Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

“Spoken like a true dip,” Lammelle said. “Big words meaning nothing in real life. You want to walk that scenario through? You go to Truman Ellsworth—do you really want to go to E

llsworth?—and you tell him I’m not giving you information you’re entitled to by law. He tells me to give you what you want, and I tell him I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. So he goes to President Clendennen—do you really want Ellsworth going to President Clendennen about this?—and he says Lammelle . . .”

She held up her hand to shut him off.

“Tell me again what it is you want me to give my word about,” she said.

“That after I tell you what I know, you won’t go any further with it—that’s sort of moot, because if you did that, I’d deny it—and also that you take no action of any kind without my approval.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she said. “You didn’t get to be DCI by being a nice guy, did you, Frank?”

“I got here by doing what I had to, in what I thought were the best interests of the United States.”

“What was it that Samuel Johnson said, Frank, on that April night in 1775? Something about patriotism?”

“Now I get the history lecture,” Lammelle said, chuckling. “He was talking about false patriotism, Natalie, when he said it was the last refuge of the scoundrel, not the real thing. False is when it doesn’t cost you anything. My kind is expensive. You can be disgraced. You can go to prison. You can even lose your life.”

“Are you feeling just a little self-righteous, Frank, after doing something you know you shouldn’t have done?”

“Okay. Conversation over. Is there anything else I can do for you before you go?”

The secretary of State was in deep thought a moment, then said, “Okay, you have my word.”

When he didn’t reply, she said, “Maybe you should have gone in the Foreign Service, Frank. You’re really a tough negotiator.”

“I have your word?” he asked.

“I said that you did.”

“All right. What Charley Castillo plans to do is grab Abrego—and, he hopes, Ferris—when either of them shows up at the Oaxaca State Prison, and see who that brings out of the woodwork.”

“How could he possibly manage that? The President has personally ordered General Naylor to see there is absolutely no U.S. military involvement . . .”

“At last count, he’s got about forty ex-Spetsnaz.”

“Where did he get ex-Spetsnaz?”

“From Aleksandr Pevsner, who believes that this whole kidnapping business is connected with Vladimir Putin’s plan to take out him and his family. Pevsner’s original reaction to hearing that the new Russian cultural affairs officer for Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala is Valentin Komarovski—who of course is really our old pal Sergei Murov, the SVR rezident here—was to whack anybody Pevsner even suspected was SVR until Putin got the message.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Castillo has managed to talk Pevsner out of this for the time being—which means until Castillo’s able to snatch Abrego and/or Ferris at the prison, and then see what the interrogation of whoever comes out of the woodwork turns up.

“We know the Venezuelans are involved. The guy who dropped the kidnapper’s letter in the post office slot in El Paso is José Rafael Monteverde, the financial attaché of the embassy of the República Bolivariana de Venezuela in Mexico City.”

“How do you know that?” Secretary Cohen asked.

“A friend of mine happened to be in the El Paso post office when he did it.”

“I will refrain myself from commenting that the CIA is expressly forbidden by law from operating within the United States,” she said.

“Anyway, Charley’s got people from China Post sitting on this guy. I think they’re going to want to talk to him.”

“China Post? The mercenary employment agency?”

“Charley prefers to think of them as former comrades in arms,” Lammelle said.

“Where’s he getting the money to pay for all this?” she asked, and then quickly added, “Don’t tell me. I think I know. ‘Those People’?”