In the month since the burial of their son a change had come over the Cormacks, and their relationship to each other, which only a psychiatrist would be able to rationalize or explain.
During the kidnapping the President, though he had deteriorated through stress, worry, anxiety, and insomnia, had still managed to retain control of himself. Toward the end of the abduction of his son, when reports from London seemed to indicate an exchange was near, he had even seemed to recover. It was his wife, less intellectual and without administrative responsibilities to distract her mind, who had abandoned herself to grief and sedation.
But since that awful day at Nantucket when they had consigned their only son to the cold ground, the roles of the parents had subtly reversed. Myra Cormack had wept against the chest of the Secret Service man by the graveside, and on the flight back to Washington. But as the days went by she seemed to recover. It might be she recognized that, having lost one dependent child, she had inherited another, the husband who had never been dependent on her before.
Her maternal and protective instincts seemed to have given her an inner strength denied to the man whose intelligence and willpower she had never before doubted. As Quinn’s cab passed the White House that winter afternoon, John Cormack was sitting at his desk in his private study between the Yellow Oval Room and the bedroom. Myra Cormack stood at his side. She cradled the head of her devastated husband against her body and rocked him slowly and gently.
She knew her man was mortally stricken, unable to carry on for much longer. She knew that what had destroyed him as much as, if not more than, the actual death of his son was the bewilderment of not knowing who had done it, or why. Had the boy died in a car crash, she believed, John Cormack could have accepted the logic even of the illogic of death. It was the manner of his death that had destroyed the father as surely as if that demonic bomb had exploded against his own body.
She believed there would never be an answer now, and that her husband could not go on like this. She had come to hate the White House, and the job she had once been so proud to see her husband hold. All she wanted now was for him to lay down the burden of that office and retire with her, back to New Haven, so that she could nurse him.
The letter Quinn had mailed to Sam Somerville at her Alexandria condominium address was duly intercepted before she saw it and brought in triumph to the White House committee, which convened to hear it and discuss its implications. Philip Kelly and Kevin Brown bore it to their superiors’ attention like a trophy.
“I have to admit, gentlemen,” said Kelly, “that it was with the gravest reservations that I asked for one of my own trusted agents to be put under this kind of surveillance. But I think you will agree, it paid dividends.”
He placed the letter on the table in front of him.
“This letter, gentlemen, was mailed yesterday, right here in Washington. That does not necessarily prove Quinn is here in the city, or even in the States; it would be possible for someone else to have mailed it on his behalf. But I take the view that Quinn is a loner, has no accomplices. How he disappeared from London and showed up here, we do not know. Yet my colleagues and I are of the opinion he mailed this letter himself.”
“Read it,” commanded Odell.
“It’s… er… fairly dramatic,” said Kelly. He adjusted his glasses and began to read.
“ ‘My darling Sam…’ This form of address would seem to indicate that my colleague Kevin Brown was right-there was a relationship beyond the professional one required, between Miss Somerville and Quinn.”
“So your hound dog fell in love with the wolf,” said Odell. “Well done, very smart. What does he say?”
Kelly resumed.
“ ‘Here I am at last, back in the United States. I would very much love to see you again, but am afraid that for the moment it would not be safe.
“ ‘The point of my writing is to set the record straight over what really took place in Corsica. The fact is, when I called you out of Ajaccio airport, I lied to you. I decided that if I told you what really happened down there, you might not feel it would be safe for you to return. But the more I think about it, the more I feel you have the right to know. Make me only one promise: whatever you read in this letter you keep to yourself. No one else must know, at least not yet. Not until I have finished what I am doing.
“ ‘The truth is, Orsini and I fought it out. I had no choice; someone had called him and said I was on my way to Corsica to kill him, when I only wanted to talk to him. He did take a bullet from my gun-yours, actually-but it did not kill him. When he learned he had been tricked, he realized his code of the vow of silence no longer bound him. He told me everything he knew, and it turned out to be a lot.
“ ‘First, it was not the Russians who were behind this thing-at least, not the Soviet government. The conspiracy began right here in the United States. The real paymasters are still clothed in secrecy, but the man they employed to arrange the abduction and murder of Simon Cormack, the one Zack called the fat man, is known to me. Orsini had recognized him and gave me his name. When he is captured, as he will be, I have no doubt he will deliver the names of the men who paid him to do this thing.
“ ‘For the moment, Sam, I am holed up writing everything down, chapter and verse: names, dates, places, events. The whole story from start to finish. When I am done I will mail copies of the manuscript to a dozen different authorities: the Vice President, the FBI, the CIA, et cetera. Then, if anything happens to me after that, it will be too late to stop the wheels of justice from rolling into motion.
“ ‘I will not be in touch with you again until I have finished. Please understand-if I do not tell you where I am, it is only for your own protection.
“ ‘All my love, Quinn.’ ”
There was a minute of stunned silence. One of those present was sweating profusely.
“Jesus,” breathed Michael Odell. “Is this guy for real?”
“If what he says is true,” suggested Morton Stannard, the former lawyer, “he should certainly not be at large. He should say what he has to say to us, right here.”
“I agree,” said the Attorney General. “Apart from anything else, he has just constituted himself a material witness. We have a witness protection program. He should be taken into protective custody.”
The agreement was unanimous. By nightfall the Department of Justice had authorized a material-witness warrant for the arrest and detention of Quinn. The FBI operated all the resources of the National Crime Information System to alert every FBI bureau in the country to be on the lookout for him. To back this up, messages went out on the National Law Enforcement Teletype System to all other enforcement arms: city police departments, sheriffs’ offices, U.S. marshals, and highway patrols. Quinn’s picture accompanied them all. The “cover” used was that he was wanted in connection with a major jewel heist.
An all-points bulletin is one thing; America is a very big country with a lot of places to hide. Wanted felons have stayed at large for years despite a national alert for them. Moreover, the alert was out for Quinn, an American citizen, of known passport number and driving license. It was not an alert for a French-Canadian called Lefevre with perfect IDs, a different hairstyle, horn-rimmed glasses, and a light beard. Quinn had let his beard grow since shaving in the Soviet embassy in London, and though not long, it now covered his lower face.
Back in his mountain cabin, he gave the White House committee three days to simmer over his deliberate letter to Sam Somerville, then set about contacting her covertly. The clue was in something she had told him in Antwerp. “A Rockcastle preacher’s daughter,” she had called herself.