Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"At the risk of repeating myself, let me think about it. I'll call you back. Castillo out."

Aloysius Casey put down his cards, faceup. "All I have is three jacks and a pair of fours," he said, mock innocently. "What do they call that, a full house?"

As he pulled the money in the center of the table to him, he said, "You want to talk to this Montvale guy, Charley?"

"I don't want to, but I would if I could figure out how to do it without having him find out where I am."

"Ask and you shall receive." He turned toward the AFC radio. "White House, via the Venetian."

"Right away, Dr. Casey," Sexy Susan said.

"What this does is activate a cellular in a suite we keep at the Venetian," Casey said. "Not encrypted--I'm working on that--but what it does is tell the phone company--and Meade, Langley, anyone who's curious--that the call is being made on a cellular in Vegas. That's all. I don't know how many rooms there are in the Venetian, a couple of thousand, anyway . . ."

"You are a genius, sir."

"White House."

"Colonel Castillo for Ambassador Montvale."

"On a regular line?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ambassador Montvale's line."

"Lieutenant Colonel Castillo for Ambassador Montvale," Sexy Susan announced. "The line is not secure."

"It's Castillo," they heard Truman C. Ellsworth, Montvale's deputy, say.

"On the White House line?" Montvale then said, and then the director of National Intelligence came on the line. "Good evening, Colonel Castillo."

"Burning the late-night oil, are you, Mr. Ambassador?"

"Where are you, Charley? We've been looking all over for you."

"So I have been led to believe by Major Miller."

"He told me he didn't know where you are."

"Did he? Well, I don't always tell him where I am."

"Are you aware of what happened in Vienna this morning?"

"What?"

"The Austrian foreign minister called the American ambassador and asked him if, in the spirit of international mutual cooperation, he would be willing to have Miss Eleanor Dillworth, his consul, answer a few questions the police had for her."

"That's the same lady who accused me of stealing some Russians from her? What did she do, go further off the deep end? What did the Viennese cops think she did?"

"You're not going to make me lose my temper, Castillo, so you can knock it off."

"Yes, sir. I'm deeply sorry, sir."

Castillo saw Casey shaking his head, but he was smiling.

"What the police wanted to know was if she could shed some light on why her business card was found on the chest of a man by the name of Kirill Demidov. He was found sitting with a garrote around his neck in a taxi just down the street from the American embassy."

"I just can't believe that Miss Dillworth could have anything to do with anything like that, even if the bastard was the Russian rezident who ordered the garroting of the Kuhls."