Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“I guess if you’re the most important general in the world, nobody can tell you to shut up.”

“Sorry,” Naylor said, and then, “I mean it. I’m sorry, Bruce, please go on.”

“And Charley’s oldest friend,” McNab went on.

Naylor opened his mouth to ask what was meant by that, but with a massive effort didn’t speak.

McNab pointed at Lieutenant Colonel Allan B. Naylor.

“They’ve been buddies since they were in short pants in that school in Fulda…”

“Saint Johan’s,” Lieutenant Colonel Naylor furnished.

“Unfortunately, Colonel, you’re apparently a chip off the old blockhead,” McNab said. “Shut up. When I want input from you, I’ll tell you.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“That was when Charley was only Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. Later, when he had also become that famous Texican—one Carlos Guillermo Castillo—Junior here followed him to West Point. Most recently, he was involved—on the fringes, to be sure, but involved—in Charley’s brief but successful incursion in the People’s Democratic Republic of Venezuela.

“Vic and Junior are, Natalie, Frank, and I feel, the ideal people to tell Charley all sides of the story. The three of us also feel that it is only fair to offer Charley the advice of fellow Outlaws we feel he might wish to bring with him, should he decide to go on active duty. People he trusts almost as much as he trusts Sweaty, who therefore may be able to overcome Sweaty’s rather firm position.

“To accomplish that, Frank’s Gulfstream will fly Vic and Junior to scenic Tocumen International Airport in the Republic of Panama, where they will board—on the CIA’s dime, by the way—yet another Gulfstream, this one owned by Panamanian Executive Aircraft, a wholly owned subsidiary of the LCBF Corporation.

“It will then fly to Argentina piloted by Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF, Retired, who was Castillo’s de facto chief of staff in the glory days of the Office of Organizational Analysis and later in the era of the often-maligned-by-the-President Merry Outlaws.

“His co-pilot will be Major Richard Miller, USA, Retired. On one hand, Major Miller is much like Colonel Naylor. He, too, marches in the Long Gray Line, and his father, too, is a general officer. On the other, before he got himself shot down and pretty badly banged up in Afghanistan, Miller was one hell of a Special Operations pilot and not only with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

“All of these people will confer with Castillo and his charming fiancée, and then we will hear whatever it is he has to say.

“That’s our best shot at this problem. The final decision, of course, is up to you, Allan. If you want to go to Argentina and deal with Charley yourself, no one can—or should—try to stop you.”

Tapping the fingertips of both hands together, General Naylor considered the question for a full thirty seconds, and then said, “Bruce, please call Mr. Lammelle and ask him to send his airplane.”

McNab nodded and then looked at Vic D’Alessandro, who gestured with his CaseyBerry.

“ETA here is fifteen minutes, General,” D’Alessandro reported.

II

[ONE]

The House on the Hill

Las Vegas, Nevada

1605 5 June 2007

The eavesdropping on the communications of the world by the National Security

Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, is a rather simple procedure: They record everything said over the telephone, over the radio—and sometimes heard by cleverly placed “bugs”—by those in whom the several intelligence agencies of the United States are interested and then run it through a computer that filters out the garbage and after cracking any cryptography involved transfers the good stuff to another tape that is then distributed to the appropriate intelligence agency for analysis.

The idea is simple, the technology required is not.

Before the AFC Corporation took over the supplying of the technology—hardware and software—the NSA was relatively as deaf and useful as a stone pole. Afterward, of course, it was not.

Before the AFC Corporation took the NSA contract, Dr. Aloysius Casey— by far the majority stockholder in AFC, and both its chief engineer and chairman of its board of directors—could not be honestly said to have been putting victuals on his table with food stamps.

After the contracts went into force, though, he really prospered.