The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

Castillo went to Luanda, Angola, where the whole thing had started, and immediately ignited a turf war that had very nearly cost Secretary Hall his job.

He not only learned that the missing 727 had been stolen by Somalian terrorists, who planned to crash it into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, but with the help of Aleksandr Pevsner, an infamous Russian arms dealer, located the airplane no one else could find, and then with the help of the ultrasecret Gray Fox unit of Delta Force, stole the missing airplane back from the terrorists. With Castillo flying as copilot, Air Commando Colonel Jake Torine had flown the airplane from Costa Rica to Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

When the President had authorized the Gray Fox mission he had done so fully prepared to pay the price of an outraged Costa Rica-for that matter, the outraged membership of the United Nations-for launching a military operation without warning on a peaceful country that didn't even have an army.

With his imagination seeing the world's television screens lit up with CNN's-and Deutsche Welle's, and the BBC's, and everybody else's-report of the shocking, unilateral American incursion of poor little Costa Rica, with pictures of the flaming hulk of the airplane surrounded by dead Costa Ricans, the President was understandably delighted to hear that the only loss in Costa Rica was a fuel truck.

True to its professionalism, Gray Fox had left behind no bodies-American or Costa Rican-and no 727 gloriously in flames, and no traceable evidence that could place them ever at the scene.

Dissuaded by General Naylor from awarding Torine and Castillo medals for valor-which would have necessarily entailed detailing the valor-the President settled for awarding them Distinguished Flying Crosses "for superb airmanship in extremely difficult circumstances." It was Colonel Torine's thirteenth DFC and Castillo's third.

The President also had them down to the Carolina White House for a weekend. There was a downside to this happy ending, of course. The director of Central Intelligence and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were unhappy with the secretary of Homeland Security and his goddamn executive assistant for a number of reasons.

The DCI was of course smarting because Castillo had found the missing airplane before the agency could. And because Castillo had been able to talk the CIA station chief in Angola out of CIA intelligence files.

The director of the FBI was smarting because after the special agent in charge of the bureau's Philadelphia office had reported to him his belief that the missing airplane almost certainly had been "stolen" by its owners, a small-time aircraft leasing company on the edge of bankruptcy, so they could collect the insurance, and he had reported this to the President, Castillo had gone to Philadelphia and learned that the airplane had indeed not only been stolen, but stolen by Somalian terrorists whose names-as possible terrorists-had been provided to the FBI by the Philadelphia police some time before. The FBI had told the cops that the Somalians were okay, just some African airline pilots in the United States for training.

And because when an FBI inspector had been sent to Major/Executive Assistant Castillo to tell him he was confident that whenever Castillo heard from Alex Pevsner or his assistant, a former FBI agent named Howard Kennedy, again, Castillo would immedi

ately notify the FBI, Castillo had told him not to hold his breath.

But since it had to be admitted by both the FBI and the CIA that they had not, in fact, furnished to the secretary of Homeland Security all the material they had been directed to furnish by then National Security Advisor Natalie Cohen, the directors vowed this would never happen again.

From this moment on, Homeland Security would get copies of every bit of intelligence generated that had, even remotely, to do with Homeland Security.

And if it kept that goddamn Castillo up all night reading it, and if he went blind reading it, so much the better. When the red telephone on the coffee table buzzed, Charley Castillo was working his way through that day's intelligence-everything that had come in since five the previous afternoon-graciously furnished by the FBI and the CIA. He had been at this task since half past six.

The secretary hadn't made up his mind how to deal with the wealth of intelligence-most of it useless-that they were getting from the FBI and the CIA every day, but he and Charley and Joel and Tom were agreed that it had to be read.

Joel Isaacson said-only half jokingly-that both directors were entirely capable of sending over hard intel that a nuclear device in a container was about to arrive in Baltimore harbor, sandwiched between intel about two suspicious-looking Moroccan grandmothers, and an overheard and unsubstantiated rumor that the bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was a crossdresser, and that therefore it had to be read.

What would seem to be the obvious solution to the problem-Hall calling the directors of the CIA and FBI and saying, "Okay, enough is enough, stop sending the garbage"-almost certainly wouldn't work. It was possible-maybe even more than likely-that the directors, with straight faces, would tell the secretary they had no idea what he was talking about. And that would mean Hall would have to go to the President. He didn't want to do that; he was trying to spread oil on the troubled waters, not onto the smoldering fire.

One possible solution-which Agnes thought the most likely-was to bring into the office two Secret Service agents-in-training now going through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, just as soon as they were, as Joel put it, "credentialed."

Both were experienced police officers, recruited at the suggestion of Secretary Hall from the Philadelphia Police Department as a result of his and Castillo's experience with them looking for the 727. One had been a sergeant in the intelligence unit, and the other a detective in the counterterrorism division, who had worked for years undercover infiltrating Muslim communities considered potentially dangerous. Both would be able to sort through the stacks of intel reports knowing what to look for, and what was garbage.

But this would mean they would be working directly for the secretary, instead of just-Hall's original idea- becoming Secret Service agents with far more experience and knowledge than the usual rookies, and being assigned to a field office somewhere.

Agnes knew that Hall was reluctant to have his own in-house intelligence unit, but she thought sooner or later-probably sooner, since while Charley was sifting through the garbage he was not available to him; he had not gone with Hall to Chicago last night because he had to read the overnight files-he was going to have to face the facts.

The secretary of Homeland Security picked up the red handset and punched one of the buttons on the base.

"Natalie Cohen."

"Good morning, Mademoiselle Secretary," Hall said.

"Goddammit, Matt, you know I don't think that's funny," the secretary of state said.

"It makes more sense than a female lawyer calling herself 'Esquire,'" Hall went on, undaunted. "I learned in school that 'madam' is a married lady and an unmarried one a 'mademoiselle'-"

"Is there something on your sophomoric mind, Matt? Or are you just seeing what happens when you push the buttons on your red phone?"

"The President, Mizz Secretary…"

She chuckled. "Better. Not good. But better."

"… is sending Charley to Buenos Aires. I guess you can figure out why."