Black Ops pa-5, page 56
part #5 of Presidential Agent Series
“Is that what they call loyalty to your co-workers? I thought agency types never ratted on one another.”
“I don’t suppose you know where that dinosaur is, do you?”
“He could be in Budapest, I suppose—”
“Budapest?”
“—Or Buenos Aires. Or just about any place in between.”
“He’s not with you in Las Vegas?”
“I never said I was in Vegas. You did.”
“Wherever you are, the FBI will inevitably find you.”
“I’ll bet there’ll be a lot of volunteers to look for me in Las Vegas. Who did you say told you I was here—I mean, there?”
Casey and Berezovsky grinned widely.
“All right, Castillo, enough. I have told the DCI I want a separate investigation of the allegations your Russian friends have made about a secret factory in the Congo. You have accomplished that much, if they are not making a fool of you. And now, it seems to me, it’s time for you to put up or shut up.”
“Meaning what?”
“Berezovsky and Alekseeva should step forward and tell the agency what they know.”
“That’s unlikely. They trust the agency a little less than even I do.”
“Charley, I don’t care where in the world you have them hidden. You tell me where, and I’ll have a plane there in a matter of hours.”
“Which will transport them to one of those nice houses the agency has in Maryland? I don’t think so, Mr. Ambassador. But I’ll tell you what I will do: In a couple of days, when I get it all together, I will send you everything they have told me about what the agency thinks is a harmless fish farm. Plus what I’ve managed to dig up myself.”
Montvale didn’t reply for a long moment.
“I’m surprised. I thought there was nothing you could do that would surprise me. But I should have thought that you would be doing something like this.”
“Something like what?”
“You still want to go over there yourself, don’t you, John Wayne? Jump on your goddamn horse and gallop off to fight the fucking Indians. You think if you can put before the President enough of your bullshit, mixed with the bullshit your fucking Russian friends are feeding you, the President will say, ‘Sure, hotshot. Go over there and show up the agency. Have Montvale set it up.’ All the while ignoring whatever damage you can do to the President if you fuck it up—when you fuck it up.”
“I thought you weren’t going to lose your temper.”
“Mark my fucking words, Castillo, you will go to Africa and embarrass the President and the country and me over my dead body. You will not have access to any assets over which I have control—”
“Well, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Ambassador,” Castillo said. “Break it down, White House.” When he heard the click, he said, “Castillo out.”
“In about a minute,” Casey said, “I suspect a cell phone will start to ring in the Venetian. No one will hear it, because the ringer’s been muted. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, shortly thereafter, lots of gun-toting guys in bad suits with emission detectors in their ears will start prowling the miles of Venetian corridors. That won’t work, as I thought of that and came up with a fix. But was that smart, Charley?”
Castillo looked at him but said nothing.
“Thank you, Carlos,” Berezovsky said.
“For what? I told you I’d never turn you over to the agency, and that was before—”
“Before Cupid’s arrow struck? No. Thank you for not backing down from that assault. You reminded me of David and Goliath.”
Castillo pointed his finger at him. “You shut up.” Then he pointed at Casey. “And you deal.”
Doña Alicia and Svetlana came into the library fifteen minutes later. They had been watching an old Paul Newman movie on television in the ranch house’s main living room. They joined the game.
When they quit playing—just before midnight, when Lester Bradley came in for his watch duty with the AFC—Doña Alicia had won almost twenty dollars and Sweaty had shown that she was a lousy loser by twice throwing her cards angrily on the table and uttering thirty-second recitations of Russian expletives that Castillo was glad Doña Alicia didn’t understand. As Castillo stood, he noted on the monitors that the countdown read 50:45:15.
[EIGHT]
0900 13 January 2006
Castillo walked into the library carrying a mug of coffee.
Davidson shook his head and said, “Not a fucking peep, Charley.”
Castillo sat at the table.
“I think what you were supposed to say was, ‘Good morning, sir. I hope the colonel slept well. I beg to report there have been no reports from any of the reconnaissance parties, sir.’ ”
Davidson gave him the finger. “Uncle Remus said seventy-two hours, Colonel, sir.”
He pointed at the countdown. Castillo saw that it read 41:40:40.
“I think we have a surfeit of precision. Why the hell are we counting in seconds?”
“I don’t know. Because we can?”
“Let’s wake up the Air Force and see what they’re doing to earn all the money the taxpayers are throwing at them,” Castillo said. “C. G. Castillo for Colonel Torine. Encryption Level One.”
Sexy Susan said: “One moment, please, Colonel.”
Davidson’s fingers attacked his keyboard.
The monitor Castillo was watching changed its data display. It now showed a three-dimensional picture of the terminal building at Kilimanjaro International Airport, Tanzania. A lightning bolt at the top of the screen began to flash, then the screen showed the local date and time at the airport: 1701 13 JAN 06.
“Back that up, Jack,” Castillo said. “Let’s have a look at the Congo.”
Sexy Susan said: “I have Colonel Torine for you, Colonel. Encryption Level One.”
“What’s up, Charley?” Jake Torine asked.
“Hold one, Jake,” Castillo said.
The screen showed the last known positions of 5-Leverette, C and 6-DeWitt, P. They were now inside the Congo, eighty-some kilometers northeast of Kisangani. Their symbols were nearly superimposed on each another, which could have meant that they were together, or in the same area just a klick or two apart.
“Speaking of precision,” Castillo said.
“That’s it, Charley,” Davidson replied. “It won’t go any closer. What they did was turn on the AFC just long enough for the computer to get a GPS position.”
Castillo’s fingers flew over the keyboard of his laptop.
“Jake, I’ve got a last-known position on Uncle Remus. He’s in the Congo.”
“He told me that’s where he was going. Anything a little closer than that? The Congo is a great big place, Charley.”
“You have a pencil or something to write this down?”
“The Lorimer Fund bought me the latest and greatest laptop computer just before I came over here. I thought maybe it would come in handy.”
Castillo read from his laptop screen: “One point zero six north latitude; twenty-five point nine east latitude. That’s eighty-odd klicks northeast of Kisangani.”
“Let me have those coordinates again. Slowly.”
Castillo read them again slowly.
“Got it. Where the hell did you get that?”
“We Army special operators try to stay on top of things,” Castillo said. “I think this place we’re interested in is another fifty or sixty klicks farther northeast of Uncle Remus’s LKP.”
“That would fit,” Torine said thoughtfully.
“It’s possible, repeat possible, that we’ll get position updates, and I thought that while we’re waiting maybe we might consider what we could do if this place turns out to be what it is, and where we think it is.”
“The Air Force, as usual, is way ahead of you. There’s a number of options, ranging from nuking it from a B-1 through having Uncle Remus sneak up and throw a spear at it.”
“And you’ve been thinking about them?”
“If you had to make an educated guess, Charley, would you say the target would be within a fifty- or sixty-klick radius of Uncle Remus’s LKP?”
“I’d be happier with seventy-five klicks, but you could probably narrow it down some from a radius. I have an educated guesstimate that it’s not farther than ten klicks either side of National Route 25, and no more than that from the Ngayu River.”
“That will narrow it down a lot. I’ll work on it. Give me an hour or so, Charley, and I’ll send you my thoughts.”
[NINE]
1150 13 January 2006
Two hours and thirty-two minutes passed before Sexy Susan announced that Colonel Torine wanted to speak with Colonel Castillo, and when Castillo went on the AFC, she announced, “Commencing data transmission, Encryption Level One-D.”
Moments later, the printer began to spit out sheets of paper—and then kept spitting them out. After four minutes, it stopped suddenly and Sexy Susan announced: “Partial failure of data transmission to file and printer. Printer paper supply, or printer toner supply, possibly exhausted. Transmission to file will resume momentarily. Check printer paper supply and or printer toner supply, replenish as necessary, and enter RESUME PRINT FILE.”
Doing that consumed another seven minutes.
And it was another five minutes before Sexy Susan announced, “Transmission of data, Encryption Level One-D, to file and printer verified complete.”
As Svetlana helped Castillo stack the printer’s output, he noticed the countdown, no longer reflecting seconds, was down to 37:16.
When he had finished glancing at the information Torine had sent, he was surprised at how little time Torine had spent detailing the options, not how long.
There were eight separate “Proposed Operational Order: Congo Chemical Complex” papers. A quick glance showed they called for the use of aerial weaponry ranging from missiles, through the B-1 Stealth bomber, to the F-15E fighter bomber, and the aerial tankers needed to refuel them, and two involved U.S. Navy F/A-18C fighter bombers operating from carriers in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans.
And there was a ninth paper: “Proposed Operational Order: Bomb Damage Assessment, Congo Chemical Complex.” It suggested this could be done by satellite overfly; a U-2 high-altitude photoreconnaissance aircraft; Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; return to the bombing site by bomber or low-flying fighter aircraft, or by “clandestine entry into the Congo of U.S. Air Force or U.S. Army Special Operations personnel to make such evaluation on the ground.”
The ninth was the only one Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, himself a military aviator with a good deal of experience, felt he more or less understood.
But he was going to have to try to understand the strengths and limitations of the various things Torine was proposing. He was going to have to show them to the President, and he didn’t want to look or sound like a goddamn fool when inevitably the President asked him a question and he didn’t have the answer.
He collected everything that Torine had sent him, plus the draft of the report Two-Gun Yung had prepared from his own notes and from what had come from Fulda and what he’d gotten from Dmitri and Svetlana. And he went to his old desk in his old bedroom, where he hoped he would have a little privacy.
Yung’s draft would have to be modified when Yung had a chance to review what had just started coming in from Budapest—Delchamps had finally shown up there—but Yung had put it to him that now was the time to have “a quick look” to make sure it was what he wanted, rather than have him continue “to break his ass on what might well be a waste of everybody’s time.”
He had just made himself comfortable at his old desk and poured himself a cup of coffee when Svetlana came into the room. He was convinced he’d pissed her off by telling her that he didn’t need help or company right now, thank you very much.
She simply replied, “Joel Isaacson is on the radio.”
[TEN]
1150 13 January 2006
The countdown on his laptop read 36:58 when Castillo sat down at the desk and reached for the AFC handset.
“C. G. Castillo.”
Sexy Susan said: “I have Colonel Castillo for you, Mr. Isaacson.”
I don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out this has something to do with the President, Joel having been in charge of his Security Detail.
Confirmation of that came immediately when Isaacson began the conversation by announcing, “Charley, I had a call five minutes ago from the President.”
Castillo waited for him to go on.
“He wanted to know if I knew where you were,” Isaacson said. “When I told him I honestly didn’t know, he asked if I could find you. I said—I don’t lie to the President, Charley—‘I think I can, Mr. President.’
“To which he replied, ‘Do so, Joel. If you can, tell him to call me. If you can’t, call me back within ten minutes.’
“To which I replied, ‘Yes, Mr. President.’ He hung up. I then called Jack Doherty, who said to get on the AFC. Jack is not capable of lying to the President, either, even secondhand.”
“I understand, Joel. I’m sorry you got in the middle of this.”
“So am I, Charley. What do I tell him?”
“You won’t have to tell him anything. I’ll call right now.”
“White House.”
“C. G. Castillo for the President on a secure line, please.”
“Hold one, Colonel, please. I have special instructions . . .”
What “special instructions”?
“The President’s private line,” an executive secretary to the President answered.
Private line?
The one in what he calls his working office?
“Colonel Castillo for the President, please.”
“Colonel, the President is in a do-not-disturb conference in the Oval Office. If you will kindly give me a second—”
“Can you tell me with whom?”
There was a long pause, then:
“The secretary of State, Ambassador Montvale, and the directors of the CIA and the FBI. However, the President’s given special instructions should someone call about you, sir.”
There was another long pause, then Castillo heard the President’s voice snap, “Yes, what is it?”
“Are you free to speak with Colonel Castillo, Mr. President?”
“Oh, am I ever. Are you on here, Castillo?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Hang on a minute. I’m going to the little office.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Castillo quickly formed a mental picture of what was happening. The President of the United States was rising from his desk in the Oval Office—or from an armchair or a couch—and marching into the smaller office just off the Oval Office, officially known as “the President’s working office,” leaving behind him Secretary of State Natalie Cohen, FBI Director Mark Schmidt, Director of Central Intelligence John Powell, and Director of National Intelligence Charles W. Montvale, all of whom had just come to the same conclusion: that the President didn’t want any one of them to hear what he was going to say to a lowly lieutenant colonel, and that they were going to be furious to varying degrees, none of them minor.
“Okay, Charley, I’m in here.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“I think you’d agree that Mark Schmidt is not given to colorful speech,” the President said.
“Sir?”
“He just came up with something very colorful. He said, ‘As far as out-of-control loose-cannons rolling around are concerned, Castillo by comparison makes Oliver North look like the Rock of Gibraltar.’ ”
The President let that sink in.
“Of course, that may be because he is just a little humiliated that the FBI can’t find you or those two Russians you stole from the CIA.”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“Why did you steal those defectors from the CIA, Charley?”
“Sir, the CIA never had them.”
“Then there is another side to this horror story I have just heard?”
“Yes, sir, there is.”
“Did you tell the DCI that you refused to turn over the stolen Russians to him?”
“Sir, they were not stolen. I told him that the Russians did not wish to turn themselves over to the CIA.”
“And also that the CIA was nothing more than a very few very good people, or words to that effect, trying to stay afloat in a sea of left-wing bureaucrats?”
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid I did.”
“What are you doing in Las Vegas?”
“Sir, I’m not in Las Vegas.”
“Charles Montvale says you are.”
“Ambassador Montvale has been wrong before, too, sir.”
“Right now, Charley, you are not in a position where you can afford sarcasm.”
“Yes, sir. No offense intended. I actually meant it as a statement of fact. Sorry, sir.”
The President sighed. “Charley, I have to ask this: Did you personally assassinate or did you set up the assassination of a Russian in Vienna in circumstances designed to make it appear the CIA station chief was the villain?”
“I learned of that, sir, only after it happened.”
“Frankly, I didn’t believe that one.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, Charley, here it is. You’ve earned the right to tell me your side of the incredible things I have been hearing that you have been doing. The question is how to do that? Where are you?”
“In Texas, sir.”
“In about an hour, I’m going to Philadelphia. Two speeches, one tonight and one tomorrow at lunch. If you can give me a more precise location than ‘Texas,’ I’ll send a plane to pick you up. I can give you half an hour tomorrow morning. Say, at nine. The Four Seasons Hotel.”
“Sir, I’m in Midland, Texas. On my ranch.”
“Is that where you’ll go after you retire?”
“Possibly, sir. Sir, you don’t have to send a plane. I have one.”
“I have to ask this, too: You’re not thinking of getting on your plane and flying off to, say, Argentina, are you?”
“No, Mr. President, I’m not. I’ll see you in Philadelphia tomorrow morning.”
