“What are you talking about?”

“The President, the Vice President, the crew, everybody, they’re all gone.”

“You’re talking crazy!” Blackowl snapped.

“True… it’s true,” McGrath said lifelessly. “See for yourself.”

Blackowl tore down the steps of the nearest companionway and ran to the President’s stateroom. He threw open the door without knocking. It was deserted. The bed was still neatly made and there were no clothes in the closet, no toilet articles in the bathroom. His heart felt as if it were being squeezed between two blocks of ice.

As though in a nightmare, he rushed from stateroom to stateroom. Everywhere it was the same; even the crew’s quarters lay in undisturbed emptiness.

The horror was real.

Everyone on the yacht had vanished as though they had never been born.

Part II

The Eagle

13

Unlike actors in motion pictures, who take forever to wake up and answer a ringing telephone in bed, Ben Greenwald, Director of the Secret Service, came instantly alert and snatched the receiver before the second ring.

“Greenwald.”

“Greetings,” said the familiar voice of Oscar Lucas. “Sorry to wake you, but I knew you were anxious to hear the score of the soccer game.”

Greenwald tensed. Any Secret Service communication opening with the word “greetings” meant the beginning of an urgent, top-secret report on a critical or grave situation. The sentence that followed was meaningless; a caution in case the telephone line might not be secure — a real possibility, since the Kissinger State Department had allowed the Russians to build their new embassy on a rise overlooking the city, vastly increasing their telephone eavesdropping capacity.

“Okay,” Greenwald said, trying to sound conversational. “Who won?”

“You lost your bet.”

“Bet” was another key word indicating that the next statement was coming in coded double-talk.

“Jasper College, one,” Lucas continued, “Drinkwater Tech, nothing. Three of the Jasper players were sidelined for injuries.”

The dire news exploded in Greenwald’s ears. Jasper College was the code for a presidential abduction. The reference to the sidelined players meant the next three men in succession were taken too. It was a code that in Greenwald’s wildest dreams he never thought he would hear.

“There’s no mistake?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“None,” replied Lucas, his tone like the thin edge of broken glass.

“Who else in the office pool knows the score?”

“Only Blackowl, McGrath and myself.”

“Keep it that way.”

“To be on the safe side,” said Lucas, “I initiated an immediate assessment of the second-string players and future rookies.”

Greenwald instantly picked up on Lucas’s drift. The wives and children of the missing parties were being located and protected, along with the men next in line for the Presidency.

He took a deep breath and quickly arranged his thoughts. Speed was essential. Even now, if the Soviets were behind the President’s kidnapping to gain an edge for a pre-emptive nuclear strike, it was too late. On the other hand, with the top four men in American government effectively removed, it hinted at a plot to overthrow the government.

There was no time left to be shackled by security. “Amen,” said Greenwald, signaling Lucas that he was dropping the double-talk.

“Understood.”

A sudden terrifying thought swept Greenwald’s mind. “The bag man?” he asked nervously.

“Gone with the rest.”

Oh, dear God, Greenwald agonized to himself silently. Disaster was piling on top of disaster. “Bag man” was the irreverent nickname for the field-grade officer at the President’s side day and night who carried the briefcase containing codes called release messages that could unleash the nation’s 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads on preselected targets inside Soviet Russia. The consequences of the ultrasecret codes falling into alien hands were beyond any conceivable horror.

“Alert the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” he ordered. “Then send a detail to pick up the Secretaries of State and Defense, also the National Security Adviser, and rush them to the White House Situation Room.”

“Anyone on the presidential staff?”

“Okay, bring in Dan Fawcett. But for now let’s keep it a closed club. The fewer who know the ‘Man’ is missing until we can sort things out, the better.”

“In that case,” Lucas said, “it might be wise to hold the meeting someplace besides the Situation Room. The press constantly monitor the White House. They’d be on us like locusts if the heads of state suddenly converged there at this time of morning.”

“Sound thinking,” Greenwald replied. He paused a moment, then said, “Make it the Observatory.”

“The Vice President’s residence?”

“Press cars are almost never in evidence there.”

“I’ll have everyone on the premises as soon as possible.”

“Oscar?”

“Yes.”

“Very briefly, what happened?”

There was a slight hesitation and then Lucas said, “They all vanished from the presidential yacht.”

“I see,” said Greenwald heavily, but it was clear he didn’t.

Greenwald wasted no more time on talk. He hung up and hurriedly dressed. On the drive to the Observatory his stomach twisted into knots, a delayed reaction to the catastrophic news. His vision blurred and he fought off an overwhelming urge to vomit.

He drove in a mental haze through the deserted streets of the capital. Except for an occasional delivery truck, traffic was nearly nonexistent and most of the traffic signals were simply blinking on a cautious yellow.

Too late he saw a city streetsweeper make a sudden U-turn from the right-hand gutter. His windshield was abruptly filled with the bulky white-painted vehicle. In the cab the driver jumped sideways at the protesting scream of tires, his eyes wide in the glare of Greenwald’s headlights.

There was a metal-tearing crunch and the splash of flying glass. The hood bent double, flew up, and the steering wheel rammed into Greenwald’s chest, crushing his rib cage.

Greenwald sat pinned to the seat as the water from the mangled radiator hissed and steamed over the car’s engine. His eyes were open as though staring in vague indifference at the abstract cracks on the shattered windshield.

Oscar Lucas stood in front of the corner fireplace in the living room of the Vice President’s mansion and described the presidential kidnapping. Every few seconds he glanced nervously at his watch, wondering what was keeping Greenwald. The five men seated around the room listened to him in undisguised astonishment.

Secretary of Defense Jesse Simmons clamped his teeth on the stem of an unlit meerschaum pipe. He was dressed casually in a summer sportcoat and slacks, as was Dan Fawcett and National Security Adviser Alan Mercier. Army General Clayton Metcalf was in uniform, while Douglas Oates, the Secretary of State, sat fastidiously groomed in a dark suit and necktie.

Lucas came to the end of his briefing and waited for the barrage of questions he was certain would be fired. Instead, there was a prolonged hush. They just sat there, numb and immobile.

Oates was the first to break the stunned silence. “Good Lord!” he gasped. “How could such a thing happen? How could everyone on the yacht simply evaporate into thin air?”

“We don’t know,” Lucas answered helplessly. “I haven’t ordered an investigating team to the site yet for obvious security reasons. Ben Greenwald slammed a lid on the affair until you gentlemen could be informed. Outside this room, only three Secret Service personnel, including Greenwald, are privy to the facts.”