Q Clearance by Peter Benchley
His ambition was to become a businesswoman, and, as he told Burnham on the telephone, the business he intended to start was Lesbian Charter Boating.
"This is the age of specialization, Timothy. I have to find my slot."
"But Toddy—"
"Teresa."
"Teresa. Don't you think this . . . slot ... is a little narrow? Is the clientele big enough?"
''Big enough? You have no idea. They're out there, millions of them, longing to escape the yoke of maleness. I offer them relaxation, sisterhood, no macho Lx)ng John Silvers calling them dumb broads."
"Do you know how to sail?"
"I'll learn. But first I need a boat. I want you to recommend a boat broker.''
"What kind of boat?"
"You tell me. All I know is, I'm going to call her Bilitis.”
Burnham had made a couple of calls to brokers he had known when he was writing America's Cup pieces. He had prepared a short list of boats that sounded possible and had sent it off to Toddy. A week later he had received a huge bouquet of spring flowers from an FTD florist, with a note enclosed that said: "I'll name the nicest powder room on board after you, so everyone will know that Timothy Burnham gives good 'head.' Love, T."
That was the last he had heard of Toddy.
Burnham marched into his office. Dyanna was at her desk, shaping her nails into scimitars.
'*Have a nice lunch?" she said, with a conspicuous glance at the clock on her desk.
"Grab a pad and come in here." He continued toward his desk, shedding his jacket and tossing it toward the couch.
"Something's wrong with our phones," she called after him. "I think they're out."
"No, they're not." Burnham sat down, gathered all the papers on his desk—the CIA report on the pasha, the drafts of the toast, his DOE mail—into a pile and dropped it onto the floor. He placed a yellow legal pad and two sharp pencils before him. Then he unfolded the telex and smoothed it on top of the legal pad.
Dyanna stood in the doorway, holding a pad, frowning.
"Sit over there," Burnham said, pointing to the conference table, on which was a telephone console. "How's your shorthand?"
"Rusty."
"Oil it up. I want you to listen to this conversation and take down every word."
"Whatever for?"
"Because I said so!" Easy, Bumham thought, easy. Even Stalin didn't start the day hollering at the help.
Dyanna reacted as if he had slapped her. Her head jerked and her mouth opened.
He wanted to say "Sorry," but then he remembered Evelyn Witt's admonition about apologizing, so he said, "I'll start again. We have to try to stop someone from blowing up a Russian ship. If we succeed, you'll probably be made Vice-President of the United States. If we fail, you'll end your days as a bag lady in Rock Creek Park. Okay?"
"Wow!" was all Dyanna said, but she smiled.
"If I snap my fingers at you during the conversation, you get off the line and call the President's office and tell Evelyn I need a confirmation of authority."
"To whom?"
"Whoever's giving me grief. You'll have written down his name. Okay?"
“Yes, sir!"
Burnham punched a button on his phone console and picked up the receiver. Dyanna did the same on her console. There was no dial tone. Dyanna shrugged, saying, "See?"
Then a voice said, "Yes, Mr. Burnham."
Burnham winked at Dyanna. "Who is this?" he said.
"Pingrey, sir, Thomas L. Sergeant First Class."
"Here's what we have to do, Sergeant. In Havana harbor there is an American yacht called Bilitis.” He spelled the name. "I want you to raise him for me. He's got single sideband, VHF and AM. I doubt he has anything newer."
"No sweat, sir."
"Wrong. He says he won't speak to anybody but Fidel Castro. I do a lousy Castro impression."
"Yes, sir."
"I think he'll speak to me. Personally. No White House, no government, no military, and especially no President. Try to raise him on my name alone. Timothy Burnham."
"Yes, sir."
"While you're setting that up, get me General Starkweather at Guantanamo."
"Your name alone?"
"No. The White House, the President, the cosmos. God, if you have to."
"Yes, sir."
"You want to call me back?"
"No, sir. Hang on."
As he waited, Burnham reread the NSC telex, searching for any clue to Toddy's state of mind, to what had made him snap, for Burnham was sure that something had short-circuited inside that gentle person. But all he was able to do was reinforce his fear that within three hours, one way or another Toddy Thatcher would be dead.
"Starkweather," said a voice forged from old machine-gun parts.
"General, this is Timothy Burnham, in the White House."
"So they said. You work for Duggan?"
"No, s—" Forget the "sir." "I work for the President."
"Sure. So do I."
"The President wants me to get the Bilitis out of there."
"He wants me to, too, and I'm here and you're there."
"General ..." Bumham broke the pencil in his hand. Not yet, he told himself. Save your big guns. "I intend to get the Bilitis out of there. Until and unless I say so, you are not to send any SEALs, any Marines, any anybody anywhere near that yacht. Is that clear?"
"Look, Mr. . . . Burnham. I got a possible war on my hands down here. I'm not gonna take orders from some—"
Burnham snapped his fingers at Dyanna. She punched a new button on her console and tapped out a four-digit number.
When the general had finished, Burnham waited a beat, and then he said, with what he hoped was menacing calm, "You fuck with me, General, you're fuckin' with your heartbeat. In thirty seconds, you're gonna get a call, and when I come back on the line, you'd better have lost your fuckin' attitude, or you're gonna wish you'd chosen a career in the Salvation Anny."
Burnham punched a button that cut Starkweather off.
He was appalled at himself. His heart was tripping along at about 150. "Fuckin' with your heartbeat?" Where had he dredged that from? To a Marine Corps general? What had he done? He didn't know how to handle power; he'd never had any before. Giving him power was like putting a blind man behind the wheel of a tank. The President wasn't about to let Timothy Y. Burnham become Commander-in-Chief. Was he?
Dyanna was staring at him, stunned. "Wow!" she said.
"See if you can get General Starkweather on the line again."
Dyanna spoke to Sergeant Pingrey and, a moment later, said, "Just a moment. General." She nodded to Burnham.
Burnham took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. "General."
"You have my apologies, Mr. Burnham."
The feeling inside Burnham was orgasmic, an explosion in his pleasure center that sent radial messages throughout his body. He had never talked back, even to a taxi driver, didn't dare send putrid food back to a restaurant's kitchen, became aphasic when confronted by aggressive strangers. Now, suddenly, armed with a cause and with authority, he had become a force to reckon with. Or, at least, a human being.
And he hadn't stammered.
"Accepted. It's hard to keep lines of authority straight. We're both just trying to do our jobs." Oh, spare me your smarmy garbage, Burnham told himself. You sound like the President. He said, "Are we agreed? You'll do nothing till you hear from me?"
"Agreed. You're aware of his deadline? Seventeen hundred hours."
"Yep. I better get to it. Thanks, General."
Burnham counted back from 2400, just to make sure that 1700 hours was five o'clock. Then he picked up the receiver and waited for Sergeant Pingrey.
"Mr. Burnham?"
"Go ahead."
"I've got his SSB wide open, and I've jammed the rest of the neighborhood, so he can't talk to anybody but me. But he won't talk. He doesn't believe it's you."
"Put me on, then."
"He says the President's trying to trick him. He
Burnham thought for a moment. He could mention Sarah's name or Toddy's parents, or Groton or Elon, but Toddy would know that by now the government could have obtained all those names.
The answer came to him. He blushed and laughed to himself and said, "Sergeant, ask him if he still has the plaque on the powder-room door . . ." He looked over at Dyanna, feverishly scribbling in shorthand. ". . . the one that says that Timothy Burnham gives good head."
Pingrey sounded as if he had swallowed his tongue.
Dyanna's pencil stuttered on the page, and her ears became a pretty crimson against her yellow hair.
"Oh, and Sergeant: Address him as Miss Thatcher."
"Yes, sir."
The line was dead for fifteen seconds, and then:
"Timothy?"
"Toddy?"
"Timothy!"
"Sorry. Teresa."
"How are you?"
"I'm fine. Teresa. But that's not why I'm calling."
"No."
"What are you doing down there?"
"Things got out of hand, Timothy."
"What things?"
"You don't want to know. It's sordid."
"I've got to know, Teresa, if I'm going to help you."
"What are they going to do to me, Timothy?" There was fear in the voice.
Be careful, Burnham told himself. You don't want to provoke anything. But he . . . she . . . has to know how serious this is. He felt lost. He wasn't a hostage negotiator. All he knew about hostage negotiating was what he'd seen on Hill Street Blues.
"If you let me help you, nothing," he said. "If you don't, I'm afraid they may hurt you."
"I have nothing to live for."
Burnham paused. "This is Timothy you're talking to, Teresa, not Phil Donahue. Don't pull that I'll Cry Tomorrow crap on me." He held his breath, praying that the line wouldn't go dead.
A tiny laugh squeaked forth from Teresa, and she said, "You're too much.''
"Tell me what happened."
"We had a break between charters. I was going to do some work on the boat. One of the Jacuzzis was leaking."
"Jacuzzis? You've got Jacuzzis on a sailboat?"
"And a sauna and a massage room. Anyway, a friend called and said she had a friend who had just broken up and was a mess and needed to get away, and would I take him for a little cruise? Well, you know me, I'm a sucker for a broken heart, so I said I would, and this boy came aboard."
"A boy?"
"Oh, all right, a young man. I'm not crazy, Timothy. He was a sweet little thing, and very sad, so I took him under my arm, and one thing led to another, and, well . . . here we are."
"Oh no you don't, Teresa. Step by step, if you please."
He heard Teresa sigh. "All right. We left Fort Lauderdale and sailed down the coast and hopped along the Keys. We spent a couple of days in Key West and had a ball. We left Key West, and I still had a week before I had to pick up my next charter, so I thought we'd take a spin to the Bahamas. This boy and I had become soulmates. It could have been more than that. It should have been more than that, but there was a problem: He isn't interested in girls, and I'm a girl."
"That is a problem."
"I was going mad. Biology was keeping us apart. Then the truth hit me like a ton of bricks."
"It did?"
"You remember I told you I was having all those operations?"
"Sure."
"I ran out of money before the end. Daddy wouldn't give me the money for the last operation. He thought soy beans and pork bellies were a better investment than turning a pitiful wreck of a Toddy into a joyous sprite named Teresa."
"You mean . . . you're not a girl?"
"Ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure. There's just one little item remaining."
"Called a—"
"You call it that if you want. I call it the devil's plaything. But yes. That hateful creature is still hanging around. I thought to myself: Well, maybe for once in its life, it can be useful."
"So you told him.”
"Not exactly. The night we left Key West, the other girls—the mate and her mate—went to bed early. I had the watch, and Ian—that's the boy—was with me in the cockpit. What an ironic name."
"Ian?"
"No. Cockpit. There was a nice breeze from the southwest, so we were on an easy broad reach. I could handle the wheel with my toes."
Burnham was impressed. "You've learned a lot in a year."
"I'm adaptable, Timothy. If I'm anything, I'm adaptable. Anyway, we were having a lovely time, but then he got anxious. He started to apologize: He liked me, he respected me, all that nonsense, but he just couldn't relate —his word—to a woman. I was in a fever. I couldn't stand it any longer. Maybe the Pinot Chardonnay made me do it, I don't know, but I stood up and tore off my shorts and showed him. 'It's all right!' I cried. 'I can be yours!' I knew this would solve our problem. He'd be enchanted."
"And?"
"He freaked out. He screamed. He pointed as if it was going to attack him. He jumped up on the fantail and tried to hide behind the backstay. I was terrified he was going to fall overboard. Or jump."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing! I just stood there. I was shocked. I mean, I expected him to be surprised, but I didn't think he'd go bananas. He looked like he'd seen an alien. It doesn't do much for a girl's self-esteem, I can tell you."
"No."
"I promised I wouldn't hurt him, but he wouldn't listen. He ran below and locked himself in his cabin. I tried to reason with him, but every time I tapped on his door, he yelled 'Rape!' and demanded to be put ashore. So I thought: Well, this little affair has gone about as far as it can go. I went to start the engine. I wasn't going to waste time sailing back. If the little sissy wanted to get home, I'd take him home."
"The engine wouldn't start."
"Right. We'd been having a problem with some of the injectors, but nothing serious. All of a sudden, it was serious."
"Why didn't you sail?"
"I tried. After about an hour, the southwest wind veered to the northwest, then to the north, then it settled in the northeast. You know what a northeast wind is like in the Gulf Stream."
"Garbage."
"It grew and grew and grew. I bet that by two in the morning it was blowing forty knots. Waves were breaking onto our midships. Down below, Ian was howling like a tortured cat, and one of the girls was throwing up all over everything. I don't mind telling you, I was scared out of my wits. I knew God was punishing me. I didn't know for what—just for being me, I guess. That got me depressed. After a while, I didn't care if we sank."
"You wouldn't sink. Those boats are built like steel."
"Not with a hole in the bow."
"What?"
"I told you one of the Jacuzzis was leaking? It turns out, a gasket in a return valve had worn away. The mate went down to turn on the bilge pumps and found out we were taking sea water up through the Jacuzzi in the bow. I couldn't keep pounding into the sea, or we'd fill."
"So you ran from it."
"I had to. I came down to bare poles and turned south."
"Didn't you know what was down there?"
"Of course I did! You think I wanted to come to this tacky dump? I put out a sea anchor to slow us down. If the stupid wind had stopped blowing, I wouldn't be here now. But it didn't, not until we were about fifteen minutes from being on Cuba. I had three choices: Turn around and head north again, with a foot of water belowdecks, and maybe run into another blow and this time sink for sure; try to beat my way around the Cuban coast and go south to the Caymans, which would take at least a couple of days if we didn't get fired on by Cuban patrol boats; or sail into Havana harbor, which was dead ahead. I sailed into the harbor."
"Wise choice. But why did you have to ask for asylum?"
"Asylum! I never asked for asylum! I asked for assistance."
''What? Who did you speak to?"
"Som
"Did you ask in English or Spanish?"
"God, Timothy! Who speaks Spanish?"
Burnham paused. He sent his mind forward two or three steps, hoping it would scan all the possibilities. Had the Cubans misunderstood? Had they deliberately set out to cause mischief?
"Is it true that you're threatening to blow up that Russian ship?"
''What Russian?" Teresa gasped. "Omigod! That thing is a Russian! I don't want to blow up anybody. I just tied a line to him because my anchor windlass shorted out, and if I put a hook down here, I won't be able to get it up."
"Sweet Jesus," Burnham said. "Who have you talked to?"
"Nobody, except that ... Oh my!"
"What?"
"I don't believe it."
"What?"
"That little putz."
"What, for crissakes!"
"As we were coming into the harbor, I heard Ian screaming out his porthole. Rape, pillage, carnage, the whole number. I thought that wasn't a very smart way for us to throw ourselves on the mercy of a Communist dictator, so I went below and dragged him out of his cabin. I told him our situation, but he wouldn't listen. He kept calling me names. So I punched him."
"You punched him."
"Well? I didn't hurt him, not really. I just bloodied his nose. Then I went up top. Five minutes later, I heard a commotion below. The mate had caught him broadcasting on the single sideband. She said he was saying 'Rape!' and 'Murder!' and a lot of dirty names into the radio. I don't know what-all he said, or to whom."
"Where is he now?"
"Lashed to the mast. Bound and gagged."
Burnham wondered if any of the information in the NSC telex had been true. "They say you refused to talk to the President."
"That I did do," Teresa said. "I don't like him."
"You don't like him." Burnham squeezed his eyebrows with his fingertips.
"No. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but I don't."
"Teresa ... let me tell you what the situation is."
"I just told you."
"Have you ever heard of Rashomon?”
"You think I'm illiterate?"
"You just told me your side of the story. Now I'm going to tell you the other side of the story, and, unfortunately, that other side is the current reality." He told her about the NSC telex, about the threat to the Russian tanker, about the SEAL teams poised to strike under cover of darkness, about the Cubans hoping for trouble, about the deadline.