Hazardous Duty - PA 8

by W. E. B Griffin

  Floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows showed fields green with new growth and what at first glance appeared to be an airfield. The Gulfstream V on which they had flown first from Cozumel to Budapest and then here was parked near a runway beside a Cessna Mustang, the smaller jet bearing German markings. There was also what looked like a deserted control tower, a four-story structure built of concrete blocks, the top floor of which was windowed on all sides.

  It was not a deserted aviation control tower, however. It had been built by the hated East German Volkspolizei after the Berlin Wall had gone up to keep an eye on the fence that then had separated East from West Germany, and had run through the Gossinger property.

  When the Berlin Wall—and the fence—came down, Castillo, who had been born and spent the first twelve years of his life in Das Haus im Wald as Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, and now owned the property, ordered that the guard tower be left in place as a monument to the Cold War.

  Castillo went to see how Peg-Leg was coming with his SitRep, saw that he was nearly finished, and then inquired, “What time is it in Washington?”

  “Peg-Leg’s finished?” Lieutenant Colonel Allan B. Naylor asked.

  “How does that translate to hours and minutes?” Castillo asked.

  Allan gave Charley the finger, then said, “Five minutes after ten in the morning.”

  Peg-Leg pressed a button, and a printer began to whine, purr, and ultimately began to spit out printed pages.

  He handed them to Castillo, who read them, then handed them to Naylor.

  “Nice job, Peg-Leg,” he said.

  “What happens now?” Lorimer asked.

  “You get to ride to Berlin in the Mustang, where you will take these magnificent documents to the embassy for transmission. Meanwhile, Colonel Naylor and I will take Sweaty and whoever else wants to go on a tour of where we were innocent children together.

  “Tomorrow, presuming the Somali experts finally get here, we will drive to Cologne, where we will board Die Stadt Köln, a five-star river cruiser which we have chartered to ensure our conversations will not be overheard by the forces of evil, and sail up and down the Rhine River for four days.”

  “Wait until Lammelle gets the bill for that,” Dick Miller said.

  Naylor said, “Charley, I think it would be better if I went to Berlin with Peg-Leg.”

  Castillo considered that a moment, and then said, “Yeah. That’s not a shot at you, Peg-Leg. What I’m thinking is that an active duty light colonel from Central Command is liable to get more cooperation from the military attaché than some retired warrior such as you and me. And I don’t want that stuff delayed.”

  [THREE]

  Office of the Secretary of State

  The Harry S Truman Building

  2201 C Street, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1125 15 June 2007

  The secretary of State, on occasions like this, was extremely jealous of both Truman C. Ellsworth, the director of National Intelligence, and A. Franklin Lammelle, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It had to do with their freedom of schedule and of travel.

  If they wanted to go somewhere, they got in their airplanes and went. With the exception of the President, no one had the authority to ask them where they were going or why. No one had that authority vis-à-vis the secretary of State, either, but the secretary of State was a public figure, and by definition the DCI and the DNI were the opposite. No one was supposed to know what they were doing.

  For most of her life, until she had become secretary of State, Natalie Cohen had really believed that lying and deception had been not only wrong but counterproductive. She had learned that from her father, an investment banker. It had attracted her to Mortimer Cohen, also the son of an investment banker, whom she had married three months after graduating from Vassar.

  Two sons had quickly followed, and she had tried—and thought she had succeeded in—instilling in them the high moral principles of her father and their father. She had been, she believed, a good Jewish mother to her boys, devoting her life to them until the youngest had gone off to preparatory school. The question then became what to do with the rest of her life.

  She was well schooled in economics—it had been her major in college—and she had learned a good deal more about finance, in particular international finance, from both her father and her husband.

  But neither, for reasons she understood, was happy with the prospect of her leaving her empty nest to join either of their firms. She was determined, however, to leave that empty nest, and the first thing she did was volunteer her services to various charitable organizations, including, for example, the United Jewish Appeal.

  She immediately proved herself to be very good at two things: the raising of money, and the straightening out of the often out-of-kilter administration of such organizations. She moved from good works to the State Department when the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a Princeton classmate of Mortimer’s, asked her to join his staff as financial adviser.

  She moved from the UN to the State Department itself, where she was appointed deputy assistant secretary of State and given responsibility for doling out the taxpayers’ money to various foreign governments for various reasons. She held that position until there was a change of administration. She resigned when it became apparent to her that the new President posed a real threat to the United States, and she could not in good conscience work for him.

  She devoted the next three years and some months raising money for the campaign of the man who was to become Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen’s predecessor. During that period, she got to know him well, and Mortimer joked that when he gave speeches on international monetary and economic problems and their solutions, the candidate sounded like Natalie.

  As it became increasingly apparent that her guy was going to move into the White House, Natalie, who by then was familiar with the way Washington worked, knew that there was going to be some sort of reward for all the millions she had raised.

  And that worried her because the most likely reward was for her to be appointed the President’s ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the State of Israel. Considering, as she did, Israel as her spiritual homeland was not the same thing as being overjoyed at the prospect of moving there for four years.

  She had been to Tel Aviv often enough to know that it was hot, muggy, noisy, and crowded. Furthermore, the ultraorthodox Jews who had so much power in Israel made her uncomfortable. Finally, the ambassador’s residence there was not nearly as comfortable as either their house in Washington or their apartment in New York. And equally important, she was about to become a Jewish grandmother, and eagerly looking forward to that.

  The man-who-was-to-be-President elected to learn the election results in the Plaza Hotel in New York. Before going there, there was a really small dinner—designed primarily to give him a little rest so that he would be better prepared for whatever happened—at the Cohens’ apartment two blocks away on Fifth Avenue.

  Natalie and Mortimer had seriously considered not going to the Plaza at all. Watching the returns on Wolf News in their living room with their feet on the coffee table held far more appeal than did the Plaza. But the candidate insisted.

  “I need you around me, Natalie,” he said.

  So they went with him.

  And thirty seconds after Andy McClarren of Wolf News called the election, the President-elect said, “Natalie, my first appointment will be my secretary of State. Guess who?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. President-elect.”

  “I’ll give you a hint. She just fed me dinner.”

  That marked, she often thought, the end of her innocence. She had quickly learned that while lying and deception were still wrong, she could not honestly argue that they were counterproductive. The exact opposite now seemed inarguably to be
the case.

  Some of the proofs of this were major, and some relatively minor, as her current problem showed.

  The basic, major problem was that Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen was as mad as a March hare. There was no question in Secretary Cohen’s mind about either that, or that he posed a genuine threat to the security of the United States.

  The law provided a solution to that problem. But it was very complicated. The Cabinet and certain other officers, in a meeting presided over by the secretary of State, would hear the evidence in the matter. Presuming they agreed that the President’s mental state was such that he could not perform the duties of his office, that committee would inform the Vice President and speaker of the House of their judgment, and that the Vice President—who was also president of the Senate—now was in charge, pending action by Congress.

  So many things could go terribly wrong, producing chaos in the country even exceeding the chaos and paralysis of the government the impeachment proceedings of President Nixon had caused, that Secretary Cohen had decided it would be undertaken only as the absolute last resort.

  And she was very much, even painfully, aware that the decision whether or not to remove President Clendennen was hers alone. The makeup of the “committee” that she chaired under the law was not precisely defined in the law.

  Frederick P. Palmer, the attorney general, had told her—unofficially—that it could be interpreted to mean that her authority to convene the committee carried with it the authority to decide which senior officials should be on it.

  She had run with this. The committee she was about to convene now included Palmer, Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman, DNI Ellsworth, DCI Lammelle, FBI Director Mark Schmidt, and two men who she realized had no right to be on the committee except for her decision to include them. They were General Allan B. Naylor and Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab.

  McNab had insisted the meeting be held. President Clendennen’s appearance at Fort Bragg convinced him the Chief Executive was over the edge and had to go.

  Cohen had included Naylor because she concurred that he was, as Wolf News’ Andy McClarren had dubbed him, “the most important American general.” If the absolute worst scenario—civil insurrection—happened, he would be the man best able to apply martial law and—equally important—to end it when that became possible.

  When she telephoned Naylor to tell him they needed to meet, she had to be evasive to the point of not telling him that they were going to the Greenbrier. Frank Lammelle had told her that even encrypted conversations over the White House circuits were intercepted and decrypted by the NSA at Fort Meade, and that an astonishing number of people in many intelligence agencies had access to the intercepts—including outside contractors on occasion.

  The one thing that absolutely could not be allowed to happen was for President Clendennen to learn of the meeting.

  She had had the same problem when she spoke with the FBI director, the secretary of Defense, and the attorney general. But not when she talked to Lammelle or McNab. Charley Castillo had equipped the latter, as he had Cohen, with CaseyBerry telephones. The interception equipment at Fort Meade had been designed and installed and was maintained by Aloysius Casey, Ph.D., and his design of the CaseyBerry ensured that the computers at Meade could not decrypt anything sent over the CaseyBerry network.

  The secretary had just finished her last call—with Defense Secretary Beiderman—setting up the travel arrangements for the meeting at the Greenbrier when the Communications Center duty officer appeared at her door.

  “Madam Secretary, there is a message from Lieutenant Colonel Naylor.”

  “Thank you, Martha.”

  The duty officer laid the messages on Cohen’s desk and she read them:

  TOP SECRET

  URGENT

  DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

  TO: POTUS

  SUBJECT: CGC

  VIA SECRETARY OF STATE

  MAKE AVAILABLE (EYES ONLY) TO:

  DIRECTOR, CIA

  SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

  DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

  C IN C CENTRAL COMMAND

  SITREP #3

  US EMBASSY BERLIN 1900 ZULU 15 JUNE 2007

  1-FOLLOWING FLIGHT TO BUDAPEST, MR. D’ALESSANDRO, THE BRITTONS, AND DAMON WERE PUT IN CONTACT WITH PERSONNEL WHO WILL ARRANGE THEIR INFILTRATION INTO SOMALIA AND THEIR EXTRACTION THEREFROM.

  2-REMAINING PERSONNEL OF OPERATION OUT OF THE BOX THEN FLEW TO HERSFELD, GERMANY, WHERE THEY WILL CONFER WITH CERTAIN JOURNALISTS KNOWN TO BE EXPERT REGARDING THE SOMALI PIRATE SITUATION.

  3-MR. DANTON’S REDACTED NEWS STORY ATTACHED WILL PROVIDE OTHER DETAILS. AS OF THIS TIME LTC CASTILLO STATES HE CANNOT ESTIMATE DATE OF SOMALIA INSERTION WITH MORE PRECISION THAN “WITHIN THE NEXT WEEK OR TEN DAYS.”

  RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED.

  NAYLOR, LTC

  TOP SECRET

  SLUG: OPERATION OUT OF THE BOX

  TAKE TWO

  BY ROSCOE J. DANTON

  WASHINGTON TIMES-POST WRITERS SYNDICATE

  DAY FIVE—JUNE 14, 2007

  BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

  THIS REPORTER FLEW OVERNIGHT IN A CHARTERED GULFSTREAM V JET AIRCRAFT FROM COZUMEL, MEXICO, TO BUDAPEST, HUNGARY, WITH LIEUTENANT COLONEL ███ ██████ AND MEMBERS OF HIS TEAM, KNOWN AS “THE MERRY OUTLAWS,” CARRYING OUT PRESIDENT CLENDENNEN’S ORDERS TO INVESTIGATE THE SOMALIA PIRACY SITUATION AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS AS TO THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.

  WE WERE MET AT FERIHEGY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BY ███ ██████, EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE ██████ ████ ████ ████ NEWSPAPER AND ██████ ███, CHIEF OF SECURITY OF THE NEWSPAPER, AND TAKEN TO THE HOTEL GELLERT ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE RIVER, WHERE, AFTER DINNER, CASTILLO CONFERRED ON SOMALIA GENERALLY WITH THESE MEN.

  OBVIOUSLY, THIS REPORTER CANNOT DIVULGE THE DETAILS OF ANYTHING DISCUSSED AT THAT MEETING, EXCEPT TO SAY THAT ██████ ARRANGED FOR ██████ TO MEET WITH JOURNALISTS KNOWN TO BE EXPERT ON SOMALIA TOMORROW IN ██████, GERMANY.

  WE WILL BE FLYING THERE TOMORROW.

  DAY SIX—JUNE 15, 2007

  LEAVING ██████ THE ████ AND ██████ BEHIND IN BUDAPEST TO ARRANGE THEIR SURREPTITIOUS ENTRY INTO SOMALIA, THIS REPORTER FLEW THIS MORNING WITH LIEUTENANT COLONEL ██████ AND THE MERRY OUTLAWS ON THE GULFSTREAM V TO A PRIVATE AIRFIELD NEAR ██████, GERMANY.

  THERE WE WERE MET BY ████ ██████ MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ██████ █████████████████, G.M.B.H., WHICH OWNS THE ████ ██████ NEWSPAPER CHAIN. HE IS A HESSIAN, BUT HE LOOKED LIKE A POSTCARD BAVARIAN. HE IS A TALL, HEAVYSET, RUDDY-FACED MAN.

  ██████ TOLD ██████ THE ████ ██████ CORRESPONDENTS HE HAD ORDERED TO COME FROM MOGADISHU TO ██████ HAD BEEN DELAYED IN ██████, ██████ AND HAD NOT YET ARRIVED. THEY ARE EXPECTED TOMORROW OR THE NEXT DAY. IN THE MEANTIME, ██████ AND HIS TEAM HAVE BEEN GIVEN ACCESS TO THE FILES OF THE NEWSPAPER CHAIN.

  MORE TO FOLLOW

  “Will there be a reply, Madam Secretary?”

  “Martha, we’ve known each other ever since the UN, and you can’t bring yourself to call me Natalie, even when we’re alone?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that, Madam Secretary.”

  “There won’t be a reply right now, Martha, thank you. If Charlene is out there, would you ask her to come in, please?”

  Charlene Stevens, the former Secret Service agent who headed Secretary Cohen’s security detail, came into the office and announced, “Anytime you’re ready, boss.”

  “We can’t leave until I deliver this to the President,” Cohen said, holding up the messages.

 
“I’ll tell them to stand down,” Charlene said. “Any guess as to when we can go?”

  “Let’s find out,” Cohen said, and pressed the buttons on her red White House switchboard telephone that would connect her with the President and put the conversation on loudspeaker.

  A male voice was on the line in less than ten seconds.

  “The President’s line. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Secretary Cohen.”

  “Madam Secretary, the President is not available at the moment, and has asked not to be disturbed in less than a Category Two Situation. Would you like me to put you through to the President?”

  “No, thank you. Please tell the President I have information for him and that I would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I will pass on to the President that you would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”

  “Thank you,” Secretary Cohen said, and broke the connection.

  “Well, while obviously important,” Charlene said, “whatever that message says, it doesn’t pose as much of a threat to the nation’s security as getting the First Mother-in-Law back in the loony bin does.”

  Natalie shook her head, but didn’t reply.

  “You knew he wasn’t there, right?” Charlene asked. “That he’s in Biloxi?”

  “I didn’t tell you that.”

  “Some of my boys were talking.”

  “See if you can get some of your boys to let you know when they have an ETA for him at Andrews. I’d like to be at the White House when he gets back.”

  “Done. Anything else?”

  “Not unless you want to sit here and listen to me tell my boys that our golf at the Greenbrier will have to be delayed for a while.”

  “I’ll pass, thank you,” Charlene said.

  [FOUR]

  The Oval Office

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1805 15 June 2007