The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

Lorimer's right trouser leg had been pulled up. Rising from his stockinged ankle was a dully shining metal tube.

Titanium, Castillo thought. They now make those things out of titanium. How do I know that?

"What happened to your leg?" Castillo asked gently.

"RPG," Lorimer said.

"Where?"

"Afghanistan. We got bushwhacked on the way to Mazar. On Highway A76."

Castillo knew well the Mazar airfield-and, for that matter, Highway A76, the road to it from Kabul. The next to last time he had been there, he had "borrowed" a Black Hawk helicopter to make an extraction of the crew of another Black Hawk that had been shot down. Far senior officers had reluctantly concluded that the weather was so bad that making such an attempt would have been suicidal.

The last time he'd been at Mazar was to board a USAF C-5 Galaxy for the States, which carried him home with a vaguely phrased letter of reprimand for "knowingly and flagrantly violating flight safety rules."

The letter of reprimand was the compromise reached between several very senior officers who wished to recommend him for the Distinguished Service Cross-or perhaps even The Medal-and other very senior officers who wished to bring the crazy Special Forces sonofabitch before a General Court-Martial for willful disobedience of orders.

"How far up does that thing go?" Castillo asked.

"To the knee. Actually, the knee's part of it. All titanium."

"What were you doing in Afghanistan?"

"I thought I was winning their hearts and minds until this happened."

"You were Special Forces?"

Lorimer nodded. "Was. Now I'm Intelligence. DIA."

"How did that happen?"

"Well, for a while I thought I could do a Freddy Franks, but that didn't work."

General Frederick M. Franks Jr., then an Army major, lost a leg to wounds suffered in the Cambodian Incursion during the Vietnam War. He managed to stay in the Army by proving he could pass any physical test required of any officer. He became both the first one-legged general since the Civil War and, as a four-star general, the commander of ground forces in the First Desert War. Franks served as an inspiration to all-particularly to amputees.

"Why not?"

"It hurt too much."

"Okay. Who told you about this place?" Castillo asked.

"I asked around, sir."

"I asked who, Lieutenant."

Castillo looked at Ricardo Solez, who proclaimed his innocence by shaking his head and wagging both hands palms outward.

Lorimer said, "A lot people, sir. I just put it together."

"Among them Solez?"

"He was one of them, but he wouldn't tell me anything. But he's how I found out where you were."

Castillo glanced at Solez, who motioned to maintain his innocence, then looked back at Lorimer.

"He told you where we were?" Castillo said.

Lorimer shook his head. "I followed him and that kid with the.45 out here from the embassy."