between us.”
Randy grinned as McNab shook his hand.
“Yes, sir. Will do.”
“And while we are waiting for the others, yes, I will, thank you, have a cup of coffee, if that meets with your approval, Colonel Castillo.”
“Yes, sir, it does. And I will even order up some fresh for you, sir.”
“Why don’t we let Woods do that?” He turned to his aide. “Coffee and pastry, Peter, please. Lots of sugar on the doughnuts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sugar does all sorts of terrible things to your body, Randolph—they don’t really call you Randolph, do they?”
“Randy, sir.”
“So,
He looked at Castillo.
“As Colonel Castillo knows, a morning jog feeds blood to the brain. Feeding it greater amounts of blood causes the brain to function with more efficiency. And while some people, Randy—nothing personal—have been sitting around a hotel room, stuffing their faces, some others of us have been out on the beach jogging.”
By 0850, everybody who had been at the last meeting had shown up, and all were drinking coffee and eating pastries.
At 0855, the door chimes sounded once again. Major Foster opened the door. Two officers wearing Class A uniforms—heavily starched shirt, trousers, tunic, and tie—marched in.
One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Randolph J. Richardson III. The other was a very slim, very tall, ascetic- looking officer who was even blacker than Uncle Remus. His stiffly pressed, immaculate, perfectly tailored uniform bore the silver eagles of a full colonel, the caduceus of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, a shoulder insignia Castillo could not remember ever having seen, two—but only two—rows of I Was There ribbons, and, somewhat incongruously, a set of parachutist wings. Basic wings, which meant he had jumped fewer than thirty times.
The colonel, who appeared to be in search of a suitably senior officer to whom to report, looked around at the coffee drinkers and doughnut munchers slumped in chairs—or sitting on the floor—and only then finally found the senior officer present. This luminary was on his hands and knees, holding one end of a web strap between his teeth, and exchanging growls with Max, who had the other end in his mouth.
“Sir!” the colonel barked as he raised his hand to his brow in a crisp salute, “Colonel J. Porter Hamilton reporting to the commanding general, Special Operations Command, as ordered, sir!”
McNab let loose the web strap, leapt rather nimbly to his feet, and returned the salute with something less than parade-ground precision. Max went to inspect the newcomer.
“At ease, Colonel,” McNab said, then turned to Charley. “Invocation time, Colonel.”
“Yes, sir.” Castillo looked at Hamilton. “You are hereby advised—”
“Pay attention, please, Colonel Richardson,” McNab interrupted. “This now applies to you.”
He signaled for Castillo to continue. Randy watched raptly.
Castillo noticed that Righteous Randolph seemed delighted that he was about to be included in whatever was going on around here.
Castillo recited: “You are hereby advised that anything and everything discussed in this meeting is classified Top Secret Presidential and is not to be disclosed in any manner to anyone without the express permission of myself or the President.”
“Got that, the both of you?” McNab asked.
“Yes, sir,” they chorused.
Colonel Hamilton looked askance at Castillo, who had added khaki trousers to his clothing but still was barefoot.
“Richardson,” General McNab ordered, “this is what you’re going to do. Go see the commanding general at Hurlburt. Him only. Tell him I sent you to get the maps.”
“Yes, sir.”
“See that they are securely packaged, then go to Base Ops and wait for us; we’ll be along shortly.”
“Yes, sir. Transportation, sir?”
McNab considered that for a full two seconds.
“Any reason they can’t take the Mustang, Charley? Randy would like a ride in a ragtop.”
“No, sir,” Castillo said, and tossed Richardson the keys to the convertible.
“See you at Hurlburt, Richardson,” McNab said. He turned to Randy. “It was a pleasure meeting you, son. Give my best to your grandfather.”
They shook hands.
“It was nice to see you, Colonel Castillo,” Randy said as he walked to Castillo with his hand extended.
He swallowed hard and said, “Good to see you, too, Randy. Give my regards to your mother. And see if you can get your granddad to bring you out to the ranch. Between Fernando and me, we’ll get you some more PT-22 stick time.”
“I’d like that, sir,” Randy replied a little roughly as they shook hands.
Svetlana felt no restrictions on her conduct. “You get a kiss and a hug from me, Randy.” And she proceeded to give him a long one of each.
Thirty seconds later, Richardson and Randy were gone.
“Make sure that door’s locked, Peter,” McNab ordered.
He turned to Colonel Hamilton.
“Colonel, you have been represented to me as the Army’s—maybe the country’s—preeminent expert on toxins, that sort of thing. True?”
“Sir, that is my area of knowledge and some expertise.”
“I don’t suppose you know much about Africa, do you, Colonel? Specifically, what used to be called the Belgian Congo?”
“Sir, I don’t know much about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but I do know something—far more than I would prefer to know, frankly—about Rwanda and Burundi, which, as I’m sure you know, both abut the Congo.”
“Colonel, please run that past me—past all of us—again, if you don’t mind.”
“Sir, what I said was that I know something about Rwanda and Burundi. I was there—”
“You were there?”
“Yes, sir. I was there in ’94 during the worst of the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis—hundreds of thousands massacred.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Observing, sir.”
“Observing for whom?”
“Sir, with respect, I am not at liberty to say.”
McNab raised one of his bushy red eyebrows. “Colonel, do you know who I am?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you can’t tell me?”
“No, sir. With respect, I cannot.”
“Who would it take to get you released from that?”
“Sir, what I could do is contact certain people and ask for permission to tell you what I know about the genocide. I’m sure they would take into consideration who you are, General McNab.”
“We’re not talking about the CIA, are we, Colonel?”
