The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

When Lammelle was in the front passenger seat, Murov motioned for him to roll down the window. Lammelle found the switch, but the window remained up.

“Unlock his fucking window,” Murov called nastily in Russian.

Lammelle tried the switch again, and this time the window went down.

“Well?” Lammelle asked.

“Frank, the problem people like you and me have is that sometimes we have to do things we don’t like at all. I took no pleasure in what happened between us today. There was no feeling of ‘Score one for our side.’”

Lammelle met his eyes, but said nothing. He found the switch, put the window up, and then in English said, “Okay, let’s go.”

[TWO]

The President’s Study

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

1225 7 February 2007

“Fascinating,” President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen said when Deputy DCI Frank Lammelle had delivered his report on what had happened that morning in the Russian dacha. “How much are we supposed to believe?”

He turned in his high-backed blue leather judge’s chair and pointed at Secretary of State Natalie Cohen.

“I think Frank can answer that better than I can, Mr. President,” Cohen said. “He was there.”

“I’ll rephrase, Madam Secretary,” Clendennen said, a long way from pleasantly. “Presuming Mr. Lammelle told us the truth and nothing but, how much of what this Russian told him can we believe? Make that two questions: How much of what the Russian told Lammelle are we expected to believe, and, two, how much can we believe?”

If she felt insulted, it didn’t show on

her face or in her tone of voice.

“Mr. President, I always like to start with what we do know. In this case, we know the Russians were involved with the bio-chem laboratory in the Congo. And since they know we call this substance Congo-X, and that some of it was delivered to Fort Detrick and some left for us to find on the Mexican border, I suggest that it is safe to presume they have more of it. The threat, therefore, is real.”

“Natalie, we don’t know that,” DCI Jack Powell said. “For all we know, the stuff they sent us may be all they have. This whole thing may be a bluff.”

“I asked her, Jack,” the President said. “You’ll get your chance.”

“I think, Mr. President,” Cohen said, “to respond to your questions directly, that they expect us to believe everything they told Frank, and I think we should.”

Clendennen grunted, then looked at Powell.

“Okay, Jack, your chance,” the President said. “Do these bastards have more of this stuff, or not?”

“Off the top of my head, Mr. President, I would say they have at least a little more, enough of it so they can leave us a couple more samples.”

“And that’s all they have?”

“Mr. President, we leveled and then burned everything in a twenty-mile radius of the Fish Farm. Either we somehow missed this, or they had some of it in a laboratory in Russia. Or someplace else. My gut tells me there’s not much of Congo-X anywhere.”

“But we don’t know that, do we?” Clendennen asked.

“No, sir, we don’t.”

“Why would Putin do something like this?” Clendennen wondered aloud.