[ONE]
Washington Dulles International Airport
Dulles, Virginia
2340 3 August 2005
Castillo smiled when he came out of the Jetway and entered the terminal. There waiting for him was indeed a heavily armed man wearing a strained smile. He was standing behind a wheelchair on which sat, one leg supported vertically in front of him, Major H. Richard Miller, Jr.
He wondered for a moment how they’d got into the security area, then felt a little foolish when the answer came to him: Wave your Secret Service credentials and you can go anywhere in an airport you want.
“Mr. Castillo,” the Secret Service agent said, “Major Miller said he didn’t think you would have any checked baggage.”
That’s interesting. Mister Castillo and Major Miller. We’re both majors. And this guy has to know that.
What did Dick say on the phone? “Get used to it, hotshot. You now really are a hotshot.”
“I don’t,” Castillo said, smiling. He put out his hand. “I don’t think we’ve met, have we? I’m Charley Castillo.”
The Secret Service agent gave him a firm but very quick handshake, and said, “Special Agent Dulaney, sir.”
Castillo looked at Miller and saw that he was smiling at him.
Special Agent Dulaney spoke to his lapel microphone.
“Don Juan is out. No luggage. We’re on our way.”
“I’ll push the cripple, Dulaney,” Castillo said.
“Yes, sir. The Yukon’s right outside, sir.”
“What happened to the Pride of the Marine Corps?” Miller asked as they moved through the airport.
“Vic D’Allessando arranged to stash him at Bragg until I figure out what to do with him.”
“How much help do you need to get into this?” Castillo asked when they were at the Yukon.
“None. But you can put the wheelchair in,” Miller said.
He came nimbly off the wheelchair, stood on one leg, pulled the door open, and then sort of dove into the rear. Castillo saw that the middle seat had been folded flat against the floorboard, and, when he looked again, Miller was already sitting up in the far backseat, his leg stretched out in front of him on the folded down seat.
“Now is when you put the wheelchair in,” Miller said.
“Can I help you with that, sir?” Special Agent Dulaney asked.
“I’m all right, thanks,” Castillo said, some what struggling with collapsing the wheelchair.
Sixty seconds later, Miller asked, “You’re not very good at that, are you?”
“There’s a lever on the side here, sir, that lets you fold it,” Special Agent Dulaney said. “Let me show you.”
“Thank you,” Castillo said and got in the Yukon.
Thirty seconds later, the Yukon pulled away from the curb.
Special Agent Dulaney spoke again to his lapel microphone.
“Don Juan aboard. Headed for the nest.”
“Who is he talking to?” Castillo asked, softly.
“I asked him that,” Miller said. “He said, ‘The Secret Service has a communications system,’ and then I said, ‘Yeah, but who are you talking to?’ And he said, ‘The communications system.’”
“Well, ask a dumb question,” Castillo said, grinning. Then he added, “You didn’t have to ride all the way out here, Dick.”
“I had my reasons. Two of them, to be precise. The first was that it was a pleasant change from my usual routine, which is to go from the hotel to the Nebraska Avenue Complex, then back again, sometimes stopping off at the lobby bar on the way home to have a drink to recuperate from my journey.”
“And the second?”
“I thought you might have had it in your head to stop off in the lobby bar en route to the room tonight.”
“You’re psychic! And I’ll even buy.”
“And I thought I should warn you what you’re liable to find in there if you do,” Miller said, paused, then added, “The former CIA regional director for Southwest Africa.”
“No kidding?”
“Yes, indeed. I was having a little nip about this time night before last in the lobby bar when I sensed death rays aimed at me. I looked around and there she was, Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson, in the flesh. And very nice flesh it was, I have to admit, spilling out of her dress.”
“So what happened?”
“Nothing happened. She was with a fellow I strongly suspect was not Mr. Wilson. He was even younger than you or me.”
“You’re sure she made you?”
“The death rays made it clear that she did. They froze my martini solid. I had to chew it, like ice cubes.”
“Well, she probably blames you for getting her fired.”
“That thought occurred to me,” Miller said, “shortly followed by a possible worse scenario, that she didn’t get fired.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“You know the agency better than I do,” Miller said. “Firing somebody is an admission that the agency is less than perfect.”
“Can we find out? Maybe ask Tom McGuire to ask a few discreet questions?”
“I’m way ahead of you, Charley,” Miller said. “As a devout believer in Know Thy Enemy, the first thing the next morning, I called Langley, identified myself as chief of staff to the chief of the Office of Organizational Analysis…”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Oh, no,” Miller said. “And I asked, did they happen to have an employee named Patricia Davies Wilson and, if so, what was she doing for them?”
“And they told you?”
“Has anyone told you, Chief, that we now have a ‘contact officer’ in most of the important agencies, under orders to give us anything we ask for?”
“No, nobody told me.”
“You should spend more time in the office, Chief. All sorts of things are happening. But your question was, ‘And they told you?’ Yes, they did. And what they told me—you’re going to love this—is that Mr. Wilson is a senior analyst in the South American Division’s Southern Cone Section.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yeah,” Miller said. “Where, one would presume, she would have access to everything that the agency hears—more important, does—down there.”
“Well, I’ll have to do something about that,” Castillo said, almost to himself.
“Short of rendering her harmless, Charley, what?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want that woman’s nose in what’s happened down there or what may happen.”
“Her nose doesn’t bother me nearly as much as her mouth.”
“Did you say anything to anybody?”
Miller shook his head.
“I’ll go see Matt Hall first thing in the morning,” Castillo said.
“First thing late tomorrow afternoon,” Miller said. “He’s in Saint Louis, and from there he’s going to Chicago. He’s due back here at five-thirty. There’s a reception at the White House—command performance for him.”
“Okay, first thing late tomorrow afternoon,” Castillo said. “Damn! I’m on my way to Europe and I wanted to see Betty in Philadelphia before I left. Now I either don’t get to see her or I leave a day later.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to buy me a drink?”
“I will buy you two drinks,” Castillo said. “Maybe more.”
“In the lobby bar?”
“As I recall that encounter, we were the innocent victims. Why should we be afraid of running into the villain in a bar?”
“Come on, Charley! You know damned well why.”
“I have the strength of ten, because in my heart I’m pure. I am not going to let that ‘lady,’ using the term loosely, run me out of a bar.”
Miller snorted.
[TWO]
Office of Organizational Analysis
Department of Homeland Security
Nebraska Avenue Complex
Washington, D.C.
0825 4 August 2005
Mr. Agnes Forbison, deputy chief for administration of the Office of Organizational Analysis, Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., chief of staff to the chief of the Office of Organizational Analysis, and the chief himself, Major C. G. Castillo, were standing on the carpet in just about the center of the latter’s office. Major Miller was supporting himself on a massive cane.
It was an office befitting a senior executive of the federal government. There was an oversized, ornately carved antique wooden desk, behind which sat a red leather, high-backed “judge’s chair.”
On the desk were two telephones, one of them red. It was a secure line, connected to the White House switchboard. There were two flags against the wall, the national colors and that of the Department of Homeland Security. In front of the desk were two leather-upholstered straight-backed chairs. There was a coffee table, with two chairs on one side of it and a matching couch on the other. There were two television sets, each with a thirty-two-inch-wide screen, mounted on the walls.
“And that completes the tour,” Mr. Forbison said. “Say, ‘Good job, Agnes.’”
Mr. Forbison, a GS-15—the highest rank in the General Service hierarchy—was forty-nine, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby.
“Jesus Christ, Agnes!” C. G. Castillo said.
“You like?”
“I don’t know what the hell to say,” Castillo said. “What am I supposed to do with all this?”
The tour had been of the suite of offices newly assigned to the Office of Organizational Analysis of the Department of Homeland Security in the Nebraska Avenue Complex, which is just off Ward Circle in the northwest section of the District of Columbia. The complex had once belonged to the Navy, but it had been turned over in 2004 by an act of Congress to the Department of Homeland Security when that agency had been formed after 9/11.
“You need it now,” she said. “And the way things are going, I don’t think it will be long before we’ll be cramped in here.”
Until very recently, Mr. Forbison had been one of the two executive assistants to Secretary of Homeland Security Matt Hall. When the Office of Organizational Analysis had been formed within the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Forbison had been—at her request—assigned to it.
She had known from the beginning that the Office of Organizational Analysis had nothing to do with organizational analysis and very little to do with the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Hall had shown her the Top Secret Presidential Finding the day after it had been issued.
Agnes, who had been around Washington a long time, had suspected that Secretary Hall was going to have to have an in-house intelligence organization—Homeland Security was the only department that didn’t have one—if for no other reason than to do a better job than she and her staff were capable of doing, sorting through the daily flood of intelligence received from the entire intelligence community.
And she had suspected, when the President had gone to Biloxi to meet the plane carrying the bodies of Masterson and the sergeant and given his speech—“…to those who committed the cowardly murders of these two good men, I say to you that this outrage will not go unpunished…”—that Charley Castillo was going to be involved in that punishment. He not only had found the stolen 727 when the entire intelligence community couldn’t, but had stolen it back from the terrorists.
It would have been in character for the President to send Charley off as his agent to find the people who had killed Masterson and the sergeant, much as he’d sent him off to locate the stolen 727.
But she hadn’t expected the Presidential Finding. With a stroke of his pen—actually, the secretary of state’s pen—the President had given Castillo a blank check to do anything he thought he had to do “to render harmless” the people responsible for the murders. And he had to answer to the President alone, not even Secretary Hall. And the Finding had given him an organization to do it with.
When Secretary Hall had shown her the Finding, she’d read it, then handed it back and said, “Wow!”
“You don’t think he’s up to it?” Hall had asked.
“I think he can handle the terrorists, but I’m not so sure about Washington,” she said. “Top Secret Presidential or not, this is going to get out, and as soon as it does so do the long knives. The FBI and the CIA are going to have a fit when they hear about this. And Montvale—especially Montvale—he is not going to like this at all.”
“Would you, if you were the ambassador? He’s supposed to be in charge of all intelligence and the President makes an exception—for a young major answerable only to him?”
“Montvale can take care of himself,” she said. “It’s Charley I’m worried about.”
“You think he needs some mentor, wise in the ways of Washington back-stabbing? Like you, for example?”
“Like you, of course,” she said. “But, yeah, like me, too.”
“Then you would not consider being transferred to the Office of Organizational Analysis as, say, deputy chief for administration, as an indication that I was less than satisfied with your performance of your duties and, since I couldn’t fire you, promoted you out?”
“That has a nice ring to it, ‘Deputy Chief for Administration, ’” Agnes said.
“Then, since I have no authority over this new organization—or him—I will suggest that to Charley.”
Agnes now said to Castillo, “What I did, boss—”
“I’d rather be called Charley,” Castillo said.
“I’d rather be called ‘My Beauty, ’ ‘My Adored One, ’ but this isn’t the place for that. This is where the boss gets called ‘boss’ or ‘sir.’ Your choice.”
“Okay, okay.”
“What I did, boss, was move everybody off the floor but the secretary’s office. And since he uses that for about twenty minutes once a month, that means there will not be a stream of curious people getting off the elevator. I’m also having the engineer put in one of those credit-card-swipe gadgets in the lobby and in the garage, for what will be our elevator. When he gets that in, he’ll rig the other elevators so they can’t come up here.”
“You’re amazing,” Charley said.
“And, as we speak, they’re putting in additional secure telephones. You and Dick and I will have our own, of course, and so will Tom McGuire. And there will be one in the conference room. I told our new liaison officer, Mr. Ellsworth, that I will get him one just as soon as I can. No telling how long that will take.”
“What do you think of Mr. Ellsworth?”
“He’s smart, tough, and experienced, which is to be expected of someone who has worked for Ambassador Montvale for a longtime.”
Miller snorted.
“Why am I not surprised?” Castillo asked.
“And he requests an audience with you, boss, as soon as you can fit him in.”
“Can I stall him for today? I’m going to Europe—Paris, Fulda, and Budapest, and maybe Vienna—tomorrow. Maybe by the time I get back, I’ll have thought of some clever way to send him back to Montvale.”
“I can stall him,” she said. “But not indefinitely. How long will you be gone?”
“Just a couple of days. I’d go right now, but I have to talk to Hall. He sent for me, but he won’t be back until late this afternoon.” He paused. “The silver lining in that black cloud is that maybe I can talk to him about this Mr. Ellsworth.”
“Charley,” Agnes said, hesitantly, and then went on: “Charley, you’re going to have to understand that you don’t work for Matt Hall any longer.”
“If Matt Hall says he wants to see me, he will see me standing there at attention.”
“That’s your choice. But you don’t have to. And the black lining in that silver cloud is that it wouldn’t really be fair of you to ask Hall to fight your battles with Montvale. Since he no longer has authority over you, he has no responsibility for you.”
“She’s right, Charley,” Miller said. “Like I said, get used to being a hotshot, hotshot.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Castillo said.
“And you’re going to have to get used to, as of yesterday, playing that role,” Agnes said. “That’s the reason for the fancy office and the Secret Service Yukon. Those are D.C. status symbols, Charley. Middle-level bureaucrats get a parking space with their name on it. One step up from that is getting to ride around town in a government car, but not back and forth to work. One up from that is having a Yukon but your people drive it, not the Secret Service. At the top of the heap is a Secret Service Yukon at your beck and call. That’s why Tom McGuire set that up. He knows how the game is played and you better learn quick.”
Castillo shook his head, then asked, “Where is Tom?”
There was no time for a reply. There was a tinkling sound and a red light on the red telephone began to flash.
“That one you answer yourself,” Agnes said.
Castillo walked over to the huge desk and picked up the telephone.
“Castillo.”
“Natalie Cohen, Charley.”
“Good morning, Madam Secretary.”
“I just got off the phone with Ambassador Lorimer,” she said. “I called Mr. Masterson first and told him that Mr. Lorimer had been found, and the circumstances, and asked how a call from me would be received.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“He told me that someone from our embassy in Montevideo had called the ambassador—as next of kin—and told him what had happened.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” Castillo said.
“There’s a procedure in cases like this and it kicked in when Mr. Lorimer was identified,” she said. “And they had no way of knowing, of course, that he had a heart condition, or, indeed, that he is a retired ambassador.”
“How did he take it?”
“Well. And he and Mr. Masterson both expressed their appreciation for your offer to look after Mr. Lorimer’s affairs in Uruguay and France. That was a nice thing for you to do, Charley.”
“The truth is, I wanted a legal reason to get into his apartment in Paris and the Uruguay estancia to see what I could find. And maybe keep quiet some questions being asked about Lorimer’s bank accounts in Uruguay.”
She took that without breaking stride.
“And how did that go?”
“Special Agent Yung had an account in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in the Caymans—in connection with what he was doing for the FBI down there. Getting it in there went smoothly. The next step is getting it out of that account and into one that was supposed to be opened for me. I’m going to see if I can do that this morning.”
“The reason I asked is the same standard procedures that come into play when an American dies abroad that require the notification of the next of kin also require the protection of assets. Even if you got it out of Uruguay, obviously, it was after his death. There will probably be some questions asked.”
“Damn!”
“Yeah. Well, maybe we’ll have a chance to talk about that tonight.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re not going to be at the White House?”
“No, ma’am. I know Secretary Hall will be there, but I won’t.”
“Okay. Well, I will ask some discreet questions about that problem, and if I come up with anything I’ll let you know.”
“I would very much appreciate that.”
“Talk to you later, Charley,” the secretary of state said and hung up.
Castillo put the handset back in its cradle.
“Priority one is to get that money out of Yung’s account and into mine,” he said. “And to do that, I have to have the numbers of my new account and somebody has to tell me how to move money around in an offshore bank.”
“Who has the numbers?” Agnes asked.
“Otto Görner at the Tages Zeitung. More probably Frau Schröder.”
“Would they give them to me if I called?”
“Probably not now, but after I call them this time they will. How do I dial an international number?”
“If you know it,” Agnes said, “punch it in. After you give it to me.”
Transferring nearly sixteen million dollars between two accounts in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in the Cayman Islands proved to be even more difficult and time-consuming than Charley thought it would be.
Since no one wanted to be out of the office when yet another call involving their furnishing of just one more detail came from either Fulda or the Cayman Islands, luncheon was hamburgers from Wendy’s. Special Agent Yung, who was apparently willing to make any sacrifice required to get the money out of his account, volunteered to go get them.
Yung’s relief when, shortly after two P.M., the Liechtensteinische Landesbank reported that the funds were now in the account of Karl W. von und zu Gossinger—and thus out of his account—was palpable but short lived.
Just about as soon as Castillo had hung up, Miller wondered aloud—Castillo thought he was probably doing it on purpose; he knew Miller didn’t like Yung—what the boys at Fort Meade were going to do with their intercepts of the many telephone calls they had made.
Fort Meade, Maryland, near Washington, houses the National Security Agency, the very secretive unit that “intercepts” telephone conversations and other electronic transmission of data or text, such as e-mails.
“You know how that works, don’t you, Yung?” Miller asked.
“I have a general idea, of course,” Yung said.
“Well, in simple terms, what they do is record practically everything coming out of Washington,” Miller began. “Then they run what they’ve recorded though high-speed filters looking for words or names or phrases in which there is interest. With all the interest in money laundering, as you of all people should know, the Liechtensteinische Landesbank is sure to be one of those phrases. And so is ‘millions of dollars.’
“So by now, there’s probably at least one NSA analyst sitting over there wondering whether that transfer was simply a legitimate transfer or whether some drug lord or raghead is making financial transactions inimical to the interests of the United States. I don’t think the IRS is on their distribution list, but I know Langley and the FBI are.”
Castillo restrained a smile as Yung’s face reflected the implications for him of what Miller was saying.
And then, suddenly, Castillo realized that what had started as a joke was potentially a serious problem.
“Which means we’re going to have to do something and right now,” he said, “before somebody starts a file on this.”
Miller misread him. He thought Castillo had decided to add to Yung’s discomfiture.
“Charley, you know as well as I do that once those NSA people latch on to something, they’re like dogs with a meaty bone,” Miller said.
“Agnes,” Castillo said, “I want Yung on the next plane to Buenos Aires.”
“You mean today?” Yung asked.
“I mean in an hour, if that’s when the next plane leaves.”
“What am I going to do in Buenos Aires?”
“In Montevideo, you are going to make sure that whatever information the embassy has turned up there about recent wire transfers out of the accounts of Señor Jean-Paul Bertrand is not reported to the State Department and that they don’t turn up anything more that will be reported.”
“Good God, you go to prison for destroying evidence!” Yung said.
“You’re not going to destroy evidence,” Castillo said. “You’re going to collect that evidence and get it to Mr. Forbison, who will establish and maintain a classified file on that money from step one.”
He leaned forward in the high-backed judge’s chair and pulled the red telephone to him.
“Which of these buttons is Natalie Cohen’s?” he asked, looking at Mr. Forbison.
“Five,” she said.
He pushed the fifth button.
“Castillo, Madam Secretary,” he said. “Can you give me a moment?”
Castillo explained the situation, then listened to her thoughts.
“Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. I think this will handle the problem. I’ll keep you advised,” Castillo said.
He put the handset back in the cradle and looked at Special Agent Yung.
“You should have picked up on that, Yung,” Castillo said. “But, in case you didn’t, the secretary of state will message the ambassador in Montevideo that she is dispatching an FBI agent with special knowledge of the situation—you—down there to investigate the financial affairs of Mr. Lorimer/Bertrand, that they are to turn over to you whatever they have developed so far, and that you will make your report directly to her.”
“Okay,” Yung said.
“You will make two reports,” Castillo said.
“Two?”
Castillo nodded.
“One will be a complete report of everything you know, what the other FBI guys know, and the details of the wire transfers of the money from his account to yours. You will take that one, by hand, to the embassy in Buenos Aires, and give it to Alex Darby, who will be expecting it and who will send it to Mr. Forbison in a diplomatic pouch. That will take a day longer, but we won’t get involved with encryption.”
“I don’t understand that, Charley,” Mr. Forbison said. “Why not encrypt it?”
“Whenever you encrypt anything, two more people, the encrypt or and the decrypt or, are in on the secret.”
“I never thought about that,” she said. “You don’t trust cryptographers?”
“I trust them more than most people I know. I’m just being careful.”
When she nodded her understanding, he turned back to Yung.
“The second report will include what the other FBI guys down there have found out and a sanitized version of what you know. No details of how much money was in those accounts before we made the transfers, just how much we left in them. And, of course, no mention of the wire transfers. This one you will give to the ambassador in Montevideo, requesting that he have it encrypted and transmitted to the secretary of state. Got it?”
“You’re asking me to officially submit a report I know to be dishonest. I’m not sure I can do that.”
“What I am ordering you to do is submit a report less certain details that are classified Top Secret Presidential. There’s a difference. There was no reason for the ambassador to be told about the Finding and he has not been told. He does not have the Need to Know about that money or what we have done with it.”
“I was always taught that the ambassador has the right to know what any agency of the U.S. government is doing in his country.”
“Try to understand this, Yung. It would be a violation of the law for you to pass information to the ambassador that he is not entitled to have because he doesn’t have the proper security clearance. There are only two people who can give him that clearance: the President and me. The President has not done so and I can’t see any good reason that I should.” He paused and then asked, “Are you going to do this, Yung, or not?”
Yung didn’t reply for thirty seconds, which seemed much longer.
“When you put it that way…” he began, then paused a moment. “You have to understand I’ve just never had any experience with…this sort of business.”
“Are you going to do it or not?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“I don’t have any idea what kind of an oath you FBI people take, but the oath an officer takes when he is commissioned has a phrase in it: ‘without any mental reservations whatsoever.’ Are you harboring any mental reservations?”
Yung cocked his head as he thought that over, then shook his head and said, “No, I guess I’m not.”
“Okay, we’ll be in touch. I’ll probably see you down there.”
“Come with me,” Agnes said to Yung, “and we’ll see what we can do with the travel agency.” Then she looked at Castillo. “I don’t know what else you have planned for right now, but Tom McGuire and Jack Britton are waiting to see you.”
Castillo waved as a signal for her to send them in. They came in immediately.
Supervisory Special Agent Thomas McGuire of the Secret Service was a large, red-haired Irishman in his forties. Until the reorganization following 9/11, the Secret Service had been under the Treasury Department. He and Supervisory Special Agent Joel Isaacson had been assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail.
When the Secret Service had been assigned to the Department of Homeland Security, McGuire and Isaacson became the first members of the secretary’s protection detail. And when McGuire had learned of the Presidential Finding and the formation of the Office of Organizational Analysis, he had gone to Secretary Hall—who was now the de facto head of the Secret Service—and asked that he be assigned to it.
“I’m a cop at heart, boss,” he’d said. “It looks to me like Charley is going to need somebody like me, and you don’t really need both Joel and me.”
Secret Service Special Agent Jack Britton, a tall black man with sharp features, was new to the Secret Service. He had been a Philadelphia Police Department detective assigned to the Counterterrorism Bureau. Castillo and Miller had met him while trying to find the stolen 727. The first time they spoke, Britton had “come in” from his undercover assignment—keeping track of what he, political correctness be damned, called the AAL, which stood for “African American Lunatics.”
He had been wearing a scraggly beard, a dark blue robe, sandals, had his hair braided with beads, and was known to his brother Muslims in Philadelphia’s Aari-Teg mosque as Ali Abid Ar-Raziq.
Impressed with Britton for many things, including his courage and dedication as well as his intimate knowledge of the Muslim world in the United States—both bona fide and AAL—Isaacson had recruited him for the Secret Service, together with another Philadelphia Police Department officer, Sergeant Elizabeth Schneider, of the Intelligence and Organized Crime unit.
Isaacson hadn’t been thinking of the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and certainly neither of them working with or for C. G. Castillo. He had recruited Britton and Schneider for the Secret Service, knowing of twenty places around the country that could really use Britton’s talents and thinking of Betty Schneider as a likely candidate for duty on one of the protection details.
That hadn’t happened. Both had just about completed Secret Service training when Mr. Elizabeth Masterson had been kidnapped. Castillo had had Britton and Schneider flown to Buenos Aires to assist in the investigation of the kidnapping and murders.
“Parties unknown” had ambushed the embassy car taking Special Agent Schneider from the Masterson home, killing the Marine driver and seriously wounding Schneider.
Once the Presidential Finding had been made, it had simply been assumed that Britton was assigned to the Office of Organizational Analysis and that when Special Agent Schneider recovered from her wounds and returned to duty she would be, too.
“It’s all right this time,” Castillo greeted McGuire and Britton, “but when you come to the throne room in the future please take off your shoes and wear white gloves.”
Miller and McGuire laughed.
“I’m impressed, Charley,” McGuire said.
Britton didn’t say anything, and his smile was strained.
I wonder what’s the matter with him? Castillo thought.
“I don’t know, Jack,” Castillo said. “Now that I think about it, you really didn’t look so bad in your blue robe and the beads in your hair.”
That got another chuckle from McGuire and Miller.
“I’d really like to see you in private, Charley,” Britton said. “Why don’t I come back in ten minutes?”
He wants a favor. Madam Britton wants him to spend a little time at home. Maybe somebody is sick. Maybe somebody at the school wants a real cop for a teacher and he doesn’t want that.
“Something personal, Jack?” Castillo asked.
Britton visibly thought that over before replying, “Yeah, in a way. But, no, not really personal.”
“Something to do with what’s going on here?”
Britton nodded.
What the hell doesn’t he want Miller and McGuire to hear?
I can’t have that.
“Jack, let me tell you how we’re going to work around here,” Castillo said. “Or how we’re not going to work. Around here, I don’t want anyone to be in the dark about anything that’s going on.”
He swept his hand to indicate he meant everybody in the office, then added, “And that includes Mr. Forbison. I can’t see how we can work any other way.”
“Permission to speak, sir?” Miller asked.
Now, what the hell is the matter with him?
“If you’re being clever, Dick, now is not the time,” Castillo said.
“I’m asking if you’re open to a comment or a question?”
“As kit.”
“Does ‘anyone’ include Special Agent David William Yung, Jr.?” Miller asked, then looked at McGuire and explained, “When Charley told him he was sending him to Uruguay to keep the details of Lorimer’s bank accounts from becoming public knowledge, Yung had to think it over carefully.”
“Oh, shit!” McGuire said. “And that’s not the first time he’s had ‘reservations, ’ is it?”
“Say it out loud, Dick,” Castillo said.
“I think it’s only a matter of time before his conscience overwhelms him about the ‘irregular’ things you’re having him do and/or he really gets homesick for the purity of the FBI and decides to come clean,” Miller said.
He let that sink in, then finished, “And the more he knows, the more he will have to tell.”
“He’s right, Charley,” McGuire said. “There’s a Puritan streak in the FBI. They like to hire pure people. They start working on them at Quantico that the book is holy, that they have to go by it, and they keep it up afterward. Even before Dick brought it up, I wondered if Yung belonged in here. I’d say send him back to the FBI, but that would remind him even more that we are ignoring the book and he already knows too much to take the risk that he would confess all.”
“So, me sending him down there was a mistake?” Castillo asked.
“Not a mistake but risky,” McGuire said. “And who else could you have sent?”
“Well, I guess the thing to do is bring him back and sit on him after he makes sure that what we’ve done with Lorimer’s money doesn’t get out,” Castillo said. “The only comment I have is that I agree that Yung is…what? Highly moral? What’s wrong with that? And I think he would love nothing better than to go to somebody in the FBI and tell them what’s going on around here. But it is that morality that keeps him from doing that.”
“Run that past me again,” Miller said.
“You were here, Dick. I asked him if he had any mental reservations and he said—after thinking about it—that he didn’t. I think he meant that.”
“Keep your fingers crossed, Charley,” Miller said, doubtfully.
“But you’re right. We can’t afford to have him in the loop,” Castillo said. “We’ll tell him as little as possible.” He turned to Britton. “You’re in the loop, Jack. We all need to know what you have to say.”
Britton shrugged, then said, “Okay. This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t things. I heard something in Philadelphia that is probably about as far off the wall as anything ever gets, that logic tells me to dismiss but which I thought I should pass on to you.”
“Let’s have it,” Castillo said.
“I went to see Sy Fillmore in the hospital while I was there. I got it from him.”
“Who’s he?
“A counterterrorism detective. He was doing what I used to do. He went around the bend and they’ve got him in the loony bin in Friends Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard. So my source is somebody they’re keeping in a padded room.”
“What did he have to say?”
“The brothers in his mosque believe they are about to get their hands on a nuclear bomb.”
“That does sound a little incredible,” Miller said. “Where are they going to get it?”
Britton shrugged. “He didn’t know. What he did know was they have just bought a farm in Durham.”
“North Carolina?” McGuire asked.
“Pennsylvania,” Britton replied. “Bucks County. Upper end of the county. A couple of miles off the Delaware River. The reason they bought the place is because of the old iron mines on it.”
“Iron mines?”
“They’re going to use them as bomb shelters when the nuclear bomb takes out Philadelphia. They’re stocking them with food, etcetera.”
“Tell me about the iron mines,” McGuire said.
“Well, they’ve been there forever,” Britton said. “You remember when Washington crossed the Delaware?”
“I’ve heard about it. I’m not quite that old,” McGuire said.
“He crossed the Delaware in a Durham boat. They were called Durham boats because they moved the iron ore from the iron mines in Durham down the Delaware. They haven’t taken any ore out of them for, Christ, two hundred years, but the mines, the tunnels, are still there, because they were hacked out of solid rock.”
“You believe this story, Jack?” Miller asked.
“I don’t want to believe it, logic tells me not to believe it, but Sy Fillmore tells me the brothers believe it. And I’d like to know where they got the money to buy a hundred-odd-acre farm. That’s high-priced real estate up there. They didn’t pay for it with stolen Social Security checks.”
“Stolen Social Security checks?” Castillo asked.
“That—and ripping off the neighborhood crack dealers—was their primary source of income when I was in the mosque.”
“And the cops in Philadelphia?” Castillo asked. “Chief Inspector Fritz Kramer, for example. What do they say?”
“They found Cy wandering around North Philly babbling to himself,” Britton said. “It was three days before they even found out he was a cop. And he’s been in Friends Hospital ever since, with a cop sitting outside his door, as much to protect Sy from himself as from the AALs. No, Chief Kramer doesn’t believe it. He didn’t even pass it on to the FBI.”
“Where are they going to get a nuke?” Miller asked. “How are they going to move it around, hide it?”
“There were supposed to be thirty-odd suitcase-sized nukes here, smuggled in by the Russians.” McGuire said. “They wouldn’t be hard to move around or hide.”
“You think there’s something to this, Tom?” Castillo asked.
“No. But I’m like Jack. Sometimes there’s things you just shouldn’t ignore because they don’t make sense.”
“So what do we do, tell the FBI?” Castillo asked.
“Why don’t you send Jack back to Philly?” McGuire asked. “I’ll call the Secret Service there—the agent in charge is an old friend of mine—and tell him we’re interested in why a bunch of American muslims from Philadelphia bought that farm, where they got the money to buy it, and what they’re doing with it. And I’ll tell him we can’t say why we’re interested. If and when we get those answers, we can think about it some more.”
“Okay, do it,” Castillo ordered. “Has anyone else got anything for me?”
Everybody shook their heads.
Castillo went on: “What I am going to do now is go to my apartment and pack. Then I’m going to the Old Executive Office Building to wait for Hall. I was going to ask him what to do about our new liaison officer, but Dick and Agnes have told me that’s my problem. Then as soon as he lets me go, I’m going to Philadelphia to see Betty Schneider and then, somehow, I’m going to go to Paris, either tonight or as soon as I can.”
“I didn’t know anybody went to Paris on purpose,” Miller said. “What are you going to do there?”
“Thank you for asking, and I’m not being sarcastic. I want everybody to know what I’m doing,” Castillo said. “The agency guy in Paris—Edgar Delchamps—is a good guy, a real old-timer. I’m going to ask him to go with me to Lorimer’s apartment. The embassy has been informed that I’m going to look after Lorimer’s property for Ambassador Lorimer. Then I’m going to tell him what happened at Lorimer’s estancia and see if he has any ideas who the guys who bushwhacked us were or who they were working for.
“Then I’m going to Fulda to make sure there’s no problems with all that money in my Liechtensteinische Landesbank account in the Caymans. Maybe there’s a better place to have it.
“Then I’m going to Budapest to see a journalist named Eric Kocian, who gave me some names of people in the oil-for-food business. I promised him I wouldn’t turn them over to anyone. I want to get him to let me use the names. See if we can figure out where I might have got them, other than from him. I’m also going to ask him to guess who was paying the guys who bushwhacked us.
“Then, maybe a quick stop in Vienna to see what I can pick up there about the guy who was murdered just before Lorimer decided to go missing. Before I come back here, I’m probably going to go to Uruguay and Argentina. I want to go through Lorimer’s estancia to see what I can come up with.
“Which reminds me of something else that I probably would have forgotten: Dick, get on the horn to somebody at Fort Rucker, maybe the Aviation Board, and find out the best panel and black boxes available on the civilian market for a Bell Ranger. Get a set of it, put it in a box, and ask Secretary Cohen to send it under diplomatic sticker to Ambassador Silvio in Buenos Aires.”
“What the hell is that all about?”
“You wouldn’t believe the lousy avionics in the Ranger I borrowed down there. The new stuff is payment for the use of the chopper. And it will be nice to have if I need to borrow the Ranger again.”
No one spoke for a moment, then Miller said, “Charley, those avionics are going to cost a fortune.”
“We’ll have a fortune in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank. So far as I’m concerned, that’s what it’s for.”
Miller gave him a thumbs-up.
“I’ll be in touch,” Castillo said and walked toward his office door.
He turned.
“Dick, can you come with me? Sure as Christ made little green apples, I’ve forgotten something.”
[THREE]
Room 404
The Mayflower Hotel
1127 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.
1630 4 August 2005
Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., was sprawled on the chaise longue in the master bedroom, his stiff leg on the chair, his good leg resting, knee bent, on the floor. A bottle of Heineken beer was resting in his hand on his chest.
Major C. G. Castillo was standing by the bed, putting clothing into a hard-sided suitcase.
“If I was just coming back here,” he said, “I could get by with a carry-on. But if I take just a carry-on, I’ll find myself in the middle of winter in Argentina.”
“And if you take the suitcase, it will be misdirected to Nome, Alaska,” Miller said, lifting his bottle to take a sip of beer. “It is known as the Rule of the Fickle Finger of Fate.”
Castillo closed the suitcase and set it on the floor.
“So tell me about that,” Castillo said, pointing to Miller’s leg. “What do they say at Walter Reed?”
“I am led to believe that my chances of passing an Army flight physical range from zero to zilch. I have been ‘counseled’ that what I should do is take retirement for disability. One bum knee is apparently worth seventy percent of my basic pay for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, shit,” Castillo said.
“What really pisses me off is that I have reason to believe that all I have to do to reactivate my civilian ticket—”
“Reactivate?”
“Yeah. It went on hold when I didn’t show up for my annual physical. I didn’t think I could pass it wearing twenty pounds of plaster of paris on my leg. So my ticket became inactive. They didn’t pull it, which is important, but declared it inactive, pending the results of a flight physical. I’ve looked into that. What that means is I find some friendly chancre mechanic. He sees the scars and I tell him they are from a successful knee operation and show him how I can bend my knee. He will make a note of that for the examiner giving me my flight test. In other words, ‘Did his knee operation result in a physical limitation that makes him unsafe in a cockpit?’ The examiner will see that I can push the pedals satisfactorily. My tickets as an instrument-qualified pilot in command of piston and jet multiengine fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft is reactivated. Which means I can then fly just about anything for anybody but the Army.”
“Can you ‘push the pedals satisfactorily’?” Castillo asked.
“I think so. I would hate to believe that all the fucking exercise I’ve been doing flexing the son of a bitch has been in vain. So what I’ve been thinking of doing is going to Tampa and see if I can’t find reasonably honest work as a contractor.”
“Flying worn-out Russian helicopters on some bullshit mission in the middle of now here?”
“The pay is good.”
“What’s wrong with staying right where you are?”
“Working for you?”
“Is something wrong with that?”
“It would look like—would be—cronyism.”
“Think of it as affirmative action,” Castillo said. “The Office of Organizational Analysis is offering employment to somebody who meets all the criteria. You’re ignorant, physically crippled, mentally challenged, and otherwise unemployable.”
“And black. Don’t forget that.”
“And black. I’ll talk to McGuire. Maybe he can get you hired by the Secret Service.”
“I don’t think I could pass their physical.”
“We’ll work something out. I really hate to tell you this, but I need you, Dick.”
“If I thought you really meant that, Charley…”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“You really don’t want me to answer that, do you?”
“In this case, I’m going to need somebody—you—to protect my back from this goddamned liaison officer Montvale is shoving down my throat. And that’s the truth.”
“You just can’t say, ‘Thank you just the same but I don’t need a liaison officer’?”
“To Ambassador Charles Montvale, the director of National Intelligence? He’s not used to being told no, especially when all he’s trying to do is be helpful.”
“What’s he really after?”
“He doesn’t like the whole idea of a presidential agent. If he can’t take me over—and I’m sure he’s working on that—he wants to put me out of business.”
“So what? What are they going to do, send you back to the Army? What’s wrong with that? Goddamn, I wish that was one of my options.”
Castillo didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “When is all this going to happen?”
“I’ll have thirty days from the time I’m restored to limited duty, which should be in the next week to ten days. I then have to tell them I’ll accept permanent limited-duty status—which means I would wind up in a recruiting office or a mess-kit-repair battalion—or take the medical retirement.”
“Then we have time,” Castillo said. “Just forget that contractor bullshit, okay?”
Miller nodded.
“Thanks, Charley,” he said.
“Jesus, that beer looks tempting,” Castillo said.
“Give in,” Miller said.
“I will. Stay there. I’ll go get one. You want another?”
Without waiting for an answer, he went into the living room and to the wet bar. As he was taking two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, he heard the telephone ring and when he went back into the bedroom Miller was holding out a handset to him.
“Your guardian angel, saving you from temptation,” Miller said.
Castillo took the phone. “Castillo,” he said.
“Matt Hall, Charley.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Two changes in the plan,” Hall said.
What plan?
“Yes, sir?”
“I’ll pick you up there at half past seven, not eight.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said I’ll pick you up at half past seven, not eight.”
“Where are we going, sir?”
“To the White House. I told you.”
Oh no you didn’t. You told me that you were going to the White House. I was going to be on the Metroliner on the way to Philadelphia at seven-thirty.
“That message must have come through garbled, sir.”
“Obviously,” Hall said. There was a suggestion of annoyance in his tone. “And the second change is that the President wants you to wear your uniform.”
“Excuse me?”
“The President said about ten minutes ago, quote, Tell Charley to please wear his uniform, end quote.”
“What’s that all about?” Castillo blurted.
“The commander in chief did not choose to share with me any explanation of his desire,” Hall said. “The Seventeenth Street entrance, seven-thirty. Brass and shoes shined appropriately. Got to go, Charley.”
The line went dead.
Castillo said, “Sonofabitch!”
“Good news, huh?”
Castillo didn’t reply. He went to the walk-in closet.
Miller heard him say, “Thank you, West Point.”
Castillo came out of the closet, carrying a zippered nylon bag.
“‘Thank you, West Point’?” Miller parroted.
“Yeah,” Castillo said. “The first thing I learned on the holy plain was that when you fuck up the only satisfactory excuse is, ‘No excuse, sir.’ The second thing I learned was to get your uniform pressed the minute you take it off because some sonofabitch will order you to appear in it when you least expect it and it had better be pressed.”
“And in this case, the sonofabitch is the Honorable Matthew Hall? Why does he want you to put on your uniform?”
“Worse,” Castillo said, as he unzipped the bag. “The President does.”
“What’s that about?”
“I have no fucking idea,” Castillo said. “But like the good soldier I used to be, I will show up at the appointed place at the appointed hour in the prescribed uniform.”
“What is the appointed place and the appointed hour?”
“Nineteen-thirty at the Seventeenth Street entrance, from which Hall will convey me to the White House for reasons unknown.”
Castillo started taking off his clothing, laying his suit, shirt, and tie neatly on the bed so that he could change back into it as soon as he could get away from whatever the hell was going on at the White House.
The lobby of the Mayflower Hotel runs through the ground floor from the Connecticut Avenue entrance to the Seventeenth Street entrance. The elevator bank is closer to Connecticut Avenue, and it is some distance—three-quarters of a city block—from the elevators to the Seventeenth Street entrance.
Nevertheless, Major C. G. Castillo, now attired in his “dress blue” uniform, saw her just about the moment he got off the elevator. She was wearing a pale pink summer dress and a broad, floppy-brimmed hat. He decided she was either waiting for someone to meet her there or was waiting, as he would be, for someone to pick her up.
She didn’t see Castillo until he was almost at the shallow flight of stairs leading upward to the Seventeenth Street foyer and doors. Then she looked at him without expression.
When he came close, Castillo said, “Good evening, Mr. Wilson.”
She said, softly but intensely, “I thought it was you, you miserable sonofabitch.”
“And it’s nice to see you again, too,” Castillo said, put his brimmed uniform cap squarely on his head, and pushed through the revolving door onto Seventeenth Street, then walked to the waiting Secret Service GMC Yukon XL.
He did not look back at the lobby, but as the Yukon pulled away from the curb he took a quick look.
Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson still was standing there, her arms folded over her breasts, glaring at the Yukon.
He remembered what Miller had said about her death rays freezing his martini solid.
[FOUR]
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.
1950 4 August 2005
Castillo recognized the Marine lieutenant colonel standing just inside the door in the splendiferous formal uniform, heavily draped with gold braid and the aiguillettes of an aide-de-camp to the commander in chief. He had last seen him on Air Force One at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. He even remembered his name: McElroy.
“Good evening, Mr. Secretary, ma’am,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said to Secretary and Mr. Matthew Hall. “The President asks that you come to the presidential apartments.”
Then he looked at Castillo, who thought he saw recognition come slowly to McElroy’s eyes.
“And you’re Major Castillo?” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy asked.
“Yes, sir,” Castillo said and, smiling, pointed to his chest to the black-and-white name tag reading CASTILLO.
“The President desires that you go to the presidential apartments, Major,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said. It was evident he did not appreciate Castillo having pointed to his nametag.
Well, fuck you, Colonel. All you had to do was look.
“Yes, sir,” Castillo said.
“The elevator is there, Mr. Secretary,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said, gesturing.
“Thank you,” Hall said.
The First Lady was in the sitting room of the presidential apartments but not the President. So were three other people whose presence did not surprise Castillo—Secretary of State Natalie Cohen; Ambassador Charles W. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence; and Frederick K. Beiderman, the secretary of defense—and one, General Allan Naylor, whose presence did. There was a photographer standing in a corner with two Nikon digital cameras hanging around his neck.
I wonder what is about to be recorded for posterity?
Montvale, Beiderman, and Hall were wearing dinner jackets. Naylor was wearing dress blues.
“He’ll be out in a minute,” the First Lady announced, and then added, “Hello, Charley, we haven’t seen much of you lately.”
“Good evening, ma’am.”
The men nodded at him but no one spoke.
The President came in a moment later, shrugging into his dinner jacket.
There was a chorus of, “Good evening, Mr. President.”
The President circled the room, first kissing the women, then shaking hands with the men, including Charley.
“Okay, General,” the President ordered. “As usual, I’m running a little late. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Naylor took a sheet of paper from his tunic.
“Attention to orders,” he read. “Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. Extract from General Order 155, dated 1 August 2005. Paragraph eleven. Major Carlos G. Castillo, 22 179 155, Special Forces, is promoted Lieutenant Colonel, with date of rank 31 July 2005. For the Chief of Staff. Johnson L. Maybree, Major General, the Adjutant General.”
I’ll be a sonofabitch!
“And as soon as the colonel comes over here so General Naylor and I can put his new shoulder boards on him,” the President said, motioning for Castillo to join him, “I will have a few words to say.”
The photographer came out of his corner, one camera up and its flash firing. Castillo, without thinking about it, came to attention next to the President.
“How do we get the old ones off?” the President asked, tugging at Castillo’s shoulder boards.
“Let me show you, Mr. President,” General Naylor said. He handed something to the President and put his hands on Castillo’s shoulders.
Castillo glanced down to see what Naylor had handed the President.
Of course, light bird’s shoulder boards.
But they’re not new.
Christ, they’re his.
Castillo felt his eyes water.
“And these slip on this way,” Naylor said, demonstrating.
The photographer bobbed around, clicking the shutter of his Nikon every second or so as the President got one shoulder board on and then Naylor got the other one on, and as they stood side by side, and then as the President and then Naylor shook Charley’s hand, and then as the others in the room became involved. Charley’s hand was shaken by the director of National Intelligence and the secretary of defense. His cheek was kissed by the First Lady, the secretary of state, and Mr. Hall. A final series of photos including everyone was taken.
“And now I have something to say,” the President said. “As some of you may know, I am the commander in chief. Until the promotion of Colonel Castillo came up, I naïvely thought that meant I could issue any order that I wanted and it would be carried out. I learned that does not apply to the promotion of officers.
“When Colonel Castillo found and returned to our control the 727 the terrorists had stolen in Angola—when the entire intelligence community was still looking for it, when we learned how close the lunatics had actually come to crashing it into the Liberty Bell in downtown Philadelphia after the entire intelligence community had pooh-poohed that possibility—I thought that a promotion would be small enough reward for Castillo’s extraordinary service to our country.
“Then-Major Castillo had already been selected, Matt Hall told me, for promotion to lieutenant colonel, not only selected but selected for quick promotion because of outstanding service.
“So I asked General Naylor, ‘How soon can I promote him?’ and General Naylor said, in effect, that I couldn’t, that it doesn’t work that way. Well, I thought that might well be because General Naylor and Colonel Castillo have a close personal relationship and He didn’t want it to look like Charley was getting special treatment. So I went to the chief of staff of the Army and said I knew of an outstanding major, a West Pointer, and a Green Beret, like the chief of staff, who not only had been selected for promotion to lieutenant colonel on what I now knew to be the ‘five percent list’ but had rendered a great service to his country, and I would like to know why he couldn’t be promoted immediately. And the chief of staff said that it didn’t work like that, and, as a West Pointer and a Green Beret, the major to whom I was referring would understand that. The clear implication being, so should the commander in chief.
“So the commander in chief backed off, except to phone General Naylor, and order him the moment he learned that the slowly grinding wheels of the Army promotion system had finally ground out that it was time to promote Major Castillo to let me know immediately. Which he did the day before yesterday.”
He turned to Castillo, shook his right hand, and put his left on Castillo’s shoulder.
“So you, Colonel Castillo, are going to have to be satisfied with better late than never. Congratulations, Charley.”
“Thank you, sir.”
There was polite laughter, applause, and another round of handshaking.
“Over the objections of the secretary of state, who fears that after one drink I will give the country away to our guests tonight, we will now toast Colonel Castillo’s new rank,” the President said.
A white-jacketed steward appeared with a tray of champagne glasses and distributed them.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the President said, his glass raised, “Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo.”
The President had just put his glass to his lips when a steward motioned that he had a telephone call.
“Natalie and I have been expecting that,” the President said. “Will you excuse us, please?”
He and the secretary of state left the room.
General Naylor walked up to Charley.
“Thank you for the shoulder boards, sir,” Charley said.
“My pleasure, Colonel,” Naylor said. “And if you have no further need for your old ones, Allan’s on the major’s list.”
“I’d be honored to have Allan wear them, sir.”
Ambassador Montvale joined them. He laid an almost paternal hand on Castillo’s shoulder.
“I think you were genuinely surprised by this, weren’t you, Colonel? I agree with the President that it’s overdue.”
An alarm bell went off in Castillo’s mind:
Why is this sonofabitch charming me?
Because the President made that little speech? Set up this ceremony in the first place?
No. He wants something. What?
He doesn’t want me complaining about his goddamned liaison officer. That’s what it is. He knows that right now, the President is in a mood to give me just about anything I ask for.
If I don’t bite the bullet now about that—and doing so now would ruin this “we’re all pals” ambiance—by the time I get back, and God only knows when that will be—I’ll permanently be stuck with Mr. Truman Ellsworth.
“General Naylor told me a long time ago that waiting for a promotion is like watching a glacier,” Castillo said. “For a long time, absolutely nothing—and then all of a sudden a great big splash.”
Montvale and Naylor chuckled.
What’s that line from Basic Tactics 101?
The best defense is a good offense.
“Mr. Ambassador,” Charley said, “I’d like a few minutes of your time, if that would be possible.”
Naylor’s surprise was evident on his face.
“Certainly,” Montvale said. “Sometime tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sir, just as soon as I can I’m going to be on a plane to Paris.”
“You mean now?”
“If that would be possible, sir.”
“Actually, I’ve been wanting to have a private word with you, too,” Montvale said, thoughtfully. “And this would seem to be one of those fortuitous circumstances.”
“Thank you, sir,” Castillo said.
“Especially since General Naylor is here,” Montvale went on.
“Excuse me?” Naylor said.
“We could go to the situation room and use the bubble, but I’m afraid that the three of us going there would attract attention. Wouldn’t you agree, General? Someone would decide that something is going on that they should know about.”
“Mr. Ambassador,” Naylor said, “my aide is waiting outside with a car to take me to Andrews. Just as soon as I can get away from here I’m going back to Tampa.”
“So far as getting away from here is concerned,” Montvale said, “our role in tonight’s events is over. The President has moved on to other things on his agenda. And if something unexpected comes up, he knows how to find us. I really don’t want to waste the next couple of hours smiling at people I don’t really like.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Naylor confessed, smiling.
“I know,” Montvale said. “The Army and Navy Club. We could talk there. Could I impose and suggest we go there?”
“Mr. Ambassador, I really have to get back to Tampa,” Naylor said.
“General, I just saved us from two hours—at least—of smiling at people we don’t like. Can’t you spare me thirty minutes? I’d really like for you to be there when the colonel and I have our little chat.”
“Yes, of course,” Naylor said.
“Playing the game, I suggest we leave in our own vehicles,” Montvale said as they approached the portico.
“Secretary Hall brought me here,” Castillo said. “May I ride with you, General?”
“You can use the pool,” Montvale said.
“Sir?”
Montvale answered by speaking to one of the Secret Service uniformed police guards at the door.
“We’ll need my car, General Naylor’s, and Colonel Castillo will need one from the pool,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the guard said. Then he spoke to his lapel microphone. “Send up Big Eye’s car, Tampa One’s car, and one from the pool for Don Juan.” Then he turned to Montvale. “They’ll be right here, sir,” he said.
Thirty seconds later, a dark blue GMC Yukon XL pulled up.
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” Montvale said to Naylor. “All right?”
“That’ll be fine.”
As Montvale got in the Yukon, a dark blue Chevrolet Suburban pulled up behind it.
A full colonel wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp got out of the front passenger’s seat as a staff sergeant came out from behind the wheel to snatch the covers from the four-star bumper plates.
Castillo, as a reflex action, saluted the colonel.
“Jack, take the car to the Army-Navy Club,” Naylor said. “I’ll ride with Maj…Colonel Castillo.”
“Yes, sir,” the colonel said.
Another dark blue Yukon came up the drive and pulled in ahead of the Chevrolet as the sergeant put the covers back over Naylor’s four-star plates. A Secret Service agent got out of the front passenger’s seat and opened the rear door.
Naylor climbed in and Castillo followed him. The Secret Service agent closed the door, got in front, and turned to look in the back.
“Where to, sir?”
“The Army-Navy Club, please,” Castillo said.
“Yes, sir,” the Secret Service agent said and then spoke to his microphone. “Don Juan, with Tampa One aboard, leaving the grounds for the Army-Navy Club.”
The Yukon started down the drive toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
“‘Don Juan, with Tampa One aboard’?” Naylor parroted.
“Don Juan is Joel Isaacson’s idea of humor,” Charley said.
“Charley, I’ve got something to say. And I think I better say it before we get there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What I was thinking tonight—and don’t misunderstand me, you earned that promotion—was that I really wish I hadn’t sent you to work for Matt Hall.”
“Me, too.”
“I wonder if you mean that,” Naylor said. “This is pretty heady stuff, Charley. A Secret Service car, a Secret Service code name. I am reminded of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and that worries me.”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“I would have been much happier if your promotion meant you now would take command of some battalion,” Naylor said.
“I would, too, sir. I didn’t ask for this job. And I asked to be relieved.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen and that’s what worries me,” Naylor said, then suddenly shifted subjects: “Do you have any idea why Montvale wants me at the club?” Then, before Castillo could reply, he asked another: “Why did you want to talk to him?”
“I have no idea why he wants you there, but the reason I want to talk to him is because he sent me Truman Ellsworth to be his liaison officer—read spy…”
“Truman Ellsworth is a former under secretary of state,” Naylor interrupted. “A liaison officer with that background?”
“Yes, sir. I thought of that. And I don’t want him. I want to get rid of him now before he chains himself to my desk.”
“I don’t think I have to tell you that Montvale is a powerful man. And a dangerous one.”
“I’ve already figured that out,” Castillo said.
“In North Africa,” Naylor said, almost to himself, “when Eisenhower sent Omar Bradley to Patton as his liaison officer—read spy—Patton outwitted Eisenhower by asking that Bradley be assigned as his chief of staff. That put Bradley under Patton’s orders. That kept him from communicating anything to Eisenhower without Patton knowing about it and not communicating anything Patton didn’t want communicated.”
“I’ve heard that story,” Charley said.
“I don’t think you want this fellow Ellsworth as your chief of staff,” Naylor said. “Ellsworth is not Bradley; he works for Montvale and that’s not going to change. And you’re not Patton, who had as many stars as Bradley. You’re a lowly lieutenant colonel and Ellsworth is…a former under secretary of state.”
“That’s what worries me,” Castillo said.
“The difference here is that Patton worked for Eisenhower. You don’t work for Montvale. But that’s what he’s after. If he can’t get that right now, he’ll use Ellsworth as your puppet master.”
“That’s what it looks like to me, sir,” Charley agreed.
“Goddamn it, I hate Washington,” Naylor said.