"So what we're going to do now is proceed very carefully and only when we're absolutely sure of what we're doing. I will now entertain suggestions as to how we can do this." He paused, and then went on: "You first, Andrews."
There was no immediate reply.
"Well?" the President pursued, not very pleasantly.
"Mr. President," Mason Andrews said. "In addition to the obvious, I think we have-"
"What's the obvious?" the President interrupted.
"Well, we have to decide whether we are going to raise the threat level to orange, or perhaps red. I tend to think the latter."
"Not 'we have to decide,'" the President said. "I have to decide. Somebody tell me why raising the threat level from yellow wouldn't cause more problems than it would solve."
He looked around the Oval Office. "Comments? Anyone?"
There were none.
"What else is obvious?" the President demanded.
"Well, sir, we have to find out who sent this stuff to the colonel," Andrews said.
"First of all, it wasn't sent to Colonel Hamilton," the President said. "It was sent to us. The government. Me, as President. Not to Colonel Hamilton. It was sent through him because these bastards somehow knew he was the only man around who would know what it was. And they knew he would tell me. Secondly, at this moment-and I realize this could change in the blink of an eye-there is no immediate threat. If these people wanted to start killing Americans, they would have already done so."
"Mr. President," Ambassador Montvale offered, "their intention might be to cause panic."
Clendennen nodded.
"That's what I'm thinking. And I'm not going to give them that. That's why the threat level stays at yellow."
The President was then silent, visibly in thought, for a long moment. Then he cocked his head to one side. A smile crossed his lips, as if to signify he was pleased with himself.
He said, "Fully aware that this is politically incorrect, I have just profiled the bastards who sent Colonel Hamilton the Congo-X. I have decided that the Congo-X was sent to the colonel by a foreign power, or at the direction of a foreign power or powers. And not, for example, by the Rotary Club of Enterprise, Alabama, or any sister or brother organization to which the Rotarians may be connected, however remotely."
Ambassador Montvale's eyes widened, and for a moment he seemed to be on the edge of saying something. In the end, he remained silent.
"The ramifications of this decision," the President went on, "are that finding out who these bastards are-and, it is to be hoped, what the hell this is all about-falls into what I think of as the CIA's area of responsibility, rather than that of the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security."
He looked at DCI Powell.
"Those are your marching orders, Jack. Get onto it. I will have the attorney general direct the FBI to assist you in any area in which you need help."
"Mr. President, with all respect," Mason Andrews said, "this crime, this threat to American security, took place on American soil! This situation is clearly within the purview of Homeland Sec-"
"What situation, Andrews?" the President interrupted him. "What threat to American security? No one has been hurt. What's happened is that a securely wrapped package of what the colonel has determined to be what he calls Congo-X was sent to Colonel Hamilton in a container clearly marked as a biological hazard.
"That's all. There has been no damage to anyone. Not even a threat of causing damage. If we had these people in handcuffs, there's nothing we could do to them because they haven't broken any laws that I can think of.
"What we are not, repeat not, going to do is go off half-cocked. For example, we are not going to resurrect my predecessor's private James Bond-what's his name? Costello?-and his band of assassins and give them carte blanche to roam the world to kill people. Or anything like that.
"What we are going to do is have Montvale-he is the director of National Intelligence-very quietly try to find out who the hell these bastards are and what they want. I think Colonel Hamilton is right about that. They want something. That means they will probably-almost certainly-contact Colonel Hamilton again.
"What that means, since we can't afford to have anything happen to him, is that Homeland Security is going to wrap the colonel in a Secret Service security blanket at least as thick as the one around me. That's your role in this, Andrews. That's your only role.
"And then we're going to wait for their next move. No action of any kind will be taken without my express approval."
The President met the eyes of everyone in the Oval Office, and then quietly asked, "Is there anyone who doesn't understand what I have just said?"
There were no replies.
"That will be all, thank you," the President said. [ONE] The Hotel Gellert Szent Gellert ter 1 Budapest, Hungary 2315 4 February 2007 The silver, two-month-old, top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz S550 drove regally across the Szabadsag hid, and on the other side of the Danube River turned left toward the Hotel Gellert, which was at the foot of the Gellert Hill.
Budapest, which began as two villages, Buda and Pest, on opposite sides of the Danube River, had a long and bloody history. Gellert Hill, for example, got its name from Saint Gerard Gellert, an Italian bishop from Venice whom the pagans ceremoniously murdered there in 1046 A.D. for trying to bring the natives to Jesus.
Buda and Pest were both destroyed by the Mongols, who invaded the area in 1241. The villages were rebuilt, only to suffer rape and ethnic cleansing when the Ottoman Turks came, conquering Pest in 1526 and Buda fifteen years later.
By the time the Szabadsag hid was built in 1894-96, the villages had been combined into Budapest, and Hungary had become part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Emperor Franz Josef personally inserted the last rivet-a silver rivet-into the new bridge and then with imperial immodesty named the structure after himself.
The bridge itself was dropped-like all the other bridges across the Danube-into the river when the Russians and the Germans fought over Hungary during the Second World War. It was the first bridge rebuilt after the war by the Soviet-controlled government and named the Liberty Bridge. When the Russians were finally evicted, it became the Freedom Bridge.
The silver Mercedes-Benz turned off the road running alongside the Danube and onto the access road to the Hotel Gellert, then stopped.
Gustav, a barrel-chested man in his fifties who appeared to be a chauffeur but served as a bodyguard and more, got quickly out from behind the wheel and opened the rear passenger door.
A tall man, who looked to be in his midsixties, got out. He adjusted a broad-brimmed jet-black hat-one side of the brim down, the other rakishly up-and then turned back to the car, bending over, leaning into the car. When he came out, he had two Bouvier des Flandres dogs.
The larger, a bitch, was several times the size of a very large boxer. The other was her son, a puppy, on a leash. The puppy was about the size of a small boxer.
As the man had taken them from the car, another burly man in his sixties had gotten out the other side of the car, carrying an ermine-collared black leather overcoat. The burly man's name was Sandor Tor. In his youth, Tor had done a hitch-rising to sergeant-in the French Foreign Legion. On his return to Budapest, he had become a policeman. He had been recruited into the AVH, the Allamvedelmi Hatosag, Hungary's hated secret police, and again had risen to sergeant.