The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“I like your jacket,” the President said. “What’s your assessment of the possibility of a nuclear device being detonated in Philadelphia anytime soon? On a scale of one to ten?”

“When he briefed me, Mr. President,” Montvale said, “Britton said, ‘Point-zero-zero-one.’”

God, you’re clever, Montvale, Castillo thought. By answering for Britton, you’ve painted yourself as really being on top of everything.

“Is that right?” the President asked Britton. “You think the threat is that negligible?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’m relieved. I’ll want to hear why you think so, of course. But that will wait until I get things organized in my mind.” He looked at Castillo. “That means I want to hear everything, Charley, starting from the moment you left the White House, what was it, a week ago?”

“Six days, Mr. President. It seems like a lot longer, but it was only six days ago.”

“Charley,” the President said, “I want to hear everything you think has affected—or might affect—execution of the Finding. I’ll decide what’s important.”

“Yes, sir,” Castillo said and immediately decided to leave out the first thing that had happened after he left the White House that had indeed had a bearing on the Finding—his some what-strained conversation with Montvale at the Army-Navy Club.

“Sir, I went to Paris…” he began as he thought he saw a look of relief on Montvale’s face.

“My God, you really got around, didn’t you?” the President said fifteen minutes later when Castillo had finished. “You must be exhausted.”

“I am kind of beat, sir.”

“Sum it up for me, Charley. Where are we?”

“We know a lot more, Mr. President, than we knew when I left here—that a Cuban was involved, for example, and that there’s probably a connection with the KGB—but I don’t know what any of it really means.”

The President turned to the secretary of state.

“What do you make of the Cuban, Natalie?”

“If there wasn’t a positive identification, Mr. President, I’d have trouble believing it. I just don’t know.”

“Can we tweak Castro’s nose with that? Now or later?”

“If the Cubans sent him to Uruguay—and we don’t know, or least have no proof of, that—by now they know he’s dead,” the secretary of state said. “So far as embarrassing the Cubans, I don’t think so, sir. If we laid this man’s body on Kofi Annan’s desk in the Security Council chamber, the Cubans would deny any knowledge of him and the delegate from Venezuela would introduce a resolution condemning us for blaspheming the dignity of the UN.”

The President’s face showed what he thought of the secretary-general of the United Nations and of the organization itself.

“They’ve washed their hands of Lorimer, right?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Secretary Cohen said. “One of Annan’s underlings issued a brief statement regretting the death of Mr. Lorimer, but—we invited them—they’re not even sending someone to his funeral.”

“So what are you going to do next, Charley?” the President asked.

“Well, tomorrow morning, sir, I’m going to assemble what information we have—all the disconnected facts we have, both here and in Buenos Aires—and start to try to make some sense of it.”

“Need any help?” the President asked. “Anything you need to do that?”

Before Castillo could reply, Ambassador Montvale said, “In that connection, Mr. President, I’m going to call DCI Powell personally and tell him that he is to provide to Mr. Delchamps everything that Colonel Castillo asks for.”

“That’s the CIA man from Paris?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Why are you calling Powell personally? I’ve already ordered that the CIA—that everybody—give Charley whatever he asks for. And now Delchamps works for Charley, right?”

“Mr. Delchamps is about as popular in Langley as is Colonel Castillo, Mr. President. And then there’s the matter of our not having informed the CIA—or, for that matter, others, including the FBI—of your Finding. I thought my personal call would be useful.”