kind of a trial in order to seek revenge, with his life, against so many thousands of others. It’s not even a hundredth of the way toward a reasonable deal.”

“Absolutely. Which brings us to the real issue. Do we unload him, right now, and act as if nothing’s happened? Before you answer, I must tell you he has written out his whole story, the Jefferson, the aircraft, the submarine, and all, and has instructed his Swiss bank to release it to the media should he not report in every six weeks. God knows what else he has up his sleeve, but my instinct tells me to kill him would be damned nearly as bad as putting him on trial.”

“Sounds like it, Arnie. Except it might be worse.”

“Which brings us to the much more difficult, but more fruitful course of ‘running’ him, using him for our own purposes?”

“Well…‘running’ him is certainly the most appealing if you don’t care about your career. As I don’t, since I’m retiring at the end of this President’s tenure. You don’t, because you’re probably unsackable, and, anyway, you and Kathy have much to look forward to in retirement…with your pensions.”

“I don’t think the President cares either. He’s halfway through his second term…so I suppose we should all act in the best interest of the country, and if it goes wrong…we just take it on the chin and retire gracefully from the fray.

“That means we ‘run’ him,” said Arnold Morgan. “And that’s a hell of a challenge. He actually said this morning he could show us how to get Iraq out of our hair for good. Christ, he’d be useful, with all of our dealings in the Middle East. And he’s not expensive, relatively. And he says he wants to stay here. Nowhere else to go.”

“The danger is, of course, he might still be working for Iraq.”

“I know. And I did bring that subject up. And his reply was quite strange. He said he would prove to us conclusively that Iraq plainly tried to kill him. He also said that if he failed to prove it, he was quite prepared to take cyanide.”

“Hmmmm. If we were dealing with a normal person, that’d be impressive. But with Ben Adnam, there’s almost always going to be more to it than meets the eye….”

“I know. I’m just trying to think what that might be. All the evidence I have tells me I am wasting my time, which, paradoxically, is why I want him on our team.”

Lunch passed swiftly, as the two American admirals wrestled with the problem of the captive terrorist a dozen miles away. By the time they had worked their way through ham and cheese omelets and salad, they had agreed that Ben Adnam must live, for the moment. But a new problem emerged. Who, eventually, would ‘run’ the ex — Israeli submarine commander on a day-to-day basis? “Aside from the fact he needs a rock-solid Navy background, whoever it is has to be as clever as Adnam.”

“Maybe impossible. I shouldn’t think his Teacher would make himself available. But he’d do fine.”

“How about his Teacher’s son-in-law?”

“Bill? Can’t see that happening. He’s got that cattle operation to run, and he’s quite recently married. I shouldn’t think he’d want to up sticks and move to Washington. And Laura seems very happy out there in the wide-open spaces.”

“I know. Think he might do it, say for six months, while we get ourselves organized with a permanent guy?”

“Well…Arnold, the first six months will probably be the most difficult. I don’t think Bill would consider it, but you never know. I guess he might.”

“Okay. Let’s get back to the factory and see if the President has any strong views. If he does, this could become strictly academic. After we finish there, we’ll make a new plan.”

“Done.”

“Hey, Scott, thank Grace for a delicious lunch, will you? I caught a glimpse of her, but she looked like she was leaving.”

“She was. So are we. I’ll ride with you. My car’s meeting me at the White House.”

At 1600 precisely, Admirals Morgan and Dunsmore presented themselves to the President of the United States. He awaited them in the Oval Office and rose to greet them with his usual affability.

“Good to see you both. Thanks for coming. How’s our terrorist?”

“He’s not bad, sir,” said Arnold Morgan. “A bit awkward, as you’d expect, but nothing we can’t deal with.”

“Good. Now, I believe we are going to touch base on what to do with him?”

“Yessir. And it’s a very touchy subject. And I am not sure how deeply you want to be involved. If you wish, you can, of course, lay down the law right away. But I would not really advise that. And I wonder whether you might not consider whether the President actually needs to be involved in the nitty-gritty of our decisions with some foreign terrorist…all I’m saying, sir, is that you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“I hear you, Arnold. And I thank you for your consideration. Could you give me a very private rundown on the situation right now?”

“Scott’s damned good at that, sir. When I arrived at his house this morning, he just said, ‘Right. Are you gonna shoot him, jail him, or hire him?’”

The President chuckled. “That’s why he’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He never gets involved in trivia.”

“Exactly, sir. Anyway, the most complicated area is the prospect of a trial for either crimes against the U.S. or crimes against humanity. In our opinion, it is a political nightmare, a nowin situation, and anyway, Adnam told me he will deny everything…he did not think Iraq would be anxious to give evidence on our behalf.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” said the Chief Executive. “Forget a trial. It would take a year, and it would drive everyone mad. It would probably drive me out of office. The left-wing media would kill us, especially if the beans somehow got spilled about the Jefferson.”