W Griffin - Hunters

"Sir, what is the sergeant's parent unit?" the lieutenant colonel asked Castillo.

Just in time, General Naylor stopped himself from saying the lieutenant colonel did not have to call Major Castillo "sir."

"Kranz was Gray Fox, out of Delta Force," Castillo answered.

"Sir, what about calling General McNab at Bragg? I suspect he has experience with a situation like this."

Oh, I bet Scotty McNab has! I'll bet this sort of thing is almost routine for good ol' Scotty!

"The first thing to do is cordon off this area," General Naylor said. "Then get an ambulance over here. Have the sergeant's remains taken to the hospital. Get a flag…No, have the ambulance crew bring a flag with them. Cover the remains with the national colors before they are moved. Arrange for the sergeant's remains to have a suitable escort from this moment. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is that satisfactory to you, Major Castillo?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you very much."

"Is there anything else you require?"

"No, sir."

"Then I will attempt to get General McNab on a secure line," Naylor said.

He walked to the door, then turned.

"If this needs to be said, I am sure that all of you did your duty as you understood it. And I don't think I have to tell you how pleased I am that there was only the one casualty."

He was out the door before anyone could reply.

[ONE] The Oval Office The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 1825 1 August 2005 The President of the United States was behind his desk. Across the room, Ambassador Charles W. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence, was sitting next to Secretary of State Natalie Cohen on one of two facing couches. Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall was on the other couch.

Major C. G. Castillo, who was in civilian clothing, was nonetheless standing before the President's desk at a position close to a tease.

Or, Secretary Hall thought, like a kid standing in front of the headmaster's desk, waiting for the ax to fall.

For the past ten minutes, Castillo had been delivering his report of what had happened since he had last seen the President-aboard Air Force One in Biloxi, Mississippi-when the President had issued the Presidential Finding that had sent him first to Europe and ultimately to Estancia Shangri-La.

"And so we landed at MacDill, Mr. President," Castillo concluded, "where we turned over Sergeant Kranz's remains to Central Command, and then we came here. I took everyone involved to my apartment and told them nothing was to be said to anyone about anything until I had made my report, and that they were to remain there until I got back to them."

"Colonel Torine, too?" the President of the United States asked. "And your cousin, too? How did they respond to your placing them in what amounts to house arrest?"

"Colonel Torine knows how things are done, sir. I didn't order him…And Fernando, my cousin, understands the situation, sir."

"And that's about it, Castillo?" the President asked.

"Except for one thing, sir."

"Which is?"

"Howard Kennedy was at Jorge Newbery when I landed there from the estancia. Mr. Yung saw him."

"The FBI agent?"

"Who was there?" Ambassador Montvale asked.

"Howard Kennedy…" Castillo began.

"Who, it is alleged, is in the employ of Aleksandr Pevsner," the President said, drily.

"The Russian mobster?" Montvale asked, incredulously.

Both Castillo and the President nodded.

"I'm missing something here," Montvale said.

The President made a fill him in gesture with his hand to Castillo.

Secretaries Cohen and Hall, who knew the story, exchanged glances and quick smiles. Montvale wasn't going to like this.

"Sir, we have sort of reached an accommodation with Mr. Pevsner," Castillo began.

"'We'?" Montvale interrupted. "Who's 'we'? You and who else? 'Accommodation'? What kind of 'accommodation'?"

"'We' is Major Castillo and your President, Charles. Let Charley finish, please," the President said.

"He was very helpful in locating the stolen 727, Mr. Ambassador," Castillo said. An American-owned Boeing 727 had disappeared from Luanda, Angola, on 23 May 2005, and when what the President described as "our enormous and enormously expensive intelligence community" was unable to determine who had stolen it, or why, or where It was, the president had come close to losing his temper.

He had dispatched Castillo, who was then an executive assistant to the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to Angola, his orders being simply to find out what the CIA and the FBI and the DIA and the State Department-and all the other members of the intelligence community-had come to know about the stolen airplane, and when they had come to know it, and to report back personally to him.

Castillo had instead gone far beyond the scope of his orders. He not only learned who had stolen the aircraft-an obscure group of Somalian terrorists-and what they planned to do with it-crash it into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia-but he also had located the 727 in Costa Rica, where it was about to take off for Philadelphia. Castillo had-with the aid of a Delta Force team from Fort Bragg-stolen the aircraft back from the terrorists and, with Colonel Jake Torine in the pilot's seat, delivered it to MacDill Air Force Base.

This had endeared Castillo to the president but not to the CIA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence community, whose annoyance with him was directly proportional to the amount of egg the various directors felt they had on their faces. "That's the first time I heard that," Montvale said.

"What part of 'Let Charley finish' didn't you understand, Charles?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. President," Montvale said.

"Let me take it, Charley," the President said. "Perhaps there will be fewer interruptions that way. In a nutshell, Charles, there is no legal action of any kind against this fellow underway in an American court. He made contact with Charley shortly after I gave Charley the job of finding out why no one else in our intelligence community could find it. He was very helpful. He wanted something in return."

"I'll bet," Montvale said.

"Pevsner told Charley he thought the agency-which had quietly contracted for his services over the years-was trying to arrange his arrest by one of the countries that hold warrants for his arrest so that he could be locked up and his CIA contracts would not come to light. He went so far as to say he thought the agency would like to terminate him with extreme prejudice. Now, I know we don't do that anymore, but the man was worried.

"As a small gesture of my appreciation, I authorized Charley to tell him that I had ordered the DCI and the director of the FBI-this is before you became director of National Intelligence-to cease all investigations they might have underway and to institute no new investigations without my specific permission. What Pevsner thought was happening was that the CIA was looking for him abroad and the FBI inside the United States. If they located him, they would either arrest him here on an Interpol warrant or furnish his location to one of the governments looking for him.

"Such stay-out-of-jail status to continue so long as Pevsner does not violate any law of the United States and with the unspoken understanding that he would continue to be helpful."

"And has this chap continued to be helpful?" Montvale asked.

"He got me access to the helicopter I used to fly to Estancia Shangri-La," Castillo said.

"He's in Argentina?"

"I don't know where Pevsner is at this moment," Castillo said. "I ran into Howard Kennedy in Buenos Aires and he arranged for the helicopter."

That's not an outright lie. I just twisted the truth. For all I know, Alek might be in Puente del Este, Uruguay, not in Argentina.