W. Griffin - Covert Warriors

Schmidt looked at him in disbelief.

“Mr. President, may I respectfully suggest that you may be overreacting?”

“I don’t want to argue with you about this, Mr. Director. What I want you to do is say, ‘Yes, sir,’ then do what I tell you to do.”

“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said.

“And when you have assembled all these photographs and the information, I want you to personally bring them here and give them to Mulligan.”

“I’ll get right on it, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.

“And I don’t want this spread all over the J. Edgar Hoover building. I don’t want anybody who is not directly involved to know anything about it. Got it?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.

“Now, what have you done about El Paso? Did you place the advertisement those people asked for?”

“The FBI has a very good man in El Paso, Mr. President,” Schmidt said. “The SAC-”

“The what?”

“The special agent in charge, Mr. President. His name is William Johnson. He’s the man who intercepted the second message to General McNab-”

“And instead of sending it to Washington, sent it to McNab. I didn’t see it until the next day. I don’t want that to happen again, Mr. Schmidt.”

There was a brief hesitation before Schmidt went on: “SAC Johnson placed the classified advertisement in El Diario de El Paso , the Spanish language newspaper-”

“Did you hear what I said about wanting any messages addressed to General McNab that the FBI discovers to be sent to me, immediately?”

“Mr. President, what I can do, should another FedEx or UPS envelope addressed to General McNab be uncovered, is immediately photocopy the envelope and its contents and send those to you.”

“I don’t want copies . I want the real thing.”

“Mr. President, there is no provision in the law permitting that.”

“Well, you and Attorney General Crenshaw are clever people. . in his case, maybe a little too clever. . and I’m sure you’ll be able to find a provision.”

Schmidt did not reply, having decided he was going to drop this in the lap of Attorney General Crenshaw and let him deal with it.

He went on: “What SAC Johnson also did, Mr. President, is investigate the post office box-P.O. Box 2333-mentioned in the kidnapper’s first message. When he learned that it had not been rented, he rented it.

“It’s possible the kidnappers knew that Box 2333 had been rented. He’s looking into that. . which postal employees would have knowledge of that. Perhaps the kidnappers intend to send further communications to P.O. Box 2333. On the other hand, it may be just a coincidence.”

“Whatever means these people use to communicate with us, I want to see whatever they send immediately. You understand that?”

Schmidt nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.”

“I intend to get this Colonel Ferris back, and I have no intention of letting anyone get in my way, whether through stupidity or ineptness. Or anything else.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Schmidt said.

“That will be all. Thank you.”

The President turned to Mulligan.

“Just as soon as the director has gone, get the secretary of Defense on the phone.”

Office of the Commanding General U.S. Special Operations Command Fort Bragg, North Carolina 1515 15 April 2007

When the red telephone on his desk buzzed and a red LED on it began to flash, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab put his hand on it.

“I wonder what message General Naylor is about to relay to me from the Deity,” he said to Colonel Max Caruthers, and then he pushed the LOUDSPEAKER button before picking up the handset and putting it to his ear.

“McNab.”

“I have just been on the telephone with Secretary Beiderman,” General Allan B. Naylor announced without any preliminaries.

“Yes, sir?”

“General, I am not in any mood to tolerate any of your wit, sarcasm, or, more important, obfuscations. If I were you, I’d keep that in mind.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll keep that in mind. May I inquire into what you think I have done to displease Secretary Beiderman?”

“You will answer my questions, General. I will take none from you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will recall my telling you personally, as a result of Secretary Beiderman’s orders to me to do so, that you were not even to contemplate any military action with regard to freeing Colonel Ferris?”

“Yes, sir. I remember your personally telling me that,” McNab parroted.

“And do you also recall that I ordered you not to attend the interment of Warrant Officer Salazar?”

“Yes, sir, I remember that very well. May I say that I have not even been contemplating any action with regard to freeing Colonel Ferris,” McNab parroted, “and that I did not attend Mr. Salazar’s interment?”

“Instead, you send a delegation of Delta Force and Gray Fox personnel. Does that about sum it up?”

“I did not send a delegation of Delta Force and Gray Fox personnel anywhere, General,” McNab parroted again.

This time Naylor picked up on it.

“Goddamn you, McNab, don’t you mock me!”

“It’s hard to resist, Allan.”

“Goddamn you! How dare you use my first name?”

“That’s twice that you’ve cursed me, Allan,” McNab said. “Wouldn’t you agree that’s conduct unbefitting a general officer and a gentleman?”

The flashing red LED on the telephone died, indicating the connection had been broken.

McNab replaced the handset and looked at Colonel Caruthers.

“Ninety seconds,” he said. “Maybe a little less.”

Caruthers shook his head in disbelief. Or maybe admiration.

Sixty-two seconds later, the red telephone buzzed and the red LED started flashing.

McNab took a lot longer to pick it up than he had the first time, but finally put the handset to his ear.

“McNab.”

“Please accept my sincere apologies, General McNab,” Naylor said.

“I will, providing you start acting like one old soldier talking to another old soldier-and a classmate, which puts us on a first-name basis-and tell me exactly why Beiderman chewed your ass to the point where you lost your cool.”

There was a long pause, and Colonel Caruthers had just about decided the LED was about to stop blinking again when General Naylor said, “Bruce, Charley was at Arlington.”

“I’m not surprised. Danny Salazar was on the first A Team Charley ever commanded. But I didn’t send him up there, Allan. I haven’t talked to him since before these Mexican slime murdered Salazar. And I didn’t send the others, either. I didn’t even know they were going.”

“And then they all drove away, just when the President was about to deliver his remarks,” Naylor said. “And their departure was on Wolf News for the whole world to see, thanks to Andy McClarren.”

“What’s the President pissed off about? That they were there, or that they walked out on his speech?”

“Both. And it’s worse than that. Are you alone?”

“Max Caruthers is here.”

There was another long pause.

“I hope that silence doesn’t mean you don’t trust Max,” McNab said finally.

“No offense intended, Colonel Caruthers,” Naylor said. “Actually, what I was doing was rethinking whether I wanted to tell General McNab what I’m about to tell you both.”

“Which is?”

“The President seems to believe that whatever happened that saw Ambassador Montvale named Vice President was the first step in a coup d’etat.”

“That’s absurd. I admit that it has a certain appeal, but that anyone was planning a coup is simply not true,” McNab said.

“People believe what they want to believe,” Naylor said. “Do I have to say whom he views as coconspirators?”