Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“Good morning, Bruce,” Secretary of State Natalie Cohen said thirty seconds later.

“Madam Secretary, I believe it would be best if no one but you was in a position to hear any part of this conversation.”

“All right,” she said, and he heard her announce to someone, somewhat curtly, “You’ll have to excuse me while I take this call.”

Thirty seconds after that, she said, “I get the feeling this call is important.”

“The President just took off from here, back to Washington, via Biloxi.”

“What in the world was he doing at Fort Bragg?”

“He wanted to have his picture taken with Clendennen’s Commandos before they go to Mexico to seize Drug Cartel International Airport.”

“‘Clendennen’s Commandos’?”

“He has renamed Delta Force and Black Fox.”

“My God!”

“And he wants them to start wearing the kilts of Clan Clendennen.”

“Unbelievable!”

“I respectfully suggest, Madam Secretary, that you convene a conference of the senior officials aware of the problem to discuss bringing the matter to the Vice President and the Cabinet.”

“It looks as if we’re going to have to do that. Is that what you’re saying, Bruce?”

“Yes, Madam Secretary, it is.”

“Your formality is making me nervous, frankly.”

“I beg your pardon, if that is the case.”

“There’s a problem with convening something like that. Who are you thinking of?”

“Mr. Ellsworth, Mr. Lammelle, General Naylor, Attorney General Palmer, and FBI Director Schmidt, Madam Secretary.”

“Not the Vice President?”

“Vice President Montvale, Madam Secretary, came to me privately and said that if the situation ever came to this, he wished not to be involved, so that later there could be no accusations that he had led a coup.”

“He came to me saying the same thing. And he’s right. But if the President learns, as I am very afraid he will, that I have convened these people, he’s going to cry coup. What are we going to do about that?”

“Hold the meeting in secret, Madam Secretary.”

“That would be just about impossible, Bruce, and you know it.”

“Madam Secretary, I suggest we could hold the meeting in secret if we went to Greek Island.”

It took her a moment to reply.

“If we’re talking about the same Greek Island, Bruce, that was shut down shortly after the Berlin Wall came down.”

“It’s still there, Madam Secretary. No longer controlled by the government, but still there.”

“Are you suggesting we go to West Virginia, to the Greenbrier Hotel, and reopen Greek Island? For one thing, how could we get in? If they haven’t bricked up the opening, then they have gutted it.”

“No, ma’am,” McNab said. “When there was no longer a need for a place for Congress to go in case of a nuclear attack, the government stripped the place and turned it back over to its owner.”