By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

nk there was a conscious effort to get me drunk? No. He was drinking cognac when I met him on the Cobenzl, offered me some, which I didn’t think I should refuse, and I kept up with him. He had as much to drink—for that matter, so did Kennedy—as I did.”

“And how reliable do you think this information is—that the 727 is or was last night in Chad?”

“I think Pevsner thinks it is,” Charley said. “I don’t think he would take a chance, at the beginning of the ‘long and mutually profitable association’ he says he wants, by giving me anything that was doubtful—and certainly he wouldn’t give me anything false.”

“Okay. That means we’re going to have to tell Powell,” Hall said.

He took his cellular telephone from his jacket pocket and pressed one of the autodial numbers.

“Matt Hall for the DCI, please,” he said.

“John, I’m on my cellular, but I wanted to get this to you as soon as possible. The thing we’re looking for was, according to information I consider reliable enough to pass on to you, at a place called Abéché—Able-Baker-Echo-Charley -Hotel-Echo—Chad last night at five o’clock—

“No, not over a cellular I’m not. I’ll tell you more in the situation room tonight. What I’m doing is giving you information I consider reliable enough for you to really look into—

“Okay. Again. Able-Baker-Echo-Charley-Hotel-Echo. Got it?—

“I’ll see you shortly.”

He put the cellular in the palm of his hand and pressed another autodial key.

“Matt Hall for Director Schmidt, please—

“I’m fine, Mark. Thank you. Yourself?—

“Mark, I never got the FBI’s dossier on Aleksandr Pevsner I asked for. Is something holding it up?—

“Well, if it’s on your desk, I can’t read it, can I?—

“What do you mean, you weren’t sure I still wanted it?” The tone of Hall’s voice changed and both Miller and Castillo looked at him. His face showed that he didn’t like what he was hearing.

“Well, Mark, first the DCI has not found time in his busy schedule to tell me he doesn’t think there’s much to ‘this Pevsner nonsense scenario from that loose cannon Special Forces guy in Luanda,’ but that doesn’t really have anything to do with this, does it?—

“Yes, of course, I still want it—

“As soon as I can have it. Send it over by messenger right now—

“Yes, of course, I realize it’s classified—

"Then I’ll send one of my Secret Service agents to get it—

“I sound like I’m angry? I can’t imagine why—

“Actually, I’m not in my office. I’m in Room 404 at the Mayflower. But if that’s going to cause any problems, I can have a Secret Service agent in your office in five minutes—

“Okay. Fine. I’ll be looking for him. And while I’ve got you on the line, Mark, there’s something else I need as soon as I can have it. I want the dossier on one of your special agents, maybe an ex-special agent. A man named Howard Kennedy—

“That’s right. Howard Kennedy—

“Well, if you have probably a half dozen agents named Howard Kennedy I guess you’ll have to send me the dossiers on all of them—

“I don’t mean to sound confrontational, Mark, and I’m sorry you feel that way. I don’t suspect for a moment that you and the DCI are deciding together what to send me in response to Dr. Cohen’s memo, because that would probably make me confrontational, but I am getting more than a little curious why this is turning into a problem—

“What would you call it, Mark?—

“How long is it going to take you to assemble the dossiers on how ever many Howard Kennedys are, or were, FBI special agents?—

“Frankly, I don’t think I should have to wait that long. If there’s some reason I can’t have the Kennedy dossiers by nine tomorrow morning, why don’t you send me a memo for record that I can show Dr. Cohen?—