W. E. B. Griffin - Presidential Agent 07 (38 page)

“. . . And after I had been dismissed,” she concluded, “McCarthy caught up with me as I was getting in my car in the portico, told me the President had sent him to tell me to keep my mouth shut, and then said, quote, ‘I appreciate your wisdom in not getting further into the business of what was and what was not in the letter you took to President Martinez,’ end quote. When I didn’t reply, he added, quote, None of us want him to go off the deep end just now, do we, Madam Secretary? Now would be a very bad time for something like that to happen, end quote.”

“So now you’re willing to buy in on the coup d’état theory?” Lammelle asked.

“I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, but something very unsavory is going on here, Frank.”

“Would you say the situation is desperate?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far, either. But I—we—have to get to the bottom of it.”

“Time to get off the fence, Natalie.”

“What does that mean?”

“The situation is, or is not, desperate. This is not one of those times when you can put off making that decision.”

“Why am I getting the idea that you know something I don’t?”

“Maybe because I’m the DCI? We have a reputation for knowing things and doing things that other people don’t know about.”

“Or don’t want to know about,” Natalie said after a moment. “Where are you going with this, Frank?”

“You haven’t answered my question. Is this situation desperate? Desperate enough to require taking desperate action?”

She considered that for a long moment, and then said, “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

“Not quite good enough, sorry.”

“What is it exactly you want from me, Frank?”

“Your word that after I offer my suggestion, and tell you what I know, that you won’t take any action of which I disapprove.”

“That’s too much to ask.”

“Then good luck with your problem, Natalie.”

“I don’t like this at all.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I’m the secretary of State. You are required by law to provide me with any intelligence you have that I might find useful in the discharge of my duties.”

“Spoken like a true dip,” Lammelle said. “Big words meaning nothing in real life. You want to walk that scenario through? You go to Truman Ellsworth—do you really want to go to Ellsworth?—and you tell him I’m not giving you information you’re entitled to by law. He tells me to give you what you want, and I tell him I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. So he goes to President Clendennen—do you really want Ellsworth going to President Clendennen about this?—and he says Lammelle . . .”

She held up her hand to shut him off.

“Tell me again what it is you want me to give my word about,” she said.

“That after I tell you what I know, you won’t go any further with it—that’s sort of moot, because if you did that, I’d deny it—and also that you take no action of any kind without my approval.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said. “You didn’t get to be DCI by being a nice guy, did you, Frank?”

“I got here by doing what I had to, in what I thought were the best interests of the United States.”

“What was it that Samuel Johnson said, Frank, on that April night in 1775? Something about patriotism?”

“Now I get the history lecture,” Lammelle said, chuckling. “He was talking about
false
patriotism, Natalie, when he said it was the last refuge of the scoundrel, not the real thing. False is when it doesn’t cost you anything. My kind is expensive. You can be disgraced. You can go to prison. You can even lose your life.”

“Are you feeling just a little self-righteous, Frank, after doing something you know you shouldn’t have done?”

“Okay. Conversation over. Is there anything else I can do for you before you go?”

The secretary of State was in deep thought a moment, then said, “Okay, you have my word.”

When he didn’t reply, she said, “Maybe you should have gone in the Foreign Service, Frank. You’re really a tough negotiator.”

“I have your word?” he asked.

“I said that you did.”

“All right. What Charley Castillo plans to do is grab Abrego—and, he hopes, Ferris—when either of them shows up at the Oaxaca State Prison, and see who that brings out of the woodwork.”

“How could he possibly manage that? The President has personally ordered General Naylor to see there is absolutely no U.S. military involvement . . .”

“At last count, he’s got about forty ex-Spetsnaz.”

“Where did he get ex-Spetsnaz?”

“From Aleksandr Pevsner, who believes that this whole kidnapping business is connected with Vladimir Putin’s plan to take out him and his family. Pevsner’s original reaction to hearing that the new Russian cultural affairs officer for Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala is Valentin Komarovski—who of course is really our old pal Sergei Murov, the SVR
rezident
here—was to whack anybody Pevsner even suspected was SVR until Putin got the message.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Castillo has managed to talk Pevsner out of this for the time being—which means until Castillo’s able to snatch Abrego and/or Ferris at the prison, and then see what the interrogation of whoever comes out of the woodwork turns up.

“We know the Venezuelans are involved. The guy who dropped the kidnapper’s letter in the post office slot in El Paso is José Rafael Monteverde, the financial attaché of the embassy of the República Bolivariana de Venezuela in Mexico City.”

“How do you know that?” Secretary Cohen asked.

“A friend of mine happened to be in the El Paso post office when he did it.”

“I will refrain myself from commenting that the CIA is expressly forbidden by law from operating within the United States,” she said.

“Anyway, Charley’s got people from China Post sitting on this guy. I think they’re going to want to talk to him.”

“China Post? The mercenary employment agency?”

“Charley prefers to think of them as former comrades in arms,” Lammelle said.

“Where’s he getting the money to pay for all this?” she asked, and then quickly added, “Don’t tell me. I think I know. ‘Those People’?”

“So far, I think he’s picking up the tab himself. Or Aleksandr Pevsner is. But that Las Vegas money is going to be available if he asks for it.”

“If Castillo kidnaps this Venezuelan diplomat, President Martinez—”

“What? Won’t like it? Won’t let him get away with it?”

“Both, and you know it.”

“So what if he doesn’t like it?” Lammelle said. “He’s done nothing, and you know it, to get Colonel Ferris back, or get the people who murdered Salazar and the DEA agents. And as far as not letting Castillo get away with what he’s doing, how is he going to do that? With the Policía Federal? Come on, Natalie.”

“Frank, you don’t really expect me to look the other way at any of this?”

“I expect you to do what you can to prevent a coup d’état. We don’t know who’s behind that. The only ones I’m sure are not are Generals Naylor and McNab. And we can count on their help once we find out who’s behind it. But we have to find out who’s behind it, whether the Russians, or Montvale, or Truman Ellsworth . . .”

“You think that Ellsworth might be involved?”

“I think it’s possible. The only thing I know for sure is that the only one who can find out is Castillo, and if he breaks a few laws finding out, I have no problem with that.”

She considered that a moment, and then said, “Don’t interpret this as a sign that I’m considering going along with any of this, but as a practical matter, how is he going to . . . I guess ‘kidnap’ is the word . . . Ferris and/or Abrego from the Mexican authorities, or the kidnappers, or for that matter, the U.S. Marshal Service?”

“I told you, he has the ex-Spetsnaz he got from Pevsner and the people from China Post—plus, of course, the Merry Outlaws.”

“And how, as a practical matter, Frank, is he going to move them around Mexico with the entire Policía Federal—plus the kidnappers, the drug cartels, and possibly even the SVR—looking for them?”

“Well, he has the helicopter. That’ll help.”

“You’re not talking about that Black Hawk?”

He nodded.

“You actually turned that helicopter over to him?”

“Persons representing themselves as officers of the CIA went to Fort Sam and flew it away,” Lammelle said. “They told Fort Sam officials they were returning it to Mexico.”

“You actually sent your people to Fort Sam to steal that helicopter for Castillo?”

“What I said was ‘people representing themselves as officers of the CIA.’ And it was never stolen. Though there wasn’t exactly a bill of sale, Charley did buy it for a million plus, so it could be argued it’s actually his chopper.”

“My God! You’re insane!”

“Natalie, you’re the one who told me that the Mexicans reported that Black Hawk was destroyed in President Martinez’s war on the drug cartels. How can you steal something that doesn’t exist?”

She shook her head in disbelief.

“Anyway, apparently these persons have gotten away with their deception. There have been no reports to anyone about anything unusual happening at Fort Sam.”

“And how does he plan to get the Black Hawk into Mexico?”

“It’s already there. As we speak, he’s showing it to a man he describes as one of the four honest cops in Mexico. I was just talking to him. I hung up”—he pointed to the Brick on his desk—“as you were coming through the door.”

“Does this honest cop have a name?” she asked.

“I’m sure he does.”

“But you’re not going to tell me?”

“Castillo’s going to do what he’s going to do, Natalie. What you have to decide is whether you’re going to help him or not. Whether, in other words—this is the choice Naylor had to make when he knew there was nothing he could do to stop Charley from going to La Orchila Island—Charley’s failure would do more harm to the country than his success.”

“Get him back on the Brick,” she said.

“He may not want to talk to you.”

“Why not?”

“I think he’s as much afraid that your high moral standards will demand that you do ‘the right thing,’ as you’re afraid he’s about to start a war with Mexico.”

“You’re saying he doesn’t trust me? I don’t believe that.”

“I’m saying he thinks you have a different agenda, one probably in conflict with his.” He paused, then went on: “Natalie, I’m betraying a confidence when I tell you this, but I think you should know there are now two nets on the Brick. The old one, which you have on your Brick, and the new one. You’re not on the new one. Neither are Those People. Charley doesn’t entirely trust them, either.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“I just realized it puts me in a somewhat uncomfortable position,” Lammelle said. “What the hell!”

He reached for his Brick, took out the handset, put his index finger in front of his lips as a signal to Cohen, and then pushed one of the direct connect buttons and the SPEAKERPHONE key.

“Yeah, Frank?” Castillo’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“What would you say if I told you that Natalie Cohen knows what you’re up to and wants to talk to you about helping?”

“I’d say you have a dangerously loose mouth and have been smoking an illegal substance. What the hell is this all about?”

“I thought you liked Natalie and trusted her.”

“I like her very much. Do I think she wants to help? No. If she knows what I’m doing and wants to talk to me, it’s to talk me out of what I’m doing. And goddamn you, Frank, if you did tell her.”

There was a buzzing sound.

Cohen and Lammelle looked at each other until they realized the buzzing was coming from the secretary of State’s Brick.

“Hold one, Charley,” Lammelle said.

Cohen opened the leather attaché case and took out the handset. She saw which number was illuminated, and mouthed, “Crenshaw.”

“See what he wants,” Lammelle said.

“See what who wants?” Castillo demanded impatiently. “Who are you talking to, Frank?”

Lammelle cut the connection.

“Natalie Cohen,” she said.

“If there was ever any question in your mind that the President is acting irrationally, forget it,” the attorney general said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Schmidt and I just left the Oval Office,” Crenshaw said. “The President just decided to send three Black Hawks loaded with Gray Fox operators to the Oaxaca State Prison to exchange Abrego for Ferris. And from his attitude, I don’t think he cares if there’s a firefight with the Policía Federal. In fact, I think he’s hoping for one.”

“Why would he want . . . oh.”

“The word is ‘irrational,’ Natalie, and that’s a euphemism.”

“Let me get this straight, he’s going to send Gray Fox to deal with this Policía Federal officer?”

“Juan Carlos Pena,” Crenshaw said.

“That’s going to take him at least twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight, before they can leave, right?”

“McNab is in Afghanistan, so Clendennen sent for McNab’s deputy, General O’Toole. And for Beiderman and Naylor. That’ll take some time, of course.”

“Let me get back to you, Stanley,” she said. She met Lammelle’s eyes and added, “I realize this is a desperate situation, requiring desperate measures. Let me see what I can do.”

She broke the connection.

“You say this no longer works to talk to Castillo?”

“You still can talk to him on it. You just won’t know what’s being said on what we’re calling Net Two.”

She punched a number on her handset.

“Hello, Madam Secretary,” Castillo’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Charley, what do you know about a Policía Federal officer named Pena? Juan Carlos Pena.”

“Rude question, but necessary,” he replied. “Why do you want to know?”