"Pissing in the wind?" Svetlana asked innocently.
McNab couldn't repress a smile. "If you're so smart, why is it you keep looking at Charley like he's the man of your dreams?"
"I suppose that's because he is. Now, how do we get the proof?"
"First, we have to define proof," McNab said.
"How do we do that?" Svetlana asked.
"We get us an expert," McNab said.
"Fort Dietrich," Delchamps said.
"Fort Dietrich," McNab confirmed. "Corporal Bradley, I presume you have the AFC up and running?"
"Yes, sir," Bradley said. He walked to General McNab and gave him the handset.
"Pay attention, please," McNab said. "We are about to take the irreversible step. Cross the Rubicon, so to speak. This is everybody's absolutely final last chance to bail out. And I have to say that I really wish I wasn't running this circus, because I would be the first one out the door."
He looked around the room one final time, then picked up the handset.
"Bruce J. McNab. Encryption Level One. Get me the White House switchboard."
"White House. Good evening, General McNab. How can we help you?"
"Get me the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, on a secure line, please."
"The what?" Berezovsky asked, confused.
McNab put his hand over the mouthpiece. "They used to call it the Chemical Warfare Lab. That was before political correctness took over."
XV
[ONE]
The Malaga Suite
Portofino Island Resort & Spa
Pensacola Beach, Florida
2359:30 6 January 2006
One of the many things then--Second Lieutenant Castillo had learned during his tenure as aide-de-camp to then-Brigadier General McNab was that McNab believed that no matter how noble one's intentions, working when fatigued usually produced little that was useful and too often what was produced was sloppy or in error--or both.
He began a meeting like this one by judging the participants and himself and deciding how long it could profitably last.
Castillo, therefore, was not surprised when Lieutenant Colonel Peter Woods interrupted McNab in the middle of a sentence to announce, "Midnight in thirty seconds, General."
When they had walked into the suite after their dinner at McGuire's, McNab had caught Woods's eye and said, "Midnight." Colonel Woods had nodded his understanding.
One thing all the participants had learned tonight was that General McNab did not like to be interrupted. Everybody but Woods and Castillo therefore waited for the explosion when Woods announced the time.
Instead, McNab turned to Svetlana and smiled. "As your boyfriend--I would say 'gentleman friend,' Susan, but that would not be accurate--may have told you, at the stroke of midnight I change from being a kindly friend of man and mentor to the world into an ogre."
"Oh, I can't believe that," Svetlana said.
This earned her another smile.