Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"What's Jack want to do?"

"He wants to go back to Philly and play Bat Masterson with the people who shot at his wife," Isaacson said.

"This is probably the wrong thing to say, but I can understand that."

"You're right. It is the wrong thing to say. Charley, I assumed responsibility for them. The big brass are determined he will not go back to Philadelphia; they wanted to hold him--them--as material witnesses to an assault on a federal officer."

"Can they do that?"

"They could her. What I told the supervisor was that they were going to have a hard time convincing a judge that a member of the Vice President's protection detail--and a highly decorated former Philly cop--was going to vanish so that he wouldn't have to testify against the bad guys who had tried to whack him and his wife. That's when they turned them over to me. They'd rather that I be responsible for putting this little escapade on the front page of The Washington Post."

When Castillo didn't immediately reply, Isaacson went on: "Or for a headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer: 'Secret Service Agent Guns Down Area Muslims; Alleges They Tried to Kill Him and His Wife.'"

"So that's the priority? Keeping egg off the face of the Secret Service?"

"That, and keeping Jack out of jail."

"What am I supposed to do with them?"

"Convince him that going back to Philly would be stupid, then put them on ice someplace until this can be worked out."

"Personally, I'll do anything I can for Jack. But why me?"

"Because the chief of the Secret Service has been told that any inquiries he wishes to make about OOA will have to go through me."

"Jesus Christ!"

"Indeed. Merry Christmas, Charley. Please don't tell me what you decide to do with them; that way I'll truthfully be able to say I don't know where they are when I'm asked. And I will be asked."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo said again.

But no one heard him.

The legend on the screen now read: CALL TERMINATED.

III

[ONE]

7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia

1445 25 December 2005

"Not more bad news, I hope, Carlos?" Dona Alicia asked as Castillo took what Davidson referred to as the "paterfamilias seat" at the head of the table.

Castillo looked at her and had the first not-unpleasant thought he'd had in the last five minutes: This is not classified. I won't have to take Delchamps and McGuire into the office or, even worse, ask Abuela to leave the room so we can discuss it.

"There's some good news," he said. "And . . ."

"Let's have that first," Dona Alicia said. "The good news."

"Okay. Jack Britton and his wife will appear here shortly."

"Oh, good!" Tom McGuire said. "You'll like them, Dona Alicia. Particularly her. Great sense of humor. As my sainted mother used to say, she's the kind of girl who can make a corpse sit up in his casket at the funeral and start whistling."

"Tom, that's terrible," Dona Alicia said, but she was smiling.