By Order of the President

by W. E. B Griffin

  Powell walked to Hall, handed him the file, and put out his hand.

  Hall shook Powell’s hand and said, “It was never my intention, John—and, damn it, you should know it—to go to the president with the intention of embarrassing you or the CIA.”

  “I know that, Matt,” the DCI said, not very convincingly.

  The DCI looked at Castillo—closely, as if trying to figure him out—then nodded at him, but neither spoke nor offered his hand. Then he crossed the room to the door, opened it, and walked out.

  The automatic closing mechanism didn’t quite work and Castillo went to the door and pushed it closed.

  “Your lady friend called at what I think they call a propitious moment, Charley,” the secretary said. “I really didn’t want Powell to walk out of here marshaling his troops for a turf war.”

  “It wasn’t my lady friend, sir,” Castillo said. “It was my boss.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My editor, Otto Görner,” Castillo corrected himself.

  Hall’s eyebrows showed interest. “What did he want? You said it was interesting.”

  “Very interesting,” Castillo said. “He said that he’d heard from Respin/Pevsner or whatever the hell his real name is— the Russian?”

  “He heard from him?” Hall asked, sounding as if he was either confused or disbelieving.

  “From some guy who said he was speaking for him,” Castillo said. “Otto said he’s made several requests for an interview of Respin/Pevsner and this was the first time there’s been any kind of a response.”

  “What was the response?”

  “That he will give me—Karl Gossinger—an interview in Vienna.”

  “You specifically?”

  “Yes, sir. Otto asked me what I wanted him to do.”

  “How much does your editor—what’s his name?”

  “Otto Görner.”

  “How much does Görner know about what you do?”

  “That’s a tough question, sir. He’s a highly skilled journalist and very intelligent. That specific question has never come up between us, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a very good idea of what I do.”

  “And he won’t talk because why? You own those newspapers? ”

  “That’s part of it, sure. But Otto is like an uncle to me. He was very close to my mother.”

  “The kind of relationship you have with Allan and Elaine Naylor?”

  “Just about, sir. I’ve known Otto all of my life. Even before I met the Naylors.”

  “What about your real family?” Hall asked. “What do they think you do for a living?”

  “My cousin, Fernando—he’s a Texas Aggie; he won a Silver Star as a tank platoon commander in the first Iraqi war—has got a pretty good idea. Nothing specific, but he knows where I work, for example; that I was at the Carolina White House. He knows how to keep his mouth shut. I’m not close to any of my other relatives in Texas and none of them has any idea. Or, for that matter, is interested.”

  Hall thought that over a minute and nodded.

  “Why do you suppose this Russian arms dealer suddenly changed his mind about talking to the press?” he asked.

  “It probably had something to do with the story I wrote for the Tages Zeitung, sir. Otto gave me a byline.”

  Hall grunted and then said: “Until just now, I guess I didn’t understand that that story would be printed. I thought it was just a means to give me a heads-up about what you’d found over there.”

  “It was printed in the Tages Zeitung on 5 June, sir,” Castillo said. “Before I even left Luanda. A number of the German papers picked it up, and so did the Associated Press. It’s logical to presume Respin/Pevsner saw it. Hell, he might even have a clipping service. His man called Otto just before Otto called here. The timeline works.”

  “What do you think I should do with that interesting bit of information? Turn it over to the DCI and see what the CIA can find out from—or about—this guy?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me to get on a plane to Vienna.”

  “My God, Charley, those people are dangerous! Somebody —the police commissioner in Philadelphia, as a matter of fact—told me the Russian immigrant gang there makes the Italian Mafia look like choirboys, and from everything I’ve read—not only your pal Miller’s filing—Respin, or whatever else he calls himself—”

  “Respin and Pevsner and there are probably other names,” Charley furnished and chuckled and then asked, “Hereafter Pevsner, sir?”

  It was a reference to the rules laid down for writing intelligence reports, which permitted, for example, references to the Arabic scholar Sheikh Ibn Taghri Birdi, to be shortened after the first use of his name in a filing by adding the phase “hereafter Birdi.”

  Hall smiled at Charley. “Hereafter Pevsner,” he said. “Hereafter Pevsner is the head thug. If he didn’t like seeing his name in the newspaper, he’s entirely capable of having you assassinated. Both for writing the story and to discourage others.”

  “I don’t think he would telegraph his moves, sir. He would simply have sent somebody to eliminate me in Fulda. I think we ought to see what he wants.”

  “What could he want?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s really going to give an interview as the first step to getting on Larry King Live. He wants something.”

  Hall smiled again.

  “But what could he want, Charley?”

  “We’ll never know, sir, unless you tell me to get on the next plane to Vienna.”

  “I don’t know,” Hall said, doubtfully.

  “Sir, I also respectfully suggest that having me out of town for the next few days might be a good idea.”

  “Because of our encounter with the DCI just now?” Hall asked.

  Castillo nodded, then said, “I had the feeling he thinks killing the messenger is probably a very good way to handle something like this.”

  “I don’t think he’d go that far, Charley, but he didn’t seem to be taken very much with your charm and good looks, did he?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t think so.”

  Hall looked at Castillo thoughtfully for fifteen seconds and then said, “Okay, Charley. Bring me a Sacher torte. And I mean bring me. I don’t want it shipped here with your body.”

  “Yes, sir. White or dark chocolate, sir?”

  Hall shook his head, touched Castillo affectionately on the shoulder, and walked out of the apartment.

  [THREE]

  The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 1925 6 June 2005

  The leading security officer accompanying the DCI—the trailing security officer was following the DCI—glanced through the plate-glass door leading from the Mayflower lobby, saw the Yukon was where he expected it to be and that there was nothing suspicious on the street, and pushed the door open.

  Then he turned and found the DCI was nowhere in sight.

  Jesus Christ!

  He hurried back into the lobby.

  The trailing security officer was standing, his hands folded in front of him, near the front desk. He made a small gesture indicating what looked like the entrance to a hallway near the end of the front desk and smiled at his colleague.

  The sonofabitch thinks it’s funny!

  The leading security officer started into what he thought was a corridor.

  It was instead an alcove, holding four house telephones and two pay telephones. The DCI was using one of the pay phones.

  The leading security officer sort of backed out of the alcove and took up a position facing the trailing security officer, who smiled at him and said, “Vigilance, Pete. Constant vigilance!”

  The leading security officer mouthed, Fuck you!

  The DCI was on the pay phone for almost twenty minutes. In that time he had spoken with the CIA’s regional director for Africa and the deputy director for Personnel, both of whom were in their homes.

  The regional director for Africa told him that he had not seen either a satburs
t or a filing suggesting that a Russian arms dealer had stolen the Boeing 727 missing in Angola.

  “Get on the horn, and right now, to whoever is directly responsible for Angola . . .”

  “That would be the regional director for Southwest Africa, Mr. Director.”

  “Whatever. And find out what he knows about this. I’ll call you back in ten minutes. Have a number where I can reach him.”

  “It’s a her, Mr. Director. Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson.”

  “All right, when I call you back have a number where I can reach her.”

  “She’s over there, Mr. Director.”

  “In Luanda?”

  “Yes, sir. Actually, sir, she’s on her way back. By now, I think she’d probably be in either London or Paris.”

  “Find out,” the DCI said. “If there’s time to make contact with her in London or Paris, get word to her that she is to come directly to my office from the airplane and is to speak to no one but you or me about anything.”

  “Has something come up, Mr. Director?”

  “That’s pretty obvious, wouldn’t you say? And if you can’t contact her before her plane takes off, have someone— you, if that’s possible—meet her plane when it lands and bring her directly to my office.”

  “I don’t have an ETA on her plane, Mr. Director.”

  “Well, get one!”

  “If I have to contact you, Mr. Director, will you be at home?”

  “I’ll be at the White House. I don’t want you calling me there about this. I’ll get back to you later.”

  “Whatever you wish, Mr. Director.”

  The deputy director for Personnel, when asked “Who is this man Miller we have in Luanda?” didn’t know off the top of his head, but he called his duty officer in Langley, who got the information.

  The station chief in Luanda was an H. Richard Miller, Jr. His cover was assignment as the assistant military attaché.

  “Where did he come from? How long has he been with us? What do we know about him?”

  It took another ten minutes to get the answers: H. Richard Miller, Jr., had come to the agency from the Army, that he was a major in the Army, that he had been on temporary duty with the agency for seventeen months, five months as an instructor at the Farm, and since then in Luanda. Since he had been in Luanda, he had received two letters of official reprimand from the regional director for Southwest Africa, one for exceeding his authority and the other for exceeding the limits of his discretionary operating funds.

  “He’s relieved, as of now,” the DCI said. “His security clearances are suspended as of now. I want him out of Angola in twenty-four hours or less. I want somebody—somebody good; somebody we wouldn’t ordinarily send someplace like Angola—on his way there within four hours to replace him.”

  “Gregory Leese is in Johannesburg, Mr. Director.”

  “I don’t think I know him.”

  “Good man, sir. He was in Caracas until recently. Did a fine job there.”

  “Okay, if you say so. Send him. Tell him I ordered it and I’ll be in touch with him.”

  “Yes, sir. May I ask what this is all about?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Should I have this man Miller report to Langley, Mr. Director? If so, to whom? If he asks why he’s being relieved, what may I tell him?”

  “You don’t know, to answer that first. No. I don’t want him in Langley until I have a chance to chat with this Mrs. Wilson.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If he’s on temporary duty to us, that must be from someplace. Where do military people like that come from?”

  “Usually either from the Pentagon, Mr. Director, or from Central Command. In this case—I’ll have to check—I should think it would be Central Command. Major Miller is Special Forces.”

  Why am I not surprised to hear that?

  “Well, find out and send him back where he came from. Say that he’s under investigation.”

  “Yes, sir. Investigation concerning what?”

  “Don’t say.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else, Mr. Director?”

  “Secretary Hall of Homeland Security has an assistant named Castillo. I want to know about him. If we don’t have anything, make inquiry—very discreet inquiry—of the Civil Service Commission. They should have the results of his background investigation. If that doesn’t work, ask somebody we know we can trust in the FBI.”

  “You have a first name on this fellow, Mr. Director?”

  Hall called him “Charley.”

  “It’s probably ‘Charles.’ ”

  “I’ll get right on it, Mr. Director.”

  “Thank you,” the DCI said and hung up.

  Then he pulled his head out of the translucent shell over the pay phone and looked down the alcove to the lobby.

  The security guys were waiting for him.

  The DCI made a gesture toward the Connecticut Avenue entrance and the lead security man started to move in that direction.

  [FOUR]

  Apartment 6-B Rua Madre Dios 128 Luanda, Angola 0515 7 June 2005

  The peculiar tinkle of the telephone that came with the apartment woke Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., quickly more as a strange sound than as a telephone. He rarely used the French-manufactured dial instrument. The cellular phone system was far more efficient.

  He picked up the handset, which placed a brass conelike microphone before his mouth as well as the speaker against his ear.

  Ten-to-one, it’s a wrong number.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Major Miller?” an American male voice inquired.

  “Speaking.”

  “Major, this is Colonel Porter.”

  What the hell does he want at oh-dark-hundred?

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I am five minutes from your apartment, Major,” Lieutenant Colonel James R. Porter, Artillery, the defense attach é of the United States embassy in Luanda, said, somewhat stiffly. “Please be prepared to admit me.”

  “You’re coming here?” Miller asked, really surprised. He belatedly added, “Sir?”

  “I am coming there. Please be prepared to admit me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Miller said.

  There was a click as the connection was broken.

  Miller found the light switch in the dark, put the old telephone handset in its cradle, and then swung his legs out of bed, wincing at the pain in his knee.

  “Fuck!” he said aloud and then walked to the bathroom, where a terry cloth robe hung on the back of the door.

  If Porter’s going to be here in five minutes, I’m not going to have time for a shower and to get dressed.

  He pulled the robe around him and then decided he’d better add undershorts. Then he went back in the bathroom and swirled Scope around in his mouth.

  What the hell does he want?

  The lobby buzzer went off three minutes later. Miller went into the kitchen and pushed the intercom’s SPEAK button.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Colonel Porter, Major Miller,” Porter’s voice came metallically over the wire.

  “Pushing the solenoid now, sir,” Miller said.

  Miller had the door to his apartment open by the time the elevator came up. Colonel Porter, in uniform, walked off the elevator, followed by one of the embassy’s Marine guards.

  The Gunny, Miller thought as he recognized the noncommissioned officer in charge of the guard detachment. Miller knew the large and muscular shaven-headed man a lot better than he was supposed to. Majors and E-7s are not supposed to socialize. But Miller and the gunny had in common both being black and not quite being fully recovered from the hits they had taken from the rag-heads in Afghanistan. This was not the gunny’s first visit to Miller’s apartment.

  But this time Gunnery Sergeant Roscoe Fortenaux, USMC, was obviously on duty. He had a Smith & Wesson .357 in a holster on his hip.

  Roscoe had told him that the State Department insisted the Marine guards be armed with the S&W revolver, ra
ther than with the standard-issue Beretta 9mm semiautomatic. Neither of them had been able to understand the logic of that. Even the cops had gone to semiautomatic pistols.

  “Good morning, sir,” Miller said to Lieutenant Colonel Porter. “How are you, Gunny?”

  “Good morning, sir,” Gunny Fortenaux said.

  “After you, sir,” Miller said, motioning Porter into the apartment.

  Porter took six steps into the corridor of Miller’s apartment, then turned as if to make sure Miller had followed him inside.

  Miller gestured for him to go farther into the apartment. Porter turned and walked into the living room, then turned again to wait for Miller.

  “Major Miller,” Lieutenant Colonel Porter said, formally, “you stand relieved, sir. And you will consider yourself under arrest to quarters.”

  Oh, shit! Charley couldn’t cover me!

  “Yes, sir,” Miller said. “Sir, relieved of what?”

  “Of your duties with the CIA, and, of course, as assistant military attaché. Your security clearances have been suspended, pending an investigation.”

  “An investigation of what, sir?”

  “You will be informed in due time,” Porter said.

  “Sir, with all possible respect, I don’t believe you have the authority to relieve me of my CIA duties,” Miller said.

  “A message from Washington, from the CIA in Washington, has ordered your relief. The ambassador has ordered me to implement your relief.”

  “May I see the message, sir?”

  “Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is, Miller,” Porter said.

  "Sir ...”

  Porter cut him off.

  “I am also to take possession of any and all classified materials in your possession.”

  “Sir, I am not in possession of any classified material of any kind.”

  Porter looked at him closely, almost visibly deciding whether or not to believe him.

  “You will remain under arrest to quarters until such time as transportation can be arranged for you to leave Angola. That will occur within the next few hours.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, two questions?”

  After a moment, Porter nodded his head.