The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “In other words, you told him I’m crazy?”

  “In effect. I didn’t use those words. I told him you were sent home from Afghanistan for some well-deserved rest. I implied that on the plane from Afghanistan you had decided your number was about up and, that being the case, you were going to have some fun before you met the grim reaper. Fun that you were going to pay for with your personal wealth, something you had never done before. Another indication of an overstressed mind.

  “And I told him that it was at this point that the West Point Protective Association came into play, in the person of General Allan Naylor. I told him that Naylor didn’t know what to do with you. He could not give you, in your current state of mind, the command of a battalion to which you were entitled. The way you were drinking and chasing wild, wild women, you would soon be relieved of any command you were given…”

  “Jesus! Is that part true?”

  “…and he was reluctant to have you hospitalized for psychological problems because that on your records would keep you from ever becoming a general.”

  Montvale paused when he saw the look on Castillo’s face, then added: “That was an original thought of mine. Getting you psychiatric help never occurred to General Naylor.

  “What I told Whelan was that Naylor went to Secretary Hall, who had been decorated for valor and wounds while serving under Naylor in Vietnam and was thus a fellow warrior who knew how even the best of men sometimes reach their limits…”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “…and asked him if he could find something for you to do until you got some rest. Which Hall, of course, agreed to do. And Naylor also arranged for Miller, whose life you had saved, to be placed on outpatient status at Walter Reed so that he could look after you.”

  Castillo, shaking his head in disbelief, said nothing.

  “So far, you’re still stressed…”

  “You mean crazy,” Castillo said, bitterly.

  “…but you seem to be improving. General Naylor hopes that soon you will be able to return to normal duty in the Army. The Army has done what it could to help a distinguished warrior, the son of an even more distinguished warrior.”

  “And Whelan swallowed this yarn?”

  “He had no trouble at all accepting that there were good reasons—touching reasons—for your having gone over the edge,” Montvale said.

  Castillo gave him an exasperated look.

  “But what’s important comes next,” Montvale said. “Two things. First, Whelan said, ‘I’ve written a lot of stories that people tell me have ruined people’s lives and I’ve done it with a clear conscience and I’ll do it again. But I’m not going to ruin this young man’s life simply because some bitch comes to me with a half-cocked story and an agenda.’

  “Whereupon I asked him, in surprise, ‘A woman gave you this story?’

  “‘I knew damned well she had an agenda beyond getting on the right side of me,’ Whelan said. ‘I knew it.’

  “‘Has this lady aname?’

  “‘She’s in the agency,’ Whelan said. ‘She and her husband both work for the agency. Her name is Wilson. I forget his first name, but hers is Patricia. Patricia Davies Wilson. That’s to go no further than this room.’

  “‘Of course not,’ I readily agreed. ‘You think…what was her name?’

  “He obligingly furnished it again: ‘Wilson, Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson.’

  “I asked, ‘You think Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson had an agenda?’

  “‘She did,’ Mr. Whelan replied. ‘I have no idea what it was, but it was more than just cozying up to me. She’s fed me stuff before. A lot of—most of it—was useful. I thought of her as my private mole in Langley.’

  “Whereupon I sought clarification: ‘You say you thought of Mr. Patricia Davies Wilson as your private mole in the Central Intelligence Agency?’

  “He took a healthy swallow of wine—in fact, drained at least the last third of a glass—and said, ‘Yes, I did. I’ve gotten a half dozen good stories out of her. There’s a lot of things going on at Langley that the public has the right to know. Stories that don’t help our enemies. But a story about somebody who’s been burned out doing his duty and is teetering on the edge is not a good story. I write hard news, not human interest. Damn her!’”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I don’t know what Whelan’s going to do to her, but I know what I did,” Montvale said. “I had my technicians erase all but the last minute or so of that recording—anything that could identify you—and then personally took it over to Langley and played it for John Powell.”

  “And the DCI didn’t ask you who Whelan’s story was supposed to be about or how you just happened to record their conversation?” Castillo asked.

  “I’m sure he would have liked to,” Montvale said. “But he was torn between humiliation that I had personally brought him credible evidence that Mr. Whelan had a mole in the agency and anger with himself that he hadn’t done more to the lady after I personally had sent Truman Ellsworth over there to subtly warn them—after our conversation at the Army-Navy Club—that they had a problem with Mr. Wilson.”

  “You’re sure this guy is not going to write about me?”

  “I’m sure he’s not. He told meso.”

  “Because he feels sorry for the overstressed lunatic?”

  “That’s part of it, certainly. And part of it is that Whelan thinks of himself as a loyal American. Patriotism is also a actor.”

  “Isn’t patriotism supposed to be the last refuge of a scoundrel?” Castillo asked, bitterly.

  “You’re the one who needed the refuge, Colonel. If the scoundrel shoe fits, put it on.”

  “It fits,” Castillo said. “I guess I’m supposed to thank you, Mr. Ambassador…”

  “You’re welcome, but don’t let it go to your head. I was protecting the President, not you.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  Montvale looked at his watch.

  “I’d really hoped—so I would have no surprises when you brief the President…”

  Brief the President? Where the hell did that come from?

  “…and the others…”

  What others?

  “…that you and Britton would be able to bring me up to speed about these people in Bucks County, on everything, but we don’t seem to have the time. We’re due to be over there in ten minutes and I need to visit the gentlemen’s rest facility before we go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If I have to say this, Colonel, not a word vis-à-vis Mr. Whelan.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I wonder what the President’s going to think about the stylish Mr. Britton,” Montvale said, then rose from behind his desk and waved for Castillo to precede him out of the office.

  XIV

  [ONE]

  The Oval Office

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

  Washington, D.C.

  1555 10 August 2005

  The Secret Service agent standing just outside of the Oval Office—a very large man attired in a dark gray suit carefully tailored to hide the bulk of the Mini Uzi he carried under his arm—stepped in front of Charles W. Montvale, blocking his way.

  “Excuse me, Director Montvale,” he said, politely. He nodded once, indicating Jack Britton, who still was wearing his pink seersucker jacket, yellow polo shirt, light blue trousers, and highly polished tassel loafers. “I don’t know this gentleman.”

  “Show him your Secret Service credentials, Agent Britton,” Montvale ordered. “Quickly. We don’t want to keep the President waiting.”

  Britton exchanged a glance with Charley Castillo, then unfolded a thin leather wallet.

  The Secret Service Agent failed to uphold the traditions of his service. Surprise, even disbelief, was written all over his face as he stepped out of the way.

  The President was not in the Oval Office. Secretary of State Natalie Cohen and Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall
were. They were seated side by side on one of the pair of matching couches that faced each other across a coffee table.

  Hall got to his feet and offered his hand to them each in turn.

  Then he asked Britton, “I don’t believe you know Secretary Cohen, do you, Jack?”

  “No, sir,” Britton said.

  The secretary of state stood up and offered her hand to Britton.

  “Secretary Hall has been telling me what you did before joining the Secret Service,” she said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “It’s an honor to meet you, Madam Secretary,” Britton said.

  She walked to Castillo, kissed his cheek, and said, “Hello, Charley. How are we doing with the repatriation of Mr. Lorimer’s remains?”

  “They’re in a funeral home in New Orleans, Madam Secretary,” Castillo said. “Special Agent Yung accompanied them from Uruguay. I spoke with him a couple of hours ago.” He paused, then went on, “He’s got an out-of-channels message for you from Ambassador McGrory. He’s supposed to deliver it personally…”

  “That’s odd, Charley,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Ambassador McGrory believes Mr. Lorimer was a drug dealer—in his alter ego as Jean-Paul Bertrand, antiquities dealer—and that a drug deal went bad at his estancia and he was murdered and the sixteen million dollars stolen.”

  “My God, where did he get that?” she exclaimed.

  “He apparently figured that out all by himself. He confided his theory in Ambassador Silvio.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  “Unfortunately,” Castillo went on, “there’s a clever Uruguayan cop, Chief Inspector Ordóñez of the Policía Nacional, who’s pretty close to figuring out what really happened.”

  That got everyone’s attention.

  Castillo continued, “And he’s also positively identified one of the Ninjas we killed as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia—”

  “One of the what, Charley?” the President of the United States asked as he came into the room. “Did you say ‘Ninjas’?”

  “Sir, that’s what we’re calling the people who bushwhacked us at Estancia Shangri-La.”

  The President looked at him strangely.

  “Sir, they were wearing balaclava masks and black coveralls,” Castillo added, some what lamely. “Ninjas—that’s what they looked like.”

  “Well, I want to hear about that, of course,” the President said. “But first things first.”

  He walked to Britton and offered him his hand.

  “You’re Special Agent Britton, right?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

  “I like your jacket,” the President said. “What’s your assessment of the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated in Philadelphia anytime soon? On a scale of one to ten?”

  “When he briefed me, Mr. President,” Montvale said, “Britton said, ‘Point-zero-zero-one.’”

  God, you’re clever, Montvale, Castillo thought. By answering for Britton, you’ve painted yourself as really being on top of everything.

  “Is that right?” the President asked Britton. “You think the threat is that negligible?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I’m relieved. I’ll want to hear why you think so, of course. But that will wait until I get things organized in my mind.” He looked at Castillo. “That means I want to hear everything, Charley, starting from the moment you left the White House, what was it, a week ago?”

  “Six days, Mr. President. It seems like a lot longer, but it was only six days ago.”

  “Charley,” the President said, “I want to hear everything you think has affected—or might affect—execution of the Finding. I’ll decide what’s important.”

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said and immediately decided to leave out the first thing that had happened after he left the White House that had indeed had a bearing on the Finding—his some what-strained conversation with Montvale at the Army-Navy Club.

  “Sir, I went to Paris…” he began as he thought he saw a look of relief on Montvale’s face.

  “My God, you really got around, didn’t you?” the President said fifteen minutes later when Castillo had finished. “You must be exhausted.”

  “I am kind of beat, sir.”

  “Sum it up for me, Charley. Where are we?”

  “We know a lot more, Mr. President, than we knew when I left here—that a Cuban was involved, for example, and that there’s probably a connection with the KGB—but I don’t know what any of it really means.”

  The President turned to the secretary of state.

  “What do you make of the Cuban, Natalie?”

  “If there wasn’t a positive identification, Mr. President, I’d have trouble believing it. I just don’t know.”

  “Can we tweak Castro’s nose with that? Now or later?”

  “If the Cubans sent him to Uruguay—and we don’t know, or least have no proof of, that—by now they know he’s dead,” the secretary of state said. “So far as embarrassing the Cubans, I don’t think so, sir. If we laid this man’s body on Kofi Annan’s desk in the Security Council chamber, the Cubans would deny any knowledge of him and the delegate from Venezuela would introduce a resolution condemning us for blaspheming the dignity of the UN.”

  The President’s face showed what he thought of the secretary-general of the United Nations and of the organization itself.

  “They’ve washed their hands of Lorimer, right?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Secretary Cohen said. “One of Annan’s underlings issued a brief statement regretting the death of Mr. Lorimer, but—we invited them—they’re not even sending someone to his funeral.”

  “So what are you going to do next, Charley?” the President asked.

  “Well, tomorrow morning, sir, I’m going to assemble what information we have—all the disconnected facts we have, both here and in Buenos Aires—and start to try to make some sense of it.”

  “Need any help?” the President asked. “Anything you need to do that?”

  Before Castillo could reply, Ambassador Montvale said, “In that connection, Mr. President, I’m going to call DCI Powell personally and tell him that he is to provide to Mr. Delchamps everything that Colonel Castillo asks for.”

  “That’s the CIA man from Paris?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Why are you calling Powell personally? I’ve already ordered that the CIA—that everybody—give Charley whatever he asks for. And now Delchamps works for Charley, right?”

  “Mr. Delchamps is about as popular in Langley as is Colonel Castillo, Mr. President. And then there’s the matter of our not having informed the CIA—or, for that matter, others, including the FBI—of your Finding. I thought my personal call would be useful.”

  The President looked thoughtfully at Montvale, then at Castillo.

  “And Charley’s not likely to win any popularity contest in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, either, is he?” the President said, then paused in thought. “Let me make some contribution to this.”

  The President walked to his desk, punched several buttons on his telephone without lifting the handset, then sat and leaned back in his high-backed leather chair.

  “Yes, Mr. President?” the White House switchboard operator’s voice came over the speakerphone.

  “Get me Mark Schmidt, please,” the President said.

  Less than twenty seconds later, the voice of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation came over the speakerphone.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. President.”

  The President wasted no time on the social amenities.

  “Mark, what I need is a good, senior FBI agent,” he said.

  “There’s no shortage of them around here, Mr. President. May I ask why?”

  “Someone who knows his way into the dark corners over there, Mark. Someone who’s
really good at putting disassociated facts together. Someone, now that I think about it, who probably works pretty closely with you and will be able to get you on the phone if he needs some help.”

  “Inspector Jack Doherty of my staff meets those criteria, Mr. President. It would help, sir, if I knew exactly what you need.”

  “I told you, Mark. I need some help in putting a jigsaw puzzle together. This is very important to me, so if this is inconvenient for you I’m sorry. But I want this man to be in Ambassador Montvale’s office by nine tomorrow morning. He’ll be working for him for an indefinite period—until the puzzle is assembled. And Montvale is going to tell him that he is not to share with anyone—anyone—anything about the puzzle. I think it would be a good idea if you told him about that before you send him to the ambassador.”

  “That sounds as if I’m being kept in the dark about whatever your problem is, Mr. President.”

  “It’s a question of Need to Know, Mark. And right now…”

  “I understand, Mr. President.”

  “Thanks, Mark. We’ll be talking.”

  The President reached forward and punched a button, breaking the connection.

  “When Inspector Doherty shows up at your office, Charles,” the President said, “you tell him about the Finding and then send him over to Castillo.”

  “Mr. President, I can’t do that,” Montvale replied.

  The President was known for not liking to have his orders questioned.

  “Why not?” he asked, sharply.

  “Sir, only you and Colonel Castillo are authorized to grant security clearances vis-à-vis the Finding.”

  The President stared at him a moment, then said, “You’re right. I’d forgotten that. Okay. So when Inspector Whatshisname shows up tomorrow, you relay to him my personal order that he is not to relate to Director Schmidt or anyone else in the FBI anything he learns while working for Castillo. Then send him to Castillo, who can tell him about the Finding.”

  “Very well, sir, if that’s the way you wish for me to handle it.”