The Negotiator

After lengthy collaboration a year earlier between the Thames Valley Police Authority, Scotland Yard, the British Home Office, the U.S. embassy, and the Secret Service, the joint protection operation around Simon Cormack had been tagged Operation Yankee Doodle. The routines had been computerized, as had the procedures to be followed in any of a variety of contingencies-such as the President’s son being in a bar brawl, a street fight, a road accident, a political demonstration, being taken ill, or wishing to spend time away from Oxford in another country. WPC Wren had activated the Kidnap code and the computer was answering back.

Within minutes the duty officer of the watch was by her side, pale with worry and starting a series of phone calls. One was to the Chief Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) who took it on himself to bring in his colleague, the Superintendent heading TVP’s Special Branch (SB). The man at Kidlington also called the Assistant Chief Constable (Operations), who was attacking two boiled eggs when the call came to his home. He listened intently and rapped out a series of orders and questions.

“Where, exactly?”

“Shotover Plain, sir,” said Kidlington. “Delta Bravo is at the scene. They’ve turned back a private car coming from Wheatley, two other ru

“Jesus,” breathed the ACC Ops. This was going to be the biggest flap of his career, and as head of Operations, the sharp end of police work, it was up to him to get it right. No near misses. Not acceptable. He went into overdrive.

“Get a minimum fifty uniformed men there fast. Posts, mallets, and ribbons. I want it sealed off-now. Every SOCO we’ve got. And roadblocks. That’s a two-ended track, isn’t it? Did they get away through the Oxford end?”

“Delta Bravo says not,” replied the man at headquarters. “We don’t know the time lapse between the attack and the American’s call. But if it was short, Delta Bravo was on the road at Headington and says no one passed them coming from Shotover. The tire tracks will tell us-it’s muddy there.”

“Concentrate the roadblocks north through south on the eastern side,” said the ACC. “Leave the Chief Constable to me. My car’s on its way?”

“Should be outside now,” said Kidlington.

It was. The ACC glanced through his sitting-room window and saw his car, normally due forty minutes later, pulling up. “Who’s already on their way?” he asked.

“CID, SB, SOCOs, and now uniformed,” said Kidlington.

“Get every detective off every case and put them on the knocker,” said the ACC. “I’ll go straight to Shotover.”

“Range of roadblocks?” queried the watch officer at headquarters. The ACC thought. Roadblocks are easier said than done. The Home Counties, all very historic and heavily populated, have a maze of country lanes, secondary roads, and tracks ru

“Edge of Oxfordshire,” snapped the ACC. He hung up, then called his ultimate superior, the Chief Constable. In any British county force the day-to-day anti-crime policing goes to the ACC Ops. The Chief Constable may or may not have a background in police work, but his task concerns policy, morale, the public image, and liaison with London. The ACC glanced at his watch as he made the call: 7:31 A.M.

The Chief Constable of the Thames Valley lived in a handsome converted rectory in the village of Bletchingdon. He strode from his breakfast room to the study, wiping marmalade from his mouth, to take the call. When he heard the news he forgot about breakfast. There were going to be many disturbed mornings that ninth day of October.

“I see,” he said as the details so far sank in. “Yes, carry on. I’ll… call London.”

On his study desk were several telephones. One was a designated and very private line to the office of the Assistant Secretary of the F.4 Division in the Home Office, Britain ’s Interior Ministry, which rules the Metropolitan and County Police forces. At that hour the civil servant was not at his office, but the call was patched through to his home in Fulham, London. The bureaucrat let out an unwonted oath, made two phone calls, and headed straight for the big white building in Queen A

One of his calls was to the duty officer at F.4 Division, requiring his desk to be cleared of all other matters and his entire staff to be brought in from their homes at once. He did not say why. He still did not know how many people were aware of the Shotover Plain massacre, but as a good civil servant he was not about to add to that number if he could help it.

The other call he could not help. It was to the Permanent Undersecretary, senior civil servant for the entire Home Office. Fortunately both men lived inside London, rather than miles away in the outer suburbs, and met at the ministry building at 7:51. Sir Harry Marriott, the Conservative government’s Home Secretary and their Minister, joined them at 8:04 and was briefed. His immediate reaction was to put in a call to 10 Downing Street and insist on speaking to Mrs. Thatcher herself.

The call was taken by her private secretary-there are i

“Prime Minister, I have to see you. Now. I have to come ’round without delay.”

Margaret Thatcher frowned. The hour and the tone were unusual.

“Then come, Harry,” she said.

“Three minutes,” said the voice on the phone. Sir Harry Marriott replaced the receiver. Down below, his car was waiting for the five-hundred-yard drive. It was 8:11 A.M.

The kidnappers were four in number. The gunman, who now sat in the passenger seat, stuffed the Skorpion down between his feet and pulled off his woolen ski mask. Beneath it he still wore a wig and a moustache. He pulled on a pair of heavy-framed spectacles with no glass in them. Beside him was the driver, the leader of the team; he, too, had a wig, and a false beard as well. Both disguises were temporary, because they had to drive several miles looking natural.

In the rear the other two subdued a violently fighting Simon Cormack. Not a problem. One of the men was huge and simply smothered the young American in a bear hug while the lean and wiry one applied an ether pad. The van bounced off the track from the reservoir and settled down as it found the blacktop lane toward Wheatley, and the sounds from the rear ceased as the U.S. President’s son slumped unconscious.

It was downhill through Littleworth, with its scattering of cottages, and then straight into Wheatley. They passed an electric milk van delivering the traditional breakfast pint of fresh milk, and a hundred yards later the van driver had a brief image of a newspaper delivery boy glancing at them. Out of Wheatley they joined the main A.40 highway into Oxford, turned back toward the city for five hundred yards, then turned right onto the B.4027 minor road through the villages of Forest Hill and Stanton St. John.

The van drove at normal speed through both villages, over the crossroads by New I