Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Sergeant Major Davidson was sent to OOA.

It was Davidson who had recruited Dianne and Harold Sanders to run the OOA safe house on West Boulevard Drive. Master Sergeant Harold Sanders, who had been around the block several times with both Jack Davidson and Charley Castillo, had been unhappy with his role after he had been medically retired. Sanders said that he had become a camp follower, because CWO3 Dianne Sanders had remained on active service. But recognizing the situation, she then had retired, too.

Living the retired life in Fayetteville, North Carolina, however, then caused the both of them to be bored--almost literally--out of their minds.

They had jumped at the chance to work again with Charley and Jack, even if it only would be guarding the mouth of the cave. Still, both suspected that Charley would sooner or later require the services of a cryptographic analyst--and Dianne, recognized as one of the best code-breakers around, would be there.

Edgar Delchamps had been the CIA station chief in Paris, France, when Castillo, running down Dr. Lorimer's various connections, first met him. Men with thirty years in the Clandestine Services of the agency tended to regard thirty-six-year-old Army officers with something less than awe, and such had been the case when Delchamps laid eyes on then-Major C. G. Castillo.

He had told Castillo that he was the station chief in Paris as the result of an accommodation with his superiors in Langley. They didn't want him to retire because his doing so would leave him free to more or less run at the mouth concerning a number of failed operations that the agency devoutly wished would never again be mentioned. Langley reasoned that if Delchamps was stationed in Paris--the only assignment he was willing to accept--he couldn't

do much harm. Paris wasn't really important in the world of intelligence.

"Despite my name, I'm a Francophobe, Ace," Delchamps had told Castillo. "My files say all sorts of unkind things about the Frogs. They are sent to Langley, where, of course, they are promptly shredded--unread--by a platoon of Francophiles humming 'The Last Time I Saw Paris.'"

Delchamps made it perfectly clear that he had no desire whatever to become in any way associated with OOA. When, a month or so later, Castillo decided he had to have him whether or not he liked it, and Delchamps received orders to immediately report for indefinite temporary duty with OOA, he first had stopped by Langley to fill out his request for retirement, effective immediately.

He was dissuaded from going through with his retirement when Castillo told him he was going after the oil-for-food people with a presidential carte blanche to do what he thought had to be done, and that the carte blanche specifically ordered the Director of Central Intelligence to grant access to OOA to whatever intelligence--raw, in analysis, or confirmed--the CIA had in its possession. Castillo said he thought Edgar Delchamps was just the man to root around in Langley's basement. It was an offer Delchamps could not refuse.

And there was one man in the kitchen who was neither an American nor a member of OOA. Sandor Tor was the chief of security for the Budapester Tages Zeitung, of which Eric Kocian was the managing director and editor in chief. Tor didn't feel uncomfortable among the special operators and senior law-enforcement officers, as might be expected. Before he had gone to work for the newspaper, he had been an inspector on the Budapest police force and, before that, in his youth, a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion.

There were other people assigned to OOA, but all of those who had families--Corporal Lester Bradley, for example, and Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., USA (Retired), a West Point classmate of Colonel Castillo and OOA's chief of staff--had been turned loose by Castillo to be with them at Christmas.

[TWO]

One of the pair of wall-mounted telephones in the kitchen rang a little after two o'clock.

The young, muscular black Secret Service agent answered it.

Castillo wondered idly who was calling. Neither of the telephone numbers was listed in the phone book. Both rarely were used; everyone had their own cellular telephone or two. There were two secure telephones, one in what was Castillo's bedroom and the other in what he called his office, an anteroom off the great big living room.

Castillo was surprised when the Secret Service agent held out the phone receiver to him, indicating the call was for him. He crossed the room, took the phone, and, after putting his hand over the mouthpiece, asked with his eyebrows who was calling.

"Mr. Gorner, Colonel. He's on the list."

Castillo nodded his thanks, and in German cheerfully said into the phone, "Merry Christmas, Otto!"

Nice that Abuela is here, Castillo thought, glancing across the room and making eye contact with her. She and Otto can talk.

"I hope you know where Billy Kocian is," Gorner said by way of greeting, his voice completely devoid of Christmas bonhomie.

Castillo turned his gaze just slightly. "As a matter of fact, I'm looking at him."

"Thank God!" Gorner exclaimed, his genuine relief evident in his tone. "There was no answer at the Mayflower."

"Why do I think you're not calling to wish him a Merry Christmas?" Castillo said.

"I'm calling first to tell you to make sure he's safe."

"He is. He frequently complains that he can't go anywhere without being followed by two or more men who wear hearing aids and keep talking to themselves."

Castillo expected to get a chuckle, if only a reluctant one. He didn't.

"Gunther Friedler has been murdered," Gorner went on, "his corpse mutilated."

Who? Castillo thought.

Shit! Someone close to Billy obviously . . .