W. E. B. Griffin - Presidential Agent 07 (24 page)

“I
never
would have guessed,” Juan Carlos said sarcastically. “Look, Carlos. There is some good news. You don’t fuck with these people, they don’t fuck with you. What I’m saying is there’s not a goddamn thing you can do for your friend the colonel, except get yourself killed. Let whoever deals with things like swapping prisoners—the FBI maybe, or DEA?—try to get him back. You start nosing around, you’re going to get yourself killed, and probably him, too. Can you understand that?”

“Yeah, I guess I can,” Castillo said reluctantly. “But, Juan Carlos, if you could find out anything . . .”

“Sure. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. By mail. I suppose if I sent a letter to . . . 1700 Arizona Boulevard, San Antonio, Texas . . . I remember Doña Alicia’s address; I’ve got a good memory for addresses and numbers, things like that . . . she’d get it to you, right?”

“I’m sure she would.”

“Even with you in Uruguay? Which is really where I hope you’ll be. What’s your address down there, anyway?”

“If you’re going to send a letter to Carlos down there,” Sweaty said, “send it in care of me—Señorita Susanna Barlow, Golf and Polo Country Club, Km 55.5 PanAmericana, Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.”

“Wait, let me write that down.”

He took a notebook and ballpoint from his shirt pocket.

Then he asked, “Argentina? I thought you said Uruguay.”

“We
farm
in Uruguay,” Sweaty said. “We play polo in Argentina. It’s only half an hour in the plane from Uruguay.”

“Polo, huh? You play polo, Carlos?”

“Frankly,” Sweaty said, “he’s not very good at it. Barlow is spelled B-A-R-L-O-W. You want the phone number? The country code is zero one one—”

“I won’t be calling,” Juan Carlos interrupted. “It probably costs ten dollars a minute to call down there.”

“Closer to seven dollars, actually,” Sweaty said.

Juan Carlos put his notebook back in his shirt pocket.

“Well, like I said, I have things to do,” he said. He drained his glass, nodded at everybody, and then draped his arm around Castillo’s shoulder.

“Pay attention to what I told you, Carlos. I really want to keep you alive.”

“I know,” Castillo said. “It’s just that I wanted to help if I could.”

“The best way for you to help is go to Uruguay. Or Argentina. Go work on your polo game in Argentina, Carlos.”

Juan Carlos Pena punched Castillo painfully in the upper arm, shook Fernando’s hand, nodded at the others, then quickly walked off the porch and got into his Suburban.

Ninety seconds later, both Policía Federal vehicles had disappeared in a dirt cloud down the road through the grapefruit orchards.

Castillo filled his wineglass, then said, “Comments solicited.”

“A dangerous man,” former SVR Major Stefan Koussevitzky said.

“But I think he really likes Carlos,” former SVR Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva said.

“That makes him less dangerous?” Koussevitzky challenged.

“I didn’t say that,” she said.

“Are you interested in what I think?” Don Armando Medina asked.

“Of course,” Castillo said.

“Some of the things he said were absolutely true. If you don’t get in the way of the drug cartel people, they leave you alone. We have had no trouble with them.”

“They aren’t stealing our grapefruit?” Castillo quipped.

“One of their bricks of cocaine is worth more than an eighteen-wheeler trailer load of grapefruit. That’s another thing Juan Carlos said that’s true: The amount of money involved is nearly unbelievable.”

“I was hoping I could get him talking more about the people involved. He suggested everybody involved is Mexican.”

“He came here to tell you as little as possible beyond ‘butt out or die,’ ” Fernando said, “and that’s just what he did.”

“You think our ol’ buddy is in with the drug people?”

“He’s alive, isn’t he?”

“Then why did he come here at all?”

“Like Sweaty said, he likes you. And he was probably curious—professionally—why you showed up here.”

“And do you think I convinced him I’m just an old soldier trying to help out an old classmate?”

“Yeah,” Fernando said after a moment. “Don’t let this go to your head, Gringo, but that was quite a performance. You, Stefan, and Sweaty were pretty convincing.”

“Looking stupid is easy for me,” Castillo said. “But Sweaty? Sweetheart, I could have kissed you when he asked for an address in Uruguay and you came up with Golf and Polo.”

“ ‘ I’ve got a good memory for addresses and numbers, things like that,’ ” Sweaty quoted. “You can kiss me later. So now what?”

“Now we get in the Mustang and go to Cozumel, and catch tomorrow’s PeruaireCargo flight to Chile.”

“Why are we going to do that?”

“I want Aleksandr to understand that whacking Sergei Murov or any of his people without asking me first is not one of his options.”

“You’re going to have trouble with that,” Koussevitzky said. “He’s convinced the best way to protect himself is to eliminate anybody Vladimir Vladimirovich sends over here.”

“If he takes out anybody, Ferris will die,” Castillo said.

“Stefan’s right,” Sweaty said. “Aleksandr will be genuinely sorry about that, but he’ll think of your friend’s passing as unavoidable collateral damage.”

“Well, I’ll just have to talk him out of thinking that way,” Castillo said. “Sweetheart, your call. We either leave right now, or very early in the morning.”

“Why can’t we have dinner first, and then leave?” she asked.

“Because I suspect Juan Carlos is going to have the radar operators at Bahías de Huatulco International Airport report to him when any airplanes take off from here. If we take off after dark, he’ll know the runway is lighted. And I don’t want him to know that.”

“Then dinner here, looking down at the ocean,” Sweaty said without hesitation. “Afterward, we can walk on the beach, holding hands.”

“Are you going to take Stefan and his ‘citrus experts’ with you?” Don Armando asked.

Castillo nodded. “Stefan, yes. But if you don’t think the ‘citrus experts’ pose a danger to Hacienda Santa Maria, I’d like to leave them here. I may need them later on.”

 

 

FBI Director Mark Schmidt, presidential press secretary Clemens McCarthy, and Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan were already in the room when Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman walked in.

Beiderman nodded at them, and said, “Good morning, Mr. President.”

“We’ve been waiting for you,” President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen said as he rose from his small “working desk.” He walked to a library table on one side of the room. “Take a look at what we have to show you.”

Clendennen gestured to Mulligan, who handed McCarthy a large manila envelope. McCarthy walked to the table, opened the envelope, and took from it a sheaf of eight-by-ten-inch color photographs. As if laying out a hand of solitaire, he laid them one at a time, side by side, in four rows on the table. When he was finished, the table was nearly covered.

Clendennen gestured for Beiderman to examine the pictures. He did so, then raised his head and asked, “Exactly what am I looking at, Mr. President?”

“These photographs were taken yesterday afternoon outside suite 1002 in the Mayflower Hotel,” McCarthy said.

“They were taken by FBI photographers, so they will stand up as evidence in court, if it ever comes to that,” Clendennen amplified.

“Yes, sir. Who are these people, Mr. President?”

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t pick anyone you know from them?”

“Well, sir, I of course recognize Roscoe Danton and Colonel Castillo—”

“
Retired Lieutenant
Colonel Castillo, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what about my former press secretary, Porky Parker. Did you recognize him?”

“Yes, sir, of course. But I don’t recognize any of the others.”

“You didn’t see any of them at Arlington the day before yesterday? Maybe as they got into their limousines and drove off just as I was beginning my remarks?”

“I didn’t make that connection, sir. Who are they, sir? And what were they doing at the Mayflower?”

“They’re soldiers. Five of them are commissioned officers, seven of them are warrant officers, and the remaining ten are senior noncommissioned officers. They are all assigned to General McNab’s Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg—to the Delta Force and Gray Fox components thereof.”

“Yes, sir?”

“As to what they were doing at the Mayflower, they were having a party. The host was
Lieutenant
Colonel Castillo, Retired.”

“I don’t think I understand, Mr. President,” Beiderman said.

“What I want you to do, Mr. Secretary,” President Clendennen said, “is take these photographs to General Naylor. Tell him to show them to General McNab as proof that we know what he’s up to—”

“Sir?”

“Please don’t interrupt me, Beiderman,” the President said unpleasantly. “Tell Naylor to show these photographs to General McNab, and to tell McNab that if he immediately applies for retirement, that will be the end of it.”

“The end of what, Mr. President?”

“McCarthy thinks the less we put into words at this time, the better,” the President said. “For reasons that should be obvious to you.”

“I’m afraid they’re not, Mr. President,” Beiderman said. “Frankly, I don’t understand any of this.”

“I think you do,” the President said icily.

“The only thing I understand is that you want General McNab to resign.”

“Correct.”

“Presumably in connection with this party in the Mayflower?”

“McNab will understand when General Naylor shows him these pictures, and, aware that I am repeating myself, tells him he can end this whole thing by immediately retiring, and that will be the end of it.”

“The end of what whole thing, sir?”

“If you give it some thought as you’re traveling to CENTCOM to see General Naylor, I’m sure it will come to you, Mr. Secretary. Call me the minute Naylor has McNab’s request for retirement in hand.”

Clemens McCarthy bent over the table, slid the photographs together, stacked them neatly together, and handed them to Mulligan, who returned them to the envelope and then handed the envelope to Secretary Beiderman.

President Clendennen didn’t seem to notice when Beiderman left the room.

 

 

Colonel J. D. Brewer pushed open the door and formally announced, “General Naylor, the secretary of Defense.”

Naylor was out of his chair and on the way to the door before Beiderman was halfway through it.

Beiderman offered his hand.

“Mr. Secretary, I’m a little uncomfortable not having been at the field . . .”

“Don’t be silly,” Beiderman said. “I told Colonel Brewer I would prefer that you not meet me. The less fuss about this, the better.”

“Yes, sir. Won’t you please sit down?”

“Thank you,” Beiderman said, and looked askance at Colonel Brewer.

Naylor caught that, and said, “That will be all, Colonel. Thank you.”

Brewer left and closed the door behind him. The implication was that SECDEF and C-in-C CENTCOM were now alone. The truth—which really made Naylor uncomfortable—was that he had ordered his senior aide-de-camp to go into the sergeant major’s office and listen to and record whatever was going to happen in his office.

“Can I offer coffee, sir? Or something to eat? Or ask you to join me in my mess for lunch?”

“Thank you, no. I had a sandwich on the plane. General, let me get right to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beiderman opened his attaché case and took out a large manila envelope.

“Have a look, General,” he said as he handed Naylor the envelope. “The President gave me those just before he ordered me to come down here.”

Naylor took the sheaf of color photographs from the envelope and looked at each before raising his eyes to Beiderman.

“The President desires, General,” Beiderman said, “that you personally show those photographs to General McNab, tell him the President knows what he’s up to, and that if he immediately applies for retirement, that will be the end of it.”

Naylor didn’t reply.

“I suggest the best way to accomplish the President’s desires is for us to immediately fly to Fort Bragg, in separate aircraft. Once you have done what the President desires and have General McNab’s request for retirement in hand, I will take it to the President and you can come back here, and that will be the end of it.”

Again Naylor didn’t reply.

“I will entertain your recommendations as to a replacement for General McNab at SPECOPSCOM,” Beiderman said, “but I suspect the President has someone in mind for the post.”

And once more Naylor didn’t reply.

“Did you understand what I just told you, General Naylor?”

“No, Mr. Secretary, I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“What didn’t you understand, General?”

“For one thing, Mr. Secretary, the photographs. Who are they of, and what are they supposed to show?”

“They were taken by FBI agents the day before yesterday in the Mayflower Hotel in D.C. They show a number of members of Delta Force and Gray Fox. They were taken after these individuals walked out on the President’s remarks at Arlington. They were at a party given by retired Lieutenant Colonel Castillo.”