The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “He crossed the Delaware in a Durham boat. They were called Durham boats because they moved the iron ore from the iron mines in Durham down the Delaware. They haven’t taken any ore out of them for, Christ, two hundred years, but the mines, the tunnels, are still there, because they were hacked out of solid rock.”

  “You believe this story, Jack?” Miller asked.

  “I don’t want to believe it, logic tells me not to believe it, but Sy Fillmore tells me the brothers believe it. And I’d like to know where they got the money to buy a hundred-odd-acre farm. That’s high-priced real estate up there. They didn’t pay for it with stolen Social Security checks.”

  “Stolen Social Security checks?” Castillo asked.

  “That—and ripping off the neighborhood crack dealers—was their primary source of income when I was in the mosque.”

  “And the cops in Philadelphia?” Castillo asked. “Chief Inspector Fritz Kramer, for example. What do they say?”

  “They found Cy wandering around North Philly babbling to himself,” Britton said. “It was three days before they even found out he was a cop. And he’s been in Friends Hospital ever since, with a cop sitting outside his door, as much to protect Sy from himself as from the AALs. No, Chief Kramer doesn’t believe it. He didn’t even pass it on to the FBI.”

  “Where are they going to get a nuke?” Miller asked. “How are they going to move it around, hide it?”

  “There were supposed to be thirty-odd suitcase-sized nukes here, smuggled in by the Russians.” McGuire said. “They wouldn’t be hard to move around or hide.”

  “You think there’s something to this, Tom?” Castillo asked.

  “No. But I’m like Jack. Sometimes there’s things you just shouldn’t ignore because they don’t make sense.”

  “So what do we do, tell the FBI?” Castillo asked.

  “Why don’t you send Jack back to Philly?” McGuire asked. “I’ll call the Secret Service there—the agent in charge is an old friend of mine—and tell him we’re interested in why a bunch of American muslims from Philadelphia bought that farm, where they got the money to buy it, and what they’re doing with it. And I’ll tell him we can’t say why we’re interested. If and when we get those answers, we can think about it some more.”

  “Okay, do it,” Castillo ordered. “Has anyone else got anything for me?”

  Everybody shook their heads.

  Castillo went on: “What I am going to do now is go to my apartment and pack. Then I’m going to the Old Executive Office Building to wait for Hall. I was going to ask him what to do about our new liaison officer, but Dick and Agnes have told me that’s my problem. Then as soon as he lets me go, I’m going to Philadelphia to see Betty Schneider and then, somehow, I’m going to go to Paris, either tonight or as soon as I can.”

  “I didn’t know anybody went to Paris on purpose,” Miller said. “What are you going to do there?”

  “Thank you for asking, and I’m not being sarcastic. I want everybody to know what I’m doing,” Castillo said. “The agency guy in Paris—Edgar Delchamps—is a good guy, a real old-timer. I’m going to ask him to go with me to Lorimer’s apartment. The embassy has been informed that I’m going to look after Lorimer’s property for Ambassador Lorimer. Then I’m going to tell him what happened at Lorimer’s estancia and see if he has any ideas who the guys who bushwhacked us were or who they were working for.

  “Then I’m going to Fulda to make sure there’s no problems with all that money in my Liechtensteinische Landesbank account in the Caymans. Maybe there’s a better place to have it.

  “Then I’m going to Budapest to see a journalist named Eric Kocian, who gave me some names of people in the oil-for-food business. I promised him I wouldn’t turn them over to anyone. I want to get him to let me use the names. See if we can figure out where I might have got them, other than from him. I’m also going to ask him to guess who was paying the guys who bushwhacked us.

  “Then, maybe a quick stop in Vienna to see what I can pick up there about the guy who was murdered just before Lorimer decided to go missing. Before I come back here, I’m probably going to go to Uruguay and Argentina. I want to go through Lorimer’s estancia to see what I can come up with.

  “Which reminds me of something else that I probably would have forgotten: Dick, get on the horn to somebody at Fort Rucker, maybe the Aviation Board, and find out the best panel and black boxes available on the civilian market for a Bell Ranger. Get a set of it, put it in a box, and ask Secretary Cohen to send it under diplomatic sticker to Ambassador Silvio in Buenos Aires.”

  “What the hell is that all about?”

  “You wouldn’t believe the lousy avionics in the Ranger I borrowed down there. The new stuff is payment for the use of the chopper. And it will be nice to have if I need to borrow the Ranger again.”

  No one spoke for a moment, then Miller said, “Charley, those avionics are going to cost a fortune.”

  “We’ll have a fortune in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank. So far as I’m concerned, that’s what it’s for.”

  Miller gave him a thumbs-up.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Castillo said and walked toward his office door.

  He turned.

  “Dick, can you come with me? Sure as Christ made little green apples, I’ve forgotten something.”

  [THREE]

  Room 404

  The Mayflower Hotel

  1127 Connecticut Avenue NW

  Washington, D.C.

  1630 4 August 2005

  Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., was sprawled on the chaise longue in the master bedroom, his stiff leg on the chair, his good leg resting, knee bent, on the floor. A bottle of Heineken beer was resting in his hand on his chest.

  Major C. G. Castillo was standing by the bed, putting clothing into a hard-sided suitcase.

  “If I was just coming back here,” he said, “I could get by with a carry-on. But if I take just a carry-on, I’ll find myself in the middle of winter in Argentina.”

  “And if you take the suitcase, it will be misdirected to Nome, Alaska,” Miller said, lifting his bottle to take a sip of beer. “It is known as the Rule of the Fickle Finger of Fate.”

  Castillo closed the suitcase and set it on the floor.

  “So tell me about that,” Castillo said, pointing to Miller’s leg. “What do they say at Walter Reed?”

  “I am led to believe that my chances of passing an Army flight physical range from zero to zilch. I have been ‘counseled’ that what I should do is take retirement for disability. One bum knee is apparently worth seventy percent of my basic pay for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, shit,” Castillo said.

  “What really pisses me off is that I have reason to believe that all I have to do to reactivate my civilian ticket—”

  “Reactivate?”

  “Yeah. It went on hold when I didn’t show up for my annual physical. I didn’t think I could pass it wearing twenty pounds of plaster of paris on my leg. So my ticket became inactive. They didn’t pull it, which is important, but declared it inactive, pending the results of a flight physical. I’ve looked into that. What that means is I find some friendly chancre mechanic. He sees the scars and I tell him they are from a successful knee operation and show him how I can bend my knee. He will make a note of that for the examiner giving me my flight test. In other words, ‘Did his knee operation result in a physical limitation that makes him unsafe in a cockpit?’ The examiner will see that I can push the pedals satisfactorily. My tickets as an instrument-qualified pilot in command of piston and jet multiengine fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft is reactivated. Which means I can then fly just about anything for anybody but the Army.”

  “Can you ‘push the pedals satisfactorily’?” Castillo asked.

  “I think so. I would hate to believe that all the fucking exercise I’ve been doing flexing the son of a bitch has been in vain. So what I’ve been thinking of doing is going to Tampa and see if I can’t find reasonably ho
nest work as a contractor.”

  “Flying worn-out Russian helicopters on some bullshit mission in the middle of now here?”

  “The pay is good.”

  “What’s wrong with staying right where you are?”

  “Working for you?”

  “Is something wrong with that?”

  “It would look like—would be—cronyism.”

  “Think of it as affirmative action,” Castillo said. “The Office of Organizational Analysis is offering employment to somebody who meets all the criteria. You’re ignorant, physically crippled, mentally challenged, and otherwise unemployable.”

  “And black. Don’t forget that.”

  “And black. I’ll talk to McGuire. Maybe he can get you hired by the Secret Service.”

  “I don’t think I could pass their physical.”

  “We’ll work something out. I really hate to tell you this, but I need you, Dick.”

  “If I thought you really meant that, Charley…”

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  “You really don’t want me to answer that, do you?”

  “In this case, I’m going to need somebody—you—to protect my back from this goddamned liaison officer Montvale is shoving down my throat. And that’s the truth.”

  “You just can’t say, ‘Thank you just the same but I don’t need a liaison officer’?”

  “To Ambassador Charles Montvale, the director of National Intelligence? He’s not used to being told no, especially when all he’s trying to do is be helpful.”

  “What’s he really after?”

  “He doesn’t like the whole idea of a presidential agent. If he can’t take me over—and I’m sure he’s working on that—he wants to put me out of business.”

  “So what? What are they going to do, send you back to the Army? What’s wrong with that? Goddamn, I wish that was one of my options.”

  Castillo didn’t respond to that. Instead, he asked, “When is all this going to happen?”

  “I’ll have thirty days from the time I’m restored to limited duty, which should be in the next week to ten days. I then have to tell them I’ll accept permanent limited-duty status—which means I would wind up in a recruiting office or a mess-kit-repair battalion—or take the medical retirement.”

  “Then we have time,” Castillo said. “Just forget that contractor bullshit, okay?”

  Miller nodded.

  “Thanks, Charley,” he said.

  “Jesus, that beer looks tempting,” Castillo said.

  “Give in,” Miller said.

  “I will. Stay there. I’ll go get one. You want another?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he went into the living room and to the wet bar. As he was taking two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, he heard the telephone ring and when he went back into the bedroom Miller was holding out a handset to him.

  “Your guardian angel, saving you from temptation,” Miller said.

  Castillo took the phone. “Castillo,” he said.

  “Matt Hall, Charley.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Two changes in the plan,” Hall said.

  What plan?

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I’ll pick you up there at half past seven, not eight.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said I’ll pick you up at half past seven, not eight.”

  “Where are we going, sir?”

  “To the White House. I told you.”

  Oh no you didn’t. You told me that you were going to the White House. I was going to be on the Metroliner on the way to Philadelphia at seven-thirty.

  “That message must have come through garbled, sir.”

  “Obviously,” Hall said. There was a suggestion of annoyance in his tone. “And the second change is that the President wants you to wear your uniform.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The President said about ten minutes ago, quote, Tell Charley to please wear his uniform, end quote.”

  “What’s that all about?” Castillo blurted.

  “The commander in chief did not choose to share with me any explanation of his desire,” Hall said. “The Seventeenth Street entrance, seven-thirty. Brass and shoes shined appropriately. Got to go, Charley.”

  The line went dead.

  Castillo said, “Sonofabitch!”

  “Good news, huh?”

  Castillo didn’t reply. He went to the walk-in closet.

  Miller heard him say, “Thank you, West Point.”

  Castillo came out of the closet, carrying a zippered nylon bag.

  “‘Thank you, West Point’?” Miller parroted.

  “Yeah,” Castillo said. “The first thing I learned on the holy plain was that when you fuck up the only satisfactory excuse is, ‘No excuse, sir.’ The second thing I learned was to get your uniform pressed the minute you take it off because some sonofabitch will order you to appear in it when you least expect it and it had better be pressed.”

  “And in this case, the sonofabitch is the Honorable Matthew Hall? Why does he want you to put on your uniform?”

  “Worse,” Castillo said, as he unzipped the bag. “The President does.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “I have no fucking idea,” Castillo said. “But like the good soldier I used to be, I will show up at the appointed place at the appointed hour in the prescribed uniform.”

  “What is the appointed place and the appointed hour?”

  “Nineteen-thirty at the Seventeenth Street entrance, from which Hall will convey me to the White House for reasons unknown.”

  Castillo started taking off his clothing, laying his suit, shirt, and tie neatly on the bed so that he could change back into it as soon as he could get away from whatever the hell was going on at the White House.

  The lobby of the Mayflower Hotel runs through the ground floor from the Connecticut Avenue entrance to the Seventeenth Street entrance. The elevator bank is closer to Connecticut Avenue, and it is some distance—three-quarters of a city block—from the elevators to the Seventeenth Street entrance.

  Nevertheless, Major C. G. Castillo, now attired in his “dress blue” uniform, saw her just about the moment he got off the elevator. She was wearing a pale pink summer dress and a broad, floppy-brimmed hat. He decided she was either waiting for someone to meet her there or was waiting, as he would be, for someone to pick her up.

  She didn’t see Castillo until he was almost at the shallow flight of stairs leading upward to the Seventeenth Street foyer and doors. Then she looked at him without expression.

  When he came close, Castillo said, “Good evening, Mr. Wilson.”

  She said, softly but intensely, “I thought it was you, you miserable sonofabitch.”

  “And it’s nice to see you again, too,” Castillo said, put his brimmed uniform cap squarely on his head, and pushed through the revolving door onto Seventeenth Street, then walked to the waiting Secret Service GMC Yukon XL.

  He did not look back at the lobby, but as the Yukon pulled away from the curb he took a quick look.

  Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson still was standing there, her arms folded over her breasts, glaring at the Yukon.

  He remembered what Miller had said about her death rays freezing his martini solid.

  [FOUR]

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

  Washington, D.C.

  1950 4 August 2005

  Castillo recognized the Marine lieutenant colonel standing just inside the door in the splendiferous formal uniform, heavily draped with gold braid and the aiguillettes of an aide-de-camp to the commander in chief. He had last seen him on Air Force One at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. He even remembered his name: McElroy.

  “Good evening, Mr. Secretary, ma’am,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said to Secretary and Mr. Matthew Hall. “The President asks that you come to the presidential apartments.”

  Then he looked at Castillo, who thought he saw recognition come
slowly to McElroy’s eyes.

  “And you’re Major Castillo?” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said and, smiling, pointed to his chest to the black-and-white name tag reading CASTILLO.

  “The President desires that you go to the presidential apartments, Major,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said. It was evident he did not appreciate Castillo having pointed to his nametag.

  Well, fuck you, Colonel. All you had to do was look.

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said.

  “The elevator is there, Mr. Secretary,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said, gesturing.

  “Thank you,” Hall said.

  The First Lady was in the sitting room of the presidential apartments but not the President. So were three other people whose presence did not surprise Castillo—Secretary of State Natalie Cohen; Ambassador Charles W. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence; and Frederick K. Beiderman, the secretary of defense—and one, General Allan Naylor, whose presence did. There was a photographer standing in a corner with two Nikon digital cameras hanging around his neck.

  I wonder what is about to be recorded for posterity?

  Montvale, Beiderman, and Hall were wearing dinner jackets. Naylor was wearing dress blues.

  “He’ll be out in a minute,” the First Lady announced, and then added, “Hello, Charley, we haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.”

  The men nodded at him but no one spoke.

  The President came in a moment later, shrugging into his dinner jacket.

  There was a chorus of, “Good evening, Mr. President.”

  The President circled the room, first kissing the women, then shaking hands with the men, including Charley.

  “Okay, General,” the President ordered. “As usual, I’m running a little late. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Naylor took a sheet of paper from his tunic.

  “Attention to orders,” he read. “Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. Extract from General Order 155, dated 1 August 2005. Paragraph eleven. Major Carlos G. Castillo, 22 179 155, Special Forces, is promoted Lieutenant Colonel, with date of rank 31 July 2005. For the Chief of Staff. Johnson L. Maybree, Major General, the Adjutant General.”