Jay looked in her eyes and smiled. “In broader terms, I think you just encapsulated it perfectly.”
FORTY-TWO
Nearly a minute of empty videotape passed before an image flashed on the screen. The picture was black-and-white and grainy, and the tiny portable camera was obviously being worn on Reynolds’s clothing, producing a bouncing, lurching picture. It was mostly a blur as Reynolds walked in, but there were some items and features in the background that looked fleetingly familiar before the picture steadied. Reynolds had seated himself on one of the facing couches, pointing his hidden camera toward the east door, which was being closed by an unseen hand.
Suddenly the picture shifted to take in the figure of a man leaning back against the front of the presidential desk in what was now unmistakably the Oval Office, bright light streaming in the windows behind him.
The only sound so far had been cloth scratching against a microphone, muffled voices, and the noise of footsteps and cushions as Reynolds sat.
A familiar voice rang out as the picture steadied on the President’s legs.
“Okay, Barry, where are we? Are we set?”
Jay glanced at Sherry in mild alarm, and she nodded. The tone, the accent, and the meter were all too familiar. John Harris’s voice was very distinctive, though some of the words were distant and hard to understand.
“Well, sir,” a voice closer to the microphone and correspondingly louder began, “we’re ready to go, but it’s… costly.”
“How much… want?” was the reply, broken by the sound of cloth scraping the microphone again.
“You really want to know, Mr. President?”
“This…” More scraping. “never happened, Barry, so I want to know now, since officially I never will.”
“Very well, sir. They want a million, U.S.”
The first of the reply was lost. “… bargain, if they can do the job.”
“Yes, Mr. President, they can do it. But I have to warn you about something.”
“Now…” The voice faded, then came back clearly. “… different matter. Do I want to know whatever you’re going to warn me about? Even off the record?”
There was a hesitation before Reynolds spoke again.
“Sir, I need to tell you, because I don’t want to trigger this thing unless I know you understand the possibilities and are ready to accept them. I don’t want to decide this myself. And, in fact, I’m strongly recommending against this operation.”
The President sighed and crossed his arms, saying, “Very well. Go ahead.”
“There are likely to be sixty or seventy people in that factory and in the compound, and some of them will be civilian.”
“The workers?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir. If we commission this so-called army we’re ready to hire – these mercenaries who are ex-Shining Path, ex-Peruvian Army, and a real ragtag bunch – if we commission them, they’ll go in with the intention to leave no one alive, regardless of who they find. They won’t do it without that understanding.”
“As far as… concerned, Barry, anyone in that factory is forfeit, regardless. They’re killing Americans with… poison they make…” The voice faded to incoherence again.
“Yes, sir. But it will almost certainly be a bloodbath, and the government is certain to be outraged, especially if they can prove the Company was behind it. That’s why I’d say we shouldn’t do it. Too much risk. I need to make sure you understand.”
“I understand, Barry.”
“These are real cutthroats, sir, as I say, on a level you may not be ready to believe really exists in this world. These vermin would just as soon dismember you alive for the fun of it as to decide to have dinner. They’re the closest thing to pure two-footed animals I think I’ve ever met, and… frankly… we can be certain that they’re going to enjoy this job.”
The President asked something in a muffled voice.
“Meaning torture,” Reynolds replied. “We’re authorizing torture. They’ll have themselves a playground with a license to kill, and they’ll very likely kill slowly and painfully for the fun of it.”
Reynolds hesitated, then got to his feet and walked back toward the fireplace before turning, the camera catching the President in full view at the other end of the office.
“Sir, these guys would frighten the SS in Nazi Germany. And I need you to know that the Peruvian peasants working there may well have family members with them.”
“Family…” The President’s voice was too far away from the microphone to be heard.
“Could be,” Reynolds replied to the unheard question. “I can’t guarantee who’ll be there. But if they’re there, they’ll be eliminated.”
There was more incoherent comment from the President, followed by the word “recommendation.”
“Depends on what you want to accomplish, sir,” Reynolds replied. “If you want to shut down that factory once and for all, devastate the leadership, frighten away anyone else who would set up such a large drug-making facility, and massively impact the heroin flow all at once, then there’s probably no other way to get it done. But there will be a terrible cost in lives.”
The President pushed away from his desk and disappeared out of the frame. Reynolds apparently sat back down on the couch and swiveled toward the desk again, raising the level of the frame and revealing the chief executive with his back to the camera standing at the window overlooking the Rose Garden.
The frame lowered once more as the President turned, his head just out of the shot at the top as he turned toward Reynolds. “… no choice,” he said, the words barely understandable. “You’ve… green light. But you never told me this, and…” The words faded momentarily. “Don’t try to limit or warn them in any way. Don’t tell them ‘no torture,’ or you’ll poison our ability to say we never knew.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Now. Bring… over here and show me the details.”
The rest of the tape was a recitation of the logistics of the plan, a handshake, and Reynolds’s exit through the east door.
The screen had been black for many seconds before Jay reached out and stopped the videocassette player. He sat quietly for nearly a minute before drawing a deep breath and shaking his head.
“Oh my God.”
Sherry Lincoln sat stunned and immobile in her chair, her eyes still on the darkened screen. Jay heard her swallow hard, but she said nothing as he got to his feet and leaned on the television.
“Sherry… I cannot believe what I just heard.”
“Nor can I,” she said quietly.
“That was… to the best of my knowledge… John Harris’s voice,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know Reynolds or his voice, but I spent years around John, and…”
“It’s him, Jay. No one else. I recognize the phraseology, the meter, everything.”
Jay sat again, shaking his head, his hands out in a helpless gesture. “I… have no way to fight this tomorrow, except, maybe, just try to harp on the fact that you can fake tapes.”