W. Griffin - The shooters

"I just talked to that man in Chicago," the President of the United States said. "Timmons's family will be expecting you."

"Mr. President, I'm on my way to pack my bag."

"Reassure the family, Charley, that's the important thing. Make them understand the situation is under control. Get the mayor off my back."

In other words, lie through my teeth.

The situation is anything but under control.

"I'll do my best, sir."

"I've got a number for you to call. Got a pencil?"

"Just a moment, please, sir."

He furiously patted his pockets until he felt a ballpoint pen, dug it out, and knocked the cap off.

"Ready, sir."

Charley wrote the number the President gave him on the heel of his left hand.

"Got it, sir."

The President made him read it back.

"Right," the President said. "Let me know how it goes, Charley."

"Yes, sir."

"Good man!"

The line went dead.

"I don't suppose you've got a piece of paper, do you?" Charley asked the driver.

"There's a clipboard with a pad and a couple of ballpoints on a chain on the back of the other seat, Colonel."

Castillo looked. There was.

"Shit," he muttered.

He took the clipboard, wrote the number on the pad, tore the sheet off, and put it in his pocket. He then tried to erase the number from the heel of his hand with his handkerchief. He couldn't even smear it.

"Shit," he said again.

[TWO] 7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia 1005 2 September 2005 "You're dangerous, Charley," Colonel Jake Torine said after Castillo had related what had happened in the presidential apartment. "If I could figure out how, I'd get and stay as far away from you as possible."

Castillo raised an eyebrow. "It's damn sure not intentional. And whatever you do, don't call me Magnet Ass."

"Why not?"

"That one's been taken a long time, by one of you Air Force types. Fred Platt flew forward air controller covert ops over Laos as a Raven. He earned the name Magnet Ass drawing fire in supposedly unarmed Cessnas-0-1 Bird Dogs-and damn near anything else with wings."

"Platt? Didn't we just call him for-?"

"Yeah," Castillo interrupted before he could say anything more, "yeah, we did."

"I ask this because I don't know anything about the drug trade," Edgar Delchamps said, "and also because I am much too old to play John Wayne, but wouldn't I be of more use here working on the oil-for-food maggots?"

"No question about it," Castillo said. "It never entered my mind to bring you or Doherty in on this."

"Next question," Delchamps said. "Do I get to live here?"

"For as long as you want. The only thing I'd like you to do is keep an eye on Eric Kocian and Sandor."

Delchamps gave him a thumbs-up gesture.

"A good spook always takes good care of his sources. You might want to write that down, Ace." He stood up and said, "It's been fun, fellas. We'll have to do it again sometime. Let's keep in touch."

And then he walked out of the living room.

"What about me, Karl?" Alfredo Munz asked.

"I brought you along so you could be with your family and take them home," Castillo said. "But having heard all this, how would you feel about coming to work for us? We could really use you."

Munz didn't reply, and seemed uneasy.

"What is it, Alfredo?"

"I need a job," Munz said. "As much as I would like to do whatever I can to help you, I just can't support my family on my SIDE pension."

"I told you a long time ago we'd take care of you," Castillo said. "So that's not a problem. You've been on the payroll of the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Trust as a senior consultant ever since we took that chopper ride to Shangri-La."

"Why do I suspect you are lying, my friend?"

"Because I am," Castillo said. "But the only reason you haven't been on the payroll is because I'm stupid. You may have noticed."

"No," Munz said, emotionally. "The one thing you are not is stupid."

"Well, I have noticed, Colonel," Miller said. "I've known him a long time. And with that in mind, I brought the question up to Mrs. Forbison-you met her last night?"

Munz nodded.

"And Agnes decided that since you are, or at least were, a colonel, we should bring you on board as a Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Trust LB-15, which is the equivalent of a GS-15 in the Federal Service. And, according to Army Regulation 210-50, a GS-15 is regarded as the equivalent of a colonel. The pay is $89,625 a year to start. Would that be satisfactory to you?"

"You are fooling with me, right?"

"Not at all."

"That much? My God, that's two hundred and seventy thousand pesos!"

Castillo thought, surprised: Miller isn't just making all that up. He and Agnes have given this thought, done the research, and come up with the answer.

"The Internal Revenue Service will take their cut, of course," Miller said. "But that's the best we can do."

"I don't know what to say," Munz said.

"'Yes' would work," Castillo said.

"If I retire, Charley," Torine said, "will you hire me?"

"If you're serious, Jake, sure," Castillo said.

"Let me give that some thought," Torine said seriously.

"I myself go on the payroll the first of October," Miller said, "as an LB-12, at $64,478 per annum."

Oh, God, that means they're physically retiring him. Involuntarily.

"Sorry you took a hit. So long, and don't let the doorknob hit you on the ass on your way out."

"What's that 'LB' business?" Castillo asked.

"Lorimer Bureaucrat," Miller said. "An LB-12 is equivalent to a major and a GS-12." He looked at Castillo. "After I gnashed my teeth in agony while rolling around on the floor at Walter Reed begging for compassion, the Medical Review Board gave me a seventy-percent disability pension. Permanent."

"You all right with that?" Castillo asked softly.

"I'd rather have my knee back," Miller said. "But with my pension and my salary as an LB-12, I'll be taking home more than you do. Yeah, I'm all right with it. And somebody has to cover your back, Colonel, sir."

"I hate to tell you this, but I already have a fine young Marine NCO covering my back."

"Don't laugh, Charley," Torine said, chuckling.

"I'm not laughing at all; I owe him," Castillo said. He paused, then said, "Well, before we went off on this tangent, Jake was saying something about me being dangerous."

"And I wasn't joking, either. Only you could get us into something like this. You are dangerous."

"I thank you for that heartfelt vote of confidence," Castillo replied. "And moving right along, what shape is the airplane in?"

"If you had read the log, First Officer, you would know that we're pretty close to a hundred-hour."

"Jesus!"

"Not a major problem," Torine said. "We can get it done when we're in Vegas."

"'When we're in Vegas'?" Castillo parroted, incredulously. "You want to tell me about Vegas?"

"I guess I didn't get around to mentioning that," Miller said.

Castillo looked at him.

Miller explained: "Aloysius is going to replace the avionics in the G-Three. The communications and global positioning portions thereof. Plus, of course, a secure phone and data link."

"You told him about the Gulfstream?"

"Hey, he's one of us."

He's right. He just told Casey we have the Gulfstream, not how we use it.

And Casey really is one of us, and knows we're not using it to fly to the Bahamas for a little time on the beach.

"Point taken," Castillo said.

"Signature Flight Support's got an operation at McCarran," Torine said. "I called them-in Baltimore-this morning, and got them to agree to tell the people in Vegas to do the hundred-hour in the AFC hangar. Somehow I suspected we were going to need the airplane sooner than anyone thought. Wrong move?"