Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

  "He also told me, 'Of course I'm going into the Congo.' "

  Castillo said, "Absolutely out of the question. He can go as far as Bujumbura, and even that makes me uncomfortable."

  "Well, you're going to have to tell him that, Charley."

  "I'm a lowly lieutenant colonel. He's a more than a little starchy full bird. Get McNab to tell him."

  "Get who?"

  "General McNab."

  "I thought he told you . . ."

  "Told me what?"

  "The general doesn't know you anymore," D'Allessando said. "He hasn't seen you since you went off to Washington a long time ago, where he hears you went off the deep end. He knows you snatched two Russian spies away from the CIA and won't give them back. He thinks you're a disgrace to the uniform and has already taken steps to see that you're booted out of the Army. He wouldn't talk to you even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, you had the effrontery to try calling him."

  Castillo saw the look on Svetlana's face and then on Abuela's.

  "I'd forgotten," Castillo said.

  I remember him telling me, "From the moment I walk out that door, I don't know where you are, or what you're doing, or anything about you except that I agree you're not playing with a full deck."

  But, until just now, what it meant just didn't sink in.

  "Keep it in mind, Charley," D'Allessando said.

  "Where is Colonel Hamilton?"

  "I choppered him out to Camp Mackall. I thought maybe seeing what the guys in the last stages of training have to go through might discourage him. I'm not holding my breath, Charley."

  "Get him back. Get him on the horn. How long will that take?"

  "An hour, give or take."

  "Do it. Anything else?"

  "Air Tanzania is all painted and ready to go. Uncle Remus is in the process of picking shooters; he's almost finished, he said. The maps we got from the Air Force at Hurlburt have been digitalized and sent to you. Lester didn't tell you?"

  "Not yet. I'm going to have to go buy printers--"

  "And/or some external drives. Those things do eat up the bytes."

  "I remember. That it?"

  "I'll call you when I get Hamilton back to civilization. D'Allessando off."

  "Russian spies?" Dona Alicia asked. "General Naylor said something about that."

  "General Naylor said something?"

  "He came to see me. Very upset."

  "Well, Abuela, I'm as anxious to hear about that as you are to hear about the Russian spies. But for right now, as I go to take my morning shower, you'll have to be satisfied with me pointing them out to you."

  He pointed.

  "Oh, my!" Dona Alicia said.

  "One of them is not only a Russian spy, but steals people's personal robes."

  "I'll go find Estella and get some breakfast started," Dona Alicia said.

  [FOUR]

  0840 8 January 2006

  "Actually, Carlos," Dona Alicia said as she poured tea into Svetlana's cup, "General Naylor got quite emotional toward the end. He said he felt responsible for so much that's happened to you in the Army."

  "I would love to have seen that," Castillo said. " 'Old Stone Face' emotional?"

  "He said that he should have known the Army would do something--because of your father and the Medal of Honor--like send you to the Desert War before you were prepared, and done something to stop it."

  Castillo shook his head. "Fernando was over there, and he was even less prepared for that war than I was. I knew more about flying helicopters than he did about commanding a platoon of tanks."

  "And then he said--and this surprised me, because I always thought they were great friends--that his greatest regret was in sending you to General McNab after you were shot down and they gave you the medal. He said that once you were 'corrupted' by General McNab, everything followed. I thought 'corrupted' was a very strong term."

  "Just to keep the record straight, Abuela, they gave me the medal for not getting shot down. And Naylor sent me to McNab to keep them from putting me in another Apache, which he correctly suspected they would do. I really wasn't qualified to fly Apaches, and if I had kept it up, which I would have been stupid enough to do, I probably would have killed myself. General Naylor's conscience should be clear on that score."

  She looked at him but didn't say anything.

  Castillo went on: "And General McNab didn't corrupt me, Jack Davidson corrupted me--"

  "Go to hell, Charley," Davidson said, laughing.

  "--because every second lieutenant is taught to find a good senior NCO, then do what he says and follow his example. And what this corrupter of young officers did was teach me how to blow safes and steal whiskey."

  Davidson laughed again.

  Dona Alicia shook her head. "Carlos, I'm being serious here."

  "So am I, Abuela. Go on, Jack, fess up. Tell Dona Alicia that you talked me into sling-loading a dune buggy under McNab's Huey so we could 'reconnoiter the American embassy in Kuwait by air and land before the Marines could get there.' And that when we got to the embassy, you blew the safe and stole all the diplomats' whiskey."

  "Really?" Svetlana said. She did not seem disapproving.

  "He's an evil man, Sweaty," Castillo said. "Rotten to the core."

  "Sweaty?" Dona Alicia repeated.

  "Was that before or after you made the Russian colonels sing 'The Internationale'?" Dmitri Berezovsky asked.

  "What?" Dona Alicia asked.

  "A couple of days after, Colonel," Davidson said. "We needed a little something to drink to celebrate the Well Done message we got from Bush One."

  "What Russian colonels singing?" Dona Alicia asked.

  Berezovsky and Davidson related the Russian and American versions of the story.

  "I should be ashamed of myself," Dona Alicia then said. "My curiosity always seems to get out of control. We were talking about how bad General Naylor feels about your . . . retirement."

  "He shouldn't," Castillo said seriously. "He went along with Montvale because that's what he thought his duty called for him to do. I did the same thing; I did what I thought was my duty. I'm not angry with Naylor, Abuela. Really. He's always been one of the good guys."

  "What are you going to do when this is over and . . ."

  "When I am 'Lieutenant Colonel Castillo (Retired)'? Right now what I'm thinking is that I'll move into Sweaty's new house in the Pilar Golf and Polo Country Club and maybe even learn how to play golf. Or polo. Or both."

  My post-retirement plans are a little vague, probably because I don't want to even think about them.

  What the hell am I going to do?

  I can't imagine playing golf or polo. . . .

  "What about coming back here?" Dona Alicia asked.

  Lester came into the kitchen, saving him from having to answer the question.

  "Mr. D'Allessando's got Colonel Hamilton on the AFC for you, Colonel."

  And what happens to you, Lester, when this merry little band folds its tent and steals off into the night?

  "Thanks, Lester."

  He motioned for everybody to follow him into the library, where Bradley had the AFC set up.

  [FIVE]

  0855 8 January 2006

  When Castillo walked into the library, he saw that the first steps to convert it into the Command Post for what he was now thinking of as Operation Fish Farm had been taken by Corporal Bradley. The AFC had been set up on a table near a window. A bed for the 24/7 posting had been dragged in from somewhere and there was a coffeemaker on another table against the wall.

  Chairs had been arranged around the table, and there were lined pads and several ballpoint pens on each pad. Aside from that, there was nothing on the table but Castillo's and Davidson's notebook computers and the AFC handset. The rest of what they were going to need was going to have to wait until Lester or Jack went shopping.

  Castillo took the seat at the head of the table, with his back to the fireplace, which held a crackling fire. Dmit
ri Berezovsky took the seat on the left side of the table. Davidson slipped into the seat across from him. Svetlana and Dona Alicia sat together on the left at the other end of the table, and Bradley sat across from them.

  A Winchester lever-action .44-40 rifle was mounted on pegs above the fireplace. Large, accurate-scale models of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and an M1A1 Abrams tank sat on the mantelpiece under it. Castillo had bought the Apache model in the bookstore at Fort Rucker shortly after having been rated in that aircraft and had it shipped home. Fernando had done about the same thing with the Abrams model: bought it at the Fort Knox bookstore and sent it home just before shipping out for the Desert War.

  The Winchester was a family treasure, having been used on many dozen occasions to protect the Double-Bar-C and its cattle from marauding Apache Indians.

  The M1A1 Abrams was named for one of the Army's most distinguished Armor generals, Creighton W. Abrams. Among his great achievements, Abrams, as a lieutenant colonel, had broken through the German ring surrounding Bastogne to rescue the 101st Airborne.

  The AH-64, an instructor at Rucker had told Castillo before he'd even been allowed to get close to one of them, was named after the Apache Indians in tribute to their characteristics as warriors. Castillo had had trouble believing his ears--and even more keeping his mouth shut.

  He had thought of that instructor every time he had climbed into an AH- 64 Apache thereafter, wondering again and again if the Pentagon chair-warmer--or chair-warmers, plural--who had given it that name because of the warrior characteristics of the Apache Indians had done enough research. For example, to learn, as Castillo well knew, that the Apaches had expressed their contempt for settlers against whom they waged war by capturing settlers and hanging them alive upside-down over a small fire and slowly roasting their brains. Or, for example, leaving their captors spread-eagle in the desert sun with eyelids hacked off and enough small bloodletting incisions made in the genital area to attract ants and other desert fauna.

  And now Castillo thought of chair-warmer types again as he reached for the SPEAKERPHONE button on the AFC.

  "Good morning, sir. Castillo here."

  "So it says on this amazing device," Colonel Hamilton replied. "I am taking Mr. D'Allessando's word for it that we are now in Class One encryption."

  "Yes, sir, we are."

  "I have been hoping you would get in contact, Colonel Castillo, inasmuch as General McNab has informed me the press of his other duties forces him to leave this operation in your hands, so to speak."

  "Yes, sir. That is my understanding."

  "Are you alone, Colonel? Mr. D'Allessando suggested you might wish him to be privy to this, and he's with me."

  "I have my people with me, sir, and we're on speakerphone."

  "Specifically, our new Russian friends?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Colonel Berezovsky, I regret I didn't have more time to talk with you and your charming sister when we were in Florida," Hamilton said. "But if you will continue to be available while we're doing this, no real harm done."

  "Good morning, Colonel," Berezovsky said. "We will be here."

  "There are some things that have to be done in the immediate future, Castillo, before Mr. DeWitt and I go into the Congo."

  "Sir, I wanted to talk to you about that," Castillo said.

  "About what?"

  "Sir, what I'm thinking is that it would better if you didn't actually go into the Congo."

  "That's absurd. Wherever did you come up with that?"

  "What I was thinking would make more sense, sir, would be if you remained outside the Congo--say, in Tanzania or Chad. . . ."

  "I repeat, that's absurd."

  "Colonel, you're too valuable an asset to be put at risk."

  "I will make that judgment, Colonel. I have made that judgment. Now, as I was saying--"

  "Sir, with respect, I must insist."

  "Colonel, you are in no position to insist on anything."

  "Sir, as you told me, General McNab has been forced to place this operation in my hands."

  "What General McNab said to me, Colonel, was that in the inevitable event we should find ourselves in disagreement, we could not look to him for resolution; we would have to do that ourselves."

  "Yes, sir, I understand that. Sir, may I say that I regard myself as the operation commander and you, sir, as very likely our most important asset, and that it is therefore my responsibility to protect you to the best of my ability."

  "What did you say your class was? At the Academy?"

  " 'Ninety, sir."

  "Then I can't believe you said what you just said. You're a West Pointer."

  "Yes, sir. I am."

  "Well, Colonel, unless the course of instruction at our alma mater has dramatically changed since you and I last marched across our beloved plain above the Hudson, they are still teaching that he who is senior is in command."

  No shit, Hamilton!

  And no one is more senior than the commander in chief.

  And the President is my senior--but I damn well can't say that.

  I've got to somehow beat this sonofabitch at his own game . . . but how?

  "Sir, with respect, I don't think that applies when one of the officers is of the combat arms and the other in the medical corps. In that situation, the senior combat arms officer is in command."

  "Good God, Castillo! You didn't think I was going to go into the Congo wearing a Red Cross and caduceus--caduci? Is that the plural? I never seem to remember--and claiming the protection of the Geneva and other applicable conventions, did you? I'm not out of my mind. I'm going in armed as heavily as I can arrange. Mr. D'Allessando is taking me out and teaching me to fire the Mini Uzi as soon as we finish this conversation."

  Berezovsky saw the look on Castillo's face.

  He first laid a gentle hand on Castillo's wrist, and when Castillo looked at him, Berezovsky signaled Slow down, calm down, take it easy all with one motion of his hand and a gentle, understanding smile.

  "That's very good of Mr. D'Allessando, sir."

  D'Allessando's voice, his tone very serious, came over the speaker: "I always try to be helpful, Colonel Castillo. You know that."

  Hamilton went on: "So let's clear the air between us, Castillo. My view of our relationship is this: When my people . . ."

  You can stick "your people" up your ass, Hamilton!

  I've had enough of your secret "protectors"!

  ". . . authorized my participation in this operation, it was understood between us that General McNab was in command. Now that the other calls upon his time have taken him out of the picture, command thus falls to the next senior officer, which happens to be me. I will, of course, defer to your judgment in those areas of your expertise and seek your counsel. Now, Colonel, do you have any trouble with that?"

  Berezovsky touched Castillo's wrist again and shook his head.

  "No, sir, I do not."

  Berezovsky gave Charley a thumbs-up.

  Charley looked at Svetlana. He couldn't tell if she felt sorry for him or thought what was going on was just short of hilarious.

  "Fine, Colonel Castillo. On reflection, I'm glad this came up when it did, rather than later. Now, as to what has to be done."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Mr. DeWitt and I have to go to Washington. My people have arranged for visas for us--it usually takes weeks, I was told--for not only Tanzania but for Rwanda and Burundi, and--this should please you, Castillo--for the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well. But they cannot get around the requirement that the passport must be presented by the holder--or is that the holdee?--personally.

  "Then I have to go to Fort Dietrich to pick up my equipment."

  "Your equipment, sir?"

  "Yes. It will be taken, Mr. D'Allessando assures me, to Africa aboard your airplane with the 'shooters.' I had never heard that term before, but, especially after what I saw at Camp Mackall just now, I'm rather assured by what it connotes."

 
; "Sir, what sort of equipment are we talking about?"

  "My testing equipment. There are three rather large soft-sided suitcases. Getting them through customs would have posed a major problem, but your shooter's airplane has solved that. Getting them from Fort Dietrich here is the instant problem."

  "Sir, I can--"

  "Mr. D'Allessando suggests that Mr. DeWitt and I leave Bragg and fly to Washington today. There is a Delta flight at 1620 to Washington, via Atlanta."

  Castillo thought quickly, then said, "As usual, Colonel, Mr. D'Allessando knows what should be done. And I'll have Major Miller--you remember him, sir?"

  "Yes. The officer with the injured knee."

  "I'll have Major Miller meet your plane, sir."

  "That's very kind of you, Colonel, but I can make it from Reagan to my home without assistance, and I'll be happy to have Mr. DeWitt's company. It'll give us a chance to get to know one another, so to speak, before our trip."

  "Sir, with respect, this is my area of expertise."

  Hamilton was silent a moment, and apparently remembered his offer to listen to suggestions. "Go on, Colonel."

  "I will have Major Miller meet you, sir. We have a house in Alexandria--for that matter, we keep a suite at the Mayflower Hotel--where I'm sure you would be comfortable. It's central--"

  "I know where it is, Colonel," Hamilton interrupted. "In some circles, it's known as the Motel Monica Lewinsky."

  "Yes, sir, I'd heard that. Major Miller can take you to the various embassies, and then out to Fort Dietrich for your equipment."

  "How are we going to get that back here to Fort Bragg, Castillo? Have you given that any thought?"

  "If you'll bear with me a moment, sir?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Major Miller will then take the equipment to Baltimore, where a plane will be waiting to bring you and Mr. DeWitt--and, of course, your equipment--back to Bragg."

  "Is there some reason that I don't know why Mr. DeWitt and I should come back to Fort Bragg?"

  Shit.

  "No, sir. I didn't think that through."

  "Obviously." He paused dramatically. "Now, once we have our visas, we can be on our way."

  "Yes, sir. Major Miller will also arrange your transportation to Africa."