The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

1365 15th Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

2225 2 February 2007

Ro

scoe Danton’s office was a small and cluttered glass-walled cubicle off the large room housing the “city desk.” Two small exterior windows offered a clear view of a solid brick wall. He had wondered for years what was behind it.

His e-mail had just offered him Viagra at a discount and a guaranteed penis enlargement concoction. He was wondering whether he could get away with sending either or both offers to the executive editor without getting caught, when another e-mail arrived.

FROM: White House Press Office

TO: Roscoe J. Danton

SENT: 2 Feb 19:34:13 2007

SUBJECT: Costello/Castillo

Roscoe

After you left, I had a memory tinkle about Costello/Castillo and the Office of Organizational Analysis, so I really tried—-with almost no success—-to check it out.

I found a phone number for an OOA in the Department of Homeland Security with an office in the DHS Compound in the Nebraska Avenue complex. When I called it, I got a recorded message saying that it had been closed. So I called DHS and they told me OOA had been closed, they didn’t know when. When I asked what it had done, they helpfully told me my guess was as good as theirs, but it probably had something to do with analyzing operations.

At this point, I suspected that you had been down this route yourself before you dumped it on me.

So I called the Pentagon. You would be astonished at the number of lieutenant colonels named Castillo and Costello there are/were in the Army. There is a retired Lt Col Carlos Castillo, and he’s interesting, but I don’t think he’s the man you’re looking for. This one is a West Pointer to which institution he gained entrance because his father, a nineteen-year-old warrant officer helicopter pilot, posthumously received the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

The son followed in his father’s footsteps, and before he had been out of WP a year had won the Distinguished Flying Cross flying an Apache in the First Desert War. He went from that to flying in the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, most recently in Afghanistan. He returned from there under interesting circumstances. First, he had acquired more medals for valor than Rambo, but was also a little over the edge. Specifically, it was alleged that he either had taken against orders, or stolen, a Black Hawk to undertake a nearly suicidal mission to rescue a pal of his who had been shot down. Nearly suicidal, because he got away with it.

Faced with the choice of giving him another medal or court-martialing him, the Army instead sent him home for psychiatric evaluation. The shrinks at Walter Reed determined that as a result of all his combat service, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder to the point where he would never be psychologically stable enough to return to active service. They medically retired him. His retirement checks are sent to Double-Bar-C Ranch, Midland, Texas.

I suggest this guy was unlikely to have tried to start World War III from the psychiatric ward at Walter Reed.

Sorry, Roscoe, this was the best I could do. If you get to the bottom of this, please let me know. My curiosity is now aroused.

Best,

Jack

The message gave Danton a number of things to think about. He would not have been surprised to receive a one-liner—“Sorry. Nothing. Jack.”—and this one meant that Porky had spent a lot of time, of which he understandably had little, coming up with this answer.

Possibility One: His curiosity had been piqued and there had been time to do what he said he had done.

Possible but unlikely.

Possibility Two: This was a carefully thought-out ploy to get Danton off the track of a story which might, if it came out, embarrass the President, the White House, the department of State, or the Pentagon. Or all of the above.

Possible but unlikely. There was a hell of a risk, as Porky damned well knew, in intentionally misleading (a) The Washington Times-Post and/or (b) Roscoe Danton personally.

A short “Sorry. Nothing. Jack.” e-mail maybe. But not a long message like this one. Including all the details of this Castillo character’s military service.

So what do I do?

Forget it?

No. I smell something here.