The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“It was my great pleasure,” Munz said and bowed.

“I suppose we’ll be in touch, won’t we, Charley?” Kennedy asked.

Castillo nodded. “Tell your boss thanks, Howard.”

“I’ll do that,” Kennedy said and then started guiding Munz toward the rear of the hangar.

Castillo walked around the Ranger and opened the copilot’s door.

“Bradley, load the stuff—everything in the chopper that belongs to us—into the Lear and make sure there’s a seat where we can put Sergeant Kranz.”

“Yes, sir,” Corporal Lester Bradley said.

“I’ll give you a hand with the body,” Yung said.

“Just put him over my shoulder,” Castillo said. “I’ll carry him.”

Five minutes later, Jorge Newbery Ground Control cleared Lear Five-Oh-Seven-Five to the threshold of runway thirty-one.

[FOUR]

Office of the Commander in Chief

United States Central Command

MacDill Air Force Base

Tampa, Florida

1235 1 August 2005

There were several reasons that Command Sergeant Major Wesley Suggins was rarely in the commander in chief’s conference room when the twelve chairs around the long table were occupied by what he privately thought of as “the heavy brass.”

Or even when only three or four of them were occupied by what he privately thought of as “the light brass.”

He defined the heavy brass as general or flag officers whose personal flags carried three or more stars. It also included a few heavy civilians. The liaison officer between the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and CentCom was one of these. He was a member of what was known as the Executive Civil Service and held the grade therein of GS-18, which carried with it the assimilated grade within the military establishment of lieutenant general. The State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and Federal Bureau of Investigation liaison officers each carried the Executive Civil Service grade of GS-16, which carried with it the assimilated grade of major general.

The light brass was brigadier generals, rear admirals (lower half), and GS-15 civilians and below.

The primary reason Command Sergeant Major Suggins almost never took a seat at the conference table was not, as most of the light and heavy brass believed, because he was an enlisted man and would be out of place in their exalted senior company.

The primary reason was that General Allan Naylor, the CentCom commander in chief, had decided that Command Sergeant Major Suggins had more important things to do than sit at the table for long periods with his mouth shut.

This was not to say General Naylor did not want Command Sergeant Major Suggins to know what transpired at the frequent conferences; quite the contrary. It was General Naylor’s habit after most conferences—there were at least four every day, including the twice-daily intelligence briefings—to motion Suggins into his office and solicit both his opinions of what had been discussed and his recommendations as to how an action decided upon could best be implemented.

That Command Sergeant Major Suggins was not physically present in the conference room did not mean he hadn’t heard what was being discussed. The room was equipped with a wide array of electronic devices, including a battery of microphones placed around it so that even the sound of a dropped pencil would be detected.

Sometimes the conferences were recorded. At all times, what the microphones heard was relayed to a single-earphone headset Suggins put on the moment the door to the conference room closed, the red light above the door began to flash, and the CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS DO NOT ENTER sign lit up.

It was commonly believed by those seeing Suggins wearing his headset that he was taking the opportunity, while a conference was in progress, to listen to the Dixieland recordings of Bob French’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, to which he was known to be quite addicted. Suggins did nothing to correct this erroneous belief.

About the most important thing Suggins did while not sitting at the conference table with his mouth shut was field General Naylor’s telephone calls. There were usually many, and almost all of them from people really important—or who believed they were really important—and who all believed they had the right to speak with General Naylor immediately.

Some of them Suggins deftly diverted with white lies: The general was jogging or indisposed, or speaking with the president or the secretary of Homeland Security or the secretary of defense, and he would have the general return the call the moment he was free.

There were some callers, of course, that Suggins did not try to divert. These included, for example, the president of the United States; the secretaries of defense, state, and Homeland Security; the director of National Intelligence; and Mr. Elaine Naylor.

When one of these luminaries called, Suggins would turn to a laptop computer on the credenza behind his desk and quickly type, for example, if the caller were the secretary of Homeland Security, the Honorable Matthew Hall: