They were really more like twin brothers, Doña Alicia thought, than just cousins. They didn’t look at all alike— while Carlos had been a big boy, Fernando had been out-sized since he was in diapers—but they were the same age, within several months, and they had been inseparable from the time she and Juan Fernando had brought Carlos home from Germany.
Doña Alicia thought both had gotten many physical genes from their grandfathers. Carlos had shown her a picture of his mother’s father when his grandfather had been a lieutenant colonel in the German army at Stalingrad; Carlos looked just like him except for the eyes, which were Jorge’s eyes.
Carlos got out of the jeep and walked onto the verandah.
“How’s my favorite girl?” he asked, putting his arms around her and kissing her.
“Your favorite girl would be a lot happier if you hadn’t flown over the house like that,” she said.
Carlos pointed at Fernando.
“Not me, Abuela,” Fernando said. “The Gringo was flying. ”
“He’s lying, Abuela,” Carlos said.
Doña Alicia looked at Fernando. “How many thousand times have I asked you not to call him that?”
Fernando looked thoughtful, then shrugged.
“Five maybe?” he asked, innocently.
Fernando had always called Carlos “Gringo,” or “the Gringo,” but anyone else who did so got punched. She and Fernando had worried, on the plane from Frankfurt, how the two twelve-year-olds were going to get along. Would Fernando resent his new cousin? Fernando was not only much larger than Carlos but had acquired his grandfather’s temper as well.
The problem hadn’t come up.
“You talk funny, you know that?” Fernando had challenged five minutes into their first meeting.
“So do you, if that language you’re using is supposed to be English,” Carlos had replied.
Fernando, who was not used to being challenged, had looked at him a long moment and then finally said, “I think I’m going to like you, even if you are a gringo. You know how to ride?”
“Of course.”
“Come on, I’ll show you around the place.”
And they had been inseparable from then on.
“Since I didn’t think you would think to,” Doña Alicia said, “I called Maria and she’s bringing the children out for supper.”
“Abuela,” Fernando demanded, “how are the Gringo and I going to get drunk if my wife and the rug rats are coming?”
“You’re not going to . . . Fernando, stop! You are making me angry!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, contritely.
“Rug rats!” Doña Alicia said. “I don’t know where you got that.”
“Watching television comedy, Abuela,” Carlos said. “I agree with you. That’s disgusting! ‘Rug rats’! His own sweet and loving children!”
Doña Alicia tried and failed to keep a smile from her lips.
“Well, if you feel you must,” she said, “come in the house and have a cocktail. I may even have a glass of wine myself. ”
“I left my suitcase on the airplane, Abuela,” Carlos said. “Have I got a change of clothes in my room?”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You know that. You ‘forgot your suitcase on the airplane’? How in the world could you do that?”
“Tell Abuela whose airplane it was, and where you have been, Carlos Guillermo,” Fernando said, as they walked into the living room.
She looked at him expectantly.
“My boss’s airplane. Secretary Hall. The president sent for him and I caught a ride with him,” Carlos said.
“Did you get to see the president?” she asked.
“From a distance,” Carlos said, not liking the lie but knowing it came with the job.
“Your grandfather knew his father,” Doña Alicia said. “They did some business together in Alabama. Something, I think, to do with trees for pulp. Longleaf pines, whatever that is.”
“Really?”
That didn’t come up. Didn’t they make the connection? Or did they know? And did knowing that have something to do with that two-minute job interview? Until just now, I thought the president was just trusting Hall. Or maybe they knew and wanted to see if I would bring it up.
“We used to see them at the Kentucky Derby,” Doña Alicia said. “The president’s father, I mean. And his wife. A really lovely woman. Your grandfather really loved horses.”
“Abuela,” Fernando asked, from the bar. “Wine, you said?”
“Please,” she said. “There’s some Argentine cabernet sauvignon in one of the cabinets.”
[THREE]
Baltimore-Washington International Airport Baltimore, Maryland 0905 31 May 2005
“Lear Five-Zero-Seven-Five on the ground at five past the hour. Will you close us out, please?” Castillo, who was in the pilot’s seat, said into his microphone.
“Not bad, Gringo. We’ll have to report a hard landing, but not bad.”
“Screw you, Fernando,” Castillo said.
“BWI ground control, Lear Five-Zero-Seven-Five,” Fernando said into his microphone. “Request taxi instructions to civil aviation refuel facilities.”
“Correction,” Castillo said after keying his mike. “Ground control, we want to go to the UPS facility.”
Visibly surprised, Fernando didn’t say anything until after ground control had given directions.
“UPS?” he asked.
“Yeah, UPS,” Castillo said. “That’s where I’m going.”
“And I can’t ask why, right?”
“That’s right, but if you promise to keep your mouth shut . . . and I mean shut, Fernando . . . you can tag along if you’d like.”
“UPS?” Fernando repeated, wonderingly.
An armed Department of Transportation security officer was waiting warily for them when they opened the Lear’s cabin door.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked.
“Good morning,” Castillo said and took a small leather wallet from his jacket pocket and handed it to the security guard.
The security guard carefully examined the credentials, then handed the wallet back.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Now, how can I help you?”
“You can point us toward UPS flight operations,” Castillo said.
“Ground floor, second door, of that building,” the guard said, pointing.
“Thank you,” Castillo said. “I think you’d better come along, Lopez.”
“Yes, sir,” Fernando said.
Halfway to the two-story concrete-block building, Fernando asked, “What did you show him?”
“The pictures of your rug rats Maria gave me yesterday,” Castillo said.
A man in an open-collared white shirt, with the four-stripe shoulder boards that are just about the universal identi fication of a captain of an airline, came through the second door as they walked up to it.
He smiled.
“You got past the guard, so I guess you didn’t come here to blow anything up. How can I help you?”
Castillo took a regular wallet from his hip pocket and from it first one business card and then a second. He handed the first to the man in the white captain’s shirt and the second to Fernando.
“You’d better have one of these, Lopez,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” Fernando said, politely, and looked at it.
The card bore the insignia of the Department of Homeland Security, gave the Washington address, two telephone numbers, an e-mail address, and said that C. G. Castillo was Executive Assistant to the Secretary.
“How can I help you, Mr. Castillo?” the captain asked. He offered his hand. “I’m Jerry Witherington, the station chief here.”
“I need a favor,” Castillo said. “I need to talk to somebody who knows the Boeing 727, and, if there’s one here, I’d really like to have a tour.”
“I’ve got a lot of hours in one,” Witherington said. “This have anything to do with the one they can’t find in Africa?”
“You heard about that, did you?” Castillo said.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out since I heard about it,” Witherington said. “How the hell can you lose a 727?”
“I don’t know,” Castillo said. “But I guess the CIA, the FBI, the FAA, and everybody else who is trying to get an answer will eventually come up with one.”
“You’re not investigating it?”
“Oh, no,” Castillo said. “Were you ever in the service, Mr. Witherington?”
“Weren’t we all? Air Force. Seven years.”
“Okay. I was Army. So you know what an aide-de-camp is, right?”
“Sure.”
“The only difference in being the secretary’s special assistant and being some general’s aide is that I don’t get a gold rope to dangle from my shoulder.”
Witherington smiled at him and chuckled.
“Among other things, like carrying his briefcase, what I try to do is get answers for the secretary before some reporter asks the question. And some reporter is going to ask him, ‘What about the missing 727?’ And since I know he knows as much about 727s as I do—almost nothing—I figured I’d better find someone who’s an expert and get some facts.”
“And you flew here in that Lear to do that?”
“Lopez and I were in Texas,” Castillo said. “So I asked myself who would have the expert, and maybe even an airplane that I could look at and where. The answer was: UPS, and here.”
“You’re a pilot, right?”
“I drove mostly Hueys when I was in the Army,” Castillo said. “I know nothing about big jets.”
“But you were flying the Lear, right?”
“The secretary is a devout believer that idle hands are the tools of the devil,” Castillo said. “So he told Lopez here, ‘Instead of you watching the fuel-remaining needle drop while Castillo snores in the back, why don’t you teach him how to fly the Lear? It might come in handy someday.’ ”
Witherington chuckled.
“He must be a good IP,” he said. “I happened to be watching when you came in. You greased it in.”
“They call that beginner’s luck,” Fernando said.
“The reason I asked the question, Mr. Castillo . . .”
“I don’t suppose you could call me Charley, could you?”
“Okay, Charley,” Witherington said. “I’m Jerry.” He looked at Fernando.
“Most people just call me Lopez,” Fernando said. “It’s hard to make up a nickname if your first name is Fernando.”
“Okay, Lopez it is,” Witherington said as he shook his hand. “The reason I asked was to give me an idea where to start the lecture,” Witherington said. “And I’ve been trying to guess what questions your boss will get asked.”
“Well, the obvious one is, ‘Do you think it was stolen by terrorists who plan to fly it into another building?’ ”
“That’s the first thing I thought of when I heard somebody stole the 727,” Witherington said.
“And what do you think?”
“I don’t think so,” Witherington said.
“Why not?”
“Hey, I don’t want to get quoted and then have some rag-head fly this missing 727 into the White House,” Witherington said.
“None of this gets written down,” Castillo said. “Nobody in the office even knows I’m here. So why not?”
“It would be easier to skyjack another 767,” Witherington said. “If you think about it, when they took down the Trade Center and almost the Pentagon and the White House they really thought it through. They had great big airplanes—the wingspan of a 767 is 156 feet and some inches; the 727’s wingspan is 108 feet even . . .”
“A third wider, huh?” Castillo said. “I didn’t realize there was that much difference.”
“What the rag-heads had was airplanes with just about topped-off tanks,” Witherington said. “The 767 has a range of about 6,100 nautical miles. The tanks on a 767 can hold almost 24,000 gallons of fuel.”
“Jesus, that’s a lot of fuel!” Castillo said.
“Yeah, it is,” Witherington said. “And that’s what took down the Trade Towers. When all that fuel burned, it took the temper out of the structural steel—hell, melted a lot of it—and the building came down.”
“What you’re saying is that it probably wouldn’t have happened with a 727?”
“I really don’t want to sound like a know-it-all, but . . .”
“Hey, this is just between us. I’m grateful for your expertise. ”
“Just don’t quote me, huh?”
“You have my word,” Castillo said.
“The 727’s max range is no more that 2,500 miles,” Witherington said. “The way most of them are configured, no more than 1,500. And that means less fuel is needed, so smaller tanks. I never heard of a 727—and I’ve flown a lot of them—with tanks that hold more than 9,800 gallons; most hold about 8,000.”
“One-third of what a 767 carries,” Castillo said.
“Right,” Witherington said. “So, what I’m saying is that if I wanted to blow myself and some building up—and get a pass into heaven and the seven whores that are promised—I think I’d rather grab another 767 instead of going all the way to Africa to steal a 727, which wouldn’t do nearly as much damage, and which would be damned hard to get into any place where it could do damage. They’re still watching, as I guess you know, incoming aircraft pretty carefully.”
“So I’ve heard,” Castillo said.
“One of our guys was coming here from Rio in a 747,” Witherington said. “He was supposed to make a stop in Caracas but didn’t—there was weather, and we had another flight going in there an hour later—so he just headed for Miami. And forgot to change his flight plan. Twenty minutes after he was supposed to have landed at Caracas, he got a call from an excited controller asking him where he was and what he was doing, and he told him, and ten minutes after that—before he got to Santo Domingo—he looked out the window and saw a Navy fighter looking at him.”
“So what do you think happened to the 727?” Castillo asked.
“I think they probably flew it a couple of hundred miles—maybe less—and then started to cannibalize it. There’s a market for any part—engines on up—in what we call ‘the developing nations’—and no questions asked.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Castillo said. “That makes sense.”
“Let me tell them where I’m going,” Witherington said, “and get a golf cart—the one 727 we have here, as a backup for this part of the country, is too far down the line to walk.”
“You’re really being helpful,” Castillo said. “I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure. Be right back.”
When Witherington was out of earshot, Castillo said, “After we get the tour—which shouldn’t take long—we’ll get some breakfast, and then you can head home.”
“I was hoping you would say, ‘Fernando, since you’re staying over why don’t you stay with me? We can have dinner or something.’ ”
“You’re staying over?”
“I have to confer with our Washington attorneys.”
“What about?”
“So I can truthfully tell the IRS the reason I brought the Lear to Washington was to confer with our Washington attorneys. And not using the corporate aircraft for personal business.”
“What about you picking me up at Savannah?”
“That was a routine cross-country proficiency flight.”
“You’re a devious man, Fernando.”
“Not in the same league as you, Gringo.”
Castillo was about to ask him what the hell that was supposed to mean when Witherington appeared around the corner of the concrete-block building at the wheel of a white golf cart and there wasn’t time.
[FOUR]
Old Executive Office Building 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 1155 31 May 2005
Major C. G. Castillo, wearing a dark suit and tie not unlike that of th
e countless civilian staffers moving in a purposeful fashion up and down the hallways of the OEOB, stopped before an unmarked heavy wooden door and put a key in its lock.
Inside there was a small antechamber with nothing in it but a somewhat ragged carpet and, mounted more or less unobtrusively high above a second door, a small television camera.
Castillo rapped at one of the panels in the door and, a moment later, there was the buzz of a solenoid and when Castillo put his hand on the door it opened.
This was the private entrance to the office that Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall maintained in the old building across from the White House, which had once housed the State, War, and Navy departments—all three— of the federal government.
The secretary had seen who it was and pushed a button under his desk to unlock the door.
“I said twelve o’clock and here you are at eleven fifty- five,” Hall said. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Punctuality is a virtue, sir,” Castillo said. “I thought I told you that. Since it’s my only one, I work hard at it.”
Hall chuckled. “I’ve heard that chastity and temperance aren’t among your virtues,” he said. “What’s up, Charley?”
“I went to Baltimore and got UPS to show me one of their 727s. Their guy doesn’t think it will be used as a flying bomb against us here.”
“I hope he’s right,” Hall said.
“And then I came here—about forty-five minutes ago— and have worked my way maybe one-third down the stack of stuff Dr. Cohen’s memo got us.”
“And?”
“After page two, and considering the urgency of our conversation with the president, I thought what I should do is go over there, and the sooner the better.”
Hall considered that momentarily. After the secretary’s discussions in the Oval Office with the president and Natalie Cohen, then further discussions privately between Hall and Dr. Cohen, there was no question that the president was pissed and therefore no question that Castillo now had a blank check to carry out his mission.
By Order of the President Page 14