Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Colonel Jacob Torine was surprised to find Castillo feeding Max potato chips in the bar when he walked in, so surprised that he opened the conversation with the question: "They let dogs in here?"

"Only if they like you," Castillo said.

Sparkman and Delchamps chuckled; Torine shook his head.

"Let's get a table," Castillo said, nodding to a table in the corner of the red-velvet-walled and -draped room.

"When did you get here?" Castillo asked. "More important: Have you got something for me?"

Delchamps handed him a padded envelope sized to ship compact discs.

Castillo took his laptop computer from his briefcase, laid it on the table, and booted it up. He then pulled an unmarked recordable CD from the envelope and fed it to the computer.

"We were here--over in the Bristol--at eleven," Torine said. "Did you have a nice train ride down here?"

"A very interesting one," Castillo said.

Delchamps moved so he could see the laptop screen.

"I was about to mention that that disc is classified," Delchamps said. "But I see I won't have to. It's not working. What the hell happened?"

" 'United States Central Intelligence Agency,' " Castillo read off the screen. " 'Foreign Intelligence Evaluation Division. Top Secret. This material may not be removed from the FIED file-review room or copied by any means without the specific written permission of the Chief, FIED.' "

"How come I can't see that?"

&nb

sp; "You're getting a little long in the tooth, Edgar. When was the last time you had your eyes checked?"

"Come on, Charley!"

"It's got a filter over the screen," Castillo said. "Unless you hold your head in exactly the right position--dead straight on--you can't read the screen. More important, other people can't read your screen."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Radio Shack," Castillo said. Then: "Really. I think it cost four ninety-five." Then he said, "Oh, good, this has got Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva's dossier on it."

"You know about her?" Delchamps asked, surprised.

"Charley and I can even tell you the color of her underwear," Davidson said. "Professionally, of course."

Delchamps looked at him, shook his head, but didn't respond exactly.

"We had some trouble getting that disc, Charley," he said.

"Tell me," Castillo said, not taking his eyes from the laptop screen.

"Well, we got on the horn the minute we took off from Frankfurt. I told Miller what you wanted, and he said, 'No problem. I'll put Lester in a Yukon and send him over there. He's feeling underutilized anyway.'"

"And then?" Castillo asked.

"Dick called me back as we were about to land here, and said Langley was giving Lester trouble and the best way he could think to handle it was to go over there himself. That raised the question of how we were going to get the data without taking one of the AFC portables to the hotel and going through all the trouble of setting it up.

"Then Sparkman volunteered . . ."

Sparkman snorted.

". . . to stay at Schwechat and get the plane fueled, etcetera, and listen to the radio."