The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“The elevator is there, Mr. Secretary,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said, gesturing.

“Thank you,” Hall said.

The First Lady was in the sitting room of the presidential apartments but not the President. So were three other people whose presence did not surprise Castillo—Secretary of State Natalie Cohen; Ambassador Charles W. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence; and Frederick K. Beiderman, the secretary of defense—and one, General Allan Naylor, whose presence did. There was a photographer standing in a corner with two Nikon digital cameras hanging around his neck.

I wonder what is about to be recorded for posterity?

Montvale, Beiderman, and Hall were wearing dinner jackets. Naylor was wearing dress blues.

“He’ll be out in a minute,” the First Lady announced, and then added, “Hello, Charley, we haven’t seen much of you lately.”

“Good evening, ma’am.”

The men nodded at him but no one spoke.

The President came in a moment later, shrugging into his dinner jacket.

There was a chorus of, “Good evening, Mr. President.”

The President circled the room, first kissing the women, then shaking hands with the men, including Charley.

“Okay, General,” the President ordered. “As usual, I’m running a little late. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Naylor took a sheet of paper from his tunic.

“Attention to orders,” he read. “Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. Extract from General Order 155, dated 1 August 2005. Paragraph eleven. Major Carlos G. Castillo, 22 179 155, Special Forces, is promoted Lieutenant Colonel, with date of rank 31 July 2005. For the Chief of Staff. Johnson L. Maybree, Major General, the Adjutant General.”

I’ll be a sonofabitch!

“And as soon as the colonel comes over here so General Naylor and I can put his new shoulder boards on him,” the President said, motioning for Castillo to join him, “I will have a few words to say.”

The photographer came out of his corner, one camera up and its flash firing. Castillo, without thinking about it, came to attention next to the President.

“How do we get the old ones off?” the President asked, tugging at Castillo’s shoulder boards.

“Let me show you, Mr. President,” General Naylor said. He handed something to the President and put his hands on Castillo’s shoulders.

Castillo glanced down to see what Naylor had handed the President.

Of course, light bird’s shoulder boards.

But they’re not new.

Christ, they’re his.

Castillo felt his eyes water.

“And these slip on this way,” Naylor said, demonstrating.

The photographer bobbed around, clicking the shutter of his Nikon every second or so as the President got one shoulder board on and then Naylor got the other one on, and as they stood side by side, and then as the President and then Naylor shook Charley’s hand, and then as the others in the room became involved. Charley’s hand was shaken by the director of National Intelligence and the secretary of defense. His cheek was kissed by the First Lady, the secretary of state, and Mr. Hall. A final series of photos including everyone was taken.

“And now I have something to say,” the President said. “As some of you may know, I am the commander in chief. Until the promotion of Colonel Castillo came up, I naïvely thought that meant I could issue any order that I wanted and it would be carried out. I learned that does not apply to the promotion of officers.

“When Colonel Castillo found and returned to our control the 727 the terrorists had stolen in Angola—when the entire intelligence community was still looking for it, when we learned how close the lunatics had actually come to crashing it into the Liberty Bell in downtown Philadelphia after the entire intelligence community had pooh-poohed that possibility—I thought that a promotion would be small enough reward for Castillo’s extraordinary service to our country.

“Then-Major Castillo had already been selected, Matt Hall told me, for promotion to lieutenant colonel, not only selected but selected for quick promotion because of outstanding service.

“So I asked General Naylor, ‘How soon can I promote him?’ and General Naylor said, in effect, that I couldn’t, that it doesn’t work that way. Well, I thought that might well be because General Naylor and Colonel Castillo have a close personal relationship and He didn’t want it to look like Charley was getting special treatment. So I went to the chief of staff of the Army and said I knew of an outstanding major, a West Pointer, and a Green Beret, like the chief of staff, who not only had been selected for promotion to lieutenant colonel on what I now knew to be the ‘five percent list’ but had rendered a great service to his country, and I would like to know why he couldn’t be promoted immediately. And the chief of staff said that it didn’t work like that, and, as a West Pointer and a Green Beret, the major to whom I was referring would understand that. The clear implication being, so should the commander in chief.