Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

COPY 2 OF 3 (SECRETARY COHEN)

JULY 25, 2005.

PRESIDENTIAL FINDING.

IT HAS BEEN FOUND THAT THE ASSASSINATION OF J. WINSLOW MASTERSON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA; THE ABDUCTION OF MR. MASTERSON’S WIFE, MRS. ELIZABETH LORIMER MASTERSON; THE ASSASSINATION OF SERGEANT ROGER MARKHAM, USMC; AND THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT ELIZABETH T. SCHNEIDER INDICATES BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT THE EXISTENCE OF A CONTINUING PLOT OR PLOTS BY TERRORISTS, OR TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, TO CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO THE INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES, ITS DIPLOMATIC OFFICERS, AND ITS CITIZENS, AND THAT THIS SITUATION CANNOT BE TOLERATED.

IT IS FURTHER FOUND THAT THE EFFORTS AND ACTIONS TAKEN AND TO BE TAKEN BY THE SEVERAL BRANCHES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO DETECT AND APPREHEND THOSE INDIVIDUALS WHO COMMITTED THE TERRORIST ACTS PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED, AND TO PREVENT SIMILAR SUCH ACTS IN THE FUTURE, ARE BEING AND WILL BE HAMPERED AND RENDERED LESS EFFECTIVE BY STRICT ADHERENCE TO APPLICABLE LAWS AND REGULATIONS.

IT IS THEREFORE FOUND THAT CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ACTION UNDER THE SOLE SUPERVISION OF THE PRESIDENT IS NECESSARY.

IT IS DIRECTED AND ORDERED THAT THERE IMMEDIATELY BE ESTABLISHED A CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WITH THE MISSION OF DETERMINING THE IDENTITY OF THE TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATIONS, ABDUCTION, AND ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED AND TO RENDER THEM HARMLESS. AND TO PERFORM SUCH OTHER COVERT AND CLANDESTINE ACTIVITIES AS THE PRESIDENT MAY ELECT TO ASSIGN.

FOR PURPOSES OF CONCEALMENT, THE AFOREMENTIONED CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WILL BE KNOWN AS THE OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. FUNDING WILL INITIALLY BE FROM DISCRETIONAL FUNDS OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. THE MANNING OF THE ORGANIZATION WILL BE DECIDED BY THE PRESIDENT ACTING ON THE ADVICE OF THE CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS.

MAJOR CARLOS G. CASTILLO, SPECIAL FORCES, U.S. ARMY, IS HEREWITH APPOINTED CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

SECRETARY OF STATE

TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL

“You carry this around, Charley, in case the cops stop you for speeding, right?” Damon asked, as he handed it back.

“I’ve been carrying it around in the false cover of my laptop until I decide what to do with it,” Castillo said, and then continued, “When I told the President what Mrs. Masterson had told me, he told me to find the brother and find out what was going on.

“Mrs. Masterson had told me he was living in Paris, so I went there. The CIA station chief was a guy named Edgar Delchamps, a dinosaur who knew so many embarrassing things about the Agency they were happy he was happy with the Paris assignment.

“He told me that it wouldn’t surprise him if Dr. Lorimer had been cut in little pieces and tossed in the Seine River. He said the word he had was that Jean-Paul had been the bagman for the Oil-for-Food people, had gotten greedy and walked off with sixteen million dollars and was either in the Seine or somewhere in South America.

“So I went back to South America, specifically here. And got lucky. I asked one of the so-called ‘legal attachés’ in the embassy if he had ever heard of Jean-Paul, and showed him his picture. He said he knew who it was, an antiquities—not antiques—dealer named Jean-Paul Bertrand; he had been watching him launder money.

“The simplest way to have him properly interrogated, I decided, was to get him to the States and let the FBI or IRS have at him. It wouldn’t be a problem, I thought. He was living here in the middle of nowhere. So I set up a quick, simple op to snatch him and get him on a C-37 I had waiting at Jorge Newbery.

“I stupidly decided I didn’t need Delta or Gray Fox, since I had a team consisting of myself, a very good sergeant named Jack Kensington—”

“This is the quick, simple op in which Jack got blown away?” Damon asked.

“Unfortunately, and my fault. I really fucked up. I really thought I could do it with just Jack and me, and some amateurs.

“Like Alfredo Munz, the former head of SIDE; Alex Darby, the CIA guy in Buenos Aires; Tony Santini and Jack Britton, of the Secret Service in Buenos Aires; Dave Yung, the FBI money-laundering guy from the Montevideo embassy; and last and least, I thought, nineteen-year-old Corporal Lester Bradley of the Marine guard at the Buenos Aires embassy.

“In addition to the C-37, I borrowed a chopper—”

“‘Borrowed,’ Charley? Or stole?”

“Aleksandr Pevsner owed me a favor. He loaned me a Bell.”

“Aleksandr Pevsner as in ‘notorious arms dealer’? That Aleksandr Pevsner?”

“That one. Don’t be so judgmental, Greg,” Castillo said. “Remember what it says in the Good Book: ‘Judge not…’”

“So, what the hell went wrong?”