By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“I’d rather not tell you until I’m sure,” Pevsner said.

“W

hy not?”

Kennedy looked at Pevsner for guidance. Pevsner gave it with a wave of his hand.

“Well, when it comes to payback time for our cooperation in your investigation,” Kennedy said, “I don’t want somebody—my former colleagues are very good at this— saying, ‘Well, yeah, he did tell Castillo that the plane was in Chad, but we’d have heard about that anyway, and he did tell Castillo that the 727 was going to South America, but where else could it have gone? And when he told Castillo that the airplane was in El Vigia, having thus and so done to it, that was absolutely untrue. Pevsner gave Castillo nothing we couldn’t have gotten ourselves, and, therefore, we owe him nothing.”

“Tell me about ‘thus and so,’ Howard,” Castillo said.

Kennedy put up both hands, palms outward, signaling, Not from me, Charley.

“Tell me, Charley,” Pevsner asked, “do you think the government of Venezuela would admit to any knowledge of a stolen airplane, possibly in the hands of terrorists, having flown to a private landing strip near Lake Maracaibo?”

Castillo met his eyes but didn’t say anything.

“Or,” Pevsner went on, “that while it was there, it took on new registration numbers—a fresh identity—and a great deal of fuel, much of it loaded into fuel bladders, and then took off again?”

“Took off for where?” Castillo asked, softly.

“I’ve got a good idea but I don’t want to tell you until I’m sure,” Pevsner said.

“I have to know what you think,” Castillo said.

“Let me run an off-the-wall scenario past you,” Kennedy said. “With the understanding that you know that this is not what Mr. Dondiemo and I are telling you is likely to happen. Just for the sake of conversation, all right?”

“Okay.”

Charley saw Fernando walk over to inspect the breakfast buffet. Then he found himself a chair, carried it to the table the waiters had set up, and then began to help himself to the food.

Colonel Torine was apparently inspired by Fernando’s hunger. He got a chair and pulled it up to the table and then started filling a plate from the buffet.

“The eggs Benedict here are really quite nice, Charley,” Pevsner said. “Why don’t you join them?”

“Maybe because I would feel I was chewing while Rome burns?” Charley replied.

Pevsner chuckled.

Oh, to hell with it. I am hungry.

He found a chair and put it beside Fernando’s and then went to the buffet.

Kennedy picked up another chair, wordlessly offered it to Pevsner, who smiled and shook his head. Kennedy then put the chair beside that of Colonel Torine and went to the buffet table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Charley, on tasting the eggs Benedict, smiled.

“I’m pleased that you are pleased, Charley,” Pevsner said. “They are to your satisfaction, no?”

“They’re fine,” Charley said. “Okay, Howard, shoot.”

“This scenario needs to take certain things as given,” Kennedy began. “One of them is that the people who have this airplane are considerably more skilled than those who flew the 767s into the World Trade Center. These guys are pilots, skilled enough to fly—navigate—a 727 across the Atlantic . . .”

“Supposition granted,” Castillo said. “They’re graduates of the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa. What else?”

“You know who these people are?” Pevsner asked, surprised.

Castillo nodded. “We even have their names and photographs. ”