By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

Inside the building, through a glass door, there were four waist-high columns through which police and civilian employees passed swiping identity cards. To the right of the columns was a desk for visitors manned by a uniformed of ficer.

“General Miller and two others to see Commissioner Kellogg,” General Miller announced.

“Sir, I was led to believe that the commissioner expects us at eight,” Castillo said. “It’s only seven-forty.”

“Then your information is incorrect,” General Miller said.

They were obviously expected, for the policeman immediately produced three visitor badges and pushed the button which released the barrier in the visitor turnstile.

They boarded an elevator, which was, like the rest of the building, curved, and rode up.

When the elevator door opened, a detective, or a plainclothes policeman, was waiting for them.

“Good morning, General,” he said. “The commissioner expects you.”

General Miller’s response was a curt nod of the head.

They followed the police officer—Castillo couldn’t see any kind of a badge, but there was a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol in a skeleton holster on his belt—down the corridor, to another desk, manned by another plainclothes officer, where they signed the visitors’ register and were allowed to pass first through an outer office and then into what was apparently the commissioner’s office.

A very large black man in a well-fitting dark blue suit rose from behind his desk and smiled.

“Good morning, Richard,” he said, offering his hand and then offering it to Major Miller. “It’s good to see you, Dick. It’s been a while.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“And this is?”

“That, Commissioner,” General Miller said, “is Major Carlos G. Castillo, and I am here to tell you something about him.”

“I was expecting the special assistant to the secretary of homeland security,” Commissioner Kellogg said. “But how do you do, Major?”

“How do you do, sir?” Charley said.

“Will what you have to tell me about Major Castillo wait until we have some coffee?” the commissioner asked as he waved them into chairs.

“I’ll pass on the coffee, thank you,” General Miller said. “I realize your time is valuable and this won’t take long.”

The commissioner sat in his chair and made a go-ahead signal with both hands.

“I have known Major Castillo since he and Dick were plebes at West Point,” General Miller began. “They were then, and are now, like a container of gasoline and a match. One or the other lights the match and the other blows up.”

“Really?” the commissioner said with a smile.

“Furthermore, Major Castillo, rather than adhering to the West Point

code of Duty, Honor, and Country at all times, has frequently chosen to follow the Jesuit philosophy that the end justifies the means.”

“There is a point, right, Richard, to this character assassination? ” the commissioner asked. He was smiling, but it was strained.

“On one such occasion,” General Miller went on, “three very senior officers reluctantly concluded that the weather, the time of day, and enemy ground-to-air missile and automatic weapons capability absolutely precluded the dispatch of a medical evacuation—“dust off”—helicopter to attempt to rescue the crew of a shot-down helicopter in mountainous terrain in Afghanistan.

“When they presented their recommendation to the general officer in overall command, they told him they had reached their conclusion despite their painful awareness that a no-fly decision would almost certainly result in the death of two of its crew members, who were seriously wounded, and the death or capture of the other personnel on the helicopter, a total of five officers and three enlisted men.

“The bottom line, as they say, was that sending a rescue helicopter, which would almost certainly either be itself shot down or crash because of the weather conditions, could not be justified.

“The commanding general, with a reluctance, I submit, that only another senior commander who has been forced to make such decisions can possibly understand, accepted the recommendation of his staff and gave the no-fly order.

“Major Castillo, who was serving in what I shall euphemistically describe as a ‘liaison capacity’ to that headquarters, was privy to the final discussion of the situation and the commanding general’s decision.