By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

He snatched it almost angrily from his pocket.

“Yeah?”

“Your phone has been out of service,” Howard Kennedy said.

“Aren’t you going to tell me where I am?”

“That tells me you are probably no longer in Philadelphia. ”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere over North Carolina, I would guess. Using one of those back-of-the-seat, ten-dollars-a-minute telephones. You’re not going to tell me where you are?”

“What are you doing somewhere over North Carolina? Going somewhere?”

“Cancún, actually,” Kennedy said. “Okay. Now it’s your turn.”

Since I don’t know that he’s actually in an airplane en route to Mexico, and may have been in touch with his friends in the wireless telephone business, and is entirely capable of—entirely likely to—see if I’m lying to him, it’s truth time.

“Would you believe the VIP guest quarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Howard?”

“Of course. Since we have agreed to be entirely truthful with one another. What the hell are you doing in Fort Bragg? Do you have something you want to share with me?”

He seems genuinely surprised. Or is it that he’s almost as skilled a liar as I am?

“The answer to question one is that I’m here because my boss sent me here. He has not seen fit to explain his reasons. And, no, I don’t have anything much to share with you. Miller’s still in Philadelphia meeting with undercover cops. I don’t know what—if anything—he’s come up with, but I should hear something soon. If I do, how do I pass it on to you? I never tried to call anybody on an airliner before.”

“Neither have I,” Kennedy said. “But to demonstrate my faith in your veracity—taking a hell of a big chance, in other words, which I really hate to do—I’m on Mexicana 455, Newark to Mexico City. If you hear anything, give it a try, Charley. This is the age of miraculous communication. If that doesn’t work—and I’m not met in Mexico City by representatives of my former employer—I’ll call you from the airport.”

“If anybody meets you, I didn’t send them.”

“Boy Scouts’ honor?”

“Were you a Boy Scout?”

“Certainly. Weren’t you?”

“I am now holding my pinky with my thumb, the other fingers extended vertically, my arm raised to shoulder level,” Castillo said as he did so.

Captain Brewster, who could not hear the conversation but, as an Eagle Scout himself, knew the gesture, looked curiously at him.

“As one Boy Scout to another, I accept your word of honor,” Kennedy said.

“Does that mean you’re also going to tell me why you’re going to Cancún?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Kennedy said. “Do you know where Khartoum is, Charley?”

“There’s a K-town in Sudan.”

“You’re halfway to your World Geography merit badge. How about Murtala Muhammad International Airport?”

“You’ve got me there,” Charley confessed after a moment.

“Lagos, Nigeria. Write that down.”

“Is there a point to this quiz?”

“A 727 bearing the paint scheme of Air Suriname—you don’t happen to know where Suriname is, do you, Charley?”