Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

McNab nodded. "I'm awed, and there is nothing that should be interpreted as sarcasm in that statement."

"General, with respect, I think I had better call those people now," Hamilton said.

"I was about to suggest that very thing. But on my terms, Colonel, not yours. Unless you want to tell me who they are and have me call them myself?"

"Sir, again, with res--"

"Yeah. I know. But before I have Phineas and Uncle Remus throw you on the floor and hold you down while Barefoot Boy pulls out your fingernails to get you to tell me who 'those people' are, why don't we try this: You get on the telephone to 'those people' and you say you're with me and I have the idea that the Iranians and the Russians are up to something nasty in the Congo. Then ask 'those people' how much you are allowed to cooperate with me, up to and including telling me just who 'those people' are. How about that?"

"Yes, sir," Hamilton said. "But what about the secure telephone, sir?"

"Tell them you don't have time to go to a secure telephone. Tell them if they have a number at which you can call them, we'll put it through the White House switchboard, which is about as secure as it gets."

"That sounds logical, sir."

"There's the telephone," McNab said, pointing.

"With your permission, sir, I'd prefer to use this," Colonel Hamilton said.

He took a cellular telephone from his trousers pocket and walked out onto the balcony, closing the sliding door after him. They saw him punch a long number into the phone.

"Memorized," Dmitri Berezovsky said. "Not autodial."

"I noticed," McNab said.

"You were joking about the fingernails, right?" Sandra Britton asked.

McNab looked at her. "If I thought that would work, he would now look as if he was wearing Red Passion nail polish."

"That is a very interesting man," Svetlana said.

"That has just earned you the award for Understatement of the Week, Sweaty."

" 'Sweaty'?" she repeated with some obvious displeasure.

"Isn't that what our Carlos calls you?"

"He calls me 'Svet.' That is short for--"

"He got you, Sweaty!" Delchamps said.

"I'm good at that," McNab said, smiling. "Didn't our Carlos tell you?"

"He's spending longer on that telephone than setting up a callback," Berezovsky said.

"Yeah," Darby said.

Colonel Hamilton put his cellular telephone back in his pants, slid the door open, and came back into the room.

"They will call me back," he announced. "But I'm afraid they are going to insist on a secure telephone."

"While we're waiting," McNab said, "why don't you tell us how you got all those degrees, Colonel?"

Hamilton nodded. "Yes, sir. Well, right after I gradua

ted from the Point, I was a Rhodes Scholar. I went to Oxford--Mansfield College--with the idea of taking the equivalent of an American master's degree in biochemistry. It was supposed to be for a year.

"It all came surprisingly easy to me, and when they told me I could probably earn a doctorate if I spent another year, I asked the Army for another year.