By the time he reached Medellín, the two survivors from Untiveros’ hilltop house had been treated and were ready for questioning, along with a half-dozen servants from the dead lord’s Medellín condominium. They were in a top-floor room of a sturdy, fire-resistive high-rise building, which was also quite soundproof. Cortez walked into the room to find the eight trusted servants all sitting, handcuffed to straight-back chairs.
“Which of you knew about the meeting last night?” he asked pleasantly.
There were nods. They all did, of course. Untiveros was a talker, and servants were invariably listeners.
“Very well. Which of you told, and whom did you tell?” he asked in a formal, literate way. “No one will leave this room until I know the answer to that,” he promised them.
The immediate response was a confused flood of denials. He’d expected that. Most of them were true. Cortez was sure of that, too.
It was too bad.
Félix looked to the head guard and pointed to the one in the left-most chair.
“We’ll start with her.”
Governor Fowler emerged from the hotel suite in the knowledge that the goal to which he had dedicated the last three years of his life was now in his grasp. Almost, he told himself, remembering that in politics there are no certainties. But a congressman from Kentucky who’d run a surprisingly strong campaign had just traded his pledged delegates for a cabinet post, and that put Fowler over the top, with a safety margin of several hundred votes. He couldn’t say that, of course. He had to let the man from Kentucky make his own announcement, scheduled for the second day of the convention to give him one last day in the sun – or more properly the klieg lights. It would be leaked by people in both camps, but the congressman would smile in his aw-shucks way and tell people to speculate all they wanted – but that he was the only one who knew. Politics, Fowler thought, could be so goddamned phony. This was especially odd since above all things Fowler was a very sincere man, which did not, however, allow him to violate the rules of the game.
And he played by those rules now, standing before the bright TV lights and saying nothing at all for about six minutes of continuous talking. There had been “interesting discussions” of “the great issues facing our country.” The Governor and the congressman were “united in their desire to see new leadership” for a country which, both were sure, though they couldn’t say it, would prosper whichever man won in November, because petty political differences of presidents and parties generally got lost in the noise of the Capitol Building, and because American parties were so disorganized that every presidential campaign was increasingly a beauty contest. Perhaps that was just as well, Fowler thought, though it was frustrating to see that the power for which he lusted might really be an illusion, after all. Then it was time for questions.
He was surprised by the first one. Fowler didn’t see who asked it. He was dazzled by the lights and the flashing strobes – after so many months of it, he wondered if his vision would ever recover – but it was a male voice who asked, from one of the big papers, he thought.
“Governor, there is a report from Colombia that a car bomb destroyed the home of a major figure in the Medellín Cartel, along with his family. Coming so soon after the assassination of the FBI Director and our ambassador to Colombia, would you care to comment?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t get a chance to catch the news this morning because of my breakfast with the congressman. What are you suggesting?” Fowler asked. His demeanor had changed from optimistic candidate to careful politician who hoped to become a statesman – whatever the hell that was, he thought. It had seemed so clear once, too.
“There is speculation, sir, that America might have been involved,” the reporter amplified.
“Oh? You know the President and I have many differences, and some of them are very serious differences, but I can’t remember when we’ve had a President who was willing to commit cold-blooded murder, and I certainly will not accuse our President of that,” Fowler said in his best statesman’s voice. He’d meant to say nothing at all – that’s what statesmen’s voices are for, after all, either nothing or the obvious. He’d kept a fairly high road for most of his presidential campaign. Even Fowler’s bitterest enemies – he had several in his own party, not to mention the opposition’s – said that he was an honorable, thoughtful man who concentrated on issues and not invective. His statement reflected that. He hadn’t meant to change United States government policy, hadn’t meant to trap his prospective opponent. But he had, without knowing it, done both.
The President had scheduled the trip well in advance. It was a customary courtesy for the chief executive to maintain a low profile during the opposition’s convention. It was just as easy to work at Camp David – easier in fact since it was far easier to shoo reporters away. But you had to run the gauntlet to get there. With the Marine VH-3 helicopter sitting and waiting on the White House lawn, the President emerged from the ground-level door with the First Lady and two other functionaries in tow, and there they were again, a solid phalanx of reporters and cameras. He wondered if the Russians with their glasnost knew what they were in for.
“Mister President!” called a senior TV reporter. “Governor Fowler says that he hopes we weren’t involved in the bombing in COLOMBIA! Do you have any comment?”
Even as he walked over to the roped enclosure of journalists, the President knew that it was a mistake, but he was drawn to them and the question as a lemming is drawn to the sea. He couldn’t not do it. The way the question was shouted, everyone would know that he’d heard it, and no answer would itself be seen as an answer of sorts. The President ducked the question of… And he couldn’t leave Washington for a week of low-profile existence, leaving the limelight to the other side – not with that question lying unanswered behind him on the White House lawn, could he?
“The United States,” the President said, “does not kill innocent women and children. The United States fights against people who do that. We do not sink down to their bestial level. Is that a clear enough answer?” It was delivered in a quiet, reasoned voice, but the look the President gave the reporter made that experienced journalist wilt before his eyes. It was good, the President thought, to see that his power occasionally reached the bastards.
It was the second major political lie of the day – a slow news day to be sure. Governor Fowler well remembered that John and Robert Kennedy had plotted the deaths of Castro and others with a kind of elitist glee born of Ian Fleming’s novels, only to learn the hard way that assassination was a messy business. Very messy indeed, for there were usually people about whom you didn’t especially want to kill. The current President knew all about “collateral damage,” a term which he found distasteful but indicative of something both necessary and impossible to explain to people who didn’t understand how the world really worked: terrorists, criminals, and all manner of cowards – brutal people are most often cowards, after all – regularly hid behind or among the innocent, daring the mighty to act, using the altruism of their enemies as a weapon against those enemies. You cannot touch me. We are the “evil” ones. You are the “good” ones. You cannot attack us without casting away your self-image. It was the most hateful attribute of those most hateful of people, and sometimes – rarely, but sometimes – they had to be shown that it didn’t work. And that was messy, wasn’t it? Like some sort of international auto accident.
But how the hell do I explain that to the American people? In an election year? Vote to re-elect the President who just killed a wife, two kids, and various domestic servants to protect your children from drugs… ? The President wondered if Governor Fowler understood just how illusory presidential power was – and about the awful noise generated when one principle crashed hard up against another. That was even worse than the noise of the reporters, the President thought. It was something to shake his head about as he walked to his helicopter. The Marine sergeant saluted at the steps. The President returned it – a tradition despite the fact that no sitting President had ever worn a uniform. He strapped in and looked back at the assembled mob. The cameras were still on him, taping the takeoff. The networks wouldn’t run that particular shot, but just in case the chopper blew up or crashed, they wanted the cameras rolling.