By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

When Charley and Betty were alone in the car, she looked at him and then away.

“You wanted to know about Karl Gossinger,” he said.

“It’s not important,” she said.

“I was born in Germany. My mother’s name was Gossinger. My father was an American officer who was killed in Vietnam. They weren’t married, he never knew about me, and I never knew about him until my mother was about to die. When they heard about me, my father’s family brought me to this country and I took his name. Not even Dick knows that story. Fernando does, but hardly anybody else. But I’m considered a German by the Germans and got a passport, etcetera. It’s useful in my line of work.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t want to go back to Sergeant Schneider and Major Castillo.”

“Charley, I don’t even remember the last time I had any sleep. I can’t deal with this now. And I probably won’t be able to—won’t want to—deal with it when all this is over. You’re just too much for me. You don’t know who you are, how am I supposed to? Get on the airplane.”

“Do I get kissed again?”

“No, you don’t!”

“Okay. I had to give it a shot,” Charley said. “I won’t bother you again.”

He got out of the Crown Victoria and was halfway to the Lear when she called, “Charley!”

He turned.

“You forgot your phone.”

“Shit,” he said and trotted toward the car.

I must have missed my goddamned pocket when I put it away.

He patted his shirt pocket. The phone was in it.

Betty hadn’t gotten out of the Crown Victoria but she had pushed the passenger door open.

He slid onto the seat.

She touched his face with her hand and then kissed him as she had the first time. Not passionately, not coldly: tenderly.

Then she put her hand on his chest and pushed.

“Now get on the goddamned airplane,” she said, “and, for Christ’s sake, be careful!”

Miller was standing by the door of the Lear.

“Can I go back to the car now? Your private tête-à-tête with the lady over?”

“Not one more fucking word, Dick!” Castillo said and then went up the steps of the Lear.

XVI

[ONE]

Aboard Lear 45X N5075L Over Cambridge, Maryland 0420 10 June 2005

“Washington Center,” Castillo said into his microphone, the glow from the instrument panel gently lighting him in the early morning light, “Lear Five-Zero-Seven-Five at flight level three-one-zero, on a heading two-zero-nine true, airspeed five hundred.”

“Roger, Lear Seven-Five.”

“Request approach and landing Pope Air Force Base. We have approach and landing clearance.”