Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

“This guy could be tied to the cartels.”

“Before he joined the Venezuelan foreign service, he did three years with the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia.”

“Even if that were true . . .”

“It’s true, Mark.”

“. . . how could I go to the President with that? I think he’d want to know where I got my information.”

“Don’t go to the President with it. Just face the real problem.”

“Which is?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Are you going to close your eyes to it?”

Schmidt met his eyes but didn’t reply.

“And I’ve had this further discomfiting thought,” Lammelle said. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe Montvale does want to move into the Oval Office.”

“Have you heard anything?”

Lammelle shook his head. “But one way for him to get there would be to allow Clendennen to get a lot of egg on his face trying to swap Félix Abrego for Ferris.”

Schmidt didn’t reply directly. Instead, he said: “The President has ordered the attorney general to move Abrego from Florence to a minimum-security prison, La Tuna, which is twelve miles north of El Paso.”

“You’ve already heard from the, quote unquote, drug people?” Lammelle asked.

Schmidt went to his desk, worked a combination lock, opened a drawer, and took from it a folder. From that he pulled out a single sheet of paper and a photograph and handed both to Lammelle.

The photograph showed Colonel Ferris much as the first two photos of him had. He was sitting in a chair. Two men with Kalashnikov rifles stood next to him. Ferris’s beard showed that he had not shaved. He was holding a day-old copy of El Diario de El Paso in front of him.

Lammelle read the message, which, like the first two messages, had been printed on a cheap computer printer:Delighted that we can do business.

To prove that Señor Abrego has been moved from Florence, please arrange for El Diario to publish a photograph of him taken in an easily recognizable location near El Paso from which he can be quickly moved to the exchange point, which will be made known to you once we have examined the photograph.

“Clendennen has his own channel to these people?” Lammelle asked.

“That came in after the President ordered Abrego moved,” Schmidt said.

“Where is Abrego now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s been time to move him to La Tuna.”

“Find out for me,” Lammelle said. “I want to know where he is minute by minute.”

“Why?”

“Because when the Merry Outlaws launch their plan to rescue Ferris, Abrego’s location is intelligence Castillo has to have.”

“The President doesn’t want Castillo anywhere near this.”

“I know. Which means you’re going to have to make up your mind whether you’re going along with Clendennen’s—how do I put this?—logically challenged notions of how to deal with this, which will probably result in Ferris’s being dead, the President really going over the edge, and Vice President Montvale convening the Cabinet to vote on Clendennen’s, quote unquote, temporary incapacity, requiring him to assume the presidency, or going along with Castillo.”

“Castillo has a well-earned reputation for leaving bodies all over.”

“Do you really care how many SVR bodies or drug cartel bodies Castillo leaves anywhere?”

Schmidt considered the question for a long moment, as if it confused him, and then he said: “Frank, when I consider the option of Montvale taking over, I have to admit that I don’t.”