W. Griffin - Covert Warriors

“It sounds as if my Vice President approves of this ‘armistice.’”

“I do,” Montvale said simply.

“As do I, Mr. President,” Natalie Cohen said.

“It would appear to some people that Colonel Castillo may be angling for your job, Madam Secretary. How do you feel about that?”

“I feel that’s preposterous, Mr. President.”

“Speaking of the colonel and the traitors, where are they?” the President asked. When no one immediately replied, he went on, “There has been no contact with him?”

“No official contact, Mr. President,” Lammelle said. “But Colonel Castillo and I are friends.”

“You don’t say?”

“He was recently in Cozumel, Mexico. I don’t know if he’s still there.”

“What was he doing there? Were the traitors with him?”

“I don’t know about the Russians,” Lammelle said, “but he mentioned that Mr. Parker was there. And Roscoe Danton.”

The President, whose face showed he didn’t like that, looked as if he was going to say something, but changed his mind, and then said, “Birds of a feather, they say, flock together.”

No one replied.

“Well, let me spell things out. I intend, with the cooperation of the Mexican government, to see that Colonel Ferris is released. I will do whatever I think is necessary to accomplish that, and I will not tolerate any interference from anyone, and I don’t want any assistance from Castillo or his Merry Band of Outlaws.

“Furthermore, Secretary Beiderman, I want you to personally inform General Naylor that he is not even to contemplate any military action of any kind whatsoever with regard to Colonel Ferris. And tell him I personally told you to make sure General McNab is aware of this order.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Beiderman said.

“That’s it. I’ll see you all at the interment in Arlington. McCarthy will furnish the details, just as soon as he’s set them up.”

He suddenly stood and, with McCarthy and Mulligan following him, marched out of the Situation Room.

The Vice President turned to the attorney general.

“Don’t look so unhappy, Stan,” Montvale said. “He gave you the option of resigning.”

The attorney general looked at the Vice President for a moment and then gave him the finger.

“He does tend to bring out the worst in people, doesn’t he?” Secretary of State Cohen said to no one in particular.

The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1005 15 April 2007

Mr. and Mrs. J. Herbert Kramer and Mr. and Mrs. Robert V. Dabney came out of what Herb Kramer described as “the restaurant or coffee shop or whateverthehell it is off the lobby” and took seats on two couches in the lobby, from which they had a good view of both the entrance and the bank of elevators.

Herb Kramer was pleased with his breakfast of corned beef hash topped with poached eggs.

“Most of the time you get corned beef, it’s hash fresh from a can,” Herb observed. “That was homemade, from real corned beef.” Then he observed, “But they didn’t give it away, did they?”

“What the hell, it’s deductible,” Bob Dabney said. “Live it up!”

Herb and Bob were in Washington to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Wholesale Hardware Dealers. Both were in that business in Missouri, Herb in St. Louis and Bob in Kansas City. They had been pals since their days at the University of Missouri, where Bob married Kate the day after they graduated. Herb had married his Delores some years later.

They were staying at the Mayflower because of Delores. Someone had told her that the best place in Washington to see the big shots was in the lobby of the Mayflower, and Delores generally got what she wanted. She was far more interested in seeing the big shots up close than she was in seeing a bunch of old airplanes at the National Aerospace Museum, which was high on Herb and Bob’s agenda for their free time while in the nation’s capital.

They didn’t have to wait long to learn that what Delores had been told was true.

“Look!” Delores whispered loudly as a group of ten men came down the lobby to the elevator bank. “There’s Whatsisname!”

“Who?” Herb asked in a normal voice.

“The guy we see on Wolf News all the time,” Delores said impatiently.

“Roger Danton,” Kate furnished.

“ Roscoe Danton,” Bob corrected her. “And there’s the President’s press secretary.”

“Ex-press secretary,” Herb said. “He got canned last week.”

“That’s right, isn’t it? What did he do?”

Bob shrugged. “Or didn’t do. It sounded like incompetence.”

“Well, I will be damned,” Herb said. “That was them, sure as Christ made little apples.”

“I wonder who the other ones are,” Delores said as the men disappeared into an elevator.

Bob and Herb shrugged.

“I wonder what they’re doing here?” Delores went on.

“They probably came to see Monica Lewinsky,” Herb said with a straight face.

“That’s right!” Delores said. “This is that place, isn’t it?”

“That’s how they get away with charging so much for the rooms,” Herb said.

What happened next, three minutes later, was even more exciting.

Four large and muscular men strode purposefully into the lobby, looked around suspiciously-including at Herb, Bob, Kate, and Delores-and then took up positions along the corridor. One of them stood in the door of an elevator so that the door would remain open.

Then another five men entered the lobby from the street and headed for the elevators, two in front of and two behind the Vice President of the United States. They all got in the open elevator.

“I will be damned,” Herb said. “Vice President Montvale.”

“He probably wants to see ol’ Monica, too,” Bob said, grinning at his own joke.

“Will you stop that?” Delores said. “That’s the Vice President .”

And the parade of bigwigs was not over.

Four people-two of them women-strode purposefully into the lobby and did just about what the members of the Vice President’s protection detail had done.

After looking carefully at Delores, Kate, Bob, and Herb, the men and one of the women took up positions in the lobby, beside the protection detail men already there. The second woman stood in an elevator door and kept it from closing.

Next, five people marched into the lobby, two men and two women surrounding a third, much smaller woman. They marched to the elevator and got on.

“My God, that was the secretary of State!” Kate said. “What’s her name?”

“Something Cohen,” Bob furnished, and then added, “Natalie Cohen. That’s her name, Natalie Cohen.”

“I’d really love to know what’s going on up there,” Delores said.

Suite 1002 The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1010 15 April 2007

Suite 1002-which consisted of a sitting room, two bedrooms, and a small kitchen-was registered to Herr Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, the Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain, and billed on a monthly basis to Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., of Fulda, Germany, which owned the Tages Zeitung chain and a good deal more.

When Herr Gossinger-who was also known as Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Lieutenant Colonel, Special Forces, U.S. Army, Retired-had called the general manager of the Mayflower the day before to announce that he not only would be checking in later that day but would require in-room late-afternoon cocktails with finger food for probably fifteen or twenty people, and possibly in-room dinner for that many people later, the GM had told Herr von und zu Gossinger not to worry, that he personally would take care of everything.