“The end of what, sir?”
Naylor hesitated, and then said, “I think it would be best if you heard this from Secretary Beiderman, General.”
Beiderman’s look of surprise-even shock-quickly turned into one of resignation-he had been had, and he knew it-and then into one of hate and loathing.
For a moment, he just sat there, and then he exhaled and leaned toward the red phone.
“General, the President seems to think you are involved in a conspiracy that will see him resign, which would put Vice President Montvale in the Oval Office.”
There was a long moment, and then General McNab said, very softly, “Mr. Secretary, would you please repeat that? I want to be absolutely sure I heard you correctly.”
My God! Naylor thought. McNab knew right away not only what’s going on but how to deal with it.
Thank God!
After a moment, Beiderman repeated, “General, the President seems to think you are involved in a conspiracy that will see him resign, and would put Vice President Montvale in the Oval Office.”
Another pause, and then McNab said, “And you, Mr. Secretary, do you think I have been, or that I am, involved in a coup d’etat such as you describe?”
“No, of course I don’t,” Beiderman snapped. “But that’s what the President apparently believes, and that’s what we have to deal with.”
“First, Mr. Secretary,” McNab said, “let me categorically deny that I am now or ever have been involved in something like that. And with equal emphasis let me say that I have no intention of requesting retirement at this time. The President has-and for that matter, as you well know-you and General Naylor have-the right to relieve me of command of SPECOPSCOM at any time.
“But for me to resign under the circumstances you have laid out would be a tacit admission that I have been involved in a coup d’etat. And that’s treason, Mr. Secretary!”
“Now, calm down, General,” the secretary of Defense said. “No one’s accusing you of treason.”
Naylor began: “General McNab-”
“Treason is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” McNab interrupted him with cold anger in his voice. “I demand a court-martial!”
Naylor thought, Please, God, McNab, don’t get carried away!
“No one’s talking about a court-martial, General McNab,” he said.
“I am!”
“General, what Secretary Beiderman and I have been talking about is that when POTUS has a chance, over a few days, to reconsider what must be honestly described as an overreaction to what happened at Arlington and the Mayflower. .”
“An ‘overreaction’? It’s insane, that’s what it is!”
“Watch your choice of words, General,” Naylor ordered sharply. “You’re speaking of the Commander in Chief.”
“Yes, sir,” McNab said after a moment.
“As I was saying, Secretary Beiderman and I have been discussing the possibility that, after a few days, POTUS may reconsider and possibly even regret what can only be described as his loss of self-control.”
Beiderman put in: “Get out of Dodge, so to speak, for a few days. Until this thing has a chance to blow over.”
“And where should I go for a few days until this thing, this outrage, this insanity, blows over?” McNab demanded.
“If you were not at Fort Bragg, General,” Naylor said, “if you were not at Fort Bragg when Secretary Beiderman and I arrived with the packet of photographs. .”
“Go to Afghanistan, for Christ’s sake,” Beiderman snapped. “Confer with your people there. Just be unavailable.”
After a moment McNab said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary.”
Congratulations, Mr. Secretary, Naylor thought. You are now a coconspirator.
The flashing LED on the red telephone stopped flashing.
“What the hell?” Beiderman demanded incredulously. “Did he hang up on us?”
Naylor held up his hand and then extended his arm and looked at his wristwatch.
Precisely sixty seconds later, he pushed a button on the red telephone. The LED began flashing.
“SPECOPSCOM,” a new voice come over the circuit. “General O’Toole speaking, sir.”
“This is General Naylor. Let me speak to General McNab, please.”
“Sir, I’m sorry. He’s not here.”
“Where is he?” Beiderman demanded.
“Sir, he’s on his way to Afghanistan.”
“As soon as you can get in touch with him, O’Toole, have him call me,” Naylor ordered.
“That will probably take about an hour, sir.”
“As soon as possible,” Naylor said, and hung up.
He met Beiderman’s eyes, and said, “Done.”
“And now O’Toole knows all about this,” Beiderman said.
“No. O’Toole’s the SPECOPSCOM deputy commander. McNab would have to tell him he was going to Afghanistan.”
“Including the circumstances? These circumstances?” Beiderman asked. “So what do we do now, General?”
“We wait to see what happens when POTUS gets his temper under control.”
“And if he doesn’t? If this makes him even more angry? God, Naylor, if he ever finds out what you and I just did. .”
“If POTUS doesn’t get his irrational behavior under control, which is a possibility, I’m afraid then you and I and the other rational people around him are going to have to worry about how to protect the country from that.”
After a long moment, the secretary of Defense said very softly, “I’ve been wondering who would be the first to actually say that out loud.”
FIVE
El Tepual International Airport Puerto Montt, Chile 1945 17 April 2007
As the PeruaireCargo 777 taxied down the runway toward the refrigerator warehouses, Castillo saw that there were two other Boeings on the field. Both were identical to the aircraft on which they had flown from Cozumel-all Boeing 777-200LRs, just about the last word in heavy long-haul transport aircraft.
One bore the insignia of PeruaireCargo, and the other the paint scheme of Air Bulgaria, which Castillo could not remember ever having seen before.
But I will bet my next-to-last dime that it, too, belongs to Aleksandr Pevsner-or one of his several dozen wholly owned subsidiaries.
The Air Bulgaria freighter is about to carry a load of Argentine beef and Chilean salmon to Europe.
Maybe not to-what the hell is the capital of Bulgaria? — Sofia! — but to somewhere in eastern Europe. The PeruaireCargo 777 is almost certainly about to fly a hell of a lot of the same to San Francisco. Or to Chicago. And maybe on the way home, stop by Birmingham to pick up a load of nearly frozen Alabama chickens for the German market.
Ol’ Alek seems to have a lock on the international movement of perishable foodstuffs.
And the international movement of God only knows what else that God only knows who wants moved very discreetly from hither to yon and is prepared to pay whatever it costs.
Despite his protestations that he’s absolutely through doing that sort of thing.
Where the hell is the Lear?
There were no other fixed-wing aircraft on the tarmac. Castillo had expected to see Pevsner’s Learjet 45.
The only aircraft visible besides the huge cargo jets were two Bell 206L-4 helicopters, both painted with the legend CHILEAN HELICOPTERS S.A.
They were probably used to ferry the crews here from Santiago or wherever the hell else they were whooping it up between flights.
But where the hell is Pevsner’s Lear?
“I don’t see the Lear,” Castillo said to his seatmate, who was in the process of applying lipstick, an act he found quite erotic.
They were in the small section of a dozen seats behind the bulkhead that separated them from the flight deck.