Covert Warriors

The President threw it at him. McCarthy tried and failed to catch it in the air. It fell to the carpet in front of the President’s desk, and then floated out of sight under the left pedestal of the desk.

McCarthy got on his hands and knees and tried to retrieve it.

“That is not the letter I asked that sonofabitch to send me,” the President said.

“No, sir, it is not,” Cohen agreed.

“What happened to my letter? The one I wanted him to send me?”

“I delivered it to President Martinez, sir,” she said, “and told him what you were asking.”

“I told you to have Ambassador McCann do that,” the President said.

“Ambassador McCann thought it would be best if I went with him, and I agreed.”

She remembered exactly what McCann had said: “I am not going to Martinez with that crazy letter. Is Clendennen out of his mind, thinking that he can push Martinez around like that? I’ll go with you, but that’s it. Otherwise, you can have my resignation.”

“And?” Clendennen pursued.

“President Martinez asked us to wait. .”

“Mulligan,” Clemens McCarthy interrupted, “get me something so I can get this goddamn letter.”

“What should I get, Mr. McCarthy?”

“An umbrella, a ruler. . just something that’ll reach the fucking letter!”

The President looked from McCarthy to Cohen: “And?”

“. . and about forty-five minutes later, he called us back into his office, and gave us the letter Ambassador Vargas gave you. He then told us Ambassador Vargas was on the telephone. He told Vargas that I was going to bring a letter he wished Vargas to give to you, and that verbal message. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked me if I would accompany Ambassador Vargas here to verify the verbal message.”

“But you have seen the letter?”

She glanced at McCarthy on his knees digging for the letter, then looked back to Clendennen. “Yes, sir. Ambassador Vargas showed it to me on our way here from the Mexican embassy.”

“That miserable, ungrateful sonofabitch!” Clendennen exploded. “After all I’ve done for him! Millions of dollars in aid! Ten fucking Black Hawk helicopters! Pretending I don’t know what’s going on at the border. Not one word about his being blind to that secret drug cartel airport! And all I wanted him to do was provide me a little cover in case something goes wrong.”

Cohen didn’t reply.

“And what is this bullshit about taking this Abrego character to a prison. . the Ox something. .”

He looked to where now both McCarthy and Mulligan were on their hands and knees, trying with a letter opener to get the letter from under the desk.

“Just pick up the fucking desk and move it out of the way, for Christ’s sake!” the President ordered.

They immediately tried. It proved too heavy for both of them.

“Jesus Christ!” the President said. “Douglas, get them some help. I want that goddamn letter!”

Special Agent Douglas went to the outer office and returned with the two Secret Service agents who guarded the outer office.

As Mulligan, Douglas, McCarthy, and one of the latter took a grip on the desk, one of the outer-office Secret Service agents fashioned a hook from a wire clothes hanger and, as they lifted, he managed to stab the letter with it, then pull it out from under the desk.

He extended it to the President, who snatched it, tearing it on the makeshift hook of the clothes hanger.

The President looked at the letter and found what he wanted.

McCarthy walked quickly to him and read over his shoulder.

“What’s this business about taking Abrego to the. . how the hell do you pronounce this prison?”

Secretary Cohen furnished the correct pronunciation of Oaxaca to the President.

“Never heard of it,” the President said. “Or anything about us taking Abrego there. Thus, I know goddamn well it wasn’t in my letter to Martinez.”

He looked at McCarthy.

“Was it?” he asked.

“No, Mr. President, it wasn’t,” McCarthy said.

Cohen thought: Yes, it was. What’s McCarthy up to? I read the draft letter aloud right here in the Oval Office!

“Then where the hell did it come from?”

“Possibly from the FBI?” McCarthy asked innocently.

“That’s probably it, Mr. President,” Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan chimed in. “No telling what the FBI said to those people, or vive-ah-versa.”

Secretary Cohen thought: That’s vice versa, you cretin, not vive-ah-versa.

Then she thought: So Mulligan’s part of whatever is going on here.

What the hell is going on here?

And then she noticed that McCarthy was looking at her carefully, as if he expected her to say, “I’m sorry, but in the letter I took to President Martinez-the one he said you wrote, Mr. McCarthy-there were specific references to taking Abrego to the Oaxaca State Prison.”

She said nothing.

“Get Schmidt and Crenshaw in here,” the President ordered.

“Right now. I want to know what the hell is going on.”

“You don’t want to talk to them on the telephone, Mr. President?” Special Agent Douglas asked.

“If I did, Douglas,” the President replied sarcastically, “I would have said, ‘Get Schmidt and then Crenshaw on the phone.’ ”

“Yes, sir,” Douglas said, and walked to a telephone on a sideboard to summon Schmidt and Crenshaw.

The President turned to the secretary of State.

“You don’t know anything about this Oaxaca Prison?”

Cohen was aware that McCarthy seemed very interested in what her reply would be.

“Just what I’ve heard and seen here, Mr. President,” she said.

“Then I don’t see any point in taking any more of your valuable time, Madam Secretary. If I need you later, I’ll call.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Cohen said, and stood up and walked out of the Oval Office.

When the door had closed, the President asked, “McCarthy, do you think she’s telling the truth?”

“I have no reason to believe she’s not, Mr. President,” McCarthy said. “But I just thought it might be wise to ask her to keep what she heard here to herself.”

“Yeah,” the President said.

“Should I bring her back in here, Mr. President?”

“No. You can tell her as well as I can that she goddamn well better keep what she just heard in here to herself.”

McCarthy caught up with the secretary of State as she was about to get in her limousine.

“Madam Secretary!” McCarthy called. “A moment, please.”

She turned to face him but didn’t speak.

“The President asked me to tell you he hopes you understand that what took place in the Oval Office just now has to be kept between us.”

Cohen nodded but didn’t reply.

“And let me say I appreciate your wisdom in not getting further into the business of what was and what was not in the letter you took to President Martinez,” McCarthy said.

Again she didn’t reply. But her eyebrows rose in question.

“None of us want him to go off the deep end just now, do we, Madam Secretary? Now would be a very bad time for something like that to happen.”

“Now?” she asked, and then before he had a chance to reply, said, “Good morning, Mr. McCarthy,” got into the limousine, and gestured to the State Department security officer who was holding the door open to close it.