sail-fish with Svet and Dmitri off sun-drenched Cozumel.”
There was another long moment of silence.
“May I speak?” Ambassador Lorimer asked.
“Yes, sir, of course,” Castillo said.
“I was thinking, Colonel, that if you thought it would be useful, I could prepare a short paper on the history of activity in that area of the Congo. For example, its initial use by the then-West Germans as a nuclear facility. That isn’t well-known, and I think it’s possible that he’s unaware of it.”
“Your President wouldn’t know about that?” Berezovsky asked incredulously.
“Washington is a strange place, Dmitri,” Ambassador Lorimer said. “President Truman was informed of the nuclear weapons that the United States was developing only the day after President Roosevelt died. While Truman was Vice President, he was not told one word—he had been kept completely in the dark.”
“So, you are agreeing that my going to the President makes sense?” Castillo said.
“From my vantage point, which I am aware is one of near-total ignorance, it looks to me as if it is your only viable option.”
Castillo nodded thoughtfully. “Then yes, sir, Mr. Ambassador, I would be very grateful if you would prepare a paper like that.”
“Then I shall, even though I am about out of patience with your refusal, my friend, to address me by my Christian name.”
“I’m in, Ace,” Delchamps said.
“Me, too,” Darby said.
Castillo looked at Davidson.
“Jesus Christ, Charley! Do you have to ask? Yes, sir, Colonel, sir, I will go with you to see the President, sir. Not only that, I will bring Uncle Remus and this bald, fat, ugly old man with me, and do my best to keep them sober.”
[THREE]
Cozumel International Airport
Cozumel, Mexico
2005 5 January 2006
Castillo saw that Miller had a hard time getting out of the co-pilot seat—that it was painful for him—but pretended not to notice.
It was understandable. Castillo was a little stiff, too, and during the long flight often had been reminded of his wounded buttocks and leg.
And it had been a long one indeed: Six hours fifteen minutes from Punta del Este across the South American continent to Quito, Ecuador, and then after an hour for fuel and a really bad chicken supper, another three hours and something from Quito to Cozumel.
On both legs he had sent Miller back to the passenger compartment so that he could stretch out on one of the couches with his knee unbent for an hour or so. And on both occasions, Svetlana had come forward and sat in the co-pilot seat. They had tried to hold hands, but the Gulfstream flight deck had not been designed for romance, so they just sat there and watched the fuel gauges drop and the GPS image of the Gulfstream inch its way across the map.
There had been plenty of time to think, and a lot to think about, and a number of decisions to be made, one of which he thought of as Step One of Biting the Bullet.
Castillo started to implement Step One of Biting the Bullet now, after Miller left the cockpit and he heard the whine of the stair-door motor.
As he reached for the AFC handset in its rack beside the co-pilot seat, Svetlana again came into the cockpit. She asked with her eyebrows what he was doing.
He pointed to the handset. She handed it to him, then slid into the seat and listened to his side of the conversation.
“C. G. Castillo,” he said to the handset.
“Yes, Colonel Castillo?”
The voice-recognition circuit reacted more quickly, he thought, than a human operator would have answered.
“General Bruce J. McNab. Encrypted Level One.”
“One moment, please.”
Then McNab’s voice: “Thank you ever so much for checking in, Colonel. I was beginning to wonder if you had decided to retire earlier than scheduled.”
“Good evening, sir.”
“Or if you were in the arms of the Argentine cops in Gaucho Land. I presume you’re aware of the FBI backgrounder?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve seen it?”
“Oh, yes. And the ‘locate but do not detain’ message.”
“I didn’t hear about that one, sir.”
“Well, if you ever try to come to the United States, you’ll know why the Border Patrol is so fascinated with your passport.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Sitting in the airplane—we just landed—in Cozumel.”
“A fuel stop? Or are you planning to rest from your trip overnight?”
“Both, sir.”
“I’ve given some thought on how to get together—”
“Sir . . .”
“—since your coming to Fort Bragg would be ill-advised. What I’ve been thinking—”
“Sir . . .”
“—is that I would fly to Rucker, which wouldn’t attract any attention, then chopper down to Hurlburt. No one would even know I’d done that. And—I presume you have your German passport—if you went through immigration at Lauderdale—”
“Sir . . .”
“Goddamn it, Charley, stop interrupting me! If you went through immigration at Fort Lauderdale, which makes even more sense now that you’ll be coming from Cozumel, since they’re both vacation spots, you could fly on to Pensacola—”
“Sir, I’m not coming to see you.”
There was a short pause before McNab replied, “Say again?”
“I’m not going to come see you, sir, at least—”
“Your coming to me was not in the nature of a suggestion, Colonel. More like an order. You remember, from your time in the Army, what an order is, right?”
“I’m going to see the President, sir.”
There was a long pause.
“He sent for you?”
“No, sir. I’m going to call him and ask to see him just as soon as I get off the horn with you, sir.”
There was another long pause before McNab said, “Charley, I don’t think the President is going to buy ‘I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again, sir.’”
“What I’m hoping he will buy, sir, is that there is a chemical laboratory and factory in the Congo.”
“You’re aware, of course, that the CIA thinks what that is is a fish farm.”
“I’m taking Mr. Delchamps with me, sir.”
