with the weapons once you own them. Those problems bothered me ever
since I heard that Millgate was under suspicion. And then the solution
came to me. Of course, The way you get rid of the nuclear weapons
enables you to pay for them in the first place-you sell them to Someone
else."
Gable squinted. "I'm impressed, W. Pittman." 6 'The compliment
doesn't sound sincere."
"But I am impressed. you see to the heart of the issue. You understand
the brilliance of the operation."
"Brilliance?" Pittman asked in disbelief.
"The threat of the nuclear weapons in the former USSR is eliminated,"
Gable said righteously. "At the same time, it's possible to maintain
the balance of power in other troubled regions. For example, it's no
secret that North Korea has been working ftniously to develop a nuclear
capability. What do you think will happen when its nuclear weapons are
functional? It'll control Southeast Asia. But if South Korea also
gains nuclear capability, there'll be a stalemate. They'll balance each
other." 'Wrong. They'll destroy each other. And maybe get the rest of
the world involved," Pittman said.
"Not necessarily. " The emotional strain of the conversation was having
an evident effect on Gable. His breathing was more labored, his posture
less erect. He lowered his voice. 11 "To save the world, sometimes
risks have to be taken.
"And bank accounts fattened? You hypocrite. You and Your friends
pretended to be selfless public servants, and all along, from the
forties onward, from the postwar anti-Soviet policy to the h-an-Contra
anns-dealing scandal, you've been making a fortune in kickbacks from the
weapons industryHow much money did you earn arranging to use American
funds to arm Iraq so it would act as a counterweight against Iran? And
then we went to war against h-aq, and you received kickbacks from the
arms industry because you recommended that war."
Anger made Gable regain his rigid posture, "I refuse to discuss the
nuances of foreign policy with a mere reporter. You are not privy to
classified information. You are not in a position to judge the delicacy
of various negotiations that I have successfully concluded for the good
of the United States and the world."
"Right. The old excuse. There's always secret information that
justifies becoming rich by starting more wars and selling more weapons."
"These matters are beyond your understanding," Gable said. "You are
here for one purpose only-to try to settle our differences, to undo the
disastrous effects of your blundering into matters that do not concern
you. After the leak implieating Jonathan in the purchase of Russia's
nuclear weapons, it was only a matter of hours, perhaps minutes, before
reporters would have shown up at the hospital in hopes that Jonathan
would be strong enough to make a statement. We had to get Jonathan out
of the hospital to keep him from telling reporters what he intended to
tell the priest. You were there when' my men took him from the
hospital. You followed them to Scarsdale. Damn it, what were you doing
in his room? If only you hadn't gone into his room."
"His IV tubes had slipped out. His oxygen prongs weren't attached to
him. He was having some kind of seizure. I was sure he was going to
die."
"That was the idea, " Gable said with barely subdued irritation. "My
colleagues and I said gow-bye to him. Everyone except his nurse and
doctor left the room. They removed his life supports. Then they left.
He was supposed to die. But you had to get into the room and reattach
the supports. And he finally had a chance to confess. If the nurse
hadn't come back into the room at that moment, we never would have known
that Jonathan had betrayed us."
"If only we'd stopped right there," Sloane said.
"We couldn't," Gable said. "Because as far as we knew, this man"-Gable
pointed toward Pittman-"saw our first attempt to kill Jonathan. And
this man"able pointed harder toward Pittman-"had information that could
ruin us. One of our security team riding in the escort car noticed a
taxi following the ambulance. As soon as he reached the estate and told
me about the taxi, I sent him to locate it before it disappeared from
the area. The driver's passenger was gone. But the driver could
identify the passen r because of ,ge a check that the passenger had
written to cover the expense of the ride. Imagine our concern, Mr.
Pittman, when we researched your background and discovered that you were
a reporter. What were we to do? Allow you to write a story about our
attempt to kill our friend and about the information he revealed to you?
Certainly not. But we did have another option. Our investigation
revealed that you'd harassed Jonathan seven years ago, that you were
currently having an emotional collapse. It wasn't any effort to make it
seem that you killed Jonathan. We had the check you'd given to the taxi
driver. We had your fingerprints on the door to Jonathan's room and on
his life-support equipment. In a twisted personal vendetta, you killed
Jonathan, then continued with your plans to kill yourself."
"And when your men caught me, they were going to help me along." Gable
spread his hands. "Unless the police caught you first, in which case I
had the resources to arrange for you to commit suicide in jail."
"You're awfully confident that you can manipulate the system to make it
do anything you want."
"I'm a diplomat. I helped design the system. I guarantee that the plan
would have worked."
"Then why didn't it?"
Gable glanced at the floor.
"Well?" Pittman asked.
"I congratulate you. You're far more resourceful than your profile led
me to believe. If you weren't so resourceful, I wouldn't have agreed to
this conversation, I assure you. For a man determined to commit
suicide, you have a remarkable talent for survival. "
"You see, I changed my mind." Gable looked puzzled. "I don't want to
kill myself any longer. Because of you."
"Explain.
"What you did to me made me so afraid that I had to ask myself, If I was
so eager to die, why was I running? Why not let you do the job for me?
I rafion by telling myself that I wanted my death to be my idea, riot
yours. But the truth is, you forced me to reconsider where I was in my
life. I love
MYdead son. I miss him desperately. But you distracted me enough that
I I can accept my grief now rather than fight it."
Gable studied him as if he had no understanding of the emotions Pittman
referred to. At last, he sighed. "It would have been so much easier if
my men had been able to shoot you when you were running from the
Scarsdale estate.
Sloane fidgeted. "First Jonathan. Then Anthony. Now Victor. No more.
I want this settled. I want it stopped."
"That's why we're here," Gable said. "To settle things."
Throughout, the man known as Mr. Webley stood against the wall to
Pittman's right, watching the group, holding Pittman's .45. "For a
negotiation to be
successful," Gable said, "each side must have
something to gain. So tell me, Mr. Pittman, what do we gain in
exchange for the million dollars and the two passports that you gain?"
"Security. Peace of mind."
"All very well. Desirable conditions. But vague. How exactly are you
going to give us security and peace of mind?"
"By disappearing."
"Be specific."
"I'll make it look as if I carried through on my intention to commit
suicide. I'll do it in such a way that my body can't be identified."
"Again, be specific."
"I thought perhaps I'd arrange for your men to trap me on one of your
yachts. I'd blow it and myself up. My body would never be found.
Presumably sharks and other scavengers would have eaten what was left of
me. Of course, I wouldn't actually have been on the yacht. But your
men, having watched the explosion from another yacht, would testify that
they'd seen me go aboard. "
Sloane's voice trembled with enthusiasm. "It might work. "
"One of my yachts?" Gable squinted. "You imagine expensive ways to
disappear."
"Another factor that makes it convincing. Given the magnitude of your
property loss, the police wouldn't think that you were involved."
"He has a point," Sloane said quickly.
Gable scowled at his fellow grand counselor, then redirected his
calculating gaze at Pittman. "Forgive my colleague's outbursts. He's
forgotten one of the primary rules of negotiation. Never let your
opponent know your actual opinion of his argument."
"I thought we were here to be candid," Pittman said.
"Then why haven't you yourself been completely open7. You expect me to
believe that after you pretend to'c omniit suicide you'll disappear
forever and we'll have nothing to fear from you."
"that's right," Pittman lied.
"What guarantees do we have?"
"I told you. I want to live. I don't want to be hunted anymore. I
want to be left alone."
"Under an assumed name."
"Yes."
'With Ms. Wan-en.
"Yes.
"Perhaps in Mexico. Perhaps farther south. In a country where the
economy is such that a million dollars is worth considerably more
"Yes. "
"And after the barrage of telephone calls last night," Gable asked with
irritation, "how do you intend to protect us from the other people
who-thanks to you-have acquired knowledge of our private affairs?"
"Your daughter, for example?'
"In particular."
"Those phone calls were staged to get your attention," Pittman said. "To
put pressure on you so you'd agree to this meeting. To make you want to
end this before it spreads any farther. The truth is, your daughter
doesn't know anything certain. If you agree to my terms, I'll go back
to her
From somewhere in the house, a phone rang, the faint sound echoing.
Pittman glanced past Webley toward the hall as the phone rang a second
time.
"It's not important," Gable said. "The fax machine in my home office is
on a line that's separate from the main telephone line. That's what you
heard, the fax machine. Two rings and it answered."
Pittman nodded. "If you agree to my terms, I'll go back to your
daughter and behave irrationally enough that she'll lose faith in my
credibility. My apparent suicide will make her even more skeptical
about me. She'll be forced to conclude that her accusations, based on
what I told her, are the nonsense you say they are."
"I like it," Sloane said eagerly. "It makes sense. It can get us out
of the mess we're in."
"Winston." Gable's aged eyes flashed. "Your persistent outbursts force
me to violate protocol. I have never before done this in a negotiations
But you leave me no choice. I must ask you not to interrupt me again."
"But-"
"Winston!" Gable's chest heaved, the effort of emotion having an obvious
weakening effect on him.
Sloane looked abashed and lowered his gaze toward his hands.
Gable's breath rate subsided. He composed himself and studied Pittman,
frowning. "So you restricted the information that you gave to my
daughter."
"That's right." Gable shook his head in disagreement. "I suddenly have
doubts about you."
"]:)oubts?"
"To enlist my daughter's aid, it isn't logical that you would have held
back. To make your strongest case, you would have told her everything
you know. I'm beginning to worry that all of this has been needless.
What exactly do you know? What are we buying? What precisely is worth
one million dollars and two passports?"
"Duncan Kline was an instructor at Grollier Academy.".
Gable raised his bushy white eyebrows and gestured for Pittman to
continue.
"He liked to gather the brightest students around him," Pittman said.
"He persuaded them to join him in small study groups. He nu diem."
"Of course. Nurturing is something that a good teacher does
automatically."
"But good teachers don't molest their students," Pittman said.
Gable's face became rigid, his wrinkles deepening.
"Duncan Kline carefully prepared his few chosen students," Pittman said.
"It took time and devotion, painstaking kindness and delicate
reassurance. At last he made himself so necessary in their lives, so
essential to their emotional well-being, that they found themselves
incapable of resisting his advances. You and the other grand
counselors, all of you were molested by him. It's affected you ever
since."
Gable kept staring, his wrinkled features reminding Pittman of a cnist
of mud that was cracking.
"Molested?" Gable asked. "You honestly think I'd go to all this
trouble to hide the fact that we were molested as students at Grollier?
Which we were, by the way." Gable raised his face to the beamed ceiling
and burst out laughing, his feeble Adwn's apple bobbing, his bony throat
sounding as if gravel were stuck in it. At once he seemed to strangle
his laughter. In pain, he lowered his face, tugged out his hief, and
coughed repeatedly into it. His pale face red from effort. The spasms
slowly subsided. "Of course we were molested. " He swallowed and put
away his handkerchief. "If you revealed that information, I could
easily turn it to my advantage, eliciting sympathy from the media. In
America today, there is no such thing as shame, only prurience and pity.
You know nothing that threatens me, Mr. Pittman. You're wasting my
time."
"You didn't let me finish."
"Oh? Are you suggesting that you have information of more substance to
share with us?"
Pittman's chest ached, swollen with pressure. His heart pumped faster.
He had hoped that Gable would take for granted that Pittman had
discovered his secret. An open discussion, in which Gable revealed
details that he assumed were shared knowledge, had been part of
Pittman's strategy. What he hadn't counted on was that Gable, the
lifelong negotiator, wasn't about to acknowledge any information unless
Pittman volunteered it first.
Sweat rolled down Pittman's back. Paradoxically cold, the sweat stuck
his clothes to his skin, making him shiver, although he fought not to
show it. Okay, he told himself nervously, you came here because you
felt your best weapon was your ability to interview somebody. Well,
it's time to prove how good you are. Let's see you interview a
worldclass negotiator.
He turned toward the wall-length window, straining to concentrate,
composing his thoughts. Sunlight gleamed into the room, making him
squint. Nonetheless, he was able to focus on the fir trees beyond the
window, amazingly green and clear, preciously beautiful, given his
proximity to death. At the bottom of the wooded slope beyond the house,
distant golfers took advantage of the pleasant April day. A man in a
golf cart drove past a sand trap, toward where his ball had landed near
the wall that separated Gable's estate from the golf course.
Pittman stared at the sand trap, and again he couldn't help being aware
of the bitter irony that a week ago his nightmare had begun near a golf
course and now was about to end near another one.
"Mr. Pittman," Gable said, "if you have substantive infor on to share
with us, do so. Otherwise, I'm afraid that Webley will have to ensure
that you never share anything w anyone again."