By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“I’m sorry, Fernando.”

“But it’s important, right?” The line went dead in Fernando ’s ear.

Charley turned to Captain Brewster.

“We’re going to need wheels,” he said.

“I can probably get the staff duty officer’s van,” Brewster replied. “Where do you want to go?”

“Out to the stockade.”

“Now, sir?”

“Now. And I think it would be better if I—we—had our own wheels.”

“Major, I just don’t know . . .”

“Call the motor pool, identify yourself as General Gonzalez ’s aide, and tell them to send a car, or a pickup, a van— something—here right now. And call Delta Force and have them have the senior officer present meet me at the stockade in twenty minutes.”

"Major ..."

“Alternatively, Captain, get General Gonzalez on the phone. I told you before, I just don’t have time to fuck with you.”

Without waiting for an answer, Castillo picked up his laptop briefcase and the go-right-now bag and carried them into the bedroom.

He was not going to try to talk the Delta/Gray Fox communications officer out of Mr. Aloysius Francis Casey’s latest communication jewels while he was dressed in his Washington middle-level bureaucrat’s gray-black suit.

As he unzipped the go-right-now bag, he heard Captain Brewster on the telephone:

“This is Captain Brewster, General Gonzalez’s aide. I need a van and driver right now at the VIP guesthouse.”

Among other things, the go-right-now bag held a very carefully folded Class A uniform. He hated it. It—and the shirt that went with the tunic and trousers—were sewn from miracle fabrics that didn’t pick up unwanted creases. But the by-product of that convenience was that he itched wherever the material touched his skin. If he had the damn thing on for more than six hours, he could count on having a rash around his neck and on his calves and thighs. And the miracle fabrics did not absorb perspiration as cotton and wool did; after wearing it a couple of hours, he smelled as if he hadn’t had a shower for a couple of days.

That thought, as he held up the uniform to confirm that it indeed did look amazingly crisp, triggered the thought that a lot had happened since he had taken a shower in the Warwick hotel early that morning.

He took fresh linen and the go-right-now toilet kit from the go-right-now bag, stripped off the clothing he was wearing, and marched naked into the bathroom.

Five minutes later, freshly showered and shaved—he had shaved under the shower, a time-saving trick he’d learned at West Point—he replaced the razor in the toilet kit and saw the ring that testified to his graduation from Hudson High with the Class of 1990.

He slipped it on.

Ninety seconds after that, he was sitting on the bed lacing up his highly polished jump boots. And ninety seconds after that, after having walked back into the bath in the unfamiliarly heavy boots, he was examining himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

Something was missing, and, after a moment, he understood what. He went back to the go-right-now bag and took out his green beret. Then he took one more check in the mirror.

He thought: Okay. Major Carlos G. Castillo, highly decorated Special Forces officer, all decked out in his incredibly natty Class A uniform, is prepared to try to talk the Delta/Gray Fox commo officer out of his best radios.

Then he had a second thought.

Shit, my ID card is still in the lid of the laptop briefcase and I’m going to have to have it. Otherwise, I’m likely to get myself arrested for impersonating an officer.

He had the lid open and was extracting his ID card when Captain Brewster knocked on the jamb of the open door.

“Sir, a van is on the way, and Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot will be at the Delta compound when we get there.”

“Good,” Castillo said and smiled at him.

“That was a quick change,” Brewster said.