By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

Torine’s face showed I have just let my mouth run and he looked with some embarrassment at McNab.

“Tell him,” McNab said, and then before Torine could open his mouth, went on: “General Naylor, probably because he thought I didn’t have the need to know, did not elect to share with me why we were looking for the 727 in Chad, but . . .”

He gestured with his hand for Torine to pick up the story.

Torine looked at Castillo.

“You know who General McFadden is?”

“General Naylor’s deputy commander at MacDill?” Castillo replied.

“Right,” Torine said. “We go back a long way. When General McFadden called me to lay on the support of the C-17 for the McNab mission, he told me, out of school, that despite the current wisdom at CentCom that the 727 was going to fly to Philadelphia and crash into the Liberty Bell he thought that there was a good chance it was going to be flown to Mecca and be crashed into the ka’ba, thereby really enraging the Muslim world. It’s an American airplane; they would probably find the body of the American pilot . . .”

“Jesus!” Castillo said.

“Which made a lot more sense to both of us than the Liberty Bell,” McNab said. “And still does.”

“General, I really think Philadelphia is the target,” Castillo said.

“Far be it from me to question the judgment of the president ’s personal representative,” McNab said. “Tell us about the fuel bladders, Torine.”

God knows I am an expert on McNabian sarcasm, and, again, there’s more to that crack than what it sounds like. What the hell is he hinting at?

“Okay, where was I?” Torine asked, consulting his computer again. “Okay. A bladder holds five hundred gallons. We don’t know how many bladders were loaded aboard in Abéché . . .”

“I can find out, probably, when I get to Cozumel,” Castillo said.

“. . . but more than one. So let’s go with what we know. Two bladders, 1,000 gallons,” Torine went on, stabbing at his pocket computer with his stylus. “Figuring .226 nautical miles per gallon, that’s . . . an additional 226 miles of range—2,170 plus 226 is 2,396. They’d run out of fuel 59 miles out of Georgetown.”

“Factor in another couple of bladders,” McNab ordered. “Tell me how many bladders it would take to give them the fuel they need. For that matter, tell me how many bladders they can get on that airplane.”

“Okay,” Torine said. “Two more bladders would give them another 226 miles. That’d get them across the drink with 160-odd miles to spare. Six would get them there with almost 400 miles to spare.”

“We better figure they had eight,” McNab said. “What about the weight?”

“I don’t think it would be a problem,” Torine said. “Let me check.”

There was a knock at the door. D’Alessandro went to it and opened it.

A Special Forces master sergeant was standing there.

"You’re wanted on the secure line, Mr. D’Alessandro,” he said.

> D’Alessandro opened the drawer of a desk and took out a telephone. He spoke briefly into it and then extended it to Castillo.

“Castillo.”

“Dick, Charley,” Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said. “We have confirmation that the two guys who were at Britton’s mosque were also at Spartan. Where they were certified in the 727.”

“Great. That pretty much settles it, wouldn’t you say?”

“It looks that way,” Miller said. “There’s something else, Charley.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“Betty Schneider said to give you a message.”

“Equally great. What is it?”