W. Griffin - By Order of the President

D'Alessandro opened the drawer of a desk and took out a telephone. He spoke briefly into it and then extended it to Castillo.

"Castillo."

"Dick, Charley," Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said. "We have confirmation that the two guys who were at Britton's mosque were also at Spartan. Where they were certified in the 727."

"Great. That pretty much settles it, wouldn't you say?"

"It looks that way," Miller said. "There's something else, Charley."

"Okay. Go ahead."

"Betty Schneider said to give you a message."

"Equally great. What is it?"

"She said to give this to you verbatim, Charley," Miller said, uncomfortably.

"Well, let's have it."

"She said, 'Don Juan: I should have known better. Signature, Sergeant B. Schneider.' "

"Oh, shit!"

"What the hell did you do to her, Don Juan?"

"Is that all, Dick?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be in touch," Castillo said and handed the telephone to D'Alessandro.

I guess that Highway sergeant finally got around to telling Frankie Break-My-Legs, 'Ha-ha, you know what the Secret Service calls Castillo, Lieutenant? 'Don Juan.

Goddammit to hell!

Castillo sensed McNab's eyes on him.

"That was Miller, sir," Castillo said. "We have confirmation that the two Somalis who were in Philadelphia were at Spartan-the Spartan School of Aeronautics-in Tulsa and are qualified in 727s."

"Well, then I guess the ka'ba's safe from these lunatics," McNab said. "Is that good or bad?"

"I crunched the numbers for ten 500-gallon bladders, 5,000 gallons," Colonel Torine said. "At 7 pounds a gallon, that would be 35,000 pounds. That would add 1,130 nautical miles of range-a total of 3,305-and still leave it 22,295 pounds under max gross takeoff weight."

"So they can fly just about any place they damn well please," McNab said. "What about direct to Philadelphia?"

"No," Torine said. "That's about 3,500 nautical miles. But let's be sure." He stabbed at the computer with the stylus. "3,361 nautical miles. Too far. Not even factoring in a reserve, that's 65 miles short. And even factoring in more bladders, why would they want to arrive in Philadelphia with nearly empty tanks?"

"Good point," McNab said. "Presuming they learned from 9/11, they want to arrive with as much fuel, as an explosive, as possible. Or possibly-always look on the dark side-with as much trinitrotoluene as they can carry."

Torine started stabbing with the stylus again.

"Hold off on that," McNab ordered, touching his arm. "Okay, let's go with the assumption the airplane is somewhere in the upper east quarter of the South American continent, maybe even in Suriname. I'm presuming the CIA has been told what your friend the ex-FBI agent told you, Mr. Castillo?"

"They haven't been told where it came from."

"Okay, they already have egg on their face about this, so I think we can assume there's been satellites all over that part of the globe, just as soon as they could be redirected. They were probably spinning their wheels during the night, but at daylight I think we can assume they're going to find it."

"Kennedy says he knows where it is and will tell me when I go down there."

"Go down where?" McNab asked.

"Cozumel, off the Yucatan Peninsula."

"I know where it is," McNab said. "Why won't he tell you on the telephone?"

"I don't know," Castillo replied. "But we have to play under his rules."

"When are you going down there?" McNab asked.

"As soon as we finish here," Castillo said, "and I report to Secretary Hall how you plan to neutralize the 727."

McNab looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Gentlemen, will you give Mr. Castillo and me a moment alone?"

Not looking very happy about it, everybody filed out of the room. McNab closed the door and turned to Castillo.

"The problem is not how to neutralize it, Charley," he said, "but how quickly we can do so."

We're back to "Charley"?

"I'm not sure I follow you, sir."

"What did you do, forget everything you learned in the stockade?" McNab asked, not very pleasantly.

"Okay," McNab went on and looked at his watch. "It's oh-seven-fifty-five. Let's assume that at this very moment analysts at Langley and Fort Meade are going over the first of the daytime imagery downloads. It would be nice if they came up with a nice clear photo of this airplane sitting on an airfield in Suriname, but I don't think we better count on that. Realistically, what they're going to come up with is half a dozen images which might be-even probably are-of our 727. But they're not going to pass that on to the DCI, much less the president, until they're sure. They'll direct the satellites for better pictures, and if they have assets on the ground-do you think there's much of a CIA operation in Suriname, for instance? I don't-they'll send him word to make a visual. How long is that going to take?"

"Hours," Charley said.

"How long is it going to take you to fly to Cozumel in that pretty little airplane of yours?"

"It's 930 nautical miles. A little under two hours. Maybe a little less; when Fernando checked the weather a half hour ago, there were some favorable winds aloft."

"So what we're saying, Charley, is that you will get a location on the 727 from his guy before the NSA and the CIA finish making sure they've found it. Presuming they do find it."

Castillo nodded.

"You trust your guy, Charley?"

Castillo nodded again and said, "Yes, sir."

"During those two hours, Gray Fox will be standing around with its thumb up its ass," McNab said.

"I'm not sure I know where you're going with this, General," Castillo said.

"I'm a little disappointed this hasn't occurred to you," McNab said. "But let's take it from the top. We can assume that when we get a firm fix on the 727, we'll be ordered to neutralize it."

"Yes, sir."

"How would you do that?"

Jesus Christ, why lay this on me? You're the guy who runs Gray Fox.

"What I thought you would do, sir, would be send a Gray Fox team-with Little Birds*^ (2) -to wherever it is and neutralize it. Knock out the gear, maybe, or blow it up."

"And when would I do that?"

"As soon as you got the word, sir."

"And what's the sequence of events? You should have thought about this, Charley. You're about to be Lieutenant Colonel Castillo. You're supposed to think ahead. Give me the sequence."

"I confirm the location, notify Secretary Hall-and you, to give you a heads-up-Hall tells the president and/or the secretary of defense, who tell CentCom to lay on the operation. And they give you the order."

"And then," McNab picked it up, "conferring with his staff to make sure everybody agrees on what should be done, General Naylor orders the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell to prepare half a dozen Little Birds, say, four MH-6Hs and two AH-6Js-we're not going to have to fight our way onto the airfield, but it never hurts to have some airborne weaponry available. And then CentCom orders the Seventeenth Airlift Squadron to send a Globemaster to Fort Campbell to pick up the Little Birds and bring them here so we can load the Gray Fox people:"

Now I know where you're going. And you're right, I should have thought about this.

"All of which is going to take time," Castillo offered.

"Yes, it will, Charley. You and I have been down that road together too many times before."

McNab let that sink in.

"Apropos of nothing whatever, Mr. Castillo, simply to place the facts before you, there are AH-6Js and MH-6Hs at the Special Warfare Center, for training purposes. There are thirty-odd special operators-most of them Gray Fox-eating their breakfast off trays inside the Globemaster that just brought them home from Morocco. By now, the C-17 III should be refueled:"

"You think I should ask General Naylor," Castillo said.