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“Where are those limousines you mentioned, Charley?” Montvale asked.

“In the hotel garage, waiting for me to call them. Which I am going to do in the next sixty seconds or so.”

“I think you’re right, Natalie,” Montvale said. “McCarthy—and/ or Mulligan—probably has people at the gate of Arlington to keep out people who might embarrass the President. But I think they’ll just wave our convoy through.”

“So we put Charley’s limousines in our convoy?” she asked. “That makes sense.”

Montvale walked to the bedroom door. He opened it and then looked around until he found Tom McGuire.

“Tom, may I see you for a moment?”

After the secretary of State had disappeared into the lobby elevator, nothing much happened in the next ten minutes.

Herb Kramer announced he was going to stretch his legs.

“I’ll go with you,” Bob Dabney said.

“Stay out of the bar,” Delores said. “You don’t want to go to the Ways and Means Committee smelling of alcohol.”

“I’m going to go outside and have a puff on a cigarette,” Herb said. “You can’t smoke in here.”

He pointed to a NO SMOKING sign to make his point, and then he and Bob walked down the lobby toward Connecticut Avenue.

They had just about reached the revolving door when two things happened almost at once. A burly man in a business suit stepped in front of the door to keep them from using it, and another burly man came out of one of the elevators and quickly walked down the lobby toward Connecticut Avenue.

He looked as if he were talking to his lapel.

“I’m going down there,” Delores said to Kate. “Something’s going on!”

The burly man who had been talking to his lapel went through the revolving door, but when Delores and Kate approached it, the burly man who had kept Herb and Bob from going outside stepped into their path.

He flashed some sort of credentials in their face. “United States Secret Service. Would you ladies please stand over there for just a minute?”

He pointed to where Herb and Bob were standing, looking through a window beside the revolving door onto the sidewalk. Kate and Delores moved beside them. After a moment, Kate tapped Herb on the shoulder, and he politely let her move in front of him so that she could get a better look.

There was a taxi stand on Connecticut Avenue with four cabs lined up in it. A uniformed policeman gestured impatiently for them to move. When they had done so, a Yukon with red and blue lights flashing behind its grille pulled up, not into the space just vacated, but into the lane—the street—just outside it.

Then another Yukon with flashing lights pulled into what had been the taxi lane, followed by two limousines, which also had flashing red and blue lights behind their grilles.

What had been the taxi lane was now filled.

Next came another limousine, this one a stretch limousine without flashing lights. It pulled into the space reserved for vehicles discharging or picking up passengers.

A burly man spoke into his lapel, and then opened the rear door of the limousine. A moment later, a line of men came through the revolving door and quickly entered the limousine.

“There’s ten of them,” Delores announced. “I counted them.”

“I wonder who they are,” Bob mused aloud.

The burly man closed the door and the stretch limousine pulled away from the curb.

What happened next occurred so quickly that no one but Delores could keep up with it. Limousines and Yukons kept pulling up to the curb, and then backing out of it—or going forward onto Connecticut Avenue and
then
backing up as passengers—some of them women and some of them carrying submachine guns—got into the various vehicles, and then sometimes out of them.

“You know what that looks like, Herb?” Bob said. “That automated package-distribution machine FedEx showed us in Kansas City. Except this is for people.”

“You know, Bob, it does,” Herb said thoughtfully.

He then gestured with his hands, miming FedEx’s automated system, which had apparently impressed him with its ability to move a lot of things in different directions at the same time.

The Vice President came through one of the revolving doors and was hustled into one of the limousines with the flashing lights, and then the secretary of State came through the revolving door and was hustled into hers.

There was a wail of sirens and then it was suddenly all over. All the vehicles were gone, and so were all the Secret Service people.

“I will be damned,” Herb said. “That was something!”

“And you didn’t want to stay here,” Delores said. “You said it was too expensive.”

[THREE]

The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1430 15 April 2007

“When the Vice President’s car reached where we were standing, Mr. President, just outside the main gate,” Secret Service Special Agent Mark Douglas reported, “it stopped and the rear window went down. Vice President Montvale said, ‘The four limousines are with me.’ So I let them pass.”

“Did you see who was in them?” President Clendennen asked.

“Yes, Mr. President. To double-check, so to speak, I stopped each one and opened the door and had a look.”

“And?” the President asked impatiently.

“There were eight men, mostly Caucasian—mostly Latinos, I judged—and some Afro-Americans, in each of the first two limousines. The third one had Mr. Danton—the reporter from
The Washington Times-Post
—and Mr. Parker in it. Just them. The last limo was empty.”

“And then what happened?”

“The convoy moved directly to the grave site, to the road near it. And everybody got out.”

“And?”

“The Vice President and the secretary of State got out and walked to where you and the other dignitaries were standing—where you were waiting for the whatchamacallit, the
caisson
with the casket, to come down the road.”

“And the people in the limousines?”

“Mr. Danton followed the Vice President and Secretary Cohen.”

“And Mr. Parker?” the President asked softly.

“I didn’t see him there anymore. I guess he didn’t get out of the limousine. I did see him later—”

“Get to later, later,” the President interrupted him. “What about the people in the limousines?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President. Well, they got out of the limos and arranged themselves in a line where they could watch what was going to happen at the grave. While they were doing that, a woman with a couple of kids walked up to them. They all knew her, and gathered around her.”

“And did you learn who this woman was?”

“Yes, sir. When I told Supervisory Agent Mulligan about the limousines, he told me to find out who they were, I went there, and asked, and they said they were . . .”

He interrupted himself to consult a notebook.

“. . . from the American Legion. From China Post Number One of the American Legion. The guy who told me that showed me his American Legion card.”

“And did you have a chance to . . .
overhear . . .
any of their conversations?”

“No, sir. I mean, I stuck around to do that, but they weren’t speaking English. Chinese, probably, I guess. But they called the woman ‘Mrs. Ferris’ and I put that together. She’s the wife of the officer who was kidnapped in Mexico when the guy they buried got shot.”

“They all spoke Chinese?”

“I’m not sure if it was Chinese, Mr. President. But it certainly wasn’t English. A couple of them started speaking Spanish . . . Supervisory Agent Mulligan’s orders to me were to stick around, find out where they went . . . but one of them—a guy they called ‘Colonel’—pointed to me and they stopped speaking that and went back to Chinese or whatever it was.”

“And when the interment was over, what happened?”

“As soon as you gave Mrs. Salazar the flag, they got in the limousines and left. Mrs. Ferris and the kids went with them.”

“They didn’t stay for my remarks?”

“No, sir. They got in the limousines and left. Like Supervisory Agent Mulligan told me to do, I got in one of our Yukons and followed them.”

“Where did they go?”

“To the Mayflower Hotel, sir. That was where I saw Mr. Parker again. He and Mr. Danton were with them.”

“And did you follow them into the hotel?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President. They went to the tenth floor. After a while—I didn’t want them to know I was following them—I went up there. They were in room—I guess suite—1002. When a couple of waiters started rolling in carts of food, I got a look in. It was them, all right.”

“Did you manage to learn who was registered in suite 1002?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President, I got that from the waiters.”

Special Agent Douglas consulted his notebook again.

“Suite 1002 is registered to a German guy. His name is Karl von und zu Gossinger. The waiters told me he lives there. I mean, he keeps the suite all the time.”

“Anything else?”

“Like Supervisory Agent Mulligan told me to, I got him on the radio, and he said to come here. That you wanted to talk to me.”

“And I did indeed. You did very well, Agent . . . what did you say your name was?”

“Douglas, Mr. President. Special Agent Mark Douglas.”

“Special Agent
Douglas,
would you wait outside for a moment? I may have a few more questions.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan followed Douglas to the door and closed it after Douglas had gone through it.

“Special Agent Douglas is not a nuclear physicist, is he?” the President said. “How the hell did he get in the Secret Service?”

“He was a New Jersey state trooper, Mr. President,” Mulligan said. “He’s not too swift, I admit. But he’s reliable.”

“I was thinking he might be useful, now that we know what I suspected was going on is going on. And they don’t seem to care that I know, do they? Montvale himself, that sonofabitch, and Cohen—I’m a gentleman and I won’t say out loud what I think of her—actually
took
those Special Forces people to Arlington.”

He paused and shook his head as if in disbelief, and then went on: “Where they walked out before I made my remarks. An insult, and they damn well knew it. Goddamn! And they had Colonel Castillo with them. That was him, right?”

“Yes, sir, that was Castillo. And Colonel Torine was there, too.”

“Mulligan,” Clemens McCarthy asked, “who is this German man? What’s his involvement in this?”

“His real name is Castillo, Clemens,” the President answered for him. “Or maybe his real name is Goldfinger, or whatever Mulligan’s rocket scientist said. As to his involvement in what’s going on, he’s up to his ears in it. He probably thinks President Montvale will make him director of National Intelligence. Or secretary of Defense.

“But back to my original thought. Do you agree, Mulligan, that your man, who looks to me like he has a strong back, takes orders, and can keep his mouth shut, would be useful to us?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. President.”

“Well, then, get him back in here. And see if Schmidt is out there.”

“Director Schmidt is out there, Mr. President,” Mulligan replied. “I saw him just now. You want him to come in?”

“When I’m through with Dumbo,” the President said.

“Yes, Mr. President?” Special Agent Douglas said.

“Your first name is Mark, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you mind if I called you that?”

“I’d be honored, Mr. President, sir.”

“Well, Mark, Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan tells me that he’s had his eye on you for some time, and Mr. McCarthy agrees with me that you did a fine job today, showing high intelligence, discretion, and perseverance.”

Special Agent Douglas’s face colored.

“And we need someone with those characteristics around here, right around me,” Clendennen said. “The first thing I require of people in my intimate circle, Mark, is loyalty. Or, phrased another way, I absolutely cannot stand disloyalty. You can have the other things I mentioned, but if loyalty is not your strong point . . .”

“I can understand that, Mr. President,” Douglas said.

“Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan tells me he thinks you have that loyalty, understand the need for it. So I’m going to take a chance on you.”

“Yes, sir?”

“From this moment, Mark, you are relieved of all your normal duties. You will be reporting directly to Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan, who will explain to you what your duties will be. Now—and this is important, Mark—for a number of reasons we want to keep your special assignment from becoming public knowledge. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

Clendennen rose and offered Douglas his hand.

BOOK: W. E. B. Griffin - Presidential Agent 07

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