XIII
[ONE]
The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0929 9 February 2007
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Mason Andrews was more than a little nervous when he entered the President’s study with Frederick P. Palmer, the United States attorney general.
He was fully aware that he was the assistant secretary of Homeland Security and that the secretary should be dealing with the President on this matter. Andrews had the previous evening telephoned the secretary, who was in Chicago, brought her up to speed, and asked her for direction. She had agreed with him that it was a very delicate area, and that proceeding carefully was obviously necessary. She said she’d like to sleep on the problem, and that he should call her back in the morning, say at about nine, before his nine-thirty appointment with the President.
When he had done so, he had been informed that the secretary was not available at the moment; something—not specified, but important—had come up and the secretary simply was not available.
Mr. Andrews then had had an unkind thought.
That bitch is covering her fat ass by staying out of the line of fire.
Again.
But, fully aware that one does not make an appointment on an urgent matter with the President of the United States and then break it, he was in the outer office at nine-twenty with the very-reluctant-to-be-there attorney general. It had been necessary to tell the attorney general that if the AG couldn’t find time in his schedule for the meeting, he would tell the President just that.
“All right, Andrews,” President Clendennen greeted them. “Make it quick.”
“Mr. Darby has been located, Mr. President,” Andrews announced.
“Ambassador Montvale was told to keep me posted. Why am I hearing this from you?”
“Sir, I don’t believe Ambassador Montvale knows about this.”
“I’m confused. I don’t like to be confused. Why don’t you start at the goddamn beginning, Andrews? Maybe that way ...”
“Yes, Mr. President. Sir, at half past four yesterday, Immigration, in response to the LDND order, notified the Secret Service that Mr. Darby had entered the United States—”
“In response to the what?” the President interrupted.
“The LDND order. That means ‘locate, do not detain.’”
“And that means?”
“When the subject of an LDND order is located by any agency, that agency notifies the agency that issued the order—in this case, the Secret Service—where and under what circumstances the subject was located. In this case, as I said, Immigration yesterday afternoon notified the Secret Service that Alexander Darby had arrived in Miami on a flight from Panama.”
“Cut to the chase, Andrews. And what did Darby have to say about Castillo and the Russians?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“He was arrested, right? He’s in custody?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re telling me the Immigration people had this guy, and then he got away? My God!”
“Sir, there never has been a warrant out on Mr. Darby—just the LDND order.”
“What’s the point in locating somebody and then not arresting him?”
“Sir, even if there is an arrest warrant,” the attorney general explained, “and in this case no warrant has been issued, it’s sometimes useful to see where the subject goes, and to whom he talks.”
“Well, where did Darby go, and who did he talk to?”
“He flew here, sir, into Reagan National,” Andrews said. “By that time, the Secret Service was on him, and they followed him to a residence at 7200 West Boulevard Drive in Alexandria. That site, sir, was already under Secret Service surveillance. It has been since the LDND order was issued. It is owned by Colonel Castillo.”
“Don’t tell me Castillo has been there, right under the nose of the Secret Service, all the time?”
“No, sir. We don’t believe that he is.”
“So, when you finally found out where this Darby character is, and who he was talking to, what did he say when you asked him where Castillo and the Russians are?”
“What happened at that point,” Andrews began, “was that Supervisory Special Agent McGuire—”
“I know Tom,” the President interrupted. “Good man, if it’s the same guy. Used to be on the presidential protection detail, right?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the man. Sir, McGuire notified me about Darby’s location, and first thing this morning, a minute or two after seven, I was at the door—”
“He notified you last night! Why didn’t you go over there last night?” the President demanded.
“It was after midnight, Mr. President.”
“So what?”
“Perhaps you’re right, Mr. President. I deferred to Mr. McGuire’s judgment. Now I realize that was probably a mistake, too.”
“Okay, so there you were—was McGuire with you . . . ?”
“Yes, sir.”
“... at the door of this house at seven in the morning. Then what happened?”
“At first, Mr. President, they wouldn’t even let us in. They had a lawyer, a Japanese gentleman, who said his name was Yung—”
“Sir,” the attorney general interjected, “I think there is a very good chance that this lawyer is a former FBI special agent named David W. Yung, Jr., who is also under a LDND order. And he’s of Chinese, not Japanese, ancestry—”
“Why are we looking for this ex-FBI agent-slash-lawyer of some kind of Oriental ancestry?” the President interrupted. “And what’s that got to do with anything?”
“He was one of Castillo’s men in OOA, Mr. President,” the attorney general said.
“So, what happened at the door?” the President asked.
“We identified ourselves, and asked if we could come in. Yung said not without a search warrant. He also said that if they did let us in, it would constitute a waiver of the owner’s rights against unlawful search, and they weren’t going to do that.”
“It has to be Yung,” the attorney general thought aloud. “An FBI agent, lawyer or not, would know about that decision of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.”
“So you didn’t get in. Then what?” the President said.
“We got in, sir,” Andrews said. “After I promised that I understood we were being admitted only as a compassionate gesture on the part of Mrs. Darby to get us out of the snow and the cold, and that she had not waived any of her rights vis-à-vis unlawful search and seizure. And they filmed us acknowledging that, sir.”
“They filmed you?” the President asked incredulously.
“Yes, sir. There was another man there with what looked to me like a professional movie camera.”
“And then ? Jesus Christ, cut to the goddamned chase!”
“Mr. Darby was in the kitchen, sir,” Andrews said.
“And did you ask him if he knew where Colonel Castillo and the two Russians are, and if you did, what did he say?”
“He was evasive, sir. And the lawyer said that if Mr. Darby found himself being interrogated by a federal officer, he would advise him, as his lawyer, not to answer any questions the answers to which might tend to either incriminate him, or cause him to violate the CIA secrecy laws which forbid him to ever disclose anything he learned while he was an officer of the Clandestine Service.”
“Mr. President, I’m afraid we’re not going to learn much from Mr. Darby,” the attorney general said.
“I was beginning to suspect that,” the President said, thickly sarcastic.
“There is one thing we can do, Mr. President,” Andrews said.
“What’s that?”
“We can squeeze Mrs. Darby. When she told McGuire her husband was in Ushuaia with his girlfriend, information on which Ambassador Montvale based his decision to go to Ushuaia, she had invited McGuire into her home. She had waived her rights when she did so. Giving false information to a federal officer is a felony.”
The President considered that a long moment.
Then he picked up his telephone and said, “Come in here.”
A secretary and a Secret Service agent appeared almost immediately.
“Are we in touch with Ambassador Montvale?”
“Yes, sir,” the Secret Service agent said. “He’s in Ushuaia, Argentina. There’s a communications radio in his Gulfstream III.”
“Send the ambassador a message, please,” the President said. “‘Mr. Darby is in Alexandria, Virginia. You can come home now, repeat, now.’”
“Yes, sir,” the secretary said. “Is that all of it, Mr. President?”
“That’s all of it. Get that right out, please.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the Secret Service agent said.
When they had left, closing the door behind them, the President turned to Mason Andrews.
“You heard that, Andrews?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you think, when the ambassador gets back here, that Wolf News is going to take a picture of him in a courtroom, with his hand on a Bible, swearing before God and the world that he—my director of National Intelligence—went halfway around the world on my orders as commander in chief on the word of a housewife having her little joke at our expense, you’re even more incredibly stupid than you showed you were this morning, Andrews.
“Now get the fuck out of the goddamned Oval Office and never come back!”
[TWO]
1155 9 February 2007
Word had quickly spread among the inner circle of White House functionaries that President Clendennen’s current rage was one that would go down in history. So it was with a certain trepidation that White House Press Secretary John David “Jack” Parker stood at the door of the President’s study and waited for permission to enter.
It was almost a minute in coming, but finally President Clendennen signaled with his fingers for Parker to enter.
“And what bad news are you bringing, Porky?” Clendennen asked.
“I’m afraid it’s not good news, Mr. President.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Clendennen asked rhetorically. “Are you aware of what happened in here this morning?”
“No, sir. I understand the attorney general and Assistant Secretary Andrews asked for an appointment, but—”
“You know where Ambassador Montvale is?”
“In Argentina.”
“The stupid sonofabitch! Director of National Intelligence, my ass. His title should be Director of National Stupidity. He’d damned well better be on his way back here.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. President, that I don’t understand.”
The President related what had transpired earlier in his office, ending his narration with a question: “How would you describe, Porky, Ambassador Stupid standing up in court, with Wolf News filming him, and swearing on a Bible that he went to some goddamn place I can’t pronounce in Argentina on my orders looking for a man who was just across the Potomac in Alexandria?”
Parker took a deep breath before replying.
“Sir, I would describe that as a public relations disaster.”
“You’re goddamn right it would be. But what could be worse than that?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“How about some press sonofabitch—C. Harry Whelan, Jr., for example—asking Ambassador Stupid why he was looking for this Darby guy in the first place. That would be worse, Porky. And Ambassador Stupid would be stupid enough to tell him.”
“Speaking of Mr. Whelan, sir ...”
“Dare I hope he’s been run over by a truck?”
“Mr. Whelan came to see me just now, sir.”
“Close your mouth and put your hand on your wallet, Porky. I’m afraid to ask why.”
“Sir, Mr. Whelan said he was about to publish this, and wanted to give us a chance to correct any errors he might have made before he did.”
Parker handed the President a sheet of paper.
Clendennen snatched it, and read:
BY C. HARRY WHELAN, JR.
COPYRIGHT 2007
WORLDWIDE RIGHTS RESERVED
SLUG: WHITE HOUSE LAUNCHED STRIKE ON IRANIAN BIOLOGICAL WARFARE FACTORY IN CONGO BASED ON INFORMATION FROM RUSSIAN DEFECTORS IN HANDS OF SECRET, POSSIBLY ILLEGAL, “PRIVATE CIA” CONTROLLED BY PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON—(INSERT DATE) THIS REPORTER HAS LEARNED THAT THE STRIKE ON THE ALLEGED IRANIAN BIOLOGICAL WARFARE LABORATORY IN THE CONGO WAS BASED SOLELY ON INFORMATION GATHERED BY A SUPER-SECRET INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORTING DIRECTLY TO THE PRESIDENT.
THE ORGANIZATION, HIDDEN INSIDE THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND CALLED THE OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WAS HEADED BY A LEGENDARY ARMY SPECIAL FORCES OFFICER, LIEUTENANT COLONEL C. G. CASTILLO, AND STAFFED WITH PERSONNEL, SOME DESCRIBED BY INTELLIGENCE INSIDERS AS “UNSAVORY,” FROM THE CIA, THE FBI, AND THE ARMED FORCES.
THE ORGANIZATION APPARENTLY OPERATED WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT, DID NOT ANSWER TO THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, NOR MAINTAIN LIAISON WITH OTHER INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, AND WAS APPARENTLY FUNDED BY THE PRESIDENT’S “CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS.”
WHEN IT APPEARED TO THE OOA THAT THE CIA WAS ABOUT TO BUNGLE THEIR ATTEMPT TO CAUSE THE DEFECTION OF TWO VERY SENIOR RUSSIAN SVR OFFICERS IN AUSTRIA, THE OOA SNATCHED THE RUSSIANS FROM THE CIA IN VIENNA AND TOOK THEM TO AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES.
PRESIDENT CLENDENNEN———
BREAK MORE TO FOLLOW
“Sonofabitch!” the President said. He’d said it twice while reading the story, and a third time now that he’d finished.
Jack Parker announced: “He says, Mr. President, that he will give us seventy-two hours to respond.”
“Sonofabitch!” the President said again. “Porky, the way this goddamn thing is written, it sounds as if I’m responsible. It doesn’t even mention my predecessor, goddamn him to hell.”
Parker, who wondered if the President was calling the wrath of the Almighty upon the head of his predecessor, or on that of Mr. Whelan, did not reply.
The President said nothing for sixty seconds, during which time the contortions of his face and the somewhat angry tapping of his fingers on his desk suggested he was deep in thought.
“Deny it, Porky,” he said finally. “Tell the sonofabitch to publish anything he wants. We’ll just deny everything. I didn’t know a goddamn thing about the OOA or Castillo until Ambassador Stupid walked into the Oval Office the day after my predecessor, that sonofabitch, dropped dead. Just deny any knowledge. What’s he going to do, ask Castillo, for Christ’s sake?”
“Mr. President, I don’t think that will work,” Parker said.
“Why not?”
Parker handed him another sheet of paper.
“Mr. Whelan said he thought you might ... What he said, sir, was that our trying to stonewall wouldn’t bother him at all; that it was always a better story when you can prove the White House lied. He said it was only because of his admiration for you that he was giving you the chance to see what he’s going to write, so it wouldn’t come as a sucker punch. And so far as asking Colonel Castillo is concerned, Mr. Whelan says the only way to keep him from publishing would be for Colonel Castillo, personally, to convince him he had his facts wrong. I had the impression, sir, that he thinks we have Colonel Castillo and are hiding him someplace where the press can’t get to him.”
As Clendennen looked at the sheet, Parker added, “Then he gave me that, which he says he will publish if we deny any of the facts in the first story.”
“Sonofabitch!” Clendennen said again as he read:
BY C. HARRY WHELAN, JR.
COPYRIGHT 2007
WORLDWIDE RIGHTS RESERVED
SLUG: FORMER CIA STATION CHIEF IN VIENNA CONFIRMS “PRESIDENTIAL CIA” STOLE TWO VIP RUSSIAN DEFECTORS FROM HER; SAYS IT COST HER HER JOB
WASHINGTON—(INSERT DATE) ELEANOR DILLWORTH, A TWENTY-NINE-YEAR VETERAN OF THE CIA’S CLANDESTINE SERVICE, HAS TOLD THIS REPORTER THAT THE OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS—THE SUPER-SECRET, POSSIBLY ILLEGAL INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATION OPERATING OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE AND ANSWERING ONLY TO THE PRESIDENT—DID IN FACT MAKE OFF WITH TWO VERY SENIOR RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS AND TOOK THEM TO AN UNKNOWN DESTINATION “HOURS BEFORE” THEY WERE TO BOARD A CIA AIRCRAFT SENT TO VIENNA, AUSTRIA, TO FLY THEM TO THE UNITED STATES.
DILLWORTH TOLD THIS REPORTER————BREAK MORE TO FOLLOW
“Can’t we shut this Dillworth broad up?” the President asked. “Why is she determined to embarrass my administration?”
“Sir, I believe she thinks she was unfairly treated after Castillo stole the Russians from under her nose. She was relieved of her duties in Vienna and brought back to Langley.”
“Jesus Christ, didn’t it occur to her that if she allowed Castillo to steal the Russians from her that that’s proof she wasn’t doing her fucking job?”
The President reached for the red telephone on his desk.
“Get me Jack Powell,” he ordered, then slammed the handset back in the cradle.
The protocol dealing with telephone calls between the President and those on the priority list—of whom John Powell, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was one—required the person called to “be available”—in other words, be on the line—within sixty seconds.
Thirty-two seconds after the President had slammed the handset into its cradle, a blue light-emitting diode on the cradle began to flash.
The President grabbed the handset and began the conversation by asking, “Why the hell did you fire this Dillworth woman?”
Then he pushed the LOUDSPEAKER button on the cradle, so that Parker could hear the conversation.
“You’re speaking of Eleanor Dillworth, Mr. President?” the DCI asked.
“The one with twenty-nine years in the Clandestine Service. Used to be our head spy in Vienna. That one.”
“She wasn’t fired, Mr. President.”
“That’s not what she told C. Harry Whelan, Jr. She also told him that our friend Castillo stole the Russians from under her nose. Unless I can somehow talk him out of it, Whelan’s going to publish that in I don’t know how goddamn many hundred newspapers and chat about it on Wolf News. That’s going to make her and the CIA look pretty foolish, wouldn’t you say?”
“Mr. President, Miss Dillworth has not been fired. What happened was that it was decided—after they found the dead Russian in a taxicab outside our embassy ...”
“And when the CIA looks pretty foolish, this administration looks pretty foolish, wouldn’t you say?”
“. . . the decision was made to get Miss Dillworth out of Vienna to avoid undue press attention there.”
“The last I heard, Austrians can’t vote in our elections. Who the hell cares about Viennese newspapers?”
“Perhaps that decision was ill-advised, Mr. President.”
“Who made it? Ambassador Stupid? You’ve heard about that? Ambassador Stupid is in that town with the funny name at the bottom of Argentina looking for this guy Darby, who is in Alexandria.”
“Yes, Mr. President, that has been brought to my attention.”
“I asked you who made the decision to fire this female.”
“I did, Mr. President. At the time—”
“At the time, it was a stupid decision. Well, how are we going to shut this woman up?”
“Mr. President, I just don’t see how that’s possible.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Mr. President, there is some good news. Actually, I was just about to call you when you called me.”
“Let’s have the good news. God knows we need some.”
“I just got off the phone with Frank Lammelle, sir. He said that General Naylor has sent General McNab to find Castillo.”
“Where did he send him? Nome, Alaska? I don’t think we’ve looked there yet. Or in Timbuktu.”
“I believe General McNab went to South America, sir.”
“Haven’t we already looked there?”
“Sir, Colonel Castillo spent most of his career working for General McNab. They have a close personal relationship. It’s possible that Castillo would turn over the Russians to McNab.”
“That raises a presumption and a question: We’re presuming that McNab can find Castillo. And if he does, what if Castillo tells him to go fuck himself? He already told Ambassador Stupid and the colonel Naylor sent down there with him to do that.”
“As far as presuming that General McNab can find Castillo, sir, I think we can safely do that. People with knowledge of Castillo’s location who would not tell anyone else would tell General McNab. Because of their close relationship.”
“I wonder.”
“And after General McNab locates Castillo, there is a Plan B in case Castillo remains intractable.”
“Which is?”
“Lammelle and I feel, Mr. President, that once Castillo knows he has been found, he would agree to a face-to-face meeting with McNab and Lammelle. To see if some accommodation could be reached. He knows he can’t remain on the run forever.”
“What do you think he wants that we’re prepared to give him?”
“That doesn’t matter, sir. What we’re trying to do is arrange the meeting. General Naylor, General McNab, meeting at a place of Castillo’s choice, a place he will feel is safe.”
“And what will that accomplish?”
“The place will not be as safe as Castillo thinks.”
“How are you going to arrange that?”
“At this moment, there is an agency airplane—a Gulfstream V—sitting at Saint Petersburg-Clearwater International. On it are four officers of the Clandestine Service. When the meeting is set up and Lammelle and Naylor go to meet him, the airplane will follow them. Anywhere in the world.”
“That sounds too simple,” Clendennen said after a moment. “It presumes that Castillo won’t suspect the CIA would try something like that. And from what I’ve seen of the sonofabitch, whenever he gets in a battle of wits with the CIA, you lose.”
“What we think will happen is this, Mr. President. We believe Castillo will announce that he will be at a certain location. Probably in Argentina. He will not be there. His people will be. They will search General Naylor and Mr. Lammelle. In Mr. Lammelle’s briefcase, skillfully concealed, they will find the very latest version of an AFC Corporation GPS transmitter. It permits the tracking of a target within six feet anywhere in the world. They will naturally confiscate it before Lammelle and the general are permitted to get back on the airplane to go to where Castillo will actually meet them.”
“Leaving the four spooks on your airplane where?”
“Prepared to follow Lammelle and Naylor to wherever the chase leads them. There is a second GPS transmitter concealed in the heel of Lammelle’s shoe. And when he actually sees Castillo and hopefully the Russians, he will stamp his foot three times in rapid succession, which will cause the transmitter to send a signal that will mean, ‘We’ve found him. Come and get him.’”
“That sounds like something you saw in a bad spy movie,” the President said. “And what happens then? Castillo says, ‘Okay. You got us,’ and he and the Russians get on the airplane? Bullshit.”
“The Clandestine Service officers are armed with a weapon that fires a dart that causes the target, within fifteen seconds, to fall into a harmless sleep lasting between two and three hours.”
“And then they are taken where?”
“To the nearest airport served by Aeroflot, Mr. President. All that has to be done is for us to tell Mr. Sergei Murov where they are. He will arrange for the repatriation of the Russians.”
“And the ‘expatriation’ of Castillo,” the President said. “Does that bother you, Jack?”
“I’ve given that some thought, Mr. President. Frankly, I don’t like it. But if Colonel Castillo is the price the Russians want for their Congo-X, I don’t see where you have much of a choice. I have even come to think that Castillo would understand why you were forced to that conclusion.”
“Well, Jack, you know what Harry Truman said: ‘The buck stops here.’ I have to do what I think is best for the country.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have serious doubts about this plan of yours, Jack. But right now I don’t see we have much choice but to go forward with it. When does Lammelle say we’ll hear something from General McNab?”
“He didn’t, sir. I would guess within seventy-two hours, one way or the other.”
“Ambassador Stupid will be back from Argentina a lot sooner than seventy-two hours. Maybe he’ll have some ideas, as unlikely as that sounds.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not to go any further, Jack, but as soon as I can figure out how to get rid of him quietly, Montvale’s going to have to go. That job will be open. You get Castillo and the Russians on that Aeroflot airplane and it’s yours.”
“I’m sure that was another very difficult decision for you to make, Mr. President. And I would be honored to take over, if you decide that’s what should be done.”
“Let me know of any developments, Jack. Any.”
And then the President hung up.
[THREE]
Level Four BioLab Two
U.S. Army Medical Research Institute
Fort Detrick, Maryland
1510 9 February 2007
The senior scientific officer of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute—Colonel J. Porter Hamilton (B.S., USMA, ’84; M.D., Harvard Medical School, ’89; Ph.D., Molecular Physics, MIT, ’90; Ph.D., Biological Chemistry, Oxford, ’91)—and his principal assistant—Master Sergeant Kevin Dennis, USA (Certificate of High School Equivalency for Veterans, Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School, Baltimore, Maryland, ’98)—were both attired in the very latest Level Four chemical/ biological hazardous material protective gear.
It was constructed of a multilayer silver-colored fabric completely enclosing their bodies. The helmet of the garment had a large glass plate so they could see pretty well, and was equipped with a communications system that when activated provided automatic video and audio recording of whatever they said and whatever they were looking at. It also provided access to both the BioLab Two and Fort Detrick switchboards and—a modification personally installed by Colonel Hamilton, assisted by Master Sergeant Dennis—encrypted communication with an underground laboratory at the AFC Corporation in Las Vegas, Nevada. Finally, there was provision for Colonel Hamilton and Master Sergeant Dennis to communicate with each other privately; no one could hear what they were saying and it was not recorded.
Each suit was connected by two twelve-inch-diameter telescoping hoses on their backs to equipment which provided purified air under pressure to the suits, and also purified the “used” air when it flowed out of the suits.
Colonel Hamilton had more than once commented that when he looked at Kevin Dennis “suited up,” he thought he looked as if they were in a science fiction movie and would not have been at all surprised if Bruce Willis joined them to help in the slaying of an extraterrestrial monster.
There was all sorts of equipment in the laboratory, including an electron microscope which displayed what it was examining on as many as five fifty-four-inch monitors.
Colonel Hamilton placed the communication function of the helmet on INTER ONLY, and then asked, vis-à-vis what was on the left of the five monitors, “Opinion, Kevin?”
“Colonel, that shit’s as dead as a doornail.”
“Let us not leap, Kevin, to any conclusions that, if erroneous, might quite literally prove disastrous.”
“Okay, but that shit’s as dead as a doornail.”
“What are we looking at?”
Master Sergeant Dennis consulted a clipboard that was attached, through the suit, to the six-inch stump that was all that remained of his right arm.
“Batch two one seven decimal five.”
“And what have we done to this?” Colonel Hamilton inquired.
“The same thing we’ve done to two one seven decimals one through four.”
“Which is?”
“Fifteen minutes of the helium at minus two-seventy Celsius.”
Minus two hundred seventy degrees Celsius is minus four hundred fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit. To find a lower temperature, it is necessary to go into deep space.
“Present temperature of substance?”
“Plus twenty-one decimal one one one one Celsius, or plus seventy Fahrenheit.”
“And it has been at this temperature for how long a period of time?”
“Twenty-four hours, sixteen minutes.”
“What was the length of thawing time?”
“Exposed to plus twenty-one decimal one one one one Celsius, it was brought up from minus two hundred seventy Celsius in eight hours and twelve minutes.”
“With what indications of chemical or biological activity during any part of the thawing process?”
“None, nada, zip.”
“Sergeant Dennis, I am forced to concur. That shit is as dead as a doornail.”
“And so’s all of batch two one seven. You give Congo-X fifteen minutes of the helium at minus two hundred seventy Celsius, and it’s dead.”
“It would appear so.”
“Who are you going to tell, Colonel?”
“I have been considering that question, as a matter of fact. Why are you asking?”
“I don’t like what Aloysius told us they’re trying to do to Colonel Castillo.”
“Frankly, neither do I. But we are soldiers, Kevin. Sworn to obey the orders of officers appointed over us.”
“But what I’ve been wondering, Colonel, is what happens if we tell the CIA and somehow it gets out. Either we tell the Russians, ‘Fuck you, we learned how to kill this shit’ or they find out on their own?”
“Frankly, Kevin, I don’t understand the question.”
“Two things we don’t know. One, how much Congo-X the Russians have.”
“True.”
“And, two, we don’t know if they know how to kill it. But let’s say they do know that helium at near absolute zero kills it. You know how much we had to pay for the last helium we bought?”
“I entrust the details of logistics to my trusted principal assistant,” Hamilton said.
“A little over fifteen bucks a liter. You know how many liters it took to kill batch two-seventeen?”
“I don’t think, Kevin, that cost is of much consequence in the current situation.”
“Eleven liters to freeze about a half a kilo. Call it a hundred and sixty bucks. And that was freezing decimal two kilos at a time. I haven’t a clue how much helium it would take to freeze just one beer keg full of Congo-X. But a bunch.”
“I am not following your line of thought, Kevin.”
“I had to go to four different lab supply places to get the last shipment. Not one of them could ship us one hundred liters, which is what I was trying to buy. There’s not much of a demand for it out there, so there’s not a lot of it around. And we don’t have the capability of making large amounts of it, or of transporting it once it’s been liquefied.
“The Russians know this. If they hear we know how to kill Congo-X, they’re liable to use it on us—whether or not the President gives them Castillo and the Russians—before we can make enough helium to protect ourselves.”
“We don’t know how much Congo-X they have,” Hamilton said.
“We have to find out, Colonel, and I’d rather have Castillo try to find out than the CIA.”
“But is that decision ours to make, Kevin?”
“Well, it’s not mine, Colonel, and I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.”
Colonel Hamilton tapped his silver-gloved fingertips together for perhaps thirty seconds.
“Kevin, there is a military axiom that the worst action to take is none at all. If you don’t try to control a situation, your enemy certainly will.”
“That’s a little over my head, Colonel.”
“Switch your commo to the Casey network,” Colonel Hamilton ordered.
[FOUR]
“So what’s new by you, Jack?” Aloysius Francis Casey (Ph.D., MIT) asked ten seconds later of Colonel J. Porter Hamilton (Ph.D., MIT), addressing him by his very rarely used intimate nickname.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology had brought together Casey and Hamilton, although they had not known each other at the school, or even been there at the same time. They had met at a seminar for geopolitical interdependence conducted by that institution, for distinguished alumni, by invitation only.
Both had accepted the invitation because it had sounded interesting. And both had fled after the second hour, and met in a Harvard Square bar, by chance selecting adjacent bar stools.
Dr. Casey had begun the conversation—and their friendship—by asking two questions: “You were in there, right?” and then, after Dr. Hamilton (in mufti) nodded: “You think that moron actually believed that bullshit he was spouting?”
Dr. Hamilton had been wondering the same thing, and said so: “I have been wondering just that.”
“Aloysius Casey,” Casey had said, putting out his hand.
“My name is Hamilton,” Dr. Hamilton replied, and then, having made the split-second decision that if Casey were one of the distinguished alumni, he would have said, “I’m Dr. Casey” and not wanting to hurt the feelings of the maintenance worker/ticket taker/security officer or whatever he was by referring to himself with that honorific, finished, “Jack Hamilton.”
He hadn’t used “Jack” in many years. He still had many painful memories of his plebe year at West Point during which he had been dubbed “Jack Hammer” by upperclassmen. If he was a bona fide Jack Hammer, the upperclassmen had told him, he would do fifty push-ups in half the time this fifty had taken him. This was usually followed by, “Try it again, Jack Hammer.”
“Hey,” Casey had said, grabbing the bartender’s arm, “give my pal Jack another of what he’s having and I’ll have another boilermaker.”
When the drinks were served, Casey touched glasses and offered a toast, “May the winds of fortune sail you. May you sail a gentle sea. May it always be the other guy who says, ‘This drink’s on me.’”
“In that case, I insist,” Hamilton had said.
“You can get the next one, Jack,” Casey had replied.
Three drinks later, Jack asked Aloysius what his role in the seminar for geopolitical interdependence had been.
“Well, I went there, of course. And every once in a while, I slip them a few bucks—you know, payback for what I got—and that gets me on the invitation list, and every once in a while I’m dumb enough to accept. What about you, Jack, what do you do?”
“I’m a soldier.”
“No shit? Me, too. Or I was. I was a commo sergeant on a Special Forces A-team. What branch?”
“Originally infantry. Now medical corps.”
“No shit? I’m impressed. What do you do?”
“I’m involved in biological research. What about you?”
“I try to move data around. I make stuff that does.”
At that point, Colonel Hamilton experienced an epiphany.
“The AFC Corporation. You’re that Aloysius Francis Casey.”
“Guilty.”
“My lab is full of your equipment.”
“How’s it doing?”
“I couldn’t function without it,” Colonel Hamilton said. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am we’ve met.”
A week later, Colonel Hamilton had visited the AFC Laboratories in Las Vegas. In the course of explaining how he used AFC data equipment in his Fort Detrick laboratory, and what kind of capabilities in that area he would like to have if that was possible, he of course had to get into some of the specifics of the work of his laboratory.
Three weeks after that, while in Las Vegas to view the prototypes of the equipment Casey was developing for him, Hamilton was introduced to some of Casey’s Las Vegas friends. He quickly came to think of them as “those people in Las Vegas.” And then, gradually, he came to understand that he had become one of them.
“Aloysius, I don’t want those people to hear this conversation.”
“Ouch! You know the rules, Jack. What one knows, everybody knows. That’s the way it works.”
“Then I can’t talk to you. Goodbye, Aloysius. And tell those people goodbye, too. Hamilton out.”
Colonel Hamilton then signaled to Sergeant Dennis that they were leaving the sealed laboratory. The process took ten minutes, and included both chemical and purified water showers and then fresh clothing.
When they came through the final airtight door, four people were waiting for them—two women and two men, all cleared for Top Secret BioLab.
Hamilton knew that at least one of them, possibly two, were reporting to the CIA. And he strongly suspected that one of them was reporting to the Russians, either through an intermediary or directly to the Russian rezident. And he thought it entirely likely that one or more of them was on the payroll of those people in Las Vegas.
He was greatly frustrated that neither he nor Kevin Dennis—although they had set many traps—had been able to positively identify even one of them.
So they lived with the problem, following the adage that a devil one knows is better than a devil one does not.
“There have been some indications that we are making some progress,” Colonel Hamilton announced to them. “And some disturbing signs that we are yet again on a path leading nowhere. We won’t know more until tomorrow morning. Make sure everything is secure, and then you may leave. Please be on time in the morning; we have a busy schedule tomorrow.”
When they had gone, Kevin Dennis asked, “What is Aloysius going to do, Colonel?”
“I really don’t know, Kevin, but I can’t take the risk that what I want to say to him will go any further than him.”
“You think he will call back?”
Hamilton shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Hamilton said. “I’m taking some small solace from the motto of those two brilliant young men who started Yahoo: ‘You Always Have Other Options.’ But between you and me, I have no idea what other options there might be.”
Thirty seconds later, both Hamilton’s and Dennis’s CaseyBerrys vibrated.
It was Casey.
“I see that you’re both on,” his voice announced as it returned from a twenty-four-thousand-mile trip into space.
“Well, Aloysius,” Hamilton said, “how nice to hear from you. Say hello to Aloysius, Kevin.”
“Hello, Aloysius,” Dennis said.
“Jack,” Casey said, “do I have to say I wouldn’t do this for anybody but you?”
“How about Castillo? Would you cut some of those people out of the loop if it would keep him from being thrown to the Russians?”
“I called back, didn’t I?”
“And not only are those people not going to hear this conversation, but I have your word that you won’t tell them anything about it?”
“You have my word, Jack, but I’m damned uncomfortable with this. I don’t like lying to those people.” He paused, then added, “And in my book not telling somebody something is the same thing as lying.”
“What I’m afraid of is that one—or more—of them has either concluded, or will conclude, that if Castillo and the Russians are the price for the Russian stock of Congo-X, the President was right to agree to pay it.”
“In other words, you don’t trust them. Jesus Christ, Jack, you know who they are!”
“Their most endearing quality to me is their ruthlessness,” Hamilton said. “I daresay they wouldn’t be as rich as they are without that characteristic. But I have noticed a tendency on the part of wealthy ruthless people to regard people on their payroll as expendable.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think Colonel Castillo made a mistake in taking that money from those people when he began this project. What was it, two hundred thousand dollars?”
“That’s all he asked for. They’d have given him whatever he asked for. A couple of million, if that’s what he wanted.”
“If he took only two dollars, people like those people would still have felt, ‘He took the money, he’s ours. We can do with him what we decide is in the best interests of the country.’”
After a moment’s hesitation, Casey said, “I’m one of those people, Jack. And so are you.”
“You and I are functionaries, Aloysius. Useful, but not, so to speak, anointed, as they are, by the Almighty. Have those people asked you what you think of the President’s willingness to sell Castillo and the Russian spooks—without whom that laboratory in the Congo would still be manufacturing this obscene substance—to the Russians?”
“They didn’t have to ask me. They know how I would feel about that.”
“They haven’t asked me either, Aloysius, what I think about it. Nor have they solicited my suggestions vis-à-vis what should be done about it by ‘we people.’ Which is what triggered my line of thought in this area. Have you considered the possibility that those people simply don’t care what we think, Aloysius?”
There was a thirty-second silence which seemed much longer.
“Jesus Christ, Jack,” Casey said finally, “you’re right. I’m ashamed to admit that I never questioned anything those people did, or asked me to do. Well, fuck them!”
“It’s not black-and-white, Aloysius. Those people do more good than harm. But when the harm they’re capable of might be directed at people like Castillo and the Russians, I can’t go along.”
“Didn’t you hear me say ‘Fuck them’?”
“Don’t say that to those people. Let them think they are still on Mount Olympus graciously protecting people like you and me—and of course the United States—from our ignorance.”
“Okay.”
“Do those people know where Castillo is?”
“Yeah. Of course. They have his position indicator on their laptops. So do you. He’s at his grandmother’s place in Mexico.” Casey paused, then added, “Shit! You think maybe somebody already told the CIA?!”
“I have to think that’s possible. Can you devise a spurious position indicator for him?”
“Where do you want him to start moving to in twenty seconds, Jack?”
“Doesn’t he have family in Germany? Do you know where?”
“Yeah. Outside Frankfurt. But what about Budapest?”
“What’s in Budapest?”
“A guy on Charley’s net. He’s sort of like an uncle to him. Billy Kocian?”
“I don’t know the name.”
“Good guy. Trust me.”
“Budapest sounds fine.”
“I can call Billy and tell him what’s happening. And ... what I could do, Jack, is put Charley’s position indicator on one of those boats that sails up and down the Danube between Vienna and Budapest. That would drive those people bonkers wondering what the hell he’s up to.”
“A splendid idea!”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
“Aloysius, do you—or your people—ever work with extremely low temperatures, using gases in the minus two-hundred-degrees Celsius area?”
“All the time. The colder you get something, the faster everything electrical moves. Twice a week, I say, ‘Eureka! This will work!’ and then everything that cold turns brittle and shatters when somebody in Los Angeles or Chicago burps, and we’re back to Step Fucking One.”
“Helium?”
“Of course. It’s a little pricey, but you can go down to about minus two-seventy Celsius with helium.”
“You’ve got a pretty good source of supply for helium?”
“Yeah. Several of them. Where are you going with this, Jack?”
“You could order, say, a thousand liters, two thousand, even more, of helium without attracting much attention?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because we may need at least that much to kill Congo-X.”
“Helium kills Congo-X?”
“Fifteen minutes in a helium bath at minus two-seventy Celsius kills it.”
“So it can be killed! I was really getting worried about that.”
“You were not alone,” Hamilton said. “We don’t know how much the Russians have. I suspect that if the President doesn’t give them Castillo and the Russians very soon, they will deliver more of it to encourage him to do so. My concern is that there will be an accident when they do so. I—”
“I get the picture,” Casey interrupted. “I’ll load what helium I have here . . . maybe three hundred liters, maybe a little more ... on my Gulfstream. As soon as we know where the Russians have sent the new Congo-X, the helium will be there in no more than three hours. And I’ll lay my hands on as much more as I can get as soon as I can.”
“Aloysius, we can’t let those people learn any of this.”
“I’m not as dumb as I look and sometimes act, Jack. I already figured that out.”
“Good man!”
“As soon as we hang up here, I’ll get through to Charley, and tell him both what’s going on and to get the hell off Grandma’s place as soon as he can.”
“Splendid!”
[FIVE]
Apartment 606
The Watergate Apartments
2639 I Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0755 10 February 2007
When Roscoe J. Danton finally found the ringing house telephone in the living room and picked it up, he was not in a very gracious mood.
Mr. Danton had returned to Washington four hours before after a fifteen-hour flight from Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina, whence he had traveled—on what, he had concluded, was a wild-goose chase that belonged in The Guinness Book of World Records—with Ambassador Charles M. Montvale and Montvale’s executive assistant—The Honorable Truman Ellsworth—and four CIA spooks to locate Alexander Darby, who allegedly could point him to Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo.
The Gulfstream III twin-engine jet aircraft had been noisy and crowded. What food there had been was damned near inedible. The toilet had stopped up. And because there had been no functioning socket into which to plug his laptop, once its battery had gone dead, he couldn’t do any work.
Mentally, he had composed a blistering piece that would subject Montvale and Ellsworth to the scorn of the world. But even as he’d done that, he knew he would never write it. He not only felt sorry for them, but had come to like them.
He also had spent a good deal of time trying to come up with a version of what had happened to tell Christopher J. Waldron, the managing editor of the Times-Post, something that would not result in Waldron concluding that Roscoe J. Danton had either been drunk or was a moron or both.
He had gotten to bed a few minutes before four.
And now the fucking house phone goes off!
In the five years I’ve lived in the Watergate, I haven’t talked on the goddamn thing five times!
“What?” he snarled into the instrument.
“Mr. Danton, this is Gerry in the garage.”
“And how may I be of assistance, Gerry?”
“There’s something wrong with your car, Mr. Danton. The alarm keeps going off.”
“That happens, Gerry”—As you should know, you fucking cretin. You work in the garage—“when someone bumps into it. It’ll stop blowing the horn and flashing the headlights in three minutes.”
“Yeah, I know, but yours keeps going off. This is the fifth time it’s gone off. You’re going to have to do something.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Well, you could disconnect the battery. That’d shut the alarm system off.”
“Gerry, if you could do that for me, I’d be happy to make it worth your while. How does ten dollars sound?”
“Sounds fine to me, Mr. Danton, but your car is locked and I have to get under the hood to disconnect the battery. You can’t open the hood from outside.”
In the background Danton could then hear the sound of a horn going bleep-bleep-bleep.
“There it goes again,” Gerry said unnecessarily.
Roscoe Danton sighed audibly.
“I’ll be right down,” he said.
Which means I’ll have to get dressed. I can’t go down there in my underwear.
There were three men watching the blinking headlights on Roscoe’s car. One of them had sort of a uniform on, and was presumably Gerry. The other two were wearing suits.
Which means they probably live here, which means I will shortly get one of those fucking letters from the tenants’ association demanding to know how I dare disturb the peace and tranquillity of the Watergate Apartments, blowing my horn in this outrageous way.
As he approached his car, the lights stopped blinking and the horn stopped bleating.
“Why hello, Roscoe,” one of the men in suits said. “Nice to see you again. But we are going to have to stop meeting this way. People will talk.”
I am actually losing my mind. I’m hallucinating.
How could Alexander Darby possibly be standing next to my car in the Watergate garage?
“My name is Yung, Mr. Danton,” the other man in a suit said, putting out his hand. “I’m glad to meet you. Alex has told me a good deal about you.”
Alex Darby said, “Gerry, we can take it from here. Thanks very much for your help.”
“Anytime,” Gerry said, and took the extended twenty-dollar bill and walked toward his booth near the entrance.
“Got your passport with you, Roscoe?” Darby asked.
In a Pavlovian reflex, Danton patted his suit jacket pocket, and immediately regretted it.
“Good,” Yung said. “If you want to talk to Colonel Castillo, you’re going to need it.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is David W. Yung. I’m Colonel Castillo’s attorney.”
“Did you find Ushuaia interesting, Roscoe?” Darby asked.
“How do you know about that?”
“Well, as the saying goes, ‘You can take the man out of the agency, but you can’t take the agency out of the man.’”
Yung put in: “What we’re going to do, Roscoe—you don’t mind if I call you Roscoe, do you?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“If you’re going to be difficult, Roscoe, not a problem,” Yung said. “We’ll just leave and go find C. Harry Whelan, Jr. We know he also wants to meet Colonel Castillo. We’d rather have you, but only if you want to go along. We’re not going to drug you, or anything like that, and take you against your will.”
“Take me where?”
“I’ll tell you what we have in mind if you let me call you Roscoe. If you do, in turn you may call me Two-Gun.”
I’m smiling. I have every right to be royally pissed.
And maybe I should even be frightened—was there an implied threat in that “We’re not going to drug you”?
But what I’m doing is smiling.
“Two-Gun”? They call him “Two-Gun”?
“You may call me Roscoe, Two-Gun.”
“Thank you. Now, Roscoe, presuming you are willing, you are going to drive you and me to BWI. You have a first-class ticket on the Aero-Mexico ten-forty-five flight to Mexico City. Once I see your plane take off, I will drive your car back here and turn it over to Gerry’s capable hands. You will be met at the airport in Mexico City and taken to meet Colonel Castillo.”
“And the Russians?”
“Actually, one of the Russians has expressed an interest in meeting you, Roscoe.”
“Where is Castillo, Two-Gun?”
“You will learn that later.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then we shall regretfully have to stuff you in the trunk of your car. And by the time Gerry hears your piteous cries for help—and finally figures out where they’re coming from—Alex and I will have folded our tent and disappeared.”
Goddamn it! I’m smiling again.
“Okay. Give me ten minutes to throw some things in a bag and grab my laptop.”
“No. If we’re going, it has to be right now.”
“Why?”
“There’s about one chance in ten that Alex and I were not as successful as we believe we were in eluding the Secret Service guys surveilling our house, which raises the possibility that there may be some of them outside.”
“What makes you think they won’t see, follow, stop, whatever, us when you and I leave?”
“Because just before we leave, Alex is going to leave the garage as if Satan himself is in hot pursuit. If there are no Secret Service agents waiting for him outside, fine. If there are, Alex will lead them on a tour of the scenic spots of our nation’s capital while you and I make our leisurely way to BaltimoreWashington International.”
“And Harry Whelan won’t be involved, right?”
“I was afraid you would ask that.”
“Meaning he will be?”
“Meaning he will be offered the same opportunity.”
“Can I cut his throat?”
“When you come back, you can do anything you want to.”
“I haven’t a clue why I’m going along with this,” Roscoe J. Danton said as he put the key in the car door.