The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“What was Jack Britton’s connection to Castillo?”

“Britton was a Philadelphia Police Department detective, working undercover in the Counterterrorism Bureau, when Castillo was running down the Philadelphia connection to the stolen airliner. Castillo recruited him for OOA.”

“Then how did he wind up in the Secret Service on my protection detail?”

“I believe you know Supervisory Special Agent Tom McGuire, Mr. President?”

“He used to run the President’s protection detail? Yeah, sure I know Tom. Don’t tell me he has a connection with Castillo.”

“The President assigned McGuire to OOA to act as liaison between the Secret Service and Castillo. He was impressed with Britton, and when Britton was no longer needed by Castillo and couldn’t return to Philadelphia—his identity was now known to the terrorist community—McGuire recruited him for your protection detail.”

“And?”

“Apparently, Special Agent Britton could not understand why an attempt on his life justified his being relieved from your protection detail and being assigned to a desk in Saint Louis. He said some inappropriate things to his supervisors. McGuire decided the best thing to do under the circumstances was send him back to OOA, and he did.”

“Why did they—and who is ‘they’?—try to kill Britton?”

“Castillo believed the assassinations and assassination attempts on all the people I mentioned were retaliatory actions ordered by Putin himself.”

“I find it hard to accept that Vladimir Putin would order assassinations any more than I would,

” the President said. “But on the other hand, once we start murdering people, I think we would have to be very naïve or very stupid—how about ‘stupidly naïve’?—to think the other side would not retaliate.”

“Yes, sir. Well, Castillo was apparently delighted to have Britton back. He put him on an airplane and sent him and Mrs. Britton to Argentina to get them out of sight and then loaded some—most—of the others on his Gulfstream and flew to Europe.”

“On his Gulfstream? He had access to an Air Force Gulfstream? Jesus Christ!”

“Yes, sir. He had access to an Air Force Gulfstream—and he had a document signed by the President that ordered any government agency to give him whatever assets he asked for.”

The President shook his head in disbelief.

“But the Gulfstream on which he flew to Europe was a civilian aircraft, leased by OOA,” Montvale said. “He kept it at Baltimore/Washington.”

“Where did the money for that come from?”

“Mr. President, I wasn’t in the loop. I just know he had the airplane.”

The President exhaled audibly.

“And?” he asked.

“Well, according to Castillo, shortly after he arrived in Germany he was approached by two very senior SVR officers—”

“What’s that?” the President interrupted.

“Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,” Montvale explained. “The two officers were Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky, the SVR rezident in Berlin, and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva, the SVR rezident in Copenhagen. They said they wanted to defect.”

Montvale paused, and then went on. “I have to go off at a tangent here, Mr. President. At this time, our CIA station chief in Vienna, Miss Eleanor Dillworth, a highly respected longtime Clandestine Service officer, and her staff had for some time, and at considerable effort and expense, been working on the defection of Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva and Colonel Berezovsky. These arrangements had gone so far as the preparation of a safe house in Maryland to house them while they were being debriefed.”

“So why did they contact Castillo?”

“According to Castillo, they didn’t trust Miss Dillworth. Castillo said when they came to him, they offered to defect to him in exchange for two million dollars and immediate transportation to Argentina on his plane. This whole transaction apparently took place on a train headed for Vienna. So he made the deal.”

“Shouldn’t he have gone to the nearest CIA officer, either this Miss Dillworth or some other CIA officer? Was he authorized to make a deal like that?”

“No, sir, he wasn’t, and yes, sir, he should have immediately contacted either me or someone in the CIA.”

“Incredible!”