A Clear and Present Danger Page 14
“Like father, like son. The Wolf left the Piaf clue in Munich—‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’—and he had Anthony and Sigrid leave the same calling card after the murder of Samuels in Turin. What’s that but calling attention to yourself? What’s that but arrogance?”
Slayton was on his feet now, thinking out loud on the process that led him to the incredible conclusion he hadn’t even yet verbalized. Not to himself, not to anyone.
“Your message left at Yvonne’s, in Montparnasse, said the ‘bad boys of Tokyo’ had been ‘terminated with extreme prejudice,’ making the President’s trip safe to plan. The Wolf had told me that our confidence in Reagan’s safety was exactly according to his plan.
“Don’t yon see? The Red Guards massed in the apartment in Tokyo was merely a ruse. A red herring, if you will excuse the pun.
“The Wolf was allied with them and yet he used them, sacrificed them. He tipped us, probably through one of Anthony’s connections with the C.I.A., and we wiped them out. Killing them, we naturally thought the ‘coast was clear,’ as you said in your message left with Yvonne.”
“Brilliant,” Winship said.
“Yes, isn’t it? Savage and brilliant at the same time. A feint on one continent to cover the actions of guerrilla war on another.”
Slayton wet his lips with brandy, then continued.
“I remembered Sigrid’s dying words about some ‘power plant,’ and that’s when it all clicked together.
“In order to position himself as the preeminent terrorist leader in the world, the Wolf had to pull off something absolutely incredible, something theatrical, something that had never before been attempted by terrorists.
“You see, the kneecapping days are over. Nothing will be simple any more.
“The Wolf, after some shake-down runs—that was the sniping in Munich, the poisoning in Turin, the snafu attempt on Bush—decided that only the most complicated maneuvers would serve his theatrical purpose.
“The plot was… and this is really unbelievable… to sabotage the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, or threaten to leak radioactive wastes, and thereby prevent the absent President of the United States from returning to this country. That’s what the Wolf meant when he said to me, ‘But will he be able to return?’”
“That is unbelievable,” Winship said.
“Why? Because it never happened?”
Winship had no response. Slayton was correct. What other explanation could there be?
Slayton sat down. Sank down, actually. He was still exhausted, mentally and emotionally, if not physically any more.
“And from this you knew to take the Concorde from Paris to New York and to get up to Indian Point without a second’s delay?”
Slay ton sighed.
“I knew that the nearest nuclear power plant to West-chester County, New York, was Buchanan. Indian Point. I knew, too, that government classification procedures regarding the nuclear industry is, to put it charitably, schizophrenic.
“The classification system is one that government and industry have for a long time used to conceal the dangers of radioactive contamination and plutonium loss—I give you Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the A-bomb in India, maybe Pakistan as well, probably Israel and just possibly South Africa—and at the same time fill the public bookshelves with enough data to lead a college sophomore by the hand in the design of a bomb. It’s a system that hides safety defects in nuclear power plants and at the same time makes them open season for madmen, employees with a grudge, and terrorists.
“If we had some leadership in this country, some President, say, with vision beyond next Tuesday, we might cure our schizophrenia.
“When I got to New York, I went to the main library in the Westchester County system, at the county seat of White Plains. Sure enough, I found what I figured would be there—the goddam blueprints for a terrorist, practically an invitation to walk right into Indian Point and take it over.
“I knew then that I had no choice but to play my hunch. I had no choice but to get up to Indian Point and take over the top man’s office, in this case someone named Emerson who was called the ‘superintendent of operations.’”
“And?”
“And wait. That’s all we could do. Wait for some offspring of the Wolf—and Sigrid—to make his move. The security was on extra alert. Discreetly alerted, to be sure. We didn’t want a panic. Luck again. Bloody luck.
“I could only figure that Edward Folger would waltz in completely ‘legit,’ as they say. After all, he had all the guidance our government could provide. There was no reason for muscle. Of course, I suspect I surprised him just a tad.”
Winship shook his head. “We’re all lucky, I should say, that you just happened to know a thing or two about nuclear power plants and the idiotic classification system that goes along with them,” he said.
“I live in the world, Ham.”
“Thankfully.”
“None of that, I said.” Winship yawned. “Listen, Ham, you have to remember one thing in this business: the bad guys depend on our being an open society, which means it’s up to us good guys to keep up with the latest possibilities spread out all over the newspapers and in the libraries and all. We ought to take a tip from our enemies. Two of the best tools in antiterrorist work are library cards and newspaper subscriptions.”
The two men enjoyed a laugh. And then another drink. But there was one more sobering question.
“Ben,” Winship asked, “do you think the organization left behind by the Wolf, those lunatic Legionnaire mas-queraders, will survive as a threat to the United States?”
“Maybe not that particular bunch. I would assume—and we’ll be finding out from Interpol shortly, I expect—that they all fled with the winds from Andorra.
“But we know they’re allied with terrorists the world over. The only message we gave them here was that we have their number.”
Winship considered Slayton’s words. He knew that Slayton now thought as he did. Winship spoke for both:
“This hardly ends it. Our message means little compared to the one given us. A message of clear and present danger.”
BOMB-THROWING RADICALS
are terrorizing Europe.
No power on the Continent
can stop the brutal fanatics.
Warning: The United States is next!
AMERICA’S SECRET WEAPON
is a Virginia gentleman, an art collector,
as skillful with a beautiful woman
as he is ruthless as a secret agent.