By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“Passing hors d’oeuvres and shining shoes?”

“At oh-dark-hundred, his driver picked me up at my BOQ and drove me to Simmons Army Airfield, where, if I was lucky, the guy given the great privilege of being the general ’s copilot that day had already checked the weather and had the Huey ready to go. Nine times out of ten he had not, so I did the weather, got the Huey up and running, and flew it to Smoke Bomb Hill. Then I went inside, got the coffeepot running, and checked the overnight mail. By then his driver had picked him up and delivered him to headquarters. Then the three of us took a three- or four-mile run around scenic Smoke Bomb Hill to get the juices flowing. Following which, we returned to the office where I spent part of the day taking notes at meetings of one kind or another to which the general was part, and the rest of the day flying him wherever he thought it would be advantageous for military efficiency for him to drop in unannounced. Camp Mackall, the stockade. .."

“The stockade?”

“Delta Force is in what had been a stockade. Makes sense. It was already surrounded by large fences and barbed wire.”

“You got involved with Delta Force?”

“You’ve just heard all I can tell you about Delta Force,” Castillo said, and then went on: “. . . and other places he felt he should keep an eye on. Sometimes, we even got to eat lunch. It was a blue-ribbon day if we happened to be flying near the Fort Bragg Rod and Gun Club, out in the boonies, and the general decided he would like one of their really first-class hamburgers.”

“Speaking of food . . .”

“Getting hungry?”

“All I had was two bowls of pistachios,” Fernando said.

“So am I, I just realized. There’s a Morton’s of Chicago across the street.”

“A little fancy, no?”

“They have huge lobsters. And nice steaks. I suspect I will be able to get neither where I’m going.”

“And where is that?”

“Luanda, Angola.”

“And where is that?”

“On the west coast of Africa.”

“Looking for this missing 727?”

“Yeah. Let me check on my flight and then we’ll go. I’ll even buy,” Castillo said. He took a notebook from his jacket, found the number he wanted, and dialed it.

“Guten abend, heir is von und zu Gossinger, Karl,” he began and then inquired into the status of his business-class reservation, Dulles to Frankfurt am Main.

He hung up and looked at Fernando.

“I’m going on Lufthansa,” he said. “It leaves at one-thirty in the morning.”

“As Karl von und zu Gossinger?” Fernando asked.

“He’s the Washington correspondent of the Fulda Tages Zeitung,” Castillo said. “Accredited to the White House and everything. Charming fellow. People say he has quite a way with the ladies.”

He reached into his jacket again and tossed a German passport to Fernando, who looked at it.

“That’s who it says you are, Gringo. You going to tell me what that’s all about?”

“The passport is legitimate. Since I was born in Germany, so far as the Germans are concerned I’m a German citizen. Nobody likes journalists . . .”

“You own those newspapers and you admit to such a thing?”

Castillo chuckled.

“And every week or so, I write something for it. I generally steal it from The American Conservative magazine. That way, if somebody checks on Karl there’s his picture, beside his latest story from Washington. And if they look closer, the masthead says it was founded by Hermann von und zu Gossinger in 1817. As I was saying, nobody likes journalists but they’re expected to ask questions. When an American army officer asks questions, people tend to think he’s in the intelligence business.”

“Gringo, why are you suddenly telling me all this? For the last . . . Christ, I don’t know . . . the last ten years, you’ve been like a fucking clam about what you do.”