The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“To which Castillo replied that the CIA was wrong again, and that there was obviously no point in continuing the conversation.

“I gave him one more chance to turn the Russians over to me and to get on the Gulfstream. When he laughed at me, I turned to the ambassador and said that it was obvious Colonel Castillo was mentally unstable, and therefore, the ambassador could not be held to his word that Castillo could leave the embassy.

“The ambassador replied that the last orders he had had from the President vis-à-vis Colonel Castillo were that he was to provide whatever assistance Colonel Castillo asked for, and he didn’t think that meant taking Castillo into custody.

“The ambassador then pushed the secure telephone to me, and said words to the effect that I was welcome to call the President to see if he could be persuaded to change his orders, but that if I made the call he would insist on telling the President that he could detect no sign of mental instability in Castillo—quite the opposite—and that in his personal opinion, I and the CIA were trying to throw Castillo under the bus because they had somehow botched the defection of the Russians and were trying to make Castillo the fall guy for their own incompetence.”

“My God!” the President said.

“As I could think of nothing else to say,” Montvale said, “I then returned to Washington.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade, Charles,” the President said. “‘As I could think of nothing else to say, and I didn’t want the President to know I had gone behind his back, at least until I had time to come up with a credible reason, I then returned to Washington.’”

Montvale flushed, and realizing he had flushed, was furious, which made him flush even more deeply.

“The CIA does have a certain reputation for throwing people under the bus, doesn’t it, Charles? Especially those people who have embarrassed it?”

Montvale decided to wait until he was sure he had his emotions under control before going on.

“Silvio was right, Charles, and you were wrong,” the President said. “The President gave him an order, and he was obeying it. Disobeying it, getting around it, would have been damned near treason. And you were wrong to ask him.”

“Mr. President, I was trying to protect the President,” Montvale said.

“What you should have done was go to the President,” Clendennen said. “It’s as simple as that. You’re the director of National Intelligence, Charles, not Benjamin Disraeli!”

“I realize now that I was wrong, Mr. President,” Montvale said.

The President made another impatient gesture for Montvale to continue.

“The next time I saw Castillo was in Philadelphia. The President was giving a speech. I didn’t know Castillo was coming. The last word I’d had on him was that he was in Las Vegas.”

“In Las Vegas? Doing what?”

“I have no idea, Mr. President. I’m not even sure he was in Las Vegas. Anyway, Castillo showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel. The President gave him the opportunity to explain his incredible chemical warfare factory scenario. The President obviously didn’t believe it any more than anyone else did, but Castillo still had enough remaining clout with him for the President to turn to DCI Powell and direct him to send somebody to the Congo.

“Castillo said, ‘I’ve already got some people in the Congo, Mr. President.’

“The President said, ‘Jesus Christ! Who?’

“And Castillo told him Colonel J. Porter Hamilton, and the President asked ‘Who the hell is Colonel Hamilton?’ and Powell, who was really surprised, blurted that Colonel Hamilton of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick was the CIA’s—for that matter, the nation’s—preeminent expert on biological and chemical warfare.”

“Are you telling me that Castillo, on his own authority—or no authority—actually sent an expert on biological warfare into the Congo?”

“Yes, sir, and not only that, he put him on the phone—actually a secure radio-telephone link—with the President right there in the Four Seasons.”

“How the hell did he manage to do that?”

Montvale said: “I really have no idea, sir.”

Montvale thought: But I’ll bet my last dime that Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab of the Special Operations Command was in that operation up to that ridiculous mustache of his.

Still, I’m not positive, and certainly can’t prove it, so I’m not going to tell you.

I have been painfully cut off at the knees already today by you, Clendennen, and once a day is more than enough.

“And what did this expert say?”

“The phrase he used to describe what he found in the Congo, Mr. President, was ‘an abomination before God.’ He said that if it got out of control, it would be perhaps a thousand times more of a disaster than was Chernobyl, and urged the President to destroy the entire complex as soon as he could.”