“You never got married, did you?”
He shook his head.
The telephone rang.
This time it was the embassy movers.
[FIVE]
The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0935 5 February 2007
“What am I looking at, Charles?” President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen inquired of Ambassador Charles M. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence.
Before Montvale could reply, the President thought he knew the answer to his question, and went on: “This is the—what should I call it?—the package that caused all the uproar at Fort Detrick yesterday, right? And why am I looking at this now, instead of yesterday?”
“These photographs were taken less than an hour ago, Mr. President,” Montvale said. “On a dirt road one hundred fifty yards inside our border near McAllen, Texas.”
The President looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
“A routine patrol by the Border Patrol found that sitting on the road at about half past seven, Texas time. The intel took some time to work its way up the chain of command. The Border Patrol agents who found it reported it to their superiors, who reported it—”
“I know how a chain of command works, Charles,” the President interrupted.
“Homeland Security finally got it to me just minutes ago,” Montvale said.
“Cut to the chase, for Christ’s sake,” the President snapped. “Is that another load of Congo-X or not?”
“We are proceeding on the assumption that it is, Mr. President, and working to confirm that, one way or the other—”
“What the hell does that mean?” the President interrupted again.
“As soon as this was brought to my attention, Mr. President, I contacted Colonel Hamilton at Fort Detrick. I was prepared to fly him out there.”
“And is that what’s happening?”
“No, sir. Colonel Hamilton felt that opening the beer cooler on-site would be ill-advised.”
“‘Beer cooler’?”
“Yes, sir. The outer container is an insulated box commonly used to keep beer or, for that m
atter, anything else cold. They’re commonly available all over. The FBI has determined the one sent to Colonel Hamilton was purchased at a Sam’s Club in Miami.”
“I don’t know why I’m allowing myself to go off on a tangent like this, but why don’t you just call it an ‘insulated box’?”
“Perhaps we should, sir. But the Congo-X at Fort Detrick was in a blue rubber barrel, resembling a beer barrel, in the insulated—”
“Okay, okay. I get it. So what’s with Colonel Hamilton?”
“Colonel Hamilton said further that in addition to the risk posed by opening the insulated box on-site, to determine whether whatever it holds was Congo-X or not, he would have to take all sorts of various laboratory equipment—”