By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“Now, can you get in touch with your Tulsa office directly, send them the photos and the names over your net, and have them go out to Spartan or am I going to have to do that through Washington?”

“I can contact them directly, of course,” Stuart said.

“Would I offend you if I suggested you call your duty of ficer and get that started right now?”

Stuart met his eyes.

“That doesn’t offend me, Mr. Castillo,” he said. “But the language you used to my duty officer offends me. Offends me very much, frankly. Are you aware that we record all incoming calls after duty hours?”

“I didn’t think that was legal unless the calling party is advised that his call will be recorded,” Castillo said. “But if you’ve got a tape of my conversation with your duty officer, why don’t you send it—the entire conversation, not just my intemperate language—to Director Schmidt?”

Stuart tried and failed to stare Castillo down, then looked away, to Chief Inspector Kramer. “Chief, is there a telephone I can use?”

“Schneider,” Chief Kramer said.

Sergeant Betty Schneider, with a wholly unintended display of her upper thighs, slid off the table.

“Right this way, Mr. Stuart,” she said.

When the door had closed after them, Detective Jack Britton pointed to Castillo, looked at Miller, and said, admiringly, “Hey, bro, your white boy pal is a real hard-ass, ain’t he?”

[FIVE]

Office of the Commissioner Police Administration Building 8th and Race Streets Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0345 10 June 2005

Police Commissioner Ralph J. Kellogg walked into his outer office, said good morning to Chief Inspector Kramer, Majors Castillo and Miller, Detective Jack Britton, and Sergeant Betty Schneider, who were sitting in chairs waiting for him, and waved them into his office.

Captain Jack Hanrahan, Kellogg’s executive officer, waited until everybody was inside, then pulled the door closed.

Both Kellogg and Hanrahan were shaven, wearing suits and stiffly starched white shirts, and were obviously fully awake, although it was less than twenty minutes since Chief Inspector Kramer had called the commissioner at his home and suggested they needed to talk.

“Okay, Dutch,” Kellogg said, “where are we?”

“Between Britton and Castillo, Commissioner, and with the somewhat reluctant cooperation of the FBI, we’ve IDed the people we think stole the airplane. They were here, at Britton’s mosque.”

“Is that going to help you find the airplane?” Kellogg asked Castillo, but then, before Castillo could reply, asked: “What’s with the uniform? First step in declaring martial law?”

“I’ve been at Fort Bragg, Commissioner—and I’m about to go back there—to explain the uniform. And I have reason to believe we have located the airplane.”

“You either have or you haven’t. Which?”

“A source who has previously been right on the money has told me he’s almost certainly located it. What I’ll be doing at Fort Bragg is helping to set up the operation to neutralize it.”

“What source?”

I was afraid you were going to ask that.

“Not to go farther than this room, Commissioner?”

Kellogg considered that.

“No. That’s over. As I understand the plan, Matt Hall will be here at eight o’clock. Shortly after that, as soon as we’ve compared notes we’re going to see the mayor. I want to be in a position to lay everything on the table in front of him. I now think promising to hold off telling until four this afternoon was a mistake. From now on, starting when Hall gets here, I’m going to tell the mayor everything I know. You understand? Now, what is the source of your information that the airplane has almost certainly been located?”

“Sir, you’re going to have to get that from Secretary Hall. I can’t give it to you.”

“Great!” Kellogg said, visibly angry.

“Commissioner,” Chief Inspector Kramer said, “Britton also tells us that there’s a lot of talk at his mosque about something going to happen to the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall.”