He raised his eyebrows, made a “give it to me” gesture with his hands, and said, now quite serious, “Tell me all about it.”
“Martinez didn’t buy that draft letter. .” she began.
“. . And after I had been dismissed,” she concluded, “McCarthy caught up with me as I was getting in my car in the portico, told me the President had sent him to tell me to keep my mouth shut, and then said, quote, ‘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,’ end quote. When I didn’t reply, he added, quote, 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, end quote.”
“So now you’re willing to buy in on the coup d’etat theory?” Lammelle asked.
“I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, but something very unsavory is going on here, Frank.”
“Would you say the situation is desperate?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far, either. But I-we-have to get to the bottom of it.”
“Time to get off the fence, Natalie.”
“What does that mean?”
“The situation is, or is not, desperate. This is not one of those times when you can put off making that decision.”
“Why am I getting the idea that you know something I don’t?”
“Maybe because I’m the DCI? We have a reputation for knowing things and doing things that other people don’t know about.”
“Or don’t want to know about,” Natalie said after a moment. “Where are you going with this, Frank?”
“You haven’t answered my question. Is this situation desperate? Desperate enough to require taking desperate action?”
She considered that for a long moment, and then said, “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“Not quite good enough, sorry.”
“What is it exactly you want from me, Frank?”
“Your word that after I offer my suggestion, and tell you what I know, that you won’t take any action of which I disapprove.”
“That’s too much to ask.”
“Then good luck with your problem, Natalie.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“I’m the secretary of State. You are required by law to provide me with any intelligence you have that I might find useful in the discharge of my duties.”
“Spoken like a true dip,” Lammelle said. “Big words meaning nothing in real life. You want to walk that scenario through? You go to Truman Ellsworth-do you really want to go to Ellsworth? — and you tell him I’m not giving you information you’re entitled to by law. He tells me to give you what you want, and I tell him I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. So he goes to President Clendennen-do you really want Ellsworth going to President Clendennen about this? — and he says Lammelle. .”
She held up her hand to shut him off.
“Tell me again what it is you want me to give my word about,” she said.
“That after I tell you what I know, you won’t go any further with it-that’s sort of moot, because if you did that, I’d deny it-and also that you take no action of any kind without my approval.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said. “You didn’t get to be DCI by being a nice guy, did you, Frank?”
“I got here by doing what I had to, in what I thought were the best interests of the United States.”
“What was it that Samuel Johnson said, Frank, on that April night in 1775? Something about patriotism?”
“Now I get the history lecture,” Lammelle said, chuckling. “He was talking about
“Are you feeling just a little self-righteous, Frank, after doing something you know you shouldn’t have done?”
“Okay. Conversation over. Is there anything else I can do for you before you go?”
The secretary of State was in deep thought a moment, then said, “Okay, you have my word.”
When he didn’t reply, she said, “Maybe you should have gone in the Foreign Service, Frank. You’re really a tough negotiator.”
“I have your word?” he asked.
“I said that you did.”
“All right. What Charley Castillo plans to do is grab Abrego-and, he hopes, Ferris-when either of them shows up at the Oaxaca State Prison, and see who that brings out of the woodwork.”
“How could he possibly manage that? The President has personally ordered General Naylor to see there is absolutely no U.S. military involvement. .”
“At last count, he’s got about forty ex-Spetsnaz.”
“Where did he get ex-Spetsnaz?”
“From Aleksandr Pevsner, who believes that this whole kidnapping business is connected with Vladimir Putin’s plan to take out him and his family. Pevsner’s original reaction to hearing that the new Russian cultural affairs officer for Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala is Valentin Komarovski-who of course is really our old pal Sergei Murov, the SVR
“Oh, my God!”
“Castillo has managed to talk Pevsner out of this for the time being-which means until Castillo’s able to snatch Abrego and/or Ferris at the prison, and then see what the interrogation of whoever comes out of the woodwork turns up.
“We know the Venezuelans are involved. The guy who dropped the kidnapper’s letter in the post office slot in El Paso is Jose Rafael Monteverde, the financial attache of the embassy of the Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela in Mexico City.”
“How do you know that?” Secretary Cohen asked.
“A friend of mine happened to be in the El Paso post office when he did it.”
“I will refrain myself from commenting that the CIA is expressly forbidden by law from operating within the United States,” she said.
“Anyway, Charley’s got people from China Post sitting on this guy. I think they’re going to want to talk to him.”
“China Post? The mercenary employment agency?”
“Charley prefers to think of them as former comrades in arms,” Lammelle said.
“Where’s he getting the money to pay for all this?” she asked, and then quickly added, “Don’t tell me. I think I know. ‘Those People’?”
“So far, I think he’s picking up the tab himself. Or Aleksandr Pevsner is. But that Las Vegas money is going to be available if he asks for it.”
“If Castillo kidnaps this Venezuelan diplomat, President Martinez-”
“What? Won’t like it? Won’t let him get away with it?”
“Both, and you know it.”
“So what if he doesn’t like it?” Lammelle said. “He’s done nothing, and you know it, to get Colonel Ferris back, or get the people who murdered Salazar and the DEA agents. And as far as not letting Castillo get away with what he’s doing, how is he going to do that? With the Policia Federal? Come on, Natalie.”
“Frank, you don’t really expect me to look the other way at any of this?”
“I expect you to do what you can to prevent a coup d’etat. We don’t know who’s behind that. The only ones
