The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Are you questioning my word, General?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“What can you tell me, General, about Castillo?” Naylor asked.

“You mean about how the President wants to make a human sacrifice of him to the Russians?”

“What did you say?”

“When I came here, I held the naïve hope that you were going to close the door, and then say, ‘You may find this hard to believe, but the President wants to turn our Charley over to Putin, and what are we going to do about it?’ How foolish of me.”

“You don’t know that President Clendennen intends to do that,” Naylor said.

“Do you know he doesn’t? Or didn’t he tell you that Murov told Frank Lammelle that Putin wants the Russians and Charley?”

“How do you know about that?”

McNab met Naylor’s eyes, and said, “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you, Allan?” After a long moment, he added, “Yeah, now that I think about it, I think you do.”

“What I do know, General—”

“Haven’t we played your silly little game long enough, Allan?”

“What silly game is that, General?”

“You sitting there in that ridiculous desert costume—as if you expect the Castros or Hugo Chávez to start dropping parachutists on Tampa Bay in the next ten minutes—pretending to be a soldier when all you are is a uniformed flunky carrying out the orders—which you damned well know are illegal—of a political hack who would turn his mother over to Putin if he thought it would get him reelected.”

“You are speaking, General, of the President, the commander in chief.”

“Did you get it all, or should I say it again?”

“What I should do is place you under arrest!”

“How did you get to be a four-star general—never mind, I know—without learning you never should issue an order—or carry one out—without considering what the secondary effects will be?”

“Stand up and come to attention, General!” Naylor ordered.

McNab crossed his legs, shook his head, and chuckled.

“Goddamn you!” Naylor flared. “I said, come to attention!”

“For example, Allan,” McNab said calmly as he took a cigar case from an inside pocket, “one of the thoughts that occurred to me when I heard what the bastard was up to was to take him out. I thought that through and realized that would cause more damage to the country than it would do good. Since we presently don’t have a Vice President, the order of succession would put the Speaker of the House in the Oval Office, and from what I’ve seen, he’s as much an idiot as Clendennen is.

“Anyway, I took an oath to defend the Constitution, and unfortunately there’s nothing in that that says you can shoot the President, even if the bastard deserves it, as this one clearly does.”

“McNab, you’re out of your mind!”

“I also considered taking this story to that red-headed guy on Wolf News. What’s his name? Oh, yeah ...”

He paused as he bit the end off a long, thin, black cigar and then carefully lit it.

“You can’t smoke in here,” Naylor said. “You can’t smoke in any government building.”

Naylor stared at McNab and thought: He’s sitting here calmly discussing the pros and cons of assassinating the President of the United States, and I’m scolding him for smoking?

What the hell is the matter with me?