W. Griffin - Covert Warriors

“And that man? Do we know who he is? Is it too much to hope that he was detained for questioning?”

“By the time they started looking for him, Mr. President,” Schmidt said, “the man had gone.”

“A regular James Bond, huh?” the President said with a snort, and then asked, “Do either of you have any idea what’s going on here?”

“I don’t understand the question, Mr. President,” Crenshaw said.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” the President said.

“Schmidt and I were discussing how to deal with the exchange when you called.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We were thinking of sending FBI agents-instead of Marshals-on the helicopter for the exchange.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” the President exploded. “Let me tell you what would happen if you sent FBI agents on that helicopter. They would land at that airport and be greeted by, say, a dozen Mexicans, all armed to the teeth, who would relieve them of this fucking Mexican murderer and then wave bye-bye. They would not get Colonel Ferris, who is probably five hundred miles from Ciudad Juarez. I know what they think of your intelligence, but I’m surprised they think I’m also that stupid.”

Neither Crenshaw nor Schmidt replied.

“What we are going to do, gentlemen, is go along with President Martinez, that ungrateful sonofabitch. He wants Abrego turned over to this Mexican cop-what’s his name, McCarthy. .?”

“Pena, Mr. President,” McCarthy furnished. “Juan Carlos Pena, chief of the Policia Federal for Oaxaca State.”

“. . for interrogation, which means to be turned loose,” the President picked up. “So we’re going to do just that. We’re going to take this goddamn murderer to the Oaxaca State Prison and exchange him for Ferris. He’ll be taken there, gentlemen, not by U.S. Marshals, not by the FBI, but by as many of those super Green Berets-what do they call them, McCarthy?”

“The Delta Force, Mr. President?” McCarthy asked, his confusion evident in his voice.

“No, goddammit! I said super Green Berets.”

“Gray Fox, Mr. President?” Attorney General Crenshaw asked, and his confusion was equally evident in his voice.

“Right,” the President said. “ Gray Fox. As many of those Gray Fox people that’ll fit on three Black Hawks. They’ll either get Ferris back when they get there or they’ll bring the goddamn Mexican back and throw him in his Florence cell. I don’t think a goddamn Mexican cop is going to want to get in a fight with twenty, twenty-five Gray Fox guys. Get General McNab on the phone.”

“General McNab is in Afghanistan, Mr. President,” McCarthy said.

“Then get his deputy, that Irishman, what’s his name? McCool? Something like that.”

“O’Toole, Mr. President. Major General Terrence O’Toole,” McCarthy said.

“Well, get Major General Terrence O’Toole on the phone and tell him to get up here. And while you’re at it, get Naylor and Beiderman in here, too. I’ll teach that bastard Martinez he can’t fuck with Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen.”

Office of the Director Central Intelligence Agency McLean, Virginia 1110 20 April 2007

“An unexpected pleasure, Madam Secretary,” DCI A. Franklin Lammelle said. “If I had known you were coming, there would have been a brass band.”

“Can we dispense with the clever repartee, Frank?” Natalie Cohen replied. “I’m really in no mood for it.”

“I tend to hide behind clever repartee when I have problems,” Lammelle said. “What’s yours?”

“Recording devices turned off?”

He nodded. “I usually turn them on only when the enemy is at the gates,” he replied, then realized that might qualify as clever repartee, and added, “Sorry.”

She nodded, accepting the apology.

“I just came from the Oval Office,” she said. “With the unnerving suspicion that there may be something to President Clendennen’s conspiracy theory.”

He raised his eyebrows, made a “give it to me” gesture with his hands, and said, now quite serious, “Tell me all about it.”

“Martinez didn’t buy that draft letter. .” she began.

“. . And after I had been dismissed,” she concluded, “McCarthy caught up with me as I was getting in my car in the portico, told me the President had sent him to tell me to keep my mouth shut, and then said, quote, ‘I appreciate your wisdom in not getting further into the business of what was and what was not in the letter you took to President Martinez,’ end quote. When I didn’t reply, he added, quote, None of us want him to go off the deep end just now, do we, Madam Secretary? Now would be a very bad time for something like that to happen, end quote.”

“So now you’re willing to buy in on the coup d’etat theory?” Lammelle asked.

“I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, but something very unsavory is going on here, Frank.”

“Would you say the situation is desperate?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far, either. But I-we-have to get to the bottom of it.”

“Time to get off the fence, Natalie.”

“What does that mean?”

“The situation is, or is not, desperate. This is not one of those times when you can put off making that decision.”

“Why am I getting the idea that you know something I don’t?”

“Maybe because I’m the DCI? We have a reputation for knowing things and doing things that other people don’t know about.”

“Or don’t want to know about,” Natalie said after a moment. “Where are you going with this, Frank?”

“You haven’t answered my question. Is this situation desperate? Desperate enough to require taking desperate action?”

She considered that for a long moment, and then said, “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

“Not quite good enough, sorry.”

“What is it exactly you want from me, Frank?”

“Your word that after I offer my suggestion, and tell you what I know, that you won’t take any action of which I disapprove.”

“That’s too much to ask.”

“Then good luck with your problem, Natalie.”

“I don’t like this at all.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I’m the secretary of State. You are required by law to provide me with any intelligence you have that I might find useful in the discharge of my duties.”

“Spoken like a true dip,” Lammelle said. “Big words meaning nothing in real life. You want to walk that scenario through? You go to Truman Ellsworth-do you really want to go to Ellsworth? — and you tell him I’m not giving you information you’re entitled to by law. He tells me to give you what you want, and I tell him I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. So he goes to President Clendennen-do you really want Ellsworth going to President Clendennen about this? — and he says Lammelle. .”

She held up her hand to shut him off.

“Tell me again what it is you want me to give my word about,” she said.

“That after I tell you what I know, you won’t go any further with it-that’s sort of moot, because if you did that, I’d deny it-and also that you take no action of any kind without my approval.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said. “You didn’t get to be DCI by being a nice guy, did you, Frank?”

“I got here by doing what I had to, in what I thought were the best interests of the United States.”

“What was it that Samuel Johnson said, Frank, on that April night in 1775? Something about patriotism?”

“Now I get the history lecture,” Lammelle said, chuckling. “He was talking about false patriotism, Natalie, when he said it was the last refuge of the scoundrel, not the real thing. False is when it doesn’t cost you anything. My kind is expensive. You can be disgraced. You can go to prison. You can even lose your life.”