Dona Alicia laughed.
“I know the look,” Dona Alicia said. “When he and Fernando were about twelve, their grandfather showed them a pair of Winchester.30–30 Model 1894 lever-actions that he said he was sending down to Hacienda Santa Maria. .”
Dona Alicia paused when Sweaty’s face showed a lack of understanding.
“The grapefruit farm,” Castillo explained.
Dona Alicia went on: “The rifles were for keeping the deer from eating our grapefruit. They were to be a Christmas present for them, but they didn’t know that. And both of them. .”
She opened her eyes wide and let her tongue hang out of the side of her mouth.
Sweaty laughed, then finished: “So I bought him a Mustang.”
“Grandpa told me that it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it was a poor one,” Castillo said. “And I took his advice.”
“I don’t know how you put up with him, Svetlana dear. But, on the other hand, his grandfather was just about as bad, and I put up with him for forty-eight years before the Lord took him.”
And then her face grew serious.
“Do you think the people at Hacienda Santa Maria are safe?” she asked.
Well, that’s a natural transition, I suppose, from a couple of Model 94s as Christmas presents for a couple of twelve-year-olds to asking by implication if weapons are needed to protect our people at Hacienda Santa Maria.
“Fernando’s down there right now, Abuela, making sure they are.”
“And how is he going to do that?”
“He took some security people with him,” Castillo said.
“From Gladiator Security? Was that necessary? The police chief in Oaxaca is an old, old friend of ours. And, for that matter, so is the chief of police in Acapulco. Between them, I’m sure. .”
“Abuela, Colonel Ferris was kidnapped fifty miles from Acapulco,” Castillo said.
“So you decided that people from Gladiator Security were needed?”
“Not Gladiator Security. The people Fernando took to the hacienda are Spetsnaz. Ex-Spetsnaz.”
“Russian Green Berets?”
“More or less. They’ve been protecting Sweaty’s cousin Aleksandr and his family in Argentina.”
“And Fernando took them there?”
Castillo nodded.
“Then he must take this threat very seriously,” she said.
“He does. You seem surprised.”
“He knows it will insult our people at Hacienda Santa Maria,” she said.
“Abuela, we’re trying to protect them. Why should they be insulted?”
“Fernando knows-and you should-that Hacienda Santa Maria has been in the family for centuries. It was a land grant from the king of Spain. For all that time, our people there have been fighting off people who wanted to do the hacienda harm. Indians, all sorts of banditos, even French soldiers when Mexico had a French emperor. And lately these despicable drug people. They won’t think they need any help.”
“Well, they’re wrong,” Castillo said.
“And getting back to where this conversation began,” she said. “Neither do I. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I don’t need more people from Gladiator than are already here.”
“Wrong again, Abuela,” Castillo said. “From now on, you don’t go anywhere without people from Gladiator. One of them will drive your car.” He paused, and then added, “Which will probably cause your insurance company to heave a huge sigh of relief.”
She frowned at him and looked as if she were going to reply. But then her expression changed to a smile as Lester Bradley walked into the breakfast room. He was carrying a Brick.
“Good morning, Lester,” Dona Alicia said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Good morning,” Bradley replied.
“Of course he slept well,” Castillo said. “Nobody was snoring in his room.”
This triggered a thirty-second explosion in Russian from Sweaty, which Dona Alicia could not translate but obviously understood.
Castillo put up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but did not really look very remorseful.
“Sit down, dear,” Dona Alicia said, “and have some breakfast.”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” Lester said, then turned to Castillo. “Colonel, can I see you a moment?”
“Lester, we’re both retired. That means I don’t call you sergeant anymore, and you don’t call me colonel.”
“Yes, sir,” Lester replied.
“Try ‘Your Majesty’ on for size. If that doesn’t work, how about ‘Charley’?”
Bradley smiled.
“I. . uh. .” Bradley said, and looked at Dona Alicia.
“What’s up, Les?” Castillo said.
“Mr. Casey called a couple of minutes ago,” Bradley said, “to tell me Net Two is up and running. If you want to use it, punch two forward slashes and then the other numbers.”
“What’s ‘Net Two’?” Castillo asked.
“Mr. Casey said when you asked, I was to tell you to call Mr. D’Alessandro.”
He laid the Brick in front of Castillo and opened it.
Castillo took out the handset.
“Two forward slashes, and then the number,” Bradley repeated.
Castillo did so.
“What’s up, Vic?”
“Put it on loudspeaker,” Sweaty ordered.
Castillo either didn’t hear her or chose to ignore her.
Their conservation was brief, essentially one-sided, with Castillo doing most of the listening and replying with short answers. Finally, he said, “We’ll be in touch,” and replaced the handset in the Brick.
“What is ‘Net Two’?” Sweaty demanded immediately.
It took him a moment to frame his reply.
“The reason we now have two Casey networks is because we have to cut Natalie Cohen out of the original net, and we don’t want her to know that she’s been cut.”
“That requires an explanation,” Sweaty said.
“Let me tell you what she told Frank Lammelle,” Castillo said. “Natalie Cohen said that President Clendennen thinks we tried, we’re trying, to stage a coup d’etat. First we get him to appoint Montvale as Vice President, then we get rid of Clendennen.”
“My God!” Dona Alicia said.
“That never entered my mind,” Castillo said. “Maybe it should have. But that’s moot. Montvale and Natalie and Frank no longer have the threat of impeachment to hold Clendennen in line. So now it’s his turn to get rid of people. That circus at Langley-Clendennen’s press conference-was his first move. He not only got rid of Porky Parker, but he made the point to the others that he was coming after them just as soon as he could find a reason.
“Once they get the message, he hopes they will resign. They can leave his service with their reputations intact, instead of getting fired for incompetence, as Parker was. It’s clear to both Lammelle and Cohen that he plans to use this mess in Mexico as the way to do it.
“So Natalie told Frank their only defense against this is to not give him any excuse at all to accuse them of either incompetence or disloyalty.
“Making matters worse, Lammelle says that Cohen-keep in mind that it was her idea to send Ferris, Danny Salazar, and the other Special Forces people down there in the first place-will go ballistic if she even suspects what Aleksandr Pevsner plans to do in Mexico.”
“Which is?” Dona Alicia asked softly.
“Pevsner has decided that the best defense against what Putin has in mind for us is a good offense.”
“And you, Carlos?” she asked. “How do you feel about that?”
Castillo hesitated just perceptibly before replying, “Abuela, taking into consideration both that Putin has proved-Herr Friedler was not the only man he had assassinated-that he’s willing and capable of murdering everybody he thinks is in his way, I’m afraid Pevsner is right.”
“You said, ‘taking into consideration both.’”
“Abuela, Putin’s alr
eady tried, several times, to assassinate me. There’s no question that he’s coming after Svetlana, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”
Dona Alicia sighed. “Oh, my. We have a very bad situation on our hands, don’t we?”
Castillo didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he said, “We thought-naively thought-that we had bloodied his nose when we grabbed the Tupelov and turned General Sirinov over to the CIA. We offered him an armistice; he didn’t accept it. So what we have to do now is bloody it again, hard enough this time so that he gets the message.”
She considered that for a moment.
“And so what do we do now?”
“‘So what do we do now’?” Castillo parroted, lightly sarcastic.
His grandmother stared at him icily.
“Until you lower me into my grave, Carlos, I will continue to run this family. Never forget that!”
“Sorry,” he said.
He saw Sweaty looking at her with a smile of approval.
“And what I am going to do now is have a word with Senor Medina,” Dona Alicia said.
She turned to Sweaty.
“Senor Medina has been running Hacienda Santa Maria for us for thirty years. And before that, his father ran it. And before him, his father.”
She paused, then looked at Lester. She pointed at the Brick on the side table.
“That device, you told me, Lester, prohibits people from eavesdropping on conversations?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Fernando has one?”
Lester nodded.
“And you told me, Carlos, that Fernando is at the hacienda?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lester, would you bring that to me and show me again how to use it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lester,” Castillo said, “before the head of the family talks to him, you better get him on the horn and explain Net Two to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo looked at Dona Alicia. “And when you get Fernando on the Brick, then what?”
“I told you, I want a word with Senor Medina.”
“About what?”
“I’m going to ask him to get in his car right now and go see Senor Torres. .”
“Who is?”
“I told you before, an old and trusted friend who is commandant of the Policia Federal in Acapulco.”
“Then he’s probably in up to his ears with the Sinaloa drug cartel,” Castillo said.
“I’ll admit that possibility,” she replied. “But we don’t know that, Carlos. And he will believe me when I tell him that unless Colonel Ferris is released safely and immediately, there will be much trouble.”
“You’re going to threaten this guy?” Castillo asked incredulously.
“I’m going to explain the situation to him. It can’t do any harm, Carlos. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll think of something else.”
Castillo glanced at Svetlana and saw that she was once again smiling approvingly at his grandmother.
FIVE
The Situation Room The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1105 14 April 2007
Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan, who in addition to being appointed chief of the Secret Service Presidential Protection Team now also seemed to be functioning as President Clendennen’s personal assistant, had telephoned Vice President Charles W. Montvale, Secretary of State Natalie Cohen, Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman, Director of National Intelligence Truman Ellsworth, CIA Director A. Franklin Lammelle, Attorney General Stanley Crenshaw, and FBI Director Mark Schmidt summoning them all to a 10:45 A.M. meeting with the President in the Situation Room.
In each case he had insisted-politely but with a certain arrogance-on speaking personally with those being summoned rather than leave word of their summons with anyone else.
They all chose to arrive early, which caused a not-so-minor traffic jam in the White House driveways and in the area where the White House vehicles were parked. The Vice President, the secretary of State, and the secretary of Defense traveled in limousines, all of them preceded and trailed by GMC Yukons carrying their protection details. The others did not have limousines. Everyone but Director of National Intelligence Ellsworth-who rode in his personal car, a Jaguar Vanden Plas-traveled by Yukon, with each preceded and trailed by Yukons carrying their protection details.
By 10:40, all the dignitaries had arrived in the underground Situation Room. The President was not there, nor was the usual coffeemaker and trays of pastry.
Vice President Montvale told one of the Secret Service agents guarding the door to “see what’s happened to the coffee,” and the agent hurried from the door.
The coffee and pastry had not arrived when Special Agent Mulligan appeared at the door and announced, “The President of the United States.”
Everyone rose as Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen entered the room and marched to the head of the table, trailed by Clemens McCarthy, a crew-cut man who looked younger than his forty-two years, and who had been named presidential press secretary following the resignation of John David Parker.
Usually the President said, “Please take your seats” before sitting down. Today he unceremoniously sat down and said, “Well, let’s get started. I’ve got a lot on my plate today.”
After an awkward moment, the Vice President sat down and the others followed suit.
“Lammelle,” Clendennen said, “I didn’t find what I was looking for in my daily, quote unquote, intelligence briefing.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President. What were you looking for, sir?”
“The last developments in this mess in Mexico, Lammelle.”
“There have been no developments in the last twenty-four hours, Mr. President,” the director of National Intelligence replied.
“Specifically, I wanted to know if we have the bodies.”
“Mr. President,” Secretary of State Cohen put in, “I spoke with Ambassador McCann just before I left to come here. He told me he expects the remains to be released to us sometime today.”
“And then what?” the President asked.
“Then we’ll send a plane to return them to the United States,” Cohen said.
“No,” the President said as Clemens McCarthy stood and stepped toward him. “What we’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is. .”
He interrupted himself when McCarthy leaned over and whispered at length into his ear.
The President nodded, then went on: “McCarthy pointed out that we were about to miss a nice photo opportunity. So what you’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is get on the phone to the ambassador and tell him to go to the airport-what’s it called, Clemens?”
“General Juan N. Alvarez International Airport, Mr. President.”
“Clemens always has details like that at his fingertips,” the President said. “What you’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is call the ambassador and tell him to get over to General Juan N. Alvarez International Airport right now. Tell him that a press plane will be coming there. Tell him to set up some sort of appropriate ceremony with the most senior Mexicans he can get together for the loading of the bodies onto the airplane. .”
“Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Beiderman said, “in situations like this, the protocol is to have the bodies in body bags, on stretchers, with an American flag covering them. That’s not a very nice picture.”
“Jesus Christ!” the President said. “You tell the ambassador, Madam Secretary, to make sure that the bodies are in caskets, nice caskets. .”
Clemens McCarthy whispered in the President’s ear again. And again the President nodded.
“And tell him,” the President ordered, “to take his Marine embassy guards with him, dressed in their dress uniforms, to carry the bodies, in their caskets, onto the airplane.”
“You said a ‘photo op,’ Mr. President,” Secretary Cohen said. “Do you want the ambassador to try to arrange for that?”
�
��I also said, Madam Secretary, if you were listening, that a press plane will be going down there. Clemens arranged it. On it will be crews from Wolf News and a couple of the unimportant ones. And Andy McClarren, who, as Clemens said he would, was unable to turn down a chance to have tear-filled eyes on display for his many millions of viewers.”
“And does Mr. McCarthy have plans for the plane landing at San Antonio?” Secretary of Defense Beiderman asked.
“San Antonio?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir. All three men are from Texas. It is intended to bury Warrant Officer Salazar in the national cemetery there. Plans for the DEA agents have not been finalized.”
“Mr. McCarthy had made all the necessary arrangements with the press for the landing of the plane at Andrews Air Force Base,” the President said. “And for their interment at Arlington the day after tomorrow.”
“Mr. President, I spoke with General Naylor about this. Mrs. Salazar wishes to have her husband buried in San Antonio.”
“Well, call General Naylor and tell him I said for him to tell her that her husband is going to be buried in Arlington. All three are going to be buried in Arlington. And you’re all going to be there. There will be a photo op. I will make remarks.”
“Mr. President,” Beiderman said, “I don’t know what the families of the DEA agents wish with regard to their interment-”
“I just told you, Mr. Secretary, where they are going to be buried.”
“-and I’m not sure that either of the DEA agents is eligible for interment at Arlington. I’m not even sure they’re both veterans. And, as you know, sir, they’re running out of space at Arlington.”
Clendennen looked at Attorney General Crenshaw.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Attorney General, but don’t I, as Commander in Chief, have the authority to say who is eligible for interment at Arlington?”
“You have that authority, Mr. President,” Crenshaw said.
“Subject closed,” the President said.
He turned to the DCI.
“Lammelle, I asked you what seems like a long time ago about what new developments there are.”
“Mr. President,” Lammelle replied, “may I defer to the FBI?”
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