The Negotiator

The clerk issued his boarding pass, staring at the screen.

“I can go through to departure?” asked Qui

“Oh… yes, sure… have a nice day.”

Past immigration control there was a waiting area with a duty-free bar. Another television set was behind the bar. All the passengers were grouped together, staring at it.

“Because they could not get at me, they took my son, my only and much-loved son, and they killed him.”

In the mobile lounge rolling out to the waiting Boeing, in the red-white-and-blue livery of British Airways, there was a man with a transistor. No one spoke. At the entrance to the airplane Qui

“That is what happened. Now it is over. But of this I give you my word. Fellow Americans, you have a President again…”

Qui

The 747 lifted off and turned her nose toward the Atlantic and Europe. All around Qui

The lead article on the front page a

“Is there anything else I can offer you, sir, anything at all?” drawled a honeyed voice in his ear.

He turned and gri

“Just you, baby.”

He folded the paper on his lap. On the back page was a story neither of them noticed. It said, in the strange code of headline writers: VIET VETS XMAS WINDFALL. The subhead amplified the code: PARAPLEGIC HOSPITAL GETS NO-NAME $5M.

Sam sat down in the aisle seat.

“Got your message, Mr. Qui

“Good,” he said. “I hate indecision.”

“This place where you live… what’s it like?”

“Small place, little white houses, little old church, little old priest…”

“Just so long as he recalls the words of the marriage ceremony.”

She reached her arms behind his head and pulled it down to her own for a long lingering kiss. The newspaper slipped off his lap and fell to the floor, back page upward. A stewardess, smiling indulgently, retrieved it. She failed to notice, nor would she have cared if she had, the lead story on the page. It was headed:

PRIVATE FUNERAL FOR TREASURY SECRETARY

HUBERT REED:

CONTINUING MYSTERY OF LATE-NIGHT DRIVE

INTO POTOMAC.

About the Author

FREDERICK FORSYTH is the author of eight best-selling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The Devil’s Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, and The Fist of God. He has also written an acclaimed collection of short fiction, No Comebacks, He lives outside London.