W. Griffin - By Order of the President

The president gestured impatiently for Hall to bring them in.

Hall went to the door.

"Mr. President," the chief of staff said the moment it opened, "you've got the Speaker in ten minutes."

"Stall him," the president ordered.

"Will you come in, please?" Hall called.

First, Sergeant Betty Schneider and then Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., who was in civilian clothing, entered the Oval Office. Both were visibly nervous.

"Good morning," Dr. Cohen said, approaching them with her right hand extended. "My name is Natalie Cohen. Thank you for coming. I expect you recognize the president. The gentleman with him is Secretary of Defense Beiderman."

The president, who had risen from his chair when Cohen came into the office, walked to Betty Schneider and put out his hand.

"We're all anxious to hear what you have to tell us," he said with a warm smile, and added, as he gave his hand to Miller, "what the both of you have to tell us. And I've been anxious to meet you, Major."

Both said, "Yes, sir."

"You take it, Betty," Miller ordered. "I'll fill in."

"I'm very sorry but I have to go to the restroom," Betty Schneider said. "Right now."

"Just come with me, dear," Dr. Cohen said and led her through a door.

In under a minute, the national security advisor was back.

"Nobody thinks that's funny, right?" she challenged. "Good. Okay, Major, you're up."

Miller exhaled audibly. "I'll take it from the top," he began. "From the beginning, we thought there might be a Philadelphia connection. It came together one piece at a time, starting with the fact that the 727 is owned by Lease-Aire in Philadelphia. And then Castillo's Russian told him in Vienna:"

"Castillo's Russian?" the president chuckled.

"Yes, sir. I regret the choice of words."

"I shouldn't have interrupted you," the president said. "Please go on."

"The Russian national sometimes known as Aleksandr Pevsner," Miller began again, this time more formally, "who made contact with Major Castillo in Vienna told Major Castillo he believed there was a Philadelphia connection, although he gave no reason.

"But as one item of intel after another Castillo got from Pevsner-that the airplane was in Chad, for example, that it had been repainted with Suriname registry numbers-proved to be accurate, Castillo began to place more credence in the Philadelphia connection theory.

"It was there, but at first we didn't know where to look for it:"

"You're saying, Major, that the information this man Pevsner has provided has been both accurate and valuable?" Beiderman interrupted.

"Yes, sir. Everything he's told us so far has been right on the money. There is just no reason not to believe the latest intel he's given us."

"Which is?" Natalie Cohen asked, softly.

"That's right, you came in after the movie started, didn't you?" the president said. "The last tidbit from Castillo's Russian is that we are about to violate the sovereign territory and airspace of Suriname and neutralize the wrong airplane."

"My God!" Cohen said. "Where's the one we're looking for, if it's not in Suriname?"

"Somewhere in Costa Rica, ma'am," Miller said. "With a new identity."

"Wow!" Dr. Cohen said.

Sergeant Betty Schneider came into the room.

"I'm very sorry," she said. "And more than a little embarrassed."

"Don't be silly," the president said. "That happens all the time to Matt Hall. Every time he suspects that I'm displeased with him:"

"Jesus!" Hall said.

Dr. Cohen looked at the president in disbelief, shook her head, then smiled, and finally giggled.

Betty Schneider looked at her and then the president with enormous relief.

"The major was about to tell us: all right if I call you 'Betty'?" Cohen asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Betty, the major was about to tell us what you think these people are going to do with the airplane and exactly how they plan to do it," Cohen said. "Why don't you give it a shot?"

Betty gathered her thoughts-not as completely as she thought she had-and began, "Well, when Charley called from Mexico:"

" 'Charley' being Major Castillo?" the president interrupted.

"Yes, sir."

"And what's he doing in Mexico?" the president asked, almost rhetorically.

"He was in Cozumel, Mr. President," Hall said. "At the moment, he's on his way to Costa Rica. Same purpose: Finding and neutralizing the airplane."

"Dumb question," the president said.

"How's he moving around?" Cohen asked. "I'm concerned about airspace, territorial violations."

"His family has an airplane, a Lear 45XR," Hall said. "He borrowed that."

"His family has a 45XR? No wonder he can afford to live in the Mayflower," Dr. Cohen said.

"It also probably has something to do with his Secret Service code name," the president said.

"Excuse me?" Dr. Cohen asked.

"Don Juan," the president said, obviously pleased with himself. Then he saw Dr. Cohen's face and that she was obviously not amused and looked at Sergeant Schneider and went on, "What about when he called from Mexico, Betty?"

"When Castillo told Major Miller and I to go to the airport and find out what airlines regularly flew into Philly from Costa Rica," Betty replied, "I played a hunch and got lucky and called Terrence Halloran, who owns Lease-Aire, who owns the missing 727, and asked him what he knew about Costa Rican airlines flying into Philly. He knew of one right away. He'd sold a to an outfit called Costa Rican Air Transport. They fly wholesale flowers, grown down there, into Philly at least once a week. They sell them in supermarkets."

"The Somalians are going to substitute the stolen airplane for a legitimate Costa Rican airplane?" Dr. Cohen asked.

"Right, Natalie," Hall said. "Castillo told me the Russian told him that the airplane was flown from Africa to a private field in Venezuela, near Lake Maracaibo, and given new numbers-Costa Rican numbers-there."

"Castillo's Russian is a virtual cornucopia of useful, reliable information, isn't he?" the president said, not at all pleasantly. "How nice if we could say the same about the CIA."

No one said anything for a moment.

Miller finally broke the silence. "There's more, Mr. President. They pass through customs at Tampa on their way to Philadelphia, which means when they move on to Philadelphia they're a domestic flight, not an international flight. And they'll have clearance to approach the Philadelphia airport."

"It's what we cops call circumstantial, Mr. President," Betty said, now having lost her nervousness. "No positive, concrete, take-it-to-the-bank proof, but everything fits:"

The president raised his hand in a signal to stop.

"Fred," the president ordered, "call off the invasion of Suriname."

"Call it off, Mr. President?" Secretary of Defense Beiderman asked. "A complete stand-down?"

"I don't want those F-15s shooting down a Surinamese airplane. I don't care what you call it, just see that it's done."

"Yes, Mr. President," Beiderman said and walked toward a credenza that held two telephones.

"Or the CIA blowing one up on the ground," the president went on as if to himself. He picked up a telephone handset from the coffee table, said, "Get me the DCI. I'll hold."

It took less than twenty seconds to get the director of Central Intelligence on the line.

"This is the president, John. Now, listen carefully, as I have time neither to repeat myself nor explain nor debate it. I want no action of any kind taken in Suriname. None. Period. I'll get back with you shortly and explain this, but, right now, I want you to call off whatever you may have planned. Thank you."

He hung up.

He exhaled, looked around the room, smiled at Sergeant Schneider and Major Miller, and then had another thought, which caused the smile to fade.