“Which is?” Doña Alicia asked softly.
“Pevsner has decided that the best defense against what Putin has in mind for us is a good offense.”
“And you, Carlos?” she asked. “How do you feel about that?”
Castillo hesitated just perceptibly before replying, “Abuela, taking into consideration both that Putin has proved—Herr Friedler was not the only man he had assassinated—that he’s willing and capable of murdering everybody he thinks is in his way, I’m afraid Pevsner is right.”
“You said, ‘taking into consideration both.’”
“Abuela, Putin’s already tried, several times, to assassinate me. There’s no question that he’s coming after Svetlana, and I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”
Doña Alicia sighed. “Oh, my. We have a very bad situation on our hands, don’t we?”
Castillo didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he said, “We thought—naïvely thought—that we had bloodied his nose when we grabbed the Tupelov and turned General Sirinov over to the CIA. We offered him an armistice; he didn’t accept it. So what we have to do now is bloody it again, hard enough this time so that he gets the message.”
She considered that for a moment.
“And so what do we do now?”
“‘So what do we do now’?” Castillo parroted, lightly sarcastic.
His grandmother stared at him icily.
“Until you lower me into my grave, Carlos, I will continue to run this family. Never forget that!”
“Sorry,” he said.
He saw Sweaty looking at her with a smile of approval.
“And what I am going to do now is have a word with Señor Medina,” Doña Alicia said.
She turned to Sweaty.
“Señor Medina has been running Hacienda Santa Maria for us for thirty years. And before that, his father ran it. And before him, his father.”
She paused, then looked at Lester. She pointed at the Brick on the side table.
“That device, you told me, Lester, prohibits people from eavesdropping on conversations?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Fernando has one?”
Lester nodded.
“And you told me, Carlos, that Fernando is at the hacienda?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lester, would you bring that to me and show me again how to use it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lester,” Castillo said, “before the head of the family talks to him, you better get him on the horn and explain Net Two to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo looked at Doña Alicia. “And when you get Fernando on the Brick, then what?”
“I told you, I want a word with Señor Medina.”
“About what?”
“I’m going to ask him to get in his car right now and go see Señor Torres . . .”
“Who is?”
“I told you before, an old and trusted friend who is commandant of the Policía Federal in Acapulco.”
“Then he’s probably in up to his ears with the Sinaloa drug cartel,” Castillo said.
“I’ll admit that possibility,” she replied. “But we don’t know that, Carlos. And he will believe me when I tell him that unless Colonel Ferris is released safely and immediately, there will be much trouble.”
“You’re going to threaten this guy?” Castillo asked incredulously.
“I’m going to explain the situation to him. It can’t do any harm, Carlos. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll think of something else.”
Castillo glanced at Svetlana and saw that she was once again smiling approvingly at his grandmother.
[FIVE]
The Situation Room
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1105 14 April 2007
Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan, who in addition to being appointed chief of the Secret Service Presidential Protection Team now also seemed to be functioning as President Clendennen’s personal assistant, had telephoned Vice President Charles W. Montvale, Secretary of State Natalie Cohen, Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman, Director of National Intelligence Truman Ellsworth, CIA Director A. Franklin Lammelle, Attorney General Stanley Crenshaw, and FBI Director Mark Schmidt summoning them all to a 10:45 A.M. meeting with the President in the Situation Room.
In each case he had insisted—politely but with a certain arrogance—on speaking personally with those being summoned rather than leave word of their summons with anyone else.
They all chose to arrive early, which caused a not-so-minor traffic jam in the White House driveways and in the area where the White House vehicles were parked. The Vice President, the secretary of State, and the secretary of Defense traveled in limousines, all of them preceded and trailed by GMC Yukons carrying their protection details. The others did not have limousines. Everyone but Director of National Intelligence Ellsworth—who rode in his personal car, a Jaguar Vanden Plas—traveled by Yukon, with each preceded and trailed by Yukons carrying their protection details.
By 10:40, all the dignitaries had arrived in the underground Situation Room. The President was not there, nor was the usual coffeemaker and trays of pastry.
Vice President Montvale told one of the Secret Service agents guarding the door to “see what’s happened to the coffee,” and the agent hurried from the door.
The coffee and pastry had not arrived when Special Agent Mulligan appeared at the door and announced, “The President of the United States.”
Everyone rose as Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen entered the room and marched to the head of the table, trailed by Clemens McCarthy, a crew-cut man who looked younger than his forty-two years, and who had been named presidential press secretary following the resignation of John David Parker.
Usually the President said, “Please take your seats” before sitting down. Today he unceremoniously sat down and said, “Well, let’s get started. I’ve got a lot on my plate today.”
After an awkward moment, the Vice President sat down and the others followed suit.
“Lammelle,” Clendennen said, “I didn’t find what I was looking for in my daily, quote unquote, intelligence briefing.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President. What were you looking for, sir?”
“The last developments in this mess in Mexico, Lammelle.”
“There have been no developments in the last twenty-four hours, Mr. President,” the director of National Intelligence replied.
“Specifically, I wanted to know if we have the bodies.”
“Mr. President,” Secretary of State Cohen put in, “I spoke with Ambassador McCann just before I left to come here. He told me he expects the remains to be released to us sometime today.”
“And then what?” the President asked.
“Then we’ll send a plane to return them to the United States,” Cohen said.
“No,” the President said as Clemens McCarthy stood and stepped toward him. “What we’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is . . .”
He interrupted himself when McCarthy leaned over and whispered at length into his ear.
The President nodded, then went on: “McCarthy pointed out that we were about to miss a nice photo opportunity. So what you’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is get on the phone to the ambassador and tell him to go to the airport—what’s it called, Clemens?”
“General Juan N. Álvarez International Airport, Mr. President.”
“Clemens always has details like that at his fingertips,” the President said. “What you’re going to do, Madam Secretary, is call the ambassador and tell him to get over to General Juan N. Álvarez International Airport right now. Tell him that a press plane will be coming there. Tell him to set up some sort of appropriate ceremony with the most senior Mexicans he can get together for the loading of the bodies onto the airplane . . .”
“Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Beiderman said, “in situations like this
, the protocol is to have the bodies in body bags, on stretchers, with an American flag covering them. That’s not a very nice picture.”
“Jesus Christ!” the President said. “You tell the ambassador, Madam Secretary, to make sure that the bodies are in caskets, nice caskets . . .”
Clemens McCarthy whispered in the President’s ear again. And again the President nodded.
“And tell him,” the President ordered, “to take his Marine embassy guards with him, dressed in their dress uniforms, to carry the bodies, in their caskets, onto the airplane.”
“You said a ‘photo op,’ Mr. President,” Secretary Cohen said. “Do you want the ambassador to try to arrange for that?”
“I also said, Madam Secretary, if you were listening, that a press plane will be going down there. Clemens arranged it. On it will be crews from Wolf News and a couple of the unimportant ones. And Andy McClarren, who, as Clemens said he would, was unable to turn down a chance to have tear-filled eyes on display for his many millions of viewers.”
“And does Mr. McCarthy have plans for the plane landing at San Antonio?” Secretary of Defense Beiderman asked.
“San Antonio?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir. All three men are from Texas. It is intended to bury Warrant Officer Salazar in the national cemetery there. Plans for the DEA agents have not been finalized.”
“Mr. McCarthy had made all the necessary arrangements with the press for the landing of the plane at Andrews Air Force Base,” the President said. “And for their interment at Arlington the day after tomorrow.”
“Mr. President, I spoke with General Naylor about this. Mrs. Salazar wishes to have her husband buried in San Antonio.”
“Well, call General Naylor and tell him I said for him to tell her that her husband is going to be buried in Arlington. All three are going to be buried in Arlington. And you’re all going to be there. There will be a photo op. I will make remarks.”
“Mr. President,” Beiderman said, “I don’t know what the families of the DEA agents wish with regard to their interment—”
“I just told you, Mr. Secretary, where they are going to be buried.”
“—and I’m not sure that either of the DEA agents is eligible for interment at Arlington. I’m not even sure they’re both veterans. And, as you know, sir, they’re running out of space at Arlington.”
Clendennen looked at Attorney General Crenshaw.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Attorney General, but don’t I, as Commander in Chief, have the authority to say who is eligible for interment at Arlington?”
“You have that authority, Mr. President,” Crenshaw said.
“Subject closed,” the President said.
He turned to the DCI.
“Lammelle, I asked you what seems like a long time ago about what new developments there are.”
“Mr. President,” Lammelle replied, “may I defer to the FBI?”
The President’s face showed that he didn’t like this answer, but he turned to FBI Director Mark Schmidt and asked, “Well?”
Schmidt handed him a large manila envelope. The President opened it, withdrew its contents, then asked, “What am I looking at?”
“Photocopies of a UPS Next Day envelope and its contents, which were delivered early this morning to General McNab at Fort Bragg.”
“The address on here says ‘Sergeant Terry O’Toole,’ ” the President said.
“Major General Terrence O’Toole is General McNab’s deputy, sir,” Schmidt said. “In the belief that another message would be sent to General McNab, possibly using an address that would not attract attention but would nevertheless reach General McNab—the first message from these people was addressed to Lieutenant Colonel McNab—the FBI instituted a nationwide surveillance of both FedEx and UPS overnight packages. We found that one last night in El Paso.”
If Schmidt expected a compliment for the FBI’s success, he was to be disappointed.
“The FBI found this last night?” the President asked. “Then why am I getting it—why am I getting copies of it and not the original—now? Why wasn’t I informed of this last night? Why didn’t I have the whole damn thing a lot sooner than now?”
“Once we located the envelope, we notified General McNab and then put it back in the UPS delivery process.”
“And then?”
“General McNab notified General Naylor of the package’s arrival, and then turned it over to the FBI liaison officer at SPECOPSCOM. He notified FBI headquarters and we sent a plane to pick it up. As we speak, Mr. President, our forensic people at Quantico are examining it to see what can be learned. I ordered that a photocopy of everything be sent to me.”
“What your people in El Paso should have done is sent it directly to you. The less General McNab has to do with this, the better.”
“Sir, it was addressed to General McNab.”
The President slammed the envelope on his desk. “No. It was addressed to Sergeant Terry O’Toole. And if you had done that, I would be looking at it a lot sooner than just now. And I’ll tell you what I have learned from this, without the help of your forensic experts: These people want to swap Colonel Ferris for”—he paused and dropped his eyes to the message—“for Félix Abrego. Who the hell is he?”
“He’s a Mexican national, Mr. President,” FBI Director Schmidt said, “serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole at Florence ADMAX in Colorado.”
“What did he do?”
“DEA agents intercepted a movement of drugs near El Paso—in the United States, near El Paso—during which this fellow shot and killed three agents. The DEA believes he is one of the leaders of one of the major drug cartels.”
“I would suggest it’s a moot point, Mr. President,” Attorney General Crenshaw said.
“What?”
“The United States has a long-standing policy of not negotiating in situations like this, Mr. President.”
“Policies change, Mr. Attorney General. Lammelle, has the CIA got anything to add?”
“Sir, both the DEA people in Acapulco and my man there feel there is something odd about the murders and kidnapping. The relationship between the DEA and the Sinaloa drug cartel, which controls that area, is—for lack of a better word—amicable. Their compliance with the orders of the ambassador to cooperate with the Mexican authorities has meant that the cartel almost certainly has not felt threatened by the DEA in the area, or by the Special Forces. There is no reason for them to draw attention to themselves by doing something like this.”
“Except, of course, that they want this fellow Abrego back.”
“Mr. President, they could have kidnapped Colonel Ferris in Mexico City.”
“Get to your point, Lammelle,” the President said impatiently.
“Raw intelligence data, Mr. President, as I’m sure you know, is intelligence that has not been analyzed as to the source, and the reliability of that source. In short, it’s unreliable.”
“You do have a point, right?” the President asked.
“This does not mean that raw intelligence data is not accurate, Mr. President, just that we can’t determine whether it is or not.”
“Why do I suspect, Lammelle, that you’re going to tell me that you have some raw intelligence data, the accuracy of which you can’t determine?”
“My raw data suggests the possibility, Mr. President, that Putin—the Russians—are behind what happened in Acapulco.”
“What possible interest could Putin have in Whatsisname . . . Félix Abrego?”
“My raw data suggests his interest is in Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky, Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva, and Lieutenant Colonel Castillo.”
“Ah-ha! Well, I can understand that. Nobody likes traitors.”
“Mr. President, I must object to your characterization of Colonel Castillo as a traitor,” Secretary Natalie Cohen said.
“That’s right,” the President said with a thin smile. “He’s a hero, isn’t he? A well-paid he
ro. The Vice President and Mr. Lammelle didn’t waste very much time before handing him a check for a hundred twenty-five million of taxpayers’ dollars, did they?”
“Mr. President,” Vice President Montvale said, “that reward for the delivery of a Tupelov was authorized by both your predecessor and by Senator Johns of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.”
The President ignored him.
“In your opinion, Mr. Ellsworth,” the President said, “presuming that Mr. Lammelle’s raw and unconfirmed intelligence that Mr. Putin’s wholly understandable interest in getting his hands on his two traitors is true, how is that going to affect our efforts to get Colonel Ferris back?”
“I have no idea,” Ellsworth replied. “It seems to me that we’re going to have to wait until we see what the Mexicans come up with. The ball, so to speak, is in their court.”
“No, the ball is in our court,” the President said. “They want to talk. So we’ll talk.”
“Mr. President,” Attorney General Crenshaw said, “you’re not thinking of entering into negotiations involving exchanging this fellow Abrego, are you?”
“Of course not,” the President said. “I wouldn’t think of violating long-standing policy. But one thought I’ve had running through my mind since I—finally—got a look at their message is that this fellow is a convicted murderer, not a terrorist. And I seem to recall that our policy speaks of not negotiating with terrorists. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
The attorney general thought for a split second, then said, “I believe you’re correct, Mr. President, but—”
“I also believe that it is within my power to show compassion. For example, if Señor Abrego were discovered to have developed a terminal illness, who could fault me for returning him to his native Mexico to live out what little remains of his life? He would then become the Mexicans’ problem. And if that somehow resulted in Colonel Ferris’s being released . . .”
Crenshaw glanced out the windows as he composed his reply.
“Well?” the President said.
“If you did that, Mr. President, it would have the same effect. We have fifty people like Abrego in our prisons. Once these drug cartels get the message that all they have to do to get any of them released is to kidnap—”
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