The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Allan Junior raised his eyebrows, then said, “I thought about that when I saw the movie. I don’t know whether I’d have either one of them shot, but I damn sure wouldn’t let either one of them walk. When that two-star put men’s lives at risk letting his mouth run away with him, he forfeited his right to be an officer.”

“He was reduced to colonel and sent home,” General Naylor said.

“And the men whose lives he put at risk were sent to the landing beaches of Normandy. This Long Gray Line we march in, Dad, isn’t perfect, and I don’t think we should pretend it is.”

Allan Junior turned to Colonel Brewer and started to say something.

“Stop right there, Allan,” Brewer cut him off. “I’m not going to get in the middle of this.”

“I am now facing a somewhat similar, personally distasteful situation,” General Naylor said, “involving an officer who also marches in the Long Gray Line, and of whom I’m personally very fond.”

His senior aide-de-camp and his son looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“If I have to say this, this is highly classified, and to go no further,” General Naylor said. “Classification, Top Secret, Presidential.”

“Which explains why Mr. Lammelle is here?” Brewer asked.

Naylor nodded.

“President Clendennen this afternoon ordered me to locate Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, Retired, wherever he might be, and to place him under arrest pending investigation of charges which may be laid against him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

“What charges?” Allen Junior demanded.

“Mr. Lammelle was similarly ordered by the President this afternoon to accompany me wherever this mission might take us. If, when we find Colonel Castillo, he has two Russian defectors with him, as he most probably does, Lammelle is to take them into custody. It is President Clendennen’s intention to return them to the Russians.”

“What are the charges someone’s laying against Charley?” Allen Junior demanded.

His father did not reply directly. He instead said, “Jack is thoroughly conversant with all the details of our strike on the Congo. How much do you know, Allan?”

“Not very much beyond the Russians and the Iranians were operating a biological weapons lab, and the previous POTUS decided that taking it out made more sense than taking the problem to the UN. If that’s correct, then I say, hooray for him.”

“What was being made in that laboratory was a substance now known as Congo-X. It is highly dangerous to an almost unimaginable degree. Our leading expert on that sort of thing, a colonel at our biological warfare operation at Fort Detrick, told the previous POTUS—to borrow your nomenclature—that any accident at the Congo laboratory would be infinitely more catastrophic than the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl was. It is not hard to extrapolate from that what damage would result should this substance be used as a weapon against us.

“It can be fairly said that the previous POTUS took action not a minute too soon.”

“Then thank God he had the balls to do it,” Allan Junior said.

General Naylor nodded, sipped his Scotch, then said, “Unfortunately, the raid—as massive as it was—apparently did not destroy all the Congo-X. Two quantities of it—packed in what look like blue rubber beer barrels—have turned up. One was sent to Fort Detrick by FedEx from a nonexistent laboratory in Miami. A second was found on our side of the Mexican-U.S. border where the Border Patrol could not miss it. Colonel Hamilton, the expert at Fort Detrick, has confirmed both barrels contained Congo-X.

“The next development was when the Russian rezident in their Washington embassy had Lammelle to their compound—they call it their dacha—in Maryland. There he as much admitted that they had sent the Congo-X to Fort Detrick. He then strongly implied that Prime Minister Putin is personally determined to have the two Russians returned to Russia. Putin also, it was implied, holds Castillo personally responsible for

the deaths of several SVR officers in various places around the world. He wants Colonel Castillo, too.

“If this is done, the Russians will turn over to us all stocks of Congo-X in their control and offer assurances that no more of it will ever turn up.”

“Dad, Clendennen’s not actually thinking of caving in, is he? He can’t possibly believe the Russians—Putin, specifically—will live up to their promises.”

“The President has decided the most prudent course for him to follow is to turn the defectors over to the Russians. He said several times he’s always held traitors in the utmost contempt.”

“And Charley? Is he going to turn Charley over, too?” Allan Junior asked incredulously.

“I can’t believe that he would do so,” General Naylor said.

“Did you ask him?”

“No, I didn’t ask him. He’s the President of the United States.”

“So what are you going to do?”