W. Griffin: The Hostage

"That thought ran through my head, too, Mr. President. But I don't think we can do anything beyond waiting to see what happens. I just don't see what else anyone can do right now."

"Keep me in the loop, please, Natalie. Thank you."

"Yes, sir, I will." The President broke the connection with his finger.

"I just thought what else I can do," he said aloud, and took his finger off the telephone switch.

"Get me the secretary of Homeland Security," he said into the receiver to a White House operator.

[ONE] Office of the Secretary Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 0840 21 July 2005 In the federal government, the secretary is not that person who answers the telephone, takes dictation, makes appointments, and brings the boss coffee. In Washington, the secretary is someone as high in the bureaucracy as one can rise without being elected President, and is therefore the boss.

In Washington, therefore, those individuals who answer the secretary's telephone, bring the coffee, make appointments, et cetera, have titles like "executive assistant."

The Honorable Matthew Hall, secretary of Homeland Security, had three executive assistants.

The first of these was Mrs. Mary-Ellen Kensington, who was fifty, gray-haired, and slim. She was a GS-15, the highest grade in the career Civil Service. She maintained Hall's small and unpretentious suite of offices in the Old Executive Office Building, near the White House. Secretary Hall and the President were close friends, which meant that the President liked to have him around more than he did some other members of his cabinet. When Hall was in Washington he could usually be found in his OEOB office, so that he was readily available to the President.

The second was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, who was forty-nine, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby. She was also a GS-15. She reigned over the secretary's office staff in his formal office, a suite of well-furnished rooms in the Nebraska Avenue Complex, which is just off Ward Circle in the northwest of the District of Columbia. The complex had once belonged to the Navy, but it had been turned over in 2004 by an act of Congress to the Department of Homeland Security when that agency had been formed after 9/11.

When the red telephone on the coffee table in the secretary's private office in the complex buzzed, and a red light on it flashed-signaling an incoming call from either the President himself, but more than likely from one of the other members of the President's cabinet; or the directors of either the FBI or the CIA; or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; or the commander-in-chief of Central Command-Mrs. Forbison was in the process of pouring a cup of coffee for the secretary's third executive assistant, C. G. Castillo.

Castillo, who was thirty-six, a shade over six feet tall, and weighed 190 pounds, was lying on the secretary's not-quite-long-enough-for-him red leather couch with his stockinged feet hanging over the end of it.

Castillo looked at the red telephone, saw that Agnes was holding the coffeepot, and reached for the telephone.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"Charley," the caller said, "I was hoping to speak to your boss."

Castillo sat up abruptly, spilling a stack of papers onto the floor.

"Mr. President, the secretary's en route from Chicago. He should be landing at Andrews in about an hour."

"Aha! The infallible White House switchboard apparently is not so infallible. I can't wait to tell them. Nice to talk to you, Charley."

"Thank you, sir."

The line went dead. Charley, as he put the phone back in its cradle, exchanged I wonder what that was all about? looks with Agnes.

The phone buzzed again.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"What I was going to ask your boss, Charley, is if there is some good reason you can't go to Buenos Aires right now."

Buenos Aires? What the hell is going on in Argentina?

"Sir, I'm sure the secretary would tell you that I'm at your disposal."

"Well, I'll ask him anyway. But you might want to start packing. I've just been told the wife of our deputy chief of mission was kidnapped early last night. I want to know how and why that happened, and I want to know now, and I don't want to wait until whoever's in charge down there has time to write a cover-his-ass report. Getting the picture?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

After a moment, Charley realized the President had hung up.

Agnes waited for a report.

"He wants me to go to Buenos Aires," Charley replied, obviously thinking that over. "It seems somebody kidnapped the deputy chief of mission's wife. He wants me to find out about it. He's apparently laboring under the misconception that I'm some kind of a detective."

"You're not bad at finding missing airplanes, Sherlock."

"Jesus, Agnes, that's a big embassy. They probably have ten FBI agents, plus CIA spooks, plus Drug Enforcement guys… not to mention the State Department's own security people."

"But the President doesn't know any of them, Charley. And he knows you. Trusts you," Agnes said, and then added, "But to buttress your argument, there's also a heavy hitter Secret Service guy in Buenos Aires. Name of Tony Santini. He's an old pal of Joel's. The reason I know is that once a month or so he sends Joel twenty, twenty-five pounds of filet mignon steaks on the courier plane. They're in a box marked TISSUE SAMPLES."

"Maybe I can tell the boss that, and get Joel's pal to find out what happened. I really don't want to go down there."

What I really want to do is go to Glynco, Georgia- wherever the hell that is-and see how ex-Sergeant Betty Schneider is doing in Secret Service school.

"I understand, Mr. President," the secretary of Homeland Security said into the red phone. "Consider Charley gone." He laid the telephone back in the cradle and turned to Castillo.

Matthew Hall was a large man-his Secret Service code name was "Big Boy"-with a full head of hair. While he usually presented the image of a dignified senior government officer with the means to employ a good tailor, right now he looked a little rumpled.

His necktie was pulled down, and his collar button open. His suit needed pressing, and his beard was starting to show.

His appearance was temporary. As soon as the Citation had landed at Andrews Air Force Base, he had come to the Nebraska Complex to check on what was going on before going home. An hour from now, he would be freshly shaven, in a crisply starched white shirt and a freshly pressed suit.

"No go, Charley," Hall said. "He doesn't want it to get out that he's taking a personal interest."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir, what about Tony Santini?" Joel Isaacson asked. "He could probably be helpful as hell to Charley. You want me to give him a heads-up?"

Hall had told the President that Isaacson-a tall, slim, forty-year-old very senior Secret Service agent who was head of Hall's security detail and had once been number two on the presidential detail-had said he had a good friend in Buenos Aires, a Secret Service agent who could probably report on the kidnapping more quickly than Castillo possibly could. The President had been unimpressed.

"Santini?" Hall asked. "That's your friend's name?"

Isaacson nodded. "He and I-and Tom-go way, way back. Tony's down there working funny money."

Secret Service agent Tom McGuire, a large, red-haired Irishman, had also come from the presidential detail to protect Hall.

"You trust him to keep his mouth shut?"

Isaacson raised his hands in a gesture suggesting "dumb question."

"Sorry, Joel," Hall said. "Okay, give him a heads-up. And find out how Charley can quietly get in touch with him."

"If I'm to do this quietly, sir," Charley asked, "can I go as Gossinger?"