Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

tieth-floor Venetian penthouse.

“How’s that?” Edgar asked softly.

“Odds are my business,” Hotelier replied. “What would you say the odds were that Colonel Castillo was going to get away with his Venezuelan incursion?”

“Hundred to one against?” Delchamps asked.

“I’d have taken the bet at two hundred to one against,” Hotelier said. “And that being the case, I started wondering how—or who—could get the Congo-X and Castillo and the others away from the Russians.”

“Once they got Charley, Sweaty, and Dmitri on the nonstop to Moscow, that would be close to impossible. Even taking a shot at it would take a hell of a lot of money.”

“I have a hell of a lot of money,” Hotelier said.

Delchamps had looked at Hotelier for a long moment and then turned to Castillo.

“Ace, I trust this guy,” he said. “And since you trust these two, I guess only the others go swimming with those big fishes as we discussed.”

“If I may make a suggestion?” Hotelier had asked.

“Why not?” Delchamps had replied.

“As hard as you might find this to believe,” Hotelier said, “some of the guests in my places of business try to cheat. When we catch them doing so, we reason with them, point out they have made a bad decision, and tell them what’s going to happen if they ever again make such a bad decision or even think about doing so.

“If we—you and I, Mr. Delchamps—went to the gentlemen we’re talking about and reasoned with them, I’m sure they would recognize how gross an error they have made, and would be willing to offer their solemn assurance they would never do so again. If we did this, we would not be shutting off, so to speak, the money spigot.”

“Yeah,” Delchamps said. “Why don’t you call me Edgar?”

Despite the satisfactory resolution of the Confrontation, Aloysius still felt he had let down Castillo—had not covered his back—as he should have and resolved never to let that happen again.

To accomplish this he designed, built, tested, and then installed in the House on the Hill a miniature version of the interception system he had designed, built, tested, and installed for the NSA at Fort Meade.

The system he had installed at Fort Meade had several acres of computers to perform its tasks, but the one Casey installed at home was not designed to intercept messages of all kinds but only those going through the CaseyBerry Communications System; it fit in a small case about the size of two shoe boxes stacked one upon the other, which he kept in what had been Mary-Catherine’s wardrobe.

The best way to explain its capabilities is by example:

For example, when the system heard Mr. Lammelle ask, “Well, what thinks the Queen of Foggy Bottom?” it automatically went into Record/Alert mode as the words “Queen,” “Foggy,” and “Bottom,” in any combination, were in the filter database.

It turned on the Secondary Recording function, which went to the Primary Recording system, which operated all the time in a Run & Erase mode, and copied from it everything that had been recorded from a point in time ten seconds before the system had been triggered by hearing “Queen” and transferred it to the Secondary Recording function.

It added a date and time block, identified the parties to the call as Mr. Lammelle and Secretary Cohen, and found and stored their locations. But so far it didn’t do a thing to Mr. Casey’s CaseyBerry.

When, however, DCI Lammelle inquired of the secretary of State whether or not they should tell Truman Ellsworth that Charley was not in Budapest, “Charley,” or variations thereof, being the number one search filter, Mr. Casey’s CaseyBerry burst into life.

It vibrated, buzzed, and tinkled pleasantly to get his attention, and when he pushed ACTIVATE BUTTON #3, flashed on its screen the names of the parties to the call, their locations, and Charley’s location. When he pushed ACTIVATE BUTTON #4, it played back the entire conversation.

In a similar manner, Mr. Casey was made privy to Mr. Lammelle’s second call to Secretary Cohen; Mr. Lammelle’s call to General McNab in which he told McNab to expect General Naylor to stop by; General McNab’s call to Charley; General McNab’s second call to Charley, during which Sweaty threatened to castrate General McNab with an otxokee mecto nanara (including the translation of this phrase from the Russian language); Lammelle’s call to Colonel Torine, ordering the charter of a Panamanian Executive Aircraft Gulfstream on the CIA’s dime to be held ready to fly to Argentina; and finally Lammelle’s call to Mr. D’Alessandro telling him when the DCI’s Gulfstream was expected to arrive at Pope Air Force Base.

At that point, Mr. Casey pushed another button, which connected him with Hotelier.

“Listen to this,” he said, “and tell me what you think.”

He punched a button that transmitted all of the intercepts to Hotelier’s CaseyBerry, whereupon Hotelier listened to them.

“I would hazard the guess Clendennen has somehow gotten out of his straitjacket,” Hotelier said.

“I’m worried that Lester will hear about this and rush down there to protect Charley,” Casey said.

“Aloysius, as you have so often told me, acquiring as much intelligence as one can has to be the first step before taking any action. Now, who in Washington has the best access to what our President is up to at any given moment?”