“Francis, the Pope is dead. He was assassinated during the Easter service.”
Kennedy was shocked. “Who did it? And why?”
Klee said, “We don’t know. There’s even worse news.”
Kennedy tried to read the faces of the men who stood before him, feeling a deep sense of dread. “What could be worse?”
“The plane Theresa is on has been hijacked and is now on its way to Sherhaben,” Klee said.
Francis Kennedy felt a wave of nausea hit him. Then he heard Eugene Dazzy say, “The hijackers have everything under control, there are no incidents on the plane. As soon as it lands we’ll negotiate, we’ll call in all our favors, it will come out OK. I don’t think they even knew Theresa was on the plane.”
Christian said, “Arthur Wix and Otto Gray are on their way in. So are CIA, Defense, and the Vice President. They will all be waiting for you in the Cabinet Room within the half hour.”
“OK,” Kennedy said. He forced himself to be calm. “Is there any connection?” he said.
He saw that Christian was not surprised but that Dazzy didn’t get it. “Between the Pope and the hijacking,” Kennedy said. When neither of them answered, he said, “Wait for me in the Cabinet Room. I want a few moments by myself.” They left.
Kennedy himself was almost invulnerable to assassins, but he had always known he could never fully protect his daughter. She was too independent, she would not permit him to restrict her life. And it had not seemed a serious danger. He could not recall that the daughter of the head of a nation had ever been attacked. It was a bad political and public relations move for any terrorist or revolutionary organization.
After her father’s inauguration Theresa had gone her own way, lending her name to radical and feminist political groups, while stating her own position in life as distinct from her father’s. He had never tried to persuade her to act differently, to present to the public an image false to herself. It was enough that he loved her. And when she visited the White House for a brief stay, they always had a good time together arguing politics, dissecting the uses of power.
The conservative Republican press and the disreputable tabloids had taken their shots, hoping to damage the presidency. Theresa was photographed marching with feminists, demonstrating against nuclear weapons and once even marching for a homeland for Palestinians. Which would now inspire ironic columns in the papers.
Oddly enough, the American public responded to Theresa Kennedy with affection, even when it became known she was living with an Italian radical in Rome. There were pictures of them strolling the ancient streets of stone, kissing and holding hands; pictures of the balcony of the flat they shared. The young Italian lover was handsome; Theresa was pretty in her blondness with her pale milky Irish skin and the Kennedy satiny blue eyes. And her almost lanky Kennedy frame draped in casual Italian clothes made her so appealing that the caption beneath the photographs was drained of poison.
A news photo of her shielding her young Italian lover from Italian police clubs brought back long-buried feelings in older Americans, memories of that long-ago terrible day in Dallas.
She was a witty heroine. During the campaign she had been cornered by TV reporters and asked, “So you agree with your father politically?” If she answered “yes” she would appear a hypocrite or a child manipulated by a power-hungry father. If she answered “no,” the headlines would indicate that she did not support her father in his race for the presidency. But she showed the Kennedy political genius. “Sure, he’s my dad,” she said, hugging her father. “And I know he’s a good guy. But if he does something I don’t like I’ll yell at him just as you reporters do.” It came off great on the tube. Her father loved her for it. And now she was in mortal danger.
If only she had remained close to him, if only she had been more of a loving daughter and lived with him at the White House, if only she had been less radical, none of this would be happening. And why did she have to have a foreign lover, a student radical who perhaps had given the hijacker crucial information? And then he laughed at himself. He was feeling the exasperation of a parent who wanted his child to be as little trouble as possible. He loved her, and he would save her. At least this was something he could fight against, not like the terrible long and painful death of his wife.
Now Eugene Dazzy appeared and told him it was time. They were waiting for him in the Cabinet Room.
When Kennedy entered, everyone stood up. He quickly motioned for them to be seated, but they surged around him to offer their sympathy. Kennedy made his way to the head of the long oval table and sat in the chair near the fireplace.
Two pure-white-light chandeliers bleached the rich brown of the table, glistened the black of the leather chairs, six to each side of the table, and more chairs along the back of the far wall. And there were other sconces of white light that shone from the walls. Next to the two windows that opened to the Rose Garden were two flags, the striped flag of the United States and the flag of the President, a field of deep blue filled with pale stars.
Kennedy’s staff took the seats nearest him, resting their information logs and memorandum sheets on the oval table. Farther down were the Cabinet members and the head of the CIA, and at the other end of the table, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an Army general in full uniform, a gaudy color cutout in the somberly dressed group. Vice President Du Pray sat at the far side of the table, away from Kennedy, the only woman in the room. She wore a fashionable dark blue suit with a white silk blouse. Her handsome face was stern. The fragrance of the Rose Garden filled the room, seeping through the heavy curtains and drapes that covered glass-paneled doors. Below the drapes the aquamarine rug reflected green light into the room.
It was the CIA chief, Theodore Tappey, who gave the briefing. Tappey, who had once been head of the FBI, was not flamboyant or politically ambitious. And had never exceeded the CIA charter with risky, illegal or empire-building schemes. He had a great deal of credit with Kennedy’s personal staff, especially Christian Klee.
“In the few hours we had, we’ve come up with some hard information,” Tappey said. “The killing of the Pope was carried out by an all-Italian cadre. The hijacking of Theresa’s plane was done by a mixed team led by an Arab who goes by the name Yabril. The fact that both incidents happened on the same day and originated in the same city seems to be coincidence. Which, of course, we must always mistrust.”
Kennedy said softly, “At this moment the killing of the Pope is not primary. Our main concern is the hijacking. Have they made any demands yet?”
Tappey said quickly and firmly, “No. That’s an odd circumstance in itself.”
Kennedy said, “Get your contacts on negotiation and report to me personally at every step.” He turned to the Secretary of State and asked, “What countries will help us?”
The Secretary said, “Everyone—the other Arab states are horrified, they despise the idea of your daughter being held hostage. It offends their sense of honor and also they think of their own custom of the blood feud. They believe they cannot derive any good from this. France has a good relationship with the Sultan. They offered to send in observers for us. Britain and Israel can’t help—they are not trusted. But until the hijackers make their demands we’re sort of in limbo.”
Kennedy turned to Christian. “Chris, how do you figure it, they’re not making demands?”
Christian said, “It may be too early. Or they have another card to play.”
The Cabinet Room was eerie in silence; in the blackness of the many high heavy chairs the white sconces of light on the walls turned the skin of the people in the room into a very light gray. Kennedy waited for them to speak, all of them, and he closed down his mind when they spoke of options, the threat of sanctions, the threat of a naval blockade, the freezing of Sherhaben assets in the United States—the expectation that the hijackers would extend the negotiation interminably to milk the TV time and news reports all over the world.
After a time Kennedy turne
d to Oddblood Gray and said abruptly, “Schedule a meeting with the congressional leaders, the relevant committee chairmen, for me and my staff.” Then he turned to Arthur Wix. “Get your national security staff working on plans if this thing turns into something wider.” Then Kennedy stood up to leave. He addressed them all. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I must tell you I don’t believe in coincidence. I don’t believe the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church can be murdered on the same day in the same city that the daughter of the President of the United States is kidnaped.”
Adam Gresse and Henry Tibbot had put aside Easter Sunday as a day of work. Not on their scientific projects but on cleaning up all traces of their crime. In their apartment, they bundled up all their old newspapers from which they had cut letters to compose their message. They vacuumed to remove the tiny fragments of scissored papers. They even got rid of the scissors and glue. They washed down the walls. Then they went to their university workshop to get rid of all the tools and equipment they had used to construct their bomb. It did not occur to them to turn on the television until their task was completed. When they heard the news of the killing of the Pope and the kidnaping of the President’s daughter, they looked at each other and smiled. Adam Gresse said, “Henry, I think our time has come.”
It was a long Easter Sunday. The White House was filling up with staff personnel of the different action committees set up by the CIA, the Army and the Navy, and the State Department. They all agreed that the most baffling fact was that the terrorists had not yet made their demands for the release of the hostages.
Outside, the streets were congested with traffic. Newspaper and TV reporters were flocking into Washington. Government staff workers had been called to their desks despite its being Easter. And Christian Klee had ordered a thousand extra men from the Secret Service and the FBI to provide additional protection for the White House.
The telephone traffic in the White House increased in volume. There was bedlam, people rushing to and fro from the White House to the Executive Office Building. Eugene Dazzy tried to bring everything under control.
The rest of that Sunday in the White House consisted of Kennedy’s receiving reports from the Situation Room, long solemn conferences on what options were open, telephone conversations between heads of foreign countries and the Cabinet members of the United States.
Late Sunday night the President’s staff had dinner with him and prepared for the next day. They monitored the TV news reports, which were continuous.
Finally, Kennedy decided to go to bed. He was confident that his staff would keep vigil throughout the night and wake him when necessary. A Secret Service man led the way as Kennedy went up the small stairway that led to the living quarters on the fourth floor of the White House. Another Secret Service man trailed behind. They both knew that the President hated to take the elevators in the White House.
The top of the stairs opened into a lounge, which held a communications desk and two more Secret Service men. When he passed through that lounge, Kennedy was in his own living quarters, with only his personal servants: a maid, a butler and a valet, whose duty it was to keep track of the extensive presidential wardrobe.
What Kennedy did not know was that even these personal servants were members of the Secret Service. Christian Klee had invented this setup. It was part of his overall plan to keep the President free from all harm, part of the intricate shield Christian had woven around Francis Kennedy.
When Christian had put this wrinkle into the security system he had briefed the special platoon of Secret Service men and women. “You’re going to be the best goddamn personal servants in the world, and you can go straight from here and get a job in Buckingham Palace. You already know your first duty is to take any bullets thrown at the President. But it will be as much your duty to make the private life of the President comfortable.”
The chief of the special platoon was the manservant on duty this night. Ostensibly he was a black naval steward named Jefferson with the rank of chief petty officer. Actually he had top rank in the Secret Service and was exceptionally well trained in hand-to-hand combat. He was a natural athlete and had been a college all-American in football. And his IQ was 160. He also had a sense of humor, which made him take a special delight in becoming the perfect servant.
Now Jefferson helped Kennedy take off his jacket and hung it up carefully. He handed Kennedy a silk dressing gown, as he had learned that the President did not like to be helped putting it on. When Kennedy went to the small bar in the living room of the suite, Jefferson was there before him, mixing a vodka with tonic and ice. Then Jefferson said, “Mr. President, your bath is drawn.”
Kennedy looked at him with a little smile on his face. Jefferson was a little too good to be true. Kennedy said, “Please turn off all the phones. You can wake me personally if I’m needed.”
He soaked in the hot bath for nearly a half hour. The tub’s jets pounded his back and thighs and soothed the weariness out of his muscles. The bathwater had a pleasant masculine scent and the ledge around the tub was filled with an assortment of soaps, liniments and magazines. There was even a plastic basket that held a pile of memos.
When Kennedy came out of the bath, he put on a white terry-cloth robe that had a monogram in red, white and blue lettering that said THE BOSS. This was a gift from Jefferson himself, who thought it part of the character he was playing to give such a present. Francis Kennedy rubbed his white, almost hairless body with the robe to get himself dry. He had always been dissatisfied with the paleness of his skin and his lack of body hair.
In the bedroom, Jefferson had pulled the curtains closed and switched on the reading light. He had also turned down the bedcovers. There was a small marble-topped table with specially attached wheels near the bed and a comfortable armchair nearby. The table was covered with a beautifully embroidered pale rose cloth, and on it was a dark blue pitcher containing hot chocolate. Chocolate had already been poured into a cup of lighter cerulean blue. There was an intricately painted dish holding six varieties of biscuits. Comfortingly, there was a pure white crock of pale unsalted butter and four crocks of different colors for different jams: green for apple, blue spotted white for raspberry, yellow for marmalade and red for strawberry.
Kennedy said, “That looks great,” and Jefferson left the room. For some reason these little attentions comforted Kennedy more than they should, he felt. He sat in the armchair and drank the chocolate, tried to finish a biscuit and could not. He rolled the table away and got into bed. He tried to read from a pile of memos, but he was too tired. He turned off the light and tried to sleep.
But through the muffling of the drapes he could very faintly hear a little of the immense noise that was building up outside the White House as the media of the whole world assembled to keep a twenty-four-hour-a-day watch. There would be dozens of communications vehicles for the TV cameras and crews. And a marine battalion was being set up as extra security.
Francis Kennedy felt that deep sense of foreboding that had come to him only once before in his life. He let himself think directly about his daughter, Theresa. She was sleeping on that plane, surrounded by murderous men. And it was not bad luck. Fate had given him many omens. His two uncles had been killed when he was a boy. And then just over three years ago his wife, Catherine, had died of cancer.
The first great defeat in Francis Kennedy’s life was Catherine Kennedy’s discovery of a lump in her breast six months before her husband won the nomination for President. After the diagnosis of cancer, Kennedy offered to withdraw from the political process, but she forbade him, saying she wanted to live in the White House. She would get well, she said, and her husband never doubted her. At first they worried about her losing her breast and Kennedy consulted cancer experts all over the world about a lumpectomy that could remove only the cancerous growth. One of the greatest cancer specialists in the United States looked at Catherine’s medical file and encouraged removal of the breast. He said, and Francis Kennedy forever remembered the
words, “It is a very aggressive strain of cancer.”
She was on chemotherapy when he won the Democratic nomination for the presidency in July, and her doctors sent her home. She was in remission. She put on weight, her skeleton hid again behind a wall of flesh.
She rested a great deal, she could not leave the house, but she was always on her feet to greet him when he came home. Theresa went back to school, Kennedy went on the campaign trail. But he arranged his schedule so that he could fly home every few days to be with her. Each time he returned she seemed to be stronger, and those days were sweet, they had never loved each other more. He brought her gifts; she knitted him mufflers and gloves.
One time she gave the day off to the nurses and servants so that she and her husband could be alone in the house, to enjoy the simple supper she had prepared. She was getting well. It was the happiest moment in his life, nothing could be measured against it. Kennedy wept tears of pure joy, relieved of anguish, of dread. The next morning they went for a walk in the green hills around their house, her arm around his waist. She had always been vain about her appearance, anxious about how she fitted into her new dresses, her bathing suits, the extra fold of flesh beneath her chin. But now she tried to put on weight. He felt each bone in her body when they walked with their arms entwined. When they returned he cooked her breakfast and she ate heartily, more than he ever remembered her eating.
Her remission gave Kennedy the energy to rise to the peak of his powers as he continued his campaign for the presidency. He swept everything before him; everything was malleable, to be shaped to his lucky destiny. His body generated enormous energy, his mind worked with a precision that was extraordinary.