By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“His family has a 45XR? No wonder he can afford to live in the Mayflower,” Dr. Cohen said.

“It also probably has something to do with his Secret Service code name,” the president said.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Cohen asked.

“Don Juan,” the president said, obviously pleased with himself. Then he saw Dr. Cohen’s face and that she was obviously not amused and looked at Sergeant Schneider and went on: “What about when he called from Mexico, Betty?”

“When Castillo told Major Miller and I to go to the airport and find out what airlines regularly flew into Philly from Costa Rica,” Betty replied, “I played a hunch and got lucky and called Terrence Halloran, who owns Lease-Aire, who owns the missing 727, and asked him what he knew about Costa Rican airlines flying into Philly. He knew of one right away. He’d sold a 727 to an outfit called Costa Rican Air Transport. They fly wholesale flowers, grown down there, into Philly at least once a week. They sell them in supermarkets. ”

“The Somalians are going to substitute the stolen airplane for a legitimate Costa Rican airplane?” Dr. Cohen asked.

“Right, Natalie,” Hall said. “Castillo told me the Russian told him that the airplane was flown from Africa to a private field in Venezuela, near Lake Maracaibo, and given new numbers—Costa Rican numbers—there.”

“Castillo’s Russian is a virtual cornucopia of useful, reliable information, isn’t he?” the president said, not at all pleasantly. “How nice if we could say the same about the CIA.”

No one said anything for a moment

Miller finally broke the silence. “There’s more, Mr. President. They pass through customs at Tampa on their way to Philadelphia, which means when they move on to Philadelphia they’re a domestic flight, not an international flight. And they’ll have clearance to approach the Philadelphia airport. ”

“It’s what we cops call circumstantial, Mr. President,” Betty said, now having lost her nervousness. “No positive, concrete, take-it-to-the-bank proof, but everything fits . . .”

The president raised his hand in a signal to stop.

“Fred,” the president ordered, “call off the invasion of Suriname.”

“Call it off, Mr. President?” Secretary of Defense Beiderman asked. “A complete stand-down?”

“I don’t want those F-15s shooting down a Surinamese airplane. I don’t care what you call it, just see that it’s done.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Beiderman said and walked toward a credenza that held two telephones.

“Or the CIA blowing one up on the ground,” the president went on as if to himself. He picked up a telephone handset from the coffee table, said, “Get me the DCI. I’ll hold.”

It took less than twenty seconds to get the director of Central Intelligence on the line.

“This is the president, John. Now, listen carefully, as I have time neither to repeat myself nor explain nor debate it. I want no action of any kind taken in Suriname. None. Period. I’ll get back with you shortly and explain this, but, right now, I want you to call off whatever you may have planned. Thank you.”

He hung up.

He exhaled, looked around the room, smiled at Sergeant Schneider and Major Miller, and then had another thought, which caused the smile to fade.

“And how did the mayor of Philadelphia react on being informed that we still have a little problem with the Liberty Bell?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell him, Mr. President,” Matt Hall said. “He would have immediately gone on TV and ordered the evacuation of Center City Philadelphia.”

“Jesus!” the president said. “Well, he’s going to find out sooner or later. How do we deal with that?”

“There’s no reason he ever has to find out, Mr. President, ” Hall said.

The president’

s eyebrows rose in surprise and it was a moment before he asked, “Presuming we can neutralize the real airplane, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Worst-case scenario, the airplane leaves Costa Rica and makes it to Tampa, where we grab it on the ground,” Hall said.

“That presumes they won’t have a change of mind en route and fly it into a cruise ship parked in Miami Harbor, Disney World, or some other target that makes about as much sense. We have to do better than that, Matt,” the president said.