By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“Let me check a moment, sir.”

Check, my ass, you sonofabitch! With all the money we spend with you, you should not only have had the goddamned Lear here when I wanted it, but you should have known without checking why it isn’t and where it is.

“Don Fernando?”

“Yes?”

“It took off from Newark about an hour ago, sir. That should put it on the ground here in, say, two hours.”

“You don’t know what it was doing in Newark by any chance, do you?”

“Yes, sir. Doña Alicia took it there, sir. She said she had to make the six o’clock Pan American flight to Frankfurt and there was no other way she could make it except in the Lear.”

“Of course. It must have slipped my mind. Thank you very much.”

“Anything else I can help you with, sir?”

“No, that’s it, thank you.”

He put the telephone back in the cradle and then picked it up again and dialed another number from memory.

“Jacqueline, it’s me,” he said. “In this order, call General Stevens at Fort Sam and ask him where I’m supposed to go in Germany. He’ll understand.”

“Germany?” Jacqueline Sanchez, who had been his secretary for twenty years, asked.

“Germany. Then get me on the next plane out of Dallas -Fort Worth that goes wherever I have to go.”

“I don’t know what kind of direct flights there are from Dallas-Fort Worth to Germany,” Jacqueline said. “Why don’t you take the Lear and head for New York?”

“Because the goddamned Lear is on its way back from New York and won’t be in San Antonio for two hours.”

“Somehow, I sense that you’re displeased about something, ” she said. “Anything I can do?”

“Just get me on the next goddamned plane to Germany, Jackie, please.”

“Consider it done. Where are you?”

“I’m at Love, about to get in a goddamned taxi to go back to goddamned Dallas-Fort Worth.”

“Two ‘goddamned’s in one sentence, you must be angry.”

“Alicia is on her way to Germany to see who she thinks is Jorge’s son.”

“Oh my God!”

“Yeah, oh my God!”

“Call me when you get to Dallas-Fort Worth. I’ll have everything set up by the time you get there.”

“Thanks, Jackie.”

“Jorge had a child?” she asked.

“Oh, God, Jackie, I hope this kid is really his.”

“I’ll say a prayer,” Jackie said, and the line went dead.

[ELEVEN]