"Charley," he ordered, "ask Mr. Lammelle if it would be convenient for him to have you pick him up at half past eight in the morning. If so, drive him slowly to the office. I want to be through with General McNab before he gets there. If that doesn't work, call me back."
When Naylor had returned the telephone to its cradle, Allan Junior said: "The deputy director of the CIA and Scotty McNab. What the hell's going on?"
Colonel Brewer had wanted to ask the same questions, first when Lammelle had been waiting for him and General Naylor at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, and later at MacDill, when General Naylor had walked into his office and, even before he sat down, had told Sergeant Major Wes Suggins to get General McNab on the horn.
But he hadn't asked. He knew Naylor would tell him what he thought he should know when he thought he needed to know it.
Brewer's natural curiosity-both personal and professional-was not to be satisfied now, either.
"I thought you were fetching the bottle of Macallan," General Naylor said.
"Yes, sir," Allan Junior said. "Coming right up, sir."
The younger Naylor returned with two bottles of Scotch whisky-the single malt Macallan and a bottle of blended Johnnie Walker Red Label. General Naylor's father had taught him-and he had taught his son-that one never took two drinks of really superb Scotch in a row. One drank and savored the superb whisky. A second drink of the superb would be a waste, however, as the alcohol had deadened the tongue to the point where it could not taste the difference between a superb Scotch and an ordinary one-or even a bad one.
General Naylor drank his Macallan without saying a word. When that was gone, he poured a double of the Johnnie Walker, added a couple of ice cubes to his glass, moved the cubes around with his index finger, and then looked up.
"Did either of you see that actor-the guy who usually has a big black mustache-in the movie where he played Eisenhower just before D-Day?"
"Tom Selleck," Brewer said. "Countdown to D-Day."
"Something like that," Naylor said. "Allan?"
"Yeah, I saw it. Good movie."
"Very accurate," Naylor said. "Down to his chain-smoking those Chesterfields. My uncle Tony, who was at SHAEF, said Eisenhower's fingers were stained yellow from the cigarettes."
He took another swallow of his drink, and his son and aide waited for him to go on.
"There was a segment where one of his officers, a two-star, let his mouth run in a restaurant. Do you remember that?"
His son and his aide nodded.
"That was also quite accurately shown in the movie. Uncle Tony knew all the players. The officer was in his cups, in a restaurant, and came close to divulging when the cross-channel invasion would take place. He was overheard, and someone reported him."
"Eisenhower should have had the sonofabitch shot," Allan Junior said. "Instead, they knocked rings and he walked. He didn't even get thrown out of the Army."
"Did you read that line in the Bible that says something about 'Judge not, lest ye be judged'?" General Naylor said. "He was Ike's roommate at the Point."
"What are you saying, Dad? That if that general had gotten his commission from ROTC and/or wasn't Ike's classmate, that would have been different?"
"Would you so callously order your roommate at West Point shot under similar circumstances?"
Allan Junior raised his eyebrows, then said, "I thought about that when I saw the movie. I don't know whether I'd have either one of them shot, but I damn sure wouldn't let either one of them walk. When that two-star put men's lives at risk letting his mouth run away with him, he forfeited his right to be an officer."
"He was reduced to colonel and sent home," General Naylor said.
"And the men whose lives he put at risk were sent to the landing beaches of Normandy. This Long Gray Line we march in, Dad, isn't perfect, and I don't think we should pretend it is."
Allan Junior turned to Colonel Brewer and started to say something.
"Stop right there, Allan," Brewer cut him off. "I'm not going to get in the middle of this."
"I am now facing a somewhat similar, personally distasteful situation," General Naylor said, "involving an officer who also marches in the Long Gray Line, and of whom I'm personally very fond."
His senior aide-de-camp and his son looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
"If I have to say this, this is highly classified, and to go no further," General Naylor said. "Classification, Top Secret, Presidential."
"Which explains why Mr. Lammelle is here?" Brewer asked.
Naylor nodded.
"President Clendennen this afternoon ordered me to locate Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, Retired, wherever he might be, and to place him under arrest pending investigation of charges which may be laid against him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice."
"What charges?" Allen Junior demanded.
"Mr. Lammelle was similarly ordered by the President this afternoon to accompany me wherever this mission might take us. If, when we find Colonel Castillo, he has two Russian defectors with him, as he most probably does, Lammelle is to take them into custody. It is President Clendennen's intention to return them to the Russians."
"What are the charges someone's laying against Charley?" Allen Junior demanded.
His father did not reply directly. He instead said, "Jack is thoroughly conversant with all the details of our strike on the Congo. How much do you know, Allan?"
"Not very much beyond the Russians and the Iranians were operating a biological weapons lab, and the previous POTUS decided that taking it out made more sense than taking the problem to the UN. If that's correct, then I say, hooray for him."
"What was being made in that laboratory was a substance now known as Congo-X. It is highly dangerous to an almost unimaginable degree. Our leading expert on that sort of thing, a colonel at our biological warfare operation at Fort Detrick, told the previous POTUS-to borrow your nomenclature-that any accident at the Congo laboratory would be infinitely more catastrophic than the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl was. It is not hard to extrapolate from that what damage would result should this substance be used as a weapon against us.
"It can be fairly said that the previous POTUS took action not a minute too soon."
"Then thank God he had the balls to do it," Allan Junior said.
General Naylor nodded, sipped his Scotch, then said, "Unfortunately, the raid-as massive as it was-apparently did not destroy all the Congo-X. Two quantities of it-packed in what look like blue rubber beer barrels-have turned up. One was sent to Fort Detrick by FedEx from a nonexistent laboratory in Miami. A second was found on our side of the Mexican-U.S. border where the Border Patrol could not miss it. Colonel Hamilton, the expert at Fort Detrick, has confirmed both barrels contained Congo-X.
"The next development was when the Russian rezident in their Washington embassy had Lammelle to their compound-they call it their dacha-in Maryland. There he as much admitted that they had sent the Congo-X to Fort Detrick. He then strongly implied that Prime Minister Putin is personally determined to have the two Russians returned to Russia. Putin also, it was implied, holds Castillo personally responsible for the deaths of several SVR officers in various places around the world. He wants Colonel Castillo, too.
"If this is done, the Russians will turn over to us all stocks of Congo-X in their control and offer assurances that no more of it will ever turn up."
"Dad, Clendennen's not actually thinking of caving in, is he? He can't possibly believe the Russians-Putin, specifically-will live up to their promises."
"The President has decided the most prudent course for him to follow is to turn the defectors over to the Russians. He said several times he's always held traitors in the utmost contempt."
"And Charley? Is he going to turn Charley over, too?" Allan Junior asked incredulously.
"I can't believe that he would do so," General Naylor said.