By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“Yeah,” General Naylor said.

He looked at the door and saw Sergeant Major Suggins. “Suggins, would you ask General McFadden if he’s free to come to my office in twenty minutes?”

General Albert McFadden, U.S. Air Force, was the CentCom deputy commander.

“Yes, sir.”

General Naylor then turned his attention to the IBB, pushed the reply key, and typed:

WORKING ON IT. I’LL GET BACK TO YOU. REGARDS, NAYLOR.

When he looked up, he saw that General Potter was standing just inside the door.

Potter was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man who didn’t look much like what comes to mind when “Special Forces” is said. Naylor knew that he had been, in his day, one hell of a Green Beanie, a contemporary of the legendary Scotty McNab. And that he was anything but ascetic. He was a gourmet cook, especially seafood.

“You have something?” Naylor asked.

“Yes, sir. General, I know who the CIA guy is in Angola. He’s one of us,” Potter said.

“One of us what?”

“He’s a special operator, General,” Potter said, smiling again. “He took a pretty bad hit in Afghanistan with the 160th, and when he got out of the hospital on limited duty we loaned him to the agency. I thought he was going to help run their basic training program at the Farm, but apparently they sent him to Angola.”

The 160th was the Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

“You have his name?”

“Miller. H. Richard Miller, Jr. Major.”

“Good man,” Naylor said.

“You know him?”

“Him and his father and grandfather,” Naylor said. “I didn’t get to meet his great-grandfather, or maybe it was his great-great-grandfather. But in the Spanish-American War, he was first sergeant of Baker Troop, 10th Cavalry, when Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders through their lines and up San Juan Hill. I heard he was hit . . .” Charley told me. “. . . in Afghanistan. They shot down his helicopter . . . a Loach, I think.”

“Yeah. It was a Loach. A piece of something got his knee.”

“Have we got a back-channel to him, George?”

“It’s up and running, sir. We got a back-channel from Miller about this missing airplane before you heard about it.”

“And my notification was out of channels,” Naylor said, just a little bitterly. “But I suppose, in good time, CentCom will hear about this officially. I’m really sick and tired of Langley taking their goddamned sweet time before they bring me in the loop.” He heard what he had said and added: “You didn’t hear that.”

Potter smiled and made an “I don’t know what you’re talking about” gesture.

“Let me see whatever he sends,” Naylor ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

[THREE]

What was at first euphemistically described as “establishing some really first-rate liaison” between the CIA and the FBI and CentCom was a direct result of the events of what had universally become known as “9/11,” the crashing of skyjacked airliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon and, short of its target in the capital, into the Pennsylvania countryside.

No one said it out loud but Central Command was the most important headquarters in the Army. According to its mission statement, it was responsible “for those areas of the world not otherwise assigned.”

Army forces in the continental United States were assigned to one of the five armies in the United States, except those engaged in training, which were assigned to the Training & Doctrine Command with its headquarters within the thick stone walls of Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

Southern Command, which had had its headquarters in Panama for many years, now listed its address as 3511 NW 91st Avenue, Miami, Florida 33172-1217. It was responsible for Central and South America. No one feared immediate war with, say, Uruguay, Chile, or Argentina, or even Venezuela or Colombia, although a close eye was kept on the latter two, and, of course, on Cuba.