“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. My regards to Mrs. McFadden.”
Naylor handed the telephone back through the opening in the bulletproof glass. Then he saw the look on Colonel Freedman’s face and took pity on him.
“General McFadden’s wife,” he explained, “is raising money for the Parent — Teacher’s Association by running Las Vegas Night at the VFW Hall in Tampa. In addition to my other duties, I’m the de facto president of the school board. The chaplain, who thinks gambling is a sin, even for a good cause, has been giving us trouble, and the general was a little worried. I was able to put his concerns to rest.”
“Yes, of course you were,” Colonel Freedman said. “Now, about this Top Secret Message you want to transmit?”
“I’d prefer to get into that, sir, in a secure environment, sir.”
“Yes, of course you would. I can’t imagine what I was thinking,” Colonel Freedman said. “Sergeant, unlock the door.”
“Colonel, he’s still got his cell phone.”
“What cell phone?”
“The one in his pocket, sir. The one he said I’d have to pry from his cold dead fingers.”
“Just push the button and unlock the damned door, damn it!”
There was a buzz, and the door to the interior of the building swung open. Freedman led Naylor to an elevator, which took them to the top story of the building. The commo center was behind two locked steel doors that were about in the middle of the corridor.
There was an American man on duty, visibly surprised to see the Defense attaché there after duty hours and wearing his spectacular mess dress uniform.
“The colonel has a message to send—”
“Encrypt and send,” Naylor corrected him. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll operate the equipment myself. Just get me on the State Department circuit.”
Naylor sat down at the table, and as he waited for the technician to connect him with the State Department took a sheet of paper from his pocket and laid it next to the encryption device keyboard.
When he became aware that Colonel Freedman was trying desperately to sneak a look at the message, Naylor considered laying his hand on it, or turning it over, but in the end handed it to the Defense attaché.
“You’re onto State,” the technician announced.
Naylor waited until Freedman had finished reading, then laid the sheet of paper next to the keyboard again, tripped the ENCRYPT/TRANSMIT lever, and began to type. It didn’t take long.
TOP SECRET
URGENT
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
TO: POTUS
SUBJECT: CGC
VIA SECRETARY OF STATE
MAKE AVAILABLE (EYES ONLY) TO:
DIRECTOR, CIA
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
C IN C CENTRAL COMMAND
SITREP #1
US EMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2020 ZULU 7 JUNE 2007
1-TELEPHONE CONTACT ESTABLISHED WITH CGC 0600 ZULU 7 JUNE
2-FACE TO FACE MEETING PROBABLE WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR TO THIRTY-SIX HOURS AT TO BE DETERMINED LOCATION
3-UNDERSIGNED AND VDA BELIEVE CGC AMENABLE TO CALL TO EXTENDED HAZARDOUS DUTY IF HIS PHYSICAL CONDITION PERMITS.
NAYLOR, LTC
TOP SECRET
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Colonel Freedman said, as Naylor waited for the machine to report the message had been received and decoded.
“I suppose not,” Naylor said.
The message wasn’t supposed to make a lot of sense to anyone except the President. Actually, it was intended to pacify the President, by deceiving him into thinking his orders to get Castillo on extended hazardous duty were being executed.
“Who is CGC? A person, presumably.”
“Sir, you’re not cleared for that information.”
Freedman was annoyed but tried hard not to let it show.
“I understand,” he said. “I’m not asking for classified information I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s a question of Need to Know, sir.”
“What I’m curious about, Colonel, and I don’t think it gets into a classified area, is why send the message at all? I mean, we had General McFadden on the phone. Presumably he knows what this is all about and—”
“I could have just given him the essence of it, paraphrased a bit?”
“Exactly.”
“Two reasons, sir. Because this is going to the President, and when you’re dealing with POTUS you go by the book. And also because General McFadden does not know what this is all about, just that I am acting pursuant to a VOCICCENCOM.”
“I can understand that.”
“And now I have to get out of here, sir. I have something else to do that can’t wait.”
“I understand. I’ll walk you out.”
“I really appreciate your assistance, sir.”
“Not at all. Glad that I could be of service.”
When Naylor had passed through the door of the embassy, the Marine sergeant asked, “Sir, what the hell was that all about?”
“You’re not cleared for information at that level, Sergeant,” Colonel Freedman replied. “And you should know better than to ask.”
Major Kiril Koshkov was waiting with the Mercedes SUV when Lieutenant Colonel Naylor came through the gate in the embassy fence.
Colonel Freedman watched until Naylor got in the Mercedes and it drove off. Then he looked at his watch and said, “Damn, I’m going to be late,” and hurried to his embassy car (actually a black GMC Yukon armored with ballistic steel) and told the driver to take him to the embassy of the Republic of Botswana.
The Botswanese really knew how to throw a cocktail party.
Aleksandr Pevsner’s Mercedes SUV took Naylor and Koshkov back to the airport, where they fired up Castillo’s Mustang and flew back to Bariloche.
[FOUR]
As A. Franklin Lammelle, the CIA director, removed a dart from the right ear of the photograph of Vladimir Putin he used as a target and was in the process of removing a second from Mr. Putin’s nose, his CaseyBerry buzzed.
He shoved the dart back into Putin’s left nostril, took the CaseyBerry from his shirt pocket, looked to see who was calling, and then inquired, “And how may the CIA be of service to the Queen of Foggy Bottom?”
Natalie Cohen, the United States secretary of State, got right to the point.
“I have an URGENT from Buenos Aires,” she said.
“Junior called to say he was at the embassy,” Lammelle replied.
“What do I do with it?”
“Unless memory fails, Madam Secretary, we were agreed that you would now dispatch a member of your security staff to make the other addressees familiar with it. ‘Eyes Only’ means you can’t send them a copy as it is one of those quote Duplication Forbidden end quote documents.”
“You’re an ‘other addressee,’ Frank.”
“Well, you can skip me. I know what it says. I wrote it.”
“And Truman Ellsworth is in Budapest, looking for Castillo. What do I do about him?”
“I’ve given that some thought, as a matter of fact. When you see the President, you can tell him where ol’ Truman is. One more proof that his faithful staff is carrying out his orders.”
“Faithfully carrying out his orders is not what we’re doing, Frank, and you know it.”
“Consider the alternative, Natalie.”
She didn’t respond to that directly. “And what do I do with General Naylor?”
“If the President convenes another meeting, you can show the message to General Naylor when he shows up.”
“And what do I do if I call the White House and he is available?”