"Okay, we'll be in touch. I'll probably see you down there."
"Come with me," Agnes said to Yung, "and we'll see what we can do with the travel agency." Then she looked at Castillo. "I don't know what else you have planned for right now, but Tom McGuire and Jack Britton are waiting to see you."
Castillo waved as a signal for her to send them in. They came in immediately. Supervisory Special Agent Thomas McGuire of the Secret Service was a large, red-haired Irishman in his forties. Until the reorganization following 9/11, the Secret Service had been under the Treasury Department. He and Supervisory Special Agent Joel Isaacson had been assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail.
When the Secret Service had been assigned to the Department of Homeland Security, McGuire and Isaacson became the first members of the secretary's protection detail. And when McGuire had learned of the Presidential Finding and the formation of the Office of Organizational Analysis, he had gone to Secretary Hall-who was now the de facto head of the Secret Service-and asked that he be assigned to it.
"I'm a cop at heart, boss," he'd said. "It looks to me like Charley is going to need somebody like me, and you don't really need both Joel and me."
Secret Service Special Agent Jack Britton, a tall black man with sharp features, was new to the Secret Service. He had been a Philadelphia Police Department detective assigned to the Counterterrorism Bureau. Castillo and Miller had met him while trying to find the stolen 727. The first time they spoke, Britton had "come in" from his undercover assignment-keeping track of what he, political correctness be damned, called the AAL, which stood for "African American Lunatics."
He had been wearing a scraggly beard, a dark blue robe, sandals, had his hair braided with beads, and was known to his brother Muslims in Philadelphia's Aari-Teg mosque as Ali Abid Ar-Raziq.
Impressed with Britton for many things, including his courage and dedication as well as his intimate knowledge of the Muslim world in the United States-both bona fide and AAL-Isaacson had recruited him for the Secret Service, together with another Philadelphia Police Department officer, Sergeant Elizabeth Schneider, of the Intelligence and Organized Crime unit.
Isaacson hadn't been thinking of the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and certainly neither of them working with or for C. G. Castillo. He had recruited Britton and Schneider for the Secret Service, knowing of twenty places around the country that could really use Britton's talents and thinking of Betty Schneider as a likely candidate for duty on one of the protection details.
That hadn't happened. Both had just about completed Secret Service training when Mr. Elizabeth Masterson had been kidnapped. Castillo had had Britton and Schneider flown to Buenos Aires to assist in the investigation of the kidnapping and murders.
"Parties unknown" had ambushed the embassy car taking Special Agent Schneider from the Masterson home, killing the Marine driver and seriously wounding Schneider.
Once the Presidential Finding had been made, it had simply been assumed that Britton was assigned to the Office of Organizational Analysis and that when Special Agent Schneider recovered from her wounds and returned to duty she would be, too. "It's all right this time," Castillo greeted McGuire and Britton, "but when you come to the throne room in the future please take off your shoes and wear white gloves."
Miller and McGuire laughed.
"I'm impressed, Charley," McGuire said.
Britton didn't say anything, and his smile was strained.
I wonder what's the matter with him? Castillo thought.
"I don't know, Jack," Castillo said. "Now that I think about it, you really didn't look so bad in your blue robe and the beads in your hair."
That got another chuckle from McGuire and Miller.
"I'd really like to see you in private, Charley," Britton said. "Why don't I come back in ten minutes?"
He wants a favor. Madam Britton wants him to spend a little time at home. Maybe somebody is sick. Maybe somebody at the school wants a real cop for a teacher and he doesn't want that.
"Something personal, Jack?" Castillo asked.
Britton visibly thought that over before replying, "Yeah, in a way. But, no, not really personal."
"Something to do with what's going on here?"
Britton nodded.
What the hell doesn't he want Miller and McGuire to hear?
I can't have that.
"Jack, let me tell you how we're going to work around here," Castillo said. "Or how we're not going to work. Around here, I don't want anyone to be in the dark about anything that's going on."
He swept his hand to indicate he meant everybody in the office, then added, "And that includes Mr. Forbison. I can't see how we can work any other way."
"Permission to speak, sir?" Miller asked.
Now, what the hell is the matter with him?
"If you're being clever, Dick, now is not the time," Castillo said.
"I'm asking if you're open to a comment or a question?"
"As kit."
"Does 'anyone' include Special Agent David William Yung, Jr.?" Miller asked, then looked at McGuire and explained, "When Charley told him he was sending him to Uruguay to keep the details of Lorimer's bank accounts from becoming public knowledge, Yung had to think it over carefully."
"Oh, shit!" McGuire said. "And that's not the first time he's had 'reservations, ' is it?"
"Say it out loud, Dick," Castillo said.
"I think it's only a matter of time before his conscience overwhelms him about the 'irregular' things you're having him do and/or he really gets homesick for the purity of the FBI and decides to come clean," Miller said.
He let that sink in, then finished, "And the more he knows, the more he will have to tell."
"He's right, Charley," McGuire said. "There's a Puritan streak in the FBI. They like to hire pure people. They start working on them at Quantico that the book is holy, that they have to go by it, and they keep it up afterward. Even before Dick brought it up, I wondered if Yung belonged in here. I'd say send him back to the FBI, but that would remind him even more that we are ignoring the book and he already knows too much to take the risk that he would confess all."
"So, me sending him down there was a mistake?" Castillo asked.
"Not a mistake but risky," McGuire said. "And who else could you have sent?"
"Well, I guess the thing to do is bring him back and sit on him after he makes sure that what we've done with Lorimer's money doesn't get out," Castillo said. "The only comment I have is that I agree that Yung is…what? Highly moral? What's wrong with that? And I think he would love nothing better than to go to somebody in the FBI and tell them what's going on around here. But it is that morality that keeps him from doing that."
"Run that past me again," Miller said.
"You were here, Dick. I asked him if he had any mental reservations and he said-after thinking about it-that he didn't. I think he meant that."
"Keep your fingers crossed, Charley," Miller said, doubtfully.
"But you're right. We can't afford to have him in the loop," Castillo said. "We'll tell him as little as possible." He turned to Britton. "You're in the loop, Jack. We all need to know what you have to say."
Britton shrugged, then said, "Okay. This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't things. I heard something in Philadelphia that is probably about as far off the wall as anything ever gets, that logic tells me to dismiss but which I thought I should pass on to you."
"Let's have it," Castillo said.
"I went to see Sy Fillmore in the hospital while I was there. I got it from him."
"Who's he?
"A counterterrorism detective. He was doing what I used to do. He went around the bend and they've got him in the loony bin in Friends Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard. So my source is somebody they're keeping in a padded room."
"What did he have to say?"
"The brothers in his mosque believe they are about to get their hands on a nuclear bomb."