Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Davidson put both hands on the top of the steering wheel and turned to Castillo. Their eyes met.

Here comes Jack's lead boot. . . .

After a moment, Davidson said, "Please tell me, Charley, that you are (a) fucking Little Miss Red Underpants as an interrogative technique to gain the confidence of the interrogatee, or at least (b) you had a couple of belts and things got temporarily out of control."

"None of the above, Jack."

"Oh, shit."

Castillo shrugged. "I'm in love."

"Well, then I guess it's a good thing that I'm going to retire. When McNab hears about this, the most I could hope for would be to spend the rest of my days in the Army counting tent pegs in a quartermaster warehouse in Alaska."

"I'll make sure he knows that you did everything possible short of shooting me in the knees with a hollow-point .22 to dissuade me from my insanity."

Davidson shook his head in resignation. "If I thought that would do any good, that's just what I would do."

"I would resign today, Jack, if it wasn't for this chemical operation in the Congo."

Davidson met his eyes again.

"When Berezovsky started talking," Davidson said, "it looked like Delchamps was on the money when he said that was heavy."

"It is. Very heavy."

"Okay. You and Delchamps believe him. I'll grant you that; I'm not going to say both of you are wrong. So I'll give you that. But what the hell do you think you can do about it? Delchamps says the CIA knows about the plant and doesn't think it's a threat. And I don't think they'll listen to you or Delchamps that it is. They probably wouldn't believe Berezovsky and/or your lady friend if they had them. Which they don't. Which opens that can of worms."

"Can I wave duty in your face, Jack?"

Davidson shook his head. After a moment, he softly said: "Yeah. For Christ's sake, you know you can, Charley."

"I think it's my duty to take out that chemical factory, even if the CIA doesn't think it's a threat."

Davidson nodded his understanding. "And how are you going to do that?"

"I haven't quite figured that out yet."

After a moment, Davidson said, "Are you willing to listen to some unpleasant facts?"

"I'll be surprised if you can think of any I haven't thought of myself--that's not a crack at you, Jack; I've really given this a lot of thought--but go ahead."

"The CIA is already pissed that you have the Russians."

Castillo nodded his acceptance of that statement.

"And I don't think you're going to turn either of them over to the agency."

"I'm not, Jack."

Davidson shook his head again. "Which is really going to piss them off. And Montvale, too."

Castillo nodded again.

"Your authority, Charley, comes from the Presidential Finding, which is to 'locate and render harmless' the people who whacked Jack 'The Stack' Masterson. Period. Nothing else. It says nothing about turning Russian spooks and nothing about going into the Congo and taking out a chemical factory--one the agency knows about and doesn't think is a threat."

He paused for a long time, a period that Charley took to mean that Jack was letting that counsel sink in.

Then Davidson shook his head again and went on: "So where do you think we're going to get what we need to take out the factory? That's got to be a helluva long laundry list--"