Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

Thus causing too much of a delay.

“Captain,” Naylor said, “you are not cleared for any knowledge of the nature of my business. Contact the Defense attaché immediately and inform him that an officer acting VOCICCENCOM demands to see him personally and now. That is an order, not a suggestion.”

The captain wasn’t sure he recognized what the acronym stood for, but did recognize an order when he heard one, and said, “Yes, sir. If the colonel will have a seat there, I will telephone Colonel Freedman.”

The captain pointed to a row of attached vinyl-upholstered chrome chairs against the wall.

Naylor did so. After five or six minutes he looked up at the wall and saw large photographs of President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, Vice President Charles W. Montvale, and Secretary of State Natalie Cohen smiling down at him.

He took out his CaseyBerry and punched a button.

“Yeah, Junior?” CIA Director A. Franklin Lammelle’s voice answered, after bouncing off a satellite floating twenty-seven thousand miles above the earth’s surface.

“Sir! Sir!” the Marine Guard sergeant called excitedly from behind the bulletproof glass of his station. “You can’t do that!”

“In the embassy, waiting for the attaché,” Naylor said.

“Good man! I’ll alert Natalie.”

Naylor put the CaseyBerry back in his shirt pocket.

“I can’t do what, Sergeant?”

“Use a cell phone in here.”

“This one worked just fine.”

“Sir, you’re not allowed to have a cell phone in here!”

“Why not?”

“You’re not a member of the embassy staff. I’ll have to ask you for your cell phone.”

“No.”

“Sir, I’ll have to insist.”

“Sergeant, the last I heard, sergeants can’t insist that lieutenant colonels do anything; it’s the other way around.”

“Sir, I’ll have to insist.”

“You already said that. The only way you’re going to get my cell phone, Sergeant, is to pry it from my cold dead fingers.”

As the sergeant considered that option, the situation was put on hold when the door to the plaza outside burst open and a spectacularly dressed officer entered.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

Naylor decided there was likely to be just one officer in the embassy who would be wearing the mess dress uniform of a full colonel of the USAF, and consequently this man had to be Colonel Freedman, the Defense attaché.

“Colonel, he has a cell phone and won’t give it up!” the Marine sergeant announced righteously.

“Who the hell are you?” Colonel Freedman demanded.

“Lieutenant Colonel Allan B. Naylor, Junior, sir. Are you the Defense attaché, sir?”

Naylor saw in Colonel Freedman’s eyes that the Air Force officer was aware that there was an Allan B. Naylor, Senior, and of the latter’s place in the military hierarchy.

“I’m Anthony Freedman, the Defense attaché. What can I do for you, Colonel?”