The Negotiator

“Well, if you must, you must,” said Seymour. As he put the phone down he thought: You go right ahead.

Cramer also had another task, even more urgent. That was to stop the story appearing in any publication, or on radio or TV. That morning he had to call on a lot of good will from the proprietors and editors of the media.

The Washington committee got Seymour ’s report at their first-7:00 A.M.-meeting of the day.

“Look, he got a first-class lead and he followed it up,” protested Philip Kelly. Don Edmonds shot him a warning glance.

“He should have cooperated with Scotland Yard,” said the Secretary of State. “What we don’t need is to foul relations with the British authorities at this point. What the hell am I to say to Sir Harry Marriott when he asks for Brown’s ouster?”

“Look,” said Treasury Secretary Reed, “why not propose a compromise? Brown was overzealous and we’re sorry. But we believe Qui

Jim Donaldson nodded.

“Yes, Sir Harry might accept that. By the way, how is the President?”

“Bucking up,” said Odell. “Almost optimistic. I told him an hour ago Qui

“Ready by sundown,” said Sta

“Get a fast bird standing by and ready,” said Vice President Odell. Sta

Andy Laing finally got his interview with the internal accountant just after lunch that day. The man was a fellow-American and had been on a tour of European branches for the previous three days.

He listened soberly and with growing dismay to what the young bank officer from Jiddah had to say, and sca

“Dear God, these are very serious accusations indeed. And yes, they appear to be substantiated. Where are you staying in London?”

“I still have an apartment in Chelsea,” said Laing. “I’ve been there since I arrived. Luckily my tenants moved out two weeks back.”

The accountant noted its address and phone number.

“I’m going to have to consult with the general manager here, maybe the president in New York. Before we face Steve Pyle with this. Stay close to the phone for a couple of days.”

What neither of them knew was that the morning pouch from Riyadh contained a confidential letter from Steve Pyle to the London-based general manager for Overseas Operations.

The British press was as good as its word, but Radio Luxembourg is based in Paris and for French listeners the story of a first-class row between their Anglo-Saxon neighbors to the west is too good to miss.

Where the tip-off really came from could never be later established, except that it was a phone-in and anonymous. But the London office checked it out and confirmed that the sheer secrecy of the Bedford police gave credence to the story. It was a thin day and they ran it on the four o’clock news.

Hardly anybody in England heard it, but the Corsican did. He whistled in amazement and went to find Zack. The Englishman listened carefully, asked several supplementary questions in French, and went pale with anger.

Qui

“You lying bastard. You said there’d be no cowboy antics from the police or anyone else. You bloody lied to me-”

Qui

“But that was nothing to do with you,” Qui

It was plausible. Qui

“Better not be true, Qui

Sam Somerville and Duncan McCrea were pale with fear by the time the call ended.

“Where are those damn diamonds?” asked Sam.

There was worse to come. Like most countries, Britain has a range of breakfast-hour radio programs, a mix of mindless chitchat from the show host, pop music, news flashes, and phone-in trivia. The news is up-to-the-minute snippets torn from the wire service printers, hastily rewritten by junior subeditors, and thrust under the disc jockey’s nose. The pace of the programs is such that the careful checking and rechecking practiced by the investigative reporters of the Sunday “heavies” just does not take place.

When an American voice rang the busy news desk of City Radio’s Good Morning show, the call was taken by a girl trainee who later tearfully admitted she had not thought to query the claim that the speaker was the press counselor from the U.S. embassy with a genuine news bulletin. It went on the air in the excited tones of the D.J. seventy seconds later.

Nigel Cramer did not hear it but his teenage daughter did.

“Dad,” she called from the kitchen, “you going to catch them today?”

“Catch who?” said her father, pulling on his coat in the hall. His official car was at the curb.

“The kidnappers-you know.”

“I doubt it. Why do you ask?”

“Says so on the radio.”

Something hit Cramer hard in the stomach. He turned back from the door and into the kitchen. His daughter was buttering toast.

“What, exactly, did it say on the radio?” he asked in a very tight voice. She told him. That an exchange of the ransom for Simon Cormack would be set up within the day, and that the authorities were confident all the kidnappers would be caught in the process. Cramer ran out to his car, took the handset from the dashboard, and began to make a series of frantic calls as the car rolled.

It was too late. Zack had not heard the program, but the South African had.