“He was a New Jersey state trooper, Mr. President,” Mulligan said. “He’s not too swift, I admit. But he’s reliable.”
“I was thinking he might be useful, now that we know what I suspected was going on is going on. And they don’t seem to care that I know, do they? Montvale himself, that sonofabitch, and Cohen—I’m a gentleman and I won’t say out loud what I think of her—actually took those Special Forces people to Arlington.”
He paused and shook his head as if in disbelief, and then went on: “Where they walked out before I made my remarks. An insult, and they damn well knew it. Goddamn! And they had Colonel Castillo with them. That was him, right?”
“Yes, sir, that was Castillo. And Colonel Torine was there, too.”
“Mulligan,” Clemens McCarthy asked, “who is this German man? What’s his involvement in this?”
“His real name is Castillo, Clemens,” the President answered for him. “Or maybe his real name is Goldfinger, or whatever Mulligan’s rocket scientist said. As to his involvement in what’s going on, he’s up to his ears in it. He probably thinks President Montvale will make him director of National Intelligence. Or secretary of Defense.
“But back to my original thought. Do you agree, Mulligan, that your man, who looks to me like he has a strong back, takes orders, and can keep his mouth shut, would be useful to us?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. President.”
“Well, then, get him back in here. And see if Schmidt is out there.”
“Director Schmidt is out there, Mr. President,” Mulligan replied. “I saw him just now. You want him to come in?”
“When I’m through with Dumbo,” the President said.
“Yes, Mr. President?” Special Agent Douglas said.
“Your first name is Mark, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you mind if I called you that?”
“I’d be honored, Mr. President, sir.”
“Well, Mark, Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan tells me that he’s had his eye on you for some time, and Mr. McCarthy agrees with me that you did a fine job today, showing high intelligence, discretion, and perseverance.”
Special Agent Douglas’s face colored.
“And we need someone with those characteristics around here, right around me,” Clendennen said. “The first thing I require of people in my intimate circle, Mark, is loyalty. Or, phrased another way, I absolutely cannot stand disloyalty. You can have the other things I mentioned, but if loyalty is not your strong point . . .”
“I can understand that, Mr. President,” Douglas said.
“Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan tells me he thinks you have that loyalty, understand the need for it. So I’m going to take a chance on you.”
“Yes, sir?”
“From this moment, Mark, you are relieved of all your normal duties. You will be reporting directly to Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan, who will explain to you what your duties will be. Now—and this is important, Mark—for a number of reasons we want to keep your special assignment from becoming public knowledge. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
Clendennen rose and offered Douglas his hand.
“Welcome aboard, Mark. We all expect great things from you.”
“I will try my best, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Okay, Mark. You can wait for Mr. Mulligan in the outer office. And while you’re out there, you can tell Mr. Schmidt he can come in.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” FBI Director Mark Schmidt said.
“Did you see those people standing with Colonel Castillo at Arlington?” the President asked without any preliminaries.
“The ones who looked like they just might be Special Forces, maybe even Delta or Gray Fox?” Schmidt replied smiling. “Yes, I did, Mr. President.”
“And did you see them insult their Commander in Chief by getting in their limousines and driving off before I had finished—hell, before I had started to make my remarks?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Tell him, Clemens,” the President said.
“They got into their limousines and left before the President had a chance to even begin his remarks,” the press secretary said.
“Mr. President, I just don’t think it was an intentional insult. I can’t believe they’d knowingly, much less purposefully . . .”
“There’s a good deal going on here, Mr. Director, that you’d have trouble believing if I told you. They went from the cemetery to the Mayflower, where a couple of minutes ago, they were in suite . . . what did Dumbo say the room number was, Mulligan?”
“Ten-oh-two, Mr. President.”
“What I want you to do, Mr. Director, is get a team of your people over there, right now, with cameras. Movie cameras would be better, but if that can’t be arranged on such short notice, the regular kind will have to do. Try not to be seen of course. I want a picture of every last one of those sonsofbitches. I want each picture to show when and where it was taken in such form that will stand up in court. And of course I want to have each of them identified. Name, rank, serial number, where they’re assigned.”
Schmidt looked at him in disbelief.
“Mr. President, may I respectfully suggest that you may be overreacting?”
“I don’t want to argue with you about this, Mr. Director. What I want you to do is say, ‘Yes, sir,’ then do what I tell you to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said.
“And when you have assembled all these photographs and the information, I want you to personally bring them here and give them to Mulligan.”
“I’ll get right on it, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.
“And I don’t want this spread all over the J. Edgar Hoover building. I don’t want anybody who is not directly involved to know anything about it. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.
“Now, what have you done about El Paso? Did you place the advertisement those people asked for?”
“The FBI has a very good man in El Paso, Mr. President,” Schmidt said. “The SAC—”
“The what?”
“The special agent in charge, Mr. President. His name is William Johnson. He’s the man who intercepted the second message to General McNab—”
“And instead of sending it to Washington, sent it to McNab. I didn’t see it until the next day. I don’t want that to happen again, Mr. Schmidt.”
There was a brief hesitation before Schmidt went on: “SAC Johnson placed the classified advertisement in El Diario de El Paso, the Spanish language newspaper—”
“Did you hear what I said about wanting any messages addressed to General McNab that the FBI discovers to be sent to me, immediately?”
“Mr. President, what I can do, should another FedEx or UPS envelope addressed to General McNab be uncovered, is immediately photocopy the envelope and its contents and send those to you.”
“I don’t want copies. I want the real thing.”
“Mr. President, there is no provision in the law permitting that.”
“Well, you and Attorney General Crenshaw are clever people . . . in his case, maybe a little too clever . . . and I’m sure you’ll be able to find a provision.”
Schmidt did not reply, having decided he was going to drop this in the lap of Attorney General Crenshaw and let him deal with it.
He went on: “What SAC Johnson also did, Mr. President, is investigate the post office box—P.O. Box 2333—mentioned in the kidnapper’s first message. When he learned that it had not been rented, he rented it.
“It’s possible the kidnappers knew that Box 2333 had been rented. He’s looking into that . . . which postal employees would have knowledge of that. Perhaps the kidnappers intend to send further communications to P.O. Box 2333. On the other hand, it may be just a coincidence.”
“Whatever means these people use to communicate with us, I want to see whatever they send im
mediately. You understand that?”
Schmidt nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“I intend to get this Colonel Ferris back, and I have no intention of letting anyone get in my way, whether through stupidity or ineptness. Or anything else.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.
“That will be all. Thank you.”
The President turned to Mulligan.
“Just as soon as the director has gone, get the secretary of Defense on the phone.”
[FOUR]
Office of the Commanding General
U.S. Special Operations Command
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1515 15 April 2007
When the red telephone on his desk buzzed and a red LED on it began to flash, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab put his hand on it.
“I wonder what message General Naylor is about to relay to me from the Deity,” he said to Colonel Max Caruthers, and then he pushed the LOUDSPEAKER button before picking up the handset and putting it to his ear.
“McNab.”
“I have just been on the telephone with Secretary Beiderman,” General Allan B. Naylor announced without any preliminaries.
“Yes, sir?”
“General, I am not in any mood to tolerate any of your wit, sarcasm, or, more important, obfuscations. If I were you, I’d keep that in mind.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll keep that in mind. May I inquire into what you think I have done to displease Secretary Beiderman?”
“You will answer my questions, General. I will take none from you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will recall my telling you personally, as a result of Secretary Beiderman’s orders to me to do so, that you were not even to contemplate any military action with regard to freeing Colonel Ferris?”
“Yes, sir. I remember your personally telling me that,” McNab parroted.
“And do you also recall that I ordered you not to attend the interment of Warrant Officer Salazar?”
“Yes, sir, I remember that very well. May I say that I have not even been contemplating any action with regard to freeing Colonel Ferris,” McNab parroted, “and that I did not attend Mr. Salazar’s interment?”
“Instead, you send a delegation of Delta Force and Gray Fox personnel. Does that about sum it up?”
“I did not send a delegation of Delta Force and Gray Fox personnel anywhere, General,” McNab parroted again.
This time Naylor picked up on it.
“Goddamn you, McNab, don’t you mock me!”
“It’s hard to resist, Allan.”
“Goddamn you! How dare you use my first name?”
“That’s twice that you’ve cursed me, Allan,” McNab said. “Wouldn’t you agree that’s conduct unbefitting a general officer and a gentleman?”
The flashing red LED on the telephone died, indicating the connection had been broken.
McNab replaced the handset and looked at Colonel Caruthers.
“Ninety seconds,” he said. “Maybe a little less.”
Caruthers shook his head in disbelief. Or maybe admiration.
Sixty-two seconds later, the red telephone buzzed and the red LED started flashing.
McNab took a lot longer to pick it up than he had the first time, but finally put the handset to his ear.
“McNab.”
“Please accept my sincere apologies, General McNab,” Naylor said.
“I will, providing you start acting like one old soldier talking to another old soldier—and a classmate, which puts us on a first-name basis—and tell me exactly why Beiderman chewed your ass to the point where you lost your cool.”
There was a long pause, and Colonel Caruthers had just about decided the LED was about to stop blinking again when General Naylor said, “Bruce, Charley was at Arlington.”
“I’m not surprised. Danny Salazar was on the first A Team Charley ever commanded. But I didn’t send him up there, Allan. I haven’t talked to him since before these Mexican slime murdered Salazar. And I didn’t send the others, either. I didn’t even know they were going.”
“And then they all drove away, just when the President was about to deliver his remarks,” Naylor said. “And their departure was on Wolf News for the whole world to see, thanks to Andy McClarren.”
“What’s the President pissed off about? That they were there, or that they walked out on his speech?”
“Both. And it’s worse than that. Are you alone?”
“Max Caruthers is here.”
There was another long pause.
“I hope that silence doesn’t mean you don’t trust Max,” McNab said finally.
“No offense intended, Colonel Caruthers,” Naylor said. “Actually, what I was doing was rethinking whether I wanted to tell General McNab what I’m about to tell you both.”
“Which is?”
“The President seems to believe that whatever happened that saw Ambassador Montvale named Vice President was the first step in a coup d’état.”
“That’s absurd. I admit that it has a certain appeal, but that anyone was planning a coup is simply not true,” McNab said.
“People believe what they want to believe,” Naylor said. “Do I have to say whom he views as coconspirators?”
“Where did you get this, Allan?” McNab asked softly.
And again there was a long pause before Naylor replied.
“Natalie Cohen,” he said finally. “And I ran it past Frank Lammelle. He confirmed it.”
“He’s insane,” McNab said. “Not Lammelle. Clendennen.”
Naylor didn’t reply to that.
“What Natalie suggests is that all of us do nothing that could possibly give him a chance to ask for—demand—our resignations.”
“Natalie always keeps her head.”
“Natalie suggests that his plan is to get rid of us one by one, and says that John David Parker was the first one to go.”
“That seems pretty clear,” McNab said.
“It seems pretty clear, Bruce, that you’re next on the list,” Naylor said. “Beiderman made it obvious that he would support me if I relieved you at SPECOPSCOM, or even announced your retirement.”
“What does he think of this coup d’état nonsense?”
“I don’t know if he knows about it or not, or if he does know, his reaction to it. I think his primary motivation is to keep his job. Which brings us to, what do I tell him about Charley and your people being at Arlington, where they walked out on the President’s speech?”
“To get me out of here would require that you have proof I did something I should not have done, or not done something I should have done. And my skirts are clean here, Allan.
“I have not been in touch with Charley—I told you this before—since before Danny Salazar was murdered. I did not suggest that he go to Arlington. I knew he probably would be there, sure, but I had nothing to do with his going.”
“Bruce, what about the Delta Force people? How do I explain to Beiderman that fifteen or twenty of your people showed up there without your knowledge?”
“When all else fails, tell the truth. Those men—some of them commissioned officers, some of them warrant officers, and the rest senior noncoms—are not PFCs who have to knock on the orderly room door to ask the first sergeant for a pass. So long as they are available for duty—depending on their alert status—immediately, or on one hour’s notice, or six hours, or twenty-four hours—they are free to go anywhere they please.
“Now, I don’t know this, and you might not want to tell Beiderman this, but what I strongly suspect happened here is that after you shoved burying her husband at Arlington down Mrs. Salazar’s throat—”
“That was not my idea, Bruce. The President, to use your phraseology, shoved it down Secretary Beiderman’s throat, and he shoved it down mine.”
“Whereupon, you obediently shoved it down Mrs. Salazar’s. And after you did, I think that she called Charley. And Charley—never forget he’s one of us, Allan—deci
ded that the best thing all around—‘for the good of the service’ comes to mind—was to resist what must have been a hell of a temptation for him to tell her to tell you and the President to go to hell and insist that her husband be buried in San Antonio National Cemetery.
“He probably told her he was going to be at Arlington, and that if any of the people in the Stockade wanted to go, he’d have them picked up at the Fayetteville Regional Airport by Jake Torine or Dick Miller and flown back there when the interment was over. He has several airplanes, and the wherewithal to charter more. So I suspect that the reason they left Arlington right after the funeral was to get to the airport so that they could come back here.”
After a long silent moment, Naylor said, “I’ll buy everything but hurrying to the airport. What they did was go to that suite Charley keeps at the Mayflower. They’re having sort of a wake. As we speak, according to Beiderman, the party’s still going on. And, again according to Beiderman, Roscoe Danton and John David Parker are among the mourners.”
“Which will tend to convince the President even more of the coup d’état conspiracy,” McNab said.
“Precisely. Well, that’s what I will tell the secretary of Defense. That you knew nothing about Charley Castillo’s presence at Arlington, and haven’t been in touch with him since before this mess started. I don’t have much hope that he’ll believe me.”
“Your skirts are clean, Allan. You issued the orders you were told to issue, and made sure they were carried out.”
“It isn’t that black-and-white though, is it?” Naylor asked thoughtfully.
“Very little is ever either black or white, Allan.”
There was another pause, and then Naylor said, “You said something before . . .”
“What?”
“You suggested the President was insane.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, that was a figure of speech, and you know it.”
Naylor didn’t reply.
“I have, Allan, on many occasions, going all the way back to our unhappy days at Hudson High, called you chickenshit. You knew I didn’t think you were really fecal matter excreted from the anus of a Gallus domesticus. When I accused our lunatic President of being crazy, I was—”
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