The Negotiator

High above, a single gyrfalcon, drifting down from the Arctic like a snowflake on the blast, looked down, saw every detail with his incredible eyes, and his single lost-soul scream was pulled away down the wind.

The rain, which had held off since the church service, resumed again, coming in flurries and squalls. The locked sails of the Old Mill creaked down the road. The men from Washington shivered and huddled into their heavy coats. The President stood immobile and stared down at what was left of his son, immune to the cold and the rain.

A yard from him stood the First Lady, her face streaked with rain and tears. When the preacher reached “the Resurrection and the Life,” she seemed to sway as if she might fall.

By her side a Secret Service man, open-coated to reach the handgun beneath his left armpit, crew-cut and built like a linebacker, overlooked protocol and training to wrap his right arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him and wept into his soaked jacket.

John Cormack stood alone, isolated in his pain, unable to reach out, an island.

A photographer, smarter than the rest, took a ladder from a backyard a quarter of a mile away and climbed the old wooden windmill on the corner of South Prospect Street and South Mill Street. Before anyone saw him using a telephoto lens, and by the light of a single wintry shaft that penetrated the clouds, he took one picture over the heads of the crowd of the group by the side of the grave.

It was a picture that would flash around America and the world. It showed the face of John Cormack as none had ever seen it: the face of an old man, a man aged beyond his years, sick, tired, drained. A man who could take no more; a man ready to go.

At the entrance to the cemetery the Cormacks stood later as the mourners passed by. None could find words to say. The President nodded as if he understood, and shook hands formally.

After the few from the immediate family came his closest friends and colleagues, headed by the Vice President and the six members of the Cabinet who formed the core of the committee seeking to handle the crisis for him. With four of them-Odell, Reed, Donaldson, and Walters-he went back a long time.

Michael Odell paused for a moment in an attempt to find something to say, shook his head, and turned away. The rain pattered on his bowed head, plastering the thick gray hair to his scalp.

Jim Donaldson’s precise diplomacy was equally disarmed by his emotions; he, too, could only stare in mute sympathy at his friend, shake his limp, dry hand, and pass on.

Bill Walters, the Attorney General, hid what he felt behind formality. He murmured, “Mr. President, my condolences. I’m sorry, sir.”

Morton Sta

Brad Johnson, the black academic and National Security Adviser, just shook his head as if in bewilderment.

Hubert Reed of the Treasury surprised those standing close to the Cormacks. He was not a demonstrative man, too shy for overt demonstrations of affection, a bachelor who had never felt the need for wife or children. But he stared up at John Cormack through streaked glasses, held out his hand, and then reached up spontaneously to embrace his old friend with both arms. As if surprised at his own impulsiveness, he then turned and hurried away to join the others climbing into their waiting cars for the airfield.

The rain eased again and two strong men began to shovel wet earth into the hole. It was over.

Qui

The crossing was uneventful and by the late morning Qui

Belgium is interlaced by a very modern system of high-class motorways; distances are short and times even shorter. Qui

Europe was unknown territory for Sam; Qui

They parked the car, took lodgings in a small hotel on the Italie Lei, and walked around the corner to one of the many restaurants flanking both sides of the De Keyser Lei for lunch.

“What exactly are you looking for?” asked Sam as they ate.

“A man,” said Qui

“What kind of a man?”

“I’ll know when I see him.”

After lunch Qui

The Falcon Rui turned out to be a run-down street fronted by several low-budget clothing shops, among others. In one, Qui

Qui

“Jesus, Qui

“I know,” he said. “That’s what I asked the cabdriver for.”

He was still walking, glancing left and right at the signs above the shops. Apart from the bars and the illuminated windows where the whores sat and beckoned, there were few shops. But he found three of the sort he wanted, all within the space of two hundred yards.

“Tattooists?” she queried.

“Docks,” he said simply. “Docks mean sailors; sailors mean tattoos. They also mean bars and girls and the thugs who live off girls. We’ll come back tonight.”

Senator Be

Speaker after speaker had called for action to trace the culprits and bring them to justice, American justice, no matter what the cost. The President pro tem of the Senate hammered with his gavel.

“The junior senator from Oklahoma has the floor,” he intoned.

Be