He said: "I don't think I understand."
"You're going to have to learn this yourself," Patricia Wilson said. "We'll point you in the right direction, but you'll have to do the digging. That way you'll believe it."
"How do I know you know what you're talking about?" Danton challenged.
"Before I was recalled, I was the CIA's station chief in Vienna," Dillworth said. "I've been in-was in-the Clandestine Service for twenty-three years."
"Before that bastard got me fired," Patricia Wilson added, "I was the agency's regional director for Southwest Africa, everything from Nigeria to South Africa, including the Congo. You will recall the Congo is where World War Three was nearly started last month."
"'That bastard' is presumably this Mr. Costillo?"
"'Castillo,' with an 'a,'" she said. "And lieutenant colonel, not mister. He's in the Army."
"Okay," Danton said, "point me."
"You said you were going to the four-fifteen White House press conference," Dillworth said. "Ask Porky. Don't take no for an answer."
John David "Jack" Parker, the White House spokesman, was sometimes unkindly referred to-the forty-two-year-old Vermont native was a little on the far side of pleasingly plump-as Porky Parker. And sometimes, when his responses to questions tested the limits of credulity, some members of the Fourth Estate had been known to make oink-oink sounds from the back of the White House press room.
"Okay, I'll do it. How do I get in touch with you if I decide this goes any further?"
Eleanor Dillworth slid a small sheet of notebook paper across the table.
"If there's no answer, say you're Joe Smith and leave a number." [FOUR] The Press Room The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1715 2 February 2007 "Well, that's it, fellows," Jack Parker said. "We agreed that these would last one hour, and that's what the clock says."
Ignoring muted oink-oink sounds from the back of the room, he left the podium and headed for the door, where he was intercepted by Roscoe J. Danton of The Washington Times-Post.
"Aw, come on, Roscoe, this one-hour business was as much your idea as anybody else's."
"Well, screw you," Danton said, loud enough for other members of the Fourth Estate also bent on intercepting Porky to hear, and at the same time asking with a pointed finger and a raised eyebrow if he could go to Parker's office as soon as the area emptied.
Parker nodded, just barely perceptibly.
Danton went out onto the driveway and smoked a cigarette. Smoking was prohibited in the White House, the rule strictly enforced when anyone was watching. And then he went back into the White House. "What do you need, Roscoe?" Parker asked.
"Tell me about the Office of Organizational Analysis and Colonel Carlos Costello. Castillo."
Parker thought, shrugged, and said, "I draw a blank."
"Can you check?"
"Sure. In connection with what?"
"I have some almost certainly unreliable information that he and the Office of Organizational Analysis were involved in almost starting World War Three."
"One hears a lot of rumors like that about all kinds of people, doesn't one?" Parker said mockingly. "There was one going around that the Lambda Legal Foundation were the ones behind it; somebody told them they stone gays in the Congo."
"Shame on you!" Danton said. "Check it for me, will you?"
Parker nodded.
"Thanks." [FIVE] The City Room The Washington Times-Post 1365 15th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 2225 2 February 2007 Roscoe Danton's office was a small and cluttered glass-walled cubicle off the large room housing the "city desk." Two small exterior windows offered a clear view of a solid brick wall. He had wondered for years what was behind it.
His e-mail had just offered him Viagra at a discount and a guaranteed penis enlargement concoction. He was wondering whether he could get away with sending either or both offers to the executive editor without getting caught, when another e-mail arrived. FROM: White House Press Office ‹parker@whpo.gov› TO: Roscoe J. Danton ‹rjdanton@washtimespost.org› SENT: 2 Feb 19:34:13 2007 SUBJECT: Costello/Castillo Roscoe
After you left, I had a memory tinkle about Costello/Castillo and the Office of Organizational Analysis, so I really tried-with almost no success-to check it out.
I found a phone number for an OOA in the Department of Homeland Security with an office in the DHS Compound in the Nebraska Avenue complex. When I called it, I got a recorded message saying that it had been closed. So I called DHS and they told me OOA had been closed, they didn't know when. When I asked what it had done, they helpfully told me my guess was as good as theirs, but it probably had something to do with analyzing operations.
At this point, I suspected that you had been down this route yourself before you dumped it on me.
So I called the Pentagon. You would be astonished at the number of lieutenant colonels named Castillo and Costello there are/were in the Army. There is a retired Lt Col Carlos Castillo, and he's interesting, but I don't think he's the man you're looking for. This one is a West Pointer to which institution he gained entrance because his father, a nineteen-year-old warrant officer helicopter pilot, posthumously received the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.
The son followed in his father's footsteps, and before he had been out of WP a year had won the Distinguished Flying Cross flying an Apache in the First Desert War. He went from that to flying in the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, most recently in Afghanistan. He returned from there under interesting circumstances. First, he had acquired more medals for valor than Rambo, but was also a little over the edge. Specifically, it was alleged that he either had taken against orders, or stolen, a Black Hawk to undertake a nearly suicidal mission to rescue a pal of his who had been shot down. Nearly suicidal, because he got away with it.
Faced with the choice of giving him another medal or court-martialing him, the Army instead sent him home for psychiatric evaluation. The shrinks at Walter Reed determined that as a result of all his combat service, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder to the point where he would never be psychologically stable enough to return to active service. They medically retired him. His retirement checks are sent to Double-Bar-C Ranch, Midland, Texas.
I suggest this guy was unlikely to have tried to start World War III from the psychiatric ward at Walter Reed.
Sorry, Roscoe, this was the best I could do. If you get to the bottom of this, please let me know. My curiosity is now aroused. Best, Jack The message gave Danton a number of things to think about. He would not have been surprised to receive a one-liner-"Sorry. Nothing. Jack."-and this one meant that Porky had spent a lot of time, of which he understandably had little, coming up with this answer.
Possibility One: His curiosity had been piqued and there had been time to do what he said he had done.
Possible but unlikely.
Possibility Two: This was a carefully thought-out ploy to get Danton off the track of a story which might, if it came out, embarrass the President, the White House, the department of State, or the Pentagon. Or all of the above.
Possible but unlikely. There was a hell of a risk, as Porky damned well knew, in intentionally misleading (a) The Washington Times-Post and/or (b) Roscoe Danton personally.
A short "Sorry. Nothing. Jack." e-mail maybe. But not a long message like this one. Including all the details of this Castillo character's military service.
So what do I do?
Forget it?
No. I smell something here.
The thing to do is find this Castillo character and talk to him; see if he has any idea why Meryl Streep and the other disgruntled whistleblower, whose thigh "accidentally" pressed against mine twice in the Old Ebbitt, are saying all these terrible things about him.
But only after I talk to Good Ol' Meryl and her pal, to see what else I can get out of them.
He tapped keys on his laptop, opened a new folder, named it "Castillo," and downloaded Porky's e-mail into it. Then he found the piece of paper on which Good Ol' Meryl had given him her phone number. He put this into the "Castillo" folder and entered it into his BlackBerry.