The Fifth Horseman (6 page)

The President’s words reflected a U.S. government decision, taken during the Nixon administration and consistently adhered to since them, to avoid at all costs going public with nuclear threats. The knowledge that a threat existed in a given city could provoke a panicked reaction more devastating than the threatened explosion itself. Discrediting each nuclear hoax cost at least a million dollars, and no one wanted to see the government deluged by such threats. There was the danger that an irrational, semihysterical public opinion could paralyze the government’s ability to act in such a crisis. And in this case, the President was well aware, there was yet another reason: the ominous injunction to secrecy in the threat note.

“Well, if this really is from Qaddafi our answer’s simple.” It was Delbert Crandell, the Secretary of Energy. “Lather those bastards from one end of Libya to the other. That’s all. Wipe them out. Lay the Trident missiles on the subs we have on patrol in the Med on them. That’ll turn the damn place into a sea of glass in thirty seconds. There won’t be a goat left alive over there.”

Crandell sank back, satisfied. His words had a cathartic effect on the room. It was as though the outspoken Energy Secretary had given voice to a thought all had had but no one else had been prepared to express, the brutal but reassuring affirmation that, in the final analysis, the United States possessed the power to squash a menace such as this.

“Mr. Fundseth” There was a catch in the President’s voice as he addressed his Deputy Secretary of State, as though he, too, sought to be assured by Crandell’s brutal declaration. “What is the population of Libya?”

“Two million, sir, give or take a hundred thousand. Census figures over there aren’t very reliable.”

The President turned down the table toward the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Harry, how many people would we lose if a three-megaton device went off in New York? Without evacuation?”

“Sir, it would be difficult to give you an accurate figure on that without looking at some numbers.”

“I realize that, but give me your best estimate.”

The Chairman reflected a moment. “Between four and five million, sir.”

There was dead silence as the awful mathematics of Fuller’s figures registered on everyone in the room. The President sat back, lost for just a minute in a private thought no one in the room dared to interrupt. The giants of the world, the United States and the USSR, held each dither in strategic checkmate because they shared a parity of horror, an equilibrium once described with almost too perfect irony by the acronym for the philosophy on which the U.S.‘s thermonuclear strategy had been based-MAD, for “Mutual Assured Destruction.” I kill you, you kill me. It was the old Russian comedy, everybody dies.

But this, if it was true, was the terrible alteration in the rules of the game, that had haunted responsible world leaders for years, the end game in the struggle against nuclear proliferation for which his precedessor had fought so hard-and, characteristically, with so little success.

Detective First Grade Angelo Rocchia watched with pride the woman advancing through the restaurant, noting approvingly each head that turned for a second glimpse at the lithe movements of her figure. Men always had a second look at Grace Knowland. Her fluffy black hair was clipped in a pageboy bob that set off her higharched cheekbones, her dark eyes and her pert mouth. She was not quite medium height, but she was so well proportioned, so finely muscled, that her clothes, like the simple white blouse and beige skirt she was wearing tonight, always seemed molded to her body. Above all, Grace radiated a fresh, engaging vitality that belied the fact that she was thirtyfive, the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, and had led a life not noteworthy for its placidity.

“Hi, darling,” she said, brushing his forehead with a quick, moist kiss.

“Not late, am I?”

She slid onto the red velvet seat beside him, right under his favorite oil of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. Forlini’s was, as Angelo liked to say, “the kind of place where things transpire.” A few blocks away from City Hall, it bad been for years a favorite hangout of top cops, judges, politicians, men from the DA’s office and minor Mafiosi.

He handed Grace a Campari and soda and raised his Black Label on the rocks to her. Angelo Rocchia drank very little, but he was fastidious about what he drank: “sipping scotch” and good wines, preferably the littleknown Chianti classicos of Tuscany.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers. I hope it wasn’t too difficult.”

Angelo lowered his glass and gave a slight move to his shoulders. “Each time, it’s the same thing. You think it can’t possibly hurt any more and it always does.”

Grace gently folded her hand over his. She had a pianist’s fingers, long, slender and strong, her almond-shaped nails trimmed short.

“What’s hard is making yourself understand there’s no hope.”

Grace saw a flicker of despair cross his face. “Let’s order.” She smiled.

“I’m famished.” Her gaiety was a forced effort to ease Angelo from the depression that inevitably gripped him on Sunday evenings.

“Evening, Inspector. Try the linguine. Terrific.”

Angelo looked up from his menu. Standing before his table was Salvatore “Twenty Percent Sal” Danatello, his corpulent figure bursting out of a pale-blue double-knit at least three sizes too small for him. The detective looked at him, a sneer of contempt easing over his face.

“How’s the family, Sal? Keeping your nose clean?”

The change in Angelo’s tone, the abrupt switch from the soft, intimate half-growl he used with her to this inquisitor’s voice, its timbre as cold, as cutting as a knife’s blade, always disturbed Grace.

“Sure thing, Inspector. You know me. Running a legitimate business. Payin’ my tax.”

“Terrific, Sally. You’re just the kind of decent, upright citizen this city needs.”

Sally hesitated a moment, hoping for the introduction Angelo had no intention whatsoever of making, then shufed off.

“Who’s that?” Grace asked.

“A wise guy.”

Grace understood the jargon of the New York Police Department. She watched the Mafioso’s disappearing figure with curiosity. “So it wasn’t his wife and kids you were asking about. What does he do?”

“Knows good lawyers. Been busted three times for loan sharking and walked every time.” Angelo snapped a breadstick in half and jabbed one jagged end into the butter dish before him. A sly grin crossed his face.

“Of course, The New York Times would say it was just another example of how we waste our resources prosecuting nonviolent crimes.”

Grace pressed her finger to her lips like a schoolteacher trying to hush an unruly classroom. “Truce?” It was a little sign between them, a convention they employed whenever the deeply held convictions inspired by their different vocations, hers as a City Hall reporter for the Times, his as a detective, clashed.

“Yeah, sure,” growled Angelo. “Truce. What the hell, The New York Times is probably right anyway. Sally’s collectors got a special, nonviolent way they clean up his bad debts.” ‘

Despite herself, Grace fell for his ploy with an inquiring tilt of her head.

“They put your fingers in a car door. Then they close the door.”

Angelo savored the horror sweeping her face just an instant. “It’s like the ad says. The man runs a full service bank.”

She couldn’t help laughing. He was a born actor, this detective of hers, with his Roman emperor’s profile, and his wavy gray hair that always made her think of Vittorio de Sica; hair she knew he had styled once a month to conceal the bald spot emerging at the back of his head.

They had met two years ago in his Homicide Squad office at 1 Police Plaza when Grace was doing a major takeout on violent crime in the city. With his dark suit, his white-on-white tie and shirt, the way he rolled his rs like a tenor at the Met, he had seemed closer to her idea of what a Mafia don should look like than a detective. She had noted the old-fashioned black mourning button in the lapel of his jacket, the nervous way he kept picking peanuts from his pocket. To stop smoking, he had explained.

For almost a year they had met for an occasional dinner every couple of weeks, nothing more binding between them than their deepening friendship.

Then, one steaming night in August, it had happened. They’d gone that evening to a little seafood restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. The bluefish were running and they had each ordered one broiled with sage and rosemary. For a long time they had lingered on the terrace, sipping espresso and the last of their Frascati in the fresh Atlantic breeze. Suddenly, there on the terrace, Grace had sensed a barely disguised yearning in the way Angelo’s eyes kept returning to the blouse she had partially unbuttoned in the warm night air. She’d been through three affairs since they met, each begun in promise and ended in pain. Angelo was not a handsome man; yet there was an undeniable appeal in his battered, craggy face. Above all, there was a solidity about him, a promise of strength like that of the old oak that has survived many an autumn storm. Walking out the door, Grace reached for his hand.

“Angelo, take me home with you,” she whispered.

Now, beside her, Angelo gave a soft groan as he contemplated the menu. They were after him, every time he took his Department physical, to lose a little weight. “Watch the blood pressure,” they’d say. Tomorrow, he thought, and ordered cannelloni, a bistecca Fiorentina, and a bottle of Castello Gabbiano Riserva 1975. Grace gave him a disapproving glance, then asked for a veal piccata and a green salad.

“Hey,” he mumbled, “I’m the policeman, remember?”

As the waiter moved away, they lapsed into silence. Grace seemed suddenly distant, absorbed in some private world of her own.

“What’s the matter?”

“I got some news yesterday.”

“Good or bade’

“Bad, I guess. I’m pregnant.”

Angelo set his whiskey down with a slow, deliberate movement. “You sure?”

She slipped her hand over his. “I’m sorry, darling. I wasn’t going to tell you. Not yet, anyway. Your question caught me while I was thinking about it.” She reached for her glass and took a measured sip. “It’s one of those things that should never happen anymore, I know. I was careless. You see, after I had Tommy I had some trouble. They told me it was very, very unlikely I’d ever conceive again.” She giggled and the corners of her dark eyes crinkled with her laughter. “And until you came along, I never did.”

“I guess I should take that as a compliment.” Angelo slid his heavy arm along the top of their seat so that his fingers rested lightly on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I suppose it’s my fault. I should have been watching out. I guess I’m out of practice.”

“Sure. I guess so.”

Grace studied the detective an instant, an appraising coolness in her eyes, waiting for another word, another phrase. It did not come. She twisted and stretched her long fingers on the tablecloth. “It’s strange carrying a life inside you. I don’t think a man can ever understand just what that means to a woman. I’ve spent the last thirteen years living with the idea it would never happen to me again.” She took another drink. Her eyes were downcast, her voice suddenly plaintive. “And now it has.”

Angelo let his regard travel around the crowded restaurant a moment, taking in the heads leaning conspiratorily together, making, unmaking deals. As he did, he tried to puzzle out the mood of the woman beside him.

“Grace, tell me something. You’re not thinking about keeping it, are you?”

“Would that be so terrible?”

Angelo paled slightly. He took his drink, swallowed the last of his whiskey, then stared moodily at the glass clasped between his fingers.

“You know, I never told you, Grace, about Catherine and me. She had troubles, too. We tried for years to have a baby. She kept miscarrying and miscarrying. We didn’t know why.”

He lowered his glass to the table. “We couldn’t figure out what God or nature or whatever the hell you want to call it was trying to tell us.

Until Maria was born.” Angelo was a long way from their crowded Italian restaurant. “I’ll never forget going into the delivery room that morning.

I was so proud, so happy. I wanted a boy, sure, but a child, that’s what mattered. And there she was, this little tiny thing all red and shriveled, the nurse holding her up there by the ankles. Those hands, those little, tiny hands, were moving, kind of picking at the air like, and she was crying.”

He paused a moment. “And then I noticed her head. It didn’t seem quite right, you know? It wasn’t round. The nurse looked at me. They know right away. ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Rocchia,’ she said, ‘your daughter’s mongoloid.’ “

Angelo turned to Grace, the sorrow of that instant, of all the painful instants that followed it, on his face. “Believe me, Grace, I’d die before I’d hear those words again.”

“I understand you, darling.” Her hand closed over his.

“But they have a test now. It’s called amniocentesis. They can tell if a child’s going to be a mongoloid before it’s born.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I checked with my doctor.”

Angelo made no effort to conceal his astonishment. “So you’ve been thinking a lot about this?”

The waiter appeared with their dinner. They watched in awkward silence as he set their plates before them, then drifted off.

“I suppose I have. It’s caught me so much by surprise.” Grace picked at her veal. “You see, I know it’s the last chance for me, Angelo. I’m thirtyfive.”

“How about me?” There was an edge of petulance in his voice. “Do you really think a man is anxious to become a father at my age?”

Grace laid down her fork and meticulously dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “What I’m going to say sounds selfish, I know. And I guess it is.

But if I decide to have the child, it will be because I want it. Because I want something to help me fill the years I see ahead. Because this is a last chance and you don’t let go of last chances in life easily. But I’ll promise you one thing, Angelo. If I do decide to keep it, it’ll be my responsibility. I won’t burden you with the problems my decision causes. I won’t lay any responsibilities you don’t want on you.”