When Roscoe had shown his White House Press Corps credentials to the first of three security points-the “outside” one, near the main entrance-one of Lammelle’s security people had handed him another credential, this one a plastic-sealed card on what Roscoe thought of as a “beaded dog tag chain.” He looked at it. It held his photo and the legend PRESIDENTIAL PRESS CONFERENCE AT CIA HEADQUARTERS 1100 APRIL 12TH 2007.
“You’re on the reserved-seating list, Mr. Danton,” the man said.
Roscoe found this interesting, because before he had been so rudely awakened, he had had no intention of coming out here today and hadn’t asked for credentials, let alone a reserved-seat reservation.
He knew the protocol for events like this, at which there would be far more seats requested by members of the White House Press Corps than were available. The “host”-in this case, Frank Lammelle-and Porky Parker would put their heads together and decide who got in. And who would have to wait outside, fuming.
Roscoe intuited that he was on the reserved-seating list because of Lammelle, not Porky Parker. While he had no problems with Porky, Porky could be expected to hand out reserved seats to the elite of the White House Press Corps, and Roscoe knew that he wasn’t a member of that elite. Close, but no golden ring.
And he further intuited that it was due to his new status as a member-however uncomfortable-of the Merry Outlaws. At the beginning, Frank Lammelle had headed the CIA delegation of the alphabet agencies looking for Charley Castillo.
Lammelle even had an air-powered dart gun-
Straight out of a superhero comic book.
Jesus, that would have made a great story if I could have written it!
— with which he planned to tranquilize Castillo so that he would be amenable to being loaded aboard the Moscow-bound Aeroflot plane.
After Vic D’Alessandro-surprise, surprise! — had shot Lammelle with Lammelle’s own Super Agent Whiz Bang air gun in Cancun-where his pursuit of Castillo had taken him-Lammelle had awakened in the middle of a desert in Mexico, at a secret airfield the Merry Outlaws had dubbed Drug Cartel International.
There, when he saw what Castillo’s Merry Outlaws were doing, and compared it to what the President was trying to do to Castillo, Lammelle had changed sides. He hadn’t gone to the Venezuelan island but had made a large, maybe even essential, contribution to the operation.
If I have a CaseyBerry, Roscoe thought, you can bet your ass Castillo gave Lammelle one. And I can hear Castillo calling Lammelle on it, and asking, “Frank, can you get Roscoe into that press conference?”
And that would neatly tie in with Delchamps and Yung-having easily slipped through the Watergate’s state-of-the-art, absolutely, positively guaranteed 24/7 security system-appearing in my bedroom this morning.
Why the hell is it important to Castillo that I hear whatever bullshit our beloved Commander in Chief is going to spew today?
When Roscoe passed through two more security points and finally got into Auditorium Three, a uniformed CIA security officer took a close look at his new presidential press conference credentials and showed him to a seat where he was buried between fellow members of the White House Press Corps. He had half expected to be seated in one of the VIP seats in front. He saw that Andy McClarren of Wolf News and C. Harry Whelan, Jr., had been so honored.
Roscoe glanced at the open laptop computer of his seat mate, Pierre Schiff, of L’Humanite, and helpfully suggested that for about ten bucks, Schiff could go to Radio Shack and buy a screen that would keep people from seeing what was on his laptop screen.
Schiff gave him a smile that would have frozen hot chocolate.
Roscoe looked around the auditorium and saw mostly what he expected to see:
There was a narrow stage holding a podium bearing the presidential seal. Against the curtain at the rear of the stage was a sea of American flags, plus the CIA flag, those of the Vice President of the United States, the secretary of State, the director of National Intelligence, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and two red flags, one with four silver stars on it and one with three.
To the left and right of the stage and in the rear of the auditorium, still and video cameramen-plus half a dozen guys, whatever they were called, manipulating microphone booms-were crowded together, preparing to send the images and sounds of the conference around the world.
And there was something Roscoe was surprised to see: A detachment of the 3rd Infantry-“the Old Guard”-drum and bugle corps wearing Revolutionary War uniforms. The detachment was lined up, without much room to spare, to the left of the stage, between the stage and the cameramen.
Roscoe had just enough time to wonder about them-they had never been involved in a presidential press conference that he could remember-when the lights dimmed twice as a signal that something was about to begin. The lights went up-really up, to provide lighting for the cameras-and a line of people filed onto the stage.
Vice President Charles W. Montvale came first, followed by Secretary of State Natalie Cohen. Montvale took up a position immediately behind the podium, where he would be on the right of the President when he appeared, and Cohen took up a position to the left of the podium. Next came Truman Ellsworth, the director of National Intelligence, and then A. Franklin Lammelle, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and finally Generals Naylor and McNab. They took up positions to the left and right of the podium.
Presidential press secretary John David “Porky” Parker stepped to the podium and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”
Everybody stood.
There came a roll of drums, and the sound of fifes playing “Hail to the Chief.”
President Clendennen marched purposefully onto the stage. He was a short, pudgy, pale-skinned fifty-two-year-old Alabaman who kept his tiny ears hidden under a full head of silver hair. As he marched past the dignitaries, just how short he was momentarily was made clear; he was shorter than even Natalie Cohen. Then he reached the podium and stepped onto a hidden platform that made him appear taller than everybody.
“Good morning,” the President said. “Thank you for coming.”
Danton grunted softly. Good morning, Shorty. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
The President’s voice was deep and resonant.
I’ll give him that. He sounds like what people want a President to sound like. And when he’s standing on his little stool, he looks presidential.
“Most of you,” the President began, “thanks to the zealous- perhaps too zealous-reporting of a distinguished journalist writing for one of our more distinguished newspapers, are aware of a tragic incident that took place yesterday in Mexico. Three of our fellow Americans were found shot to death. A fourth American is missing.”
And who were these people? Did they have names? What were they doing in Mexico?
“Let me begin by stating that I have no more sacred duty as President and Commander in Chief than the protection of the lives of my fellow citizens, wherever they might be.”
Aside from not getting impeached, and maybe even getting reelected.
“And let me confess, as Zeke Clendennen, private citizen, that I am as outraged as anyone in our great nation about what happened outside Acapulco yesterday. I really understand, and sympathize with, those who think-as did one of Andy McClarren’s guests last night on The Straight Scoop-that we should send in the Marines as we did to Veracruz in 1914 and ‘teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget.’”