By Order of the President

by W. E. B Griffin

  “We were.”

  “Howard?” Pevsner said.

  “We found out the 727 was flown to Chad,” Kennedy said. “But we don’t know where in Chad and Chad is a big country. Lots of remote places where you could hide a 727. And we don’t know if it’s still there. They may have finished. ”

  “Painting new registration numbers on it, you mean?”

  “I think they’re going to do more than that. The only way they can hope to get close to the U.S.—Philadelphia—is to disguise the airplane so it looks like somebody else’s. The question there is, whose?”

  “When we have more information, we’ll get it to you,” Pevsner said.

  “Why are you giving me this information?” Castillo asked.

  “Because the U.S. government is better able to deal with the Holy Legion of Muhammad than I am,” Pevsner said. “If I could deal with these people myself, I would. I don’t want these lunatics to get away with this.”

  “Why should you care?” Castillo asked.

  For the first time, he sensed anger in Pevsner. His head snapped toward Charley and his eyes were cold.

  “Because I am on the same side in this war as you are,” Pevsner said. “I hoped I had made that clear.”

  And if we find the airplane, the pressure is off you?

  I can’t say that. He’s already angry.

  People sometimes say things when they’re angry they shouldn’t.

  “And also because if we find the 727, the pressure is off you?” Castillo asked, meeting Pevsner’s eyes.

  Pevsner didn’t reply for a moment. Then, evenly, he asked, “Are you married, Charley?”

  Castillo shook his head.

  “And you prefer women to men?”

  “Yes, I do,” Castillo said, and blurted, “Jesus Christ!”

  “Howard told me that you have a certain reputation in that area,” Pevsner said. “But I wanted to see your reaction to a question like that.”

  Well, fuck you, Alex!

  “There has been some speculation about my own— what’s the word they use now?—orientation,” Pevsner said. “Probably because very little is known about my personal life. The truth is . . .”

  Jesus Christ, is he going to tell me he’s a fag?

  “. . . that I have a wife, whom I adore, and we have three lovely children. Two boys and a girl.”

  Pevsner reached into his jacket pocket, came out with an alligator-skin wallet the size of a passport, and took from it a color photograph and handed it to Castillo.

  “My family, Charley,” he said.

  The photo showed Pevsner and a blond, svelte woman seated on chairs. Charley thought she looked something like Otto’s Helena. A slim blond girl of about thirteen stood to their left, a blond boy of maybe ten stood to their right, and a six-year-old boy, dressed in white, was on his knees in front of his father, smiling mischievously at the camera.

  “Very nice,” Castillo said as he handed the picture back and thinking that it could have easily been a fabricated photo, one showing a family that did not exist except for an arms dealer’s convenience. Castillo wondered how hard it would be to check it out. There had been nothing in the dossier on Pevsner that he’d read that mentioned a family.

  “Yes,” Pevsner agreed. “They are very important to me, Charley. I don’t want them blown up, or poisoned, or machine-gunned by some lunatic from a culture five hundred years behind ours who believes that he’s pleasing God.”

  Charley nodded understandingly.

  “As I said before,” Pevsner said, “I am on the same side in this war as you are. There are other reasons, but the only reason I need is my family. Do you understand?”

  "Of course.”

  “I believe I can make a contribution to this war,” Pevsner said. “I have what I think is a pretty good intelligence apparatus and I have many contacts.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Castillo thought aloud.

  “What I want to do is get the information I sometimes have to someone in the U.S. government who is in a position to do something about it.” He paused to let that sink in and then continued. “Right now, the CIA—and, to a lesser extent, other intelligence agencies—are of two minds about me, neither of them very flattering. One opinion held is that I am an arms dealer and the sooner I can be put out of business —preferably, imprisoned—the sooner the world will be a safer, better place. The second opinion is that I am a useful asset for the movement of things, and people, when the Operations Division needs to have things and people moved covertly. They ‘handle’ me; I have a ‘handler.’ ”

  He makes “handler” sound like an obscenity.

  “And the ops division, Charley,” Kennedy said, “is not about to tell the FBI—or anyone else—that Mr. Pevsner does contract shipping for them, or that when they feel the need to provide weapons to some group of people, they often turn to Mr. Pevsner, who often knows where they can buy such weapons very quietly.”

  The door opened again and two waiters began to clear the soup bowls away, replace the silver, and lay a steaming tray of Hirschbraten in a thick reddish brown sauce, Kartoffelknodel , and sauerkraut on the table. They also brought two more bottles of wine.

  When a waiter started to fill Castillo’s glass, he put his hand over it and said, “I’ve had enough, thank you.”

  Pevsner did the same thing.

  “Like you, Charley,” Pevsner said, “wine loosens my tongue. I tend to say things I shouldn’t.”

  Was that some sort of a reprimand or simply an observation?

  “I tend to do things I shouldn’t,” Castillo heard himself say.

  “But then, Charley, you’re a bachelor. You have that freedom, ” Pevsner said. “God, that smells good!”

  He waved the waiters out of the room and served the venison.

  “And just about everything that needed to be said has been said,” Pevsner said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Castillo said.

  “Mr. Pevsner hopes that you will go to Matt Hall and tell him . . .”

  “That I had nothing to do with the theft of the 727 airplane in Luanda,” Pevsner interrupted.

  “. . . and that we are going to do whatever we can to help you stop the Holy Legion of Muhammad from attacking the Liberty Bell,” Kennedy picked up without missing a beat.

  “And make other contributions, as we can, to help in the war between the modern Western world and Islam,” Pevsner interrupted again.

  “In exchange for which Mr. Pevsner hopes that Hall will do what he can . . .”

  “And I expect him to do something concrete,” Pevsner interrupted again.

  “. . . with regard to keeping Mr. Pevsner from undue attention, ” Kennedy finished.

  “You understand that, Charley? ‘Undue attention’?” Pevsner asked and then added: “And both what I intend to do and why I am doing it?”

  “You have to understand that I just work for Hall,” Castillo said. “I take orders, run errands, that’s all.”

  “That’s not what I hear,” Kennedy said.

  “Well, then, you hear wrong.”

  “But you will, Charley, won’t you, talk to Secretary Hall?” Pevsner asked.

  And just in time again Castillo stopped himself from replying “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, I will. Of course I will.”

  “All right, then, let’s enjoy our meal,” Pevsner said.

  No one had room for dessert, but there was, of course, cognac, and a cigar to go with the coffee.

  Castillo knew that he shouldn’t take the cognac but decided there was no way he could refuse.

  When Kennedy slid the cognac bottle across the table to Pevsner, who had gone through his cognac quickly, Pevsner held up his hand.

  “We have to go, Howard,” he said and stood up.

  He put out his hand to Castillo, who took it and somewhat ungracefully stood up himself.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Charley. I look forward to seeing you a
gain. And I’ll be in touch.”

  “I have no idea how Matt . . . Secretary Hall will react to this,” Castillo said.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Isn’t that what they say?” Pevsner said. “The other car will take you back to the Bristol. Good night, Charley.”

  “Good night, Alex,” Castillo said.

  “Watch your back, Charley,” Kennedy said. “You don’t want to piss on the red silk brocade, do you?”

  He touched Castillo’s shoulder and then followed Pevsner out of the room.

  “Jesus Christ!” Castillo said aloud when they had gone.

  The Mercedes 220 was at the curb when he left the restaurant. Pevsner’s car was nowhere in sight.

  He half expected to find Inge in the backseat. But she wasn’t there.

  He went to his room in the Bristol and decided the first thing he needed was a cold shower and some coffee. Lots of black coffee. He called room service and ordered coffee and then stood under the shower, as cold as he could stand it, for as long as he could stand it, and tried to think.

  He finally reached the conclusion that he was in no condition to make any but the most basic decisions.

  As he, shivering, dried himself and pulled on the terry cloth bathrobe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, he made three of these:

  First, that he was not going to see Pevsner again in Vienna. Pevsner had said all he intended to say. He had probably gone from the Drei Hussaren to the airport, where, almost certainly, a private jet was waiting for him.

  Second, that he would not try to put anything down on the computer and/or send any kind of a message. Maybe in the morning but not now.

  And, third, that he had to get to Washington as quickly as possible.

  He called the concierge and told him that something had come up and he really needed to get to Washington as soon as he could, even if that meant getting there by a circuitous route. The concierge said he would do what he could and call him.

  There was a knock at the door while he was still on the phone with the concierge. It was the floor waiter with his coffee.

  When the floor waiter had gone, Charley realized the coffee posed another problem: What’s smarter? Take the coffee and see if it clears my thinking? Or just go to bed and sleep it off?

  And then, not two minutes later, there was another knock at the door.

  What did I do? Forget to sign the bill?

  When he opened the door, Inge was standing there. She ducked past him and entered the room. He saw that she held a bottle of cognac.

  “Hello, Charley,” Inge said. “I thought you might like some company.”

  “You thought, or Alex Pevsner thought?”

  She laughed in her throat and walked close to him. “Does it matter?” she asked.

  And then he felt her hand on him under the terry cloth robe.

  And, a moment later, she laughed again deep in her throat.

  “And Howard was afraid you were a poofter,” she said.

  What the hell, why not? Maybe it’ll get Patricia Wilson out of my mind.

  IX

  [ONE]

  Baltimore-Washington International Airport Baltimore, Maryland 1440 8 June 2005

  The beagle headed for Major Carlos G. Castillo’s suitcase with a delighted yelp, dragging his master, a hefty, middle-aged, red-haired woman in too-tight trousers, and who wore both a cell phone and a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver on her belt, after him.

  The other passengers who had traveled from Munich aboard Lufthansa 5255 and were waiting for their luggage to appear on the carousel were fascinated.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the woman said to Castillo. “What do you have in that bag?”

  “Just personal possessions,” Castillo said. “A couple of gifts.”

  “You don’t happen to have any fresh bakery products in there, do you?”

  “I think it would be a good idea if you called your supervisor, ” Castillo said.

  “First, I’d like to have a look at what you have in that suitcase, sir,” the redhead said.

  She snatched the cell phone from her belt, spoke into it, and in a very short time another uniformed, armed, female officer, this one a wiry black whose hands didn’t look large enough to handle her .357, appeared. She was pushing a small cart.

  “Sir, if you will put your luggage on the cart and come with me, please?” the wiry woman said.

  “I have one more bag,” Castillo said. “What about that?”

  Castillo’s second bag had somehow become lost deep in the Airbus’s baggage compartment and it was ten minutes before it finally appeared on the carousel and he could load it on the cart.

  “Right this way, sir,” the wiry female said, pointing to a door with an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign hanging above it.

  Castillo resisted the temptation to wave good-bye to his fellow passengers.

  There was a low counter in the room.

  “Place your bag on the counter, please, sir,” the wiry woman said.

  “May I ask that you call your supervisor?”

  “Sir, it is a violation of federal law to bring fresh bakery products, meat, fruit, or vegetables into the United States. If you have any such products in your luggage and declare them now, they will be confiscated. If you do not make such a declaration and I am forced to search your luggage . . .”

  “Please call your supervisor,” Castillo said.

  The wiry woman snatched her telephone from her uniform belt and ninety seconds later a very large, uniformed, armed black man with captain’s bars on his collar points appeared.

  “Probably bakery products,” the wiry woman said.

  “Sir,” the captain said, “would you please open your luggage? ”

  “That one,” the wiry woman said, pointing.

  “That one,” the captain parroted.

  Castillo worked the combination and opened the suitcase.

  It was almost concealed beneath Hotel Bristol toweling, but there it was, a box nine inches deep and about a foot square. It was wrapped in white paper, sealed with silver tape, with a gold label reading DEMEL stuck in the middle.

  “What’s that, sir?” the captain said.

  “It’s a cake. What they call a Sacher torte,” Castillo said. “My boss asked me to bring him one from Vienna.”

  “Your boss should have known better,” the captain said, not unkindly. “And what you should have not done was bring it onto the airplane in the first place. And then you should have declared it. We’d have confiscated it and you would be out the cost of the cake and that would have been the end of this. But now . . .”

  “I understand,” Castillo said.

  “May I see your passport, sir?”

  Castillo handed him instead his Secret Service credentials. In the leather folder was the business card identifying him as the executive assistant to the secretary of Homeland Security.

  The captain handed both back to Castillo, looked at him without expression, and said nothing.

  “Either way, I will tell him—and he always asks—that the security procedures at BW seemed to be working just fine,” Castillo said. “Your call, Captain.”

  The captain looked at Castillo for a long moment.

  “I’ve heard tell he’s a pretty good guy,” the captain said, finally.

  “What did he show you?” the wiry woman asked.

  The captain held up a massive hand to tell her to shut up. “He’s a really good guy,” Castillo said.

  “I’ll take this from here,” the captain said. “You can go back on the floor.”

  When the wiry woman hesitated, the captain pointed somewhat impatiently at the door.

  When she went through it, the captain said, “Close your suitcase, sir.”

  “Thanks,” Castillo said.

  “I heard he was a sergeant in Vietnam,” the captain said.

  “He was,” Castillo said and closed his suitcase.

  The captain picked up one of the suitcases and led Castillo out a
back door and then into the arrival lobby.

  “Tell him another ’Nam sergeant hopes he likes the cake,” the captain said.

  “I will,” Castillo said and then started dragging his suitcases toward the buses and taxis door.

  [TWO]

  The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 1625 8 June 2005

  A bellman pushing an ornate baggage cart followed Castillo into his apartment.

  “Just put them in the bedroom, please,” Castillo said as he handed him his tip.

  “I keep telling you, Charley, we have to stop meeting in hotel rooms like this,” Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said from behind him. “People are going to talk.”

  Charley startled, looked around the living room.

  Miller was sprawled low in an armchair. He was wearing a suit. His shirt collar was open and his tie pulled down. A bottle of Heineken beer sat on the table beside him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Charley asked.

  “An old pal told me not to worry, he could cover for me. Turns out he couldn’t. You are looking at a disgraced you-know -what relieved for cause.”

  “Oh, shit,” Castillo said. “Relieved for cause?”

  “They did everything but cut off my uniform buttons and march me through the gate at the Luanda airport while a band played ‘The Rogue’s March.’ ”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “General Naylor knew where you were, or at least about this apartment. He told me a key would be waiting for me and I was to make myself as invisible as possible until whatever is going to happen happens.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Charley said.

  “Nice place, Charley. You must be on a different per diem scale than I am.”

  “It’s close to where I work,” Charley said. “My boss likes to have me available.”

  “Yeah,” Miller said, disbelievingly, then added, “I have a cell phone with the number of your boss, to be used only if necessary.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Miller shrugged. “General Naylor gave it to me. I guess if somebody shows up here with a cross to nail me to, your boss wants to know.”