The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Incredible!” Danton said.

“Enjoy the movies, Mr. Danton,” Castillo said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

[EIGHT]

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Eisenhower Executive Office Building

17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

1210 11 February 2007

“Mr. McGuire is here to see you, Mr. Ambassador,” Montvale’s secretary announced.

“Ask him to come in, please,” Montvale said, and, as Truman Ellsworth watched from a leather armchair, then rose from behind his desk and walked toward the door, meeting McGuire as he entered the office.

“Hello, Tom,” Montvale said. “What can I do for you?”

McGuire hesitated, and then said, “I suppose you’ve heard I don’t work here no more.”

Montvale nodded. “Mason Andrews lost very little time in telling me; he was here two minutes after Truman and I got here this morning.”

“How are you, Tom?” Ellsworth said.

He got out of his armchair, went to McGuire, and gave him his hand.

McGuire hesitated again.

“I decided I couldn’t just fold my tent, Mr. Ambassador, without facing you and telling you I was sorry . . .”

“You’re not going to be prosecuted, Tom, if that’s what’s worrying you. To do that, Andrews would need me to testify and I made sure he understands that’s just not going to happen.”

McGuire finished, “. . . but when I walked in here just now, I realized I couldn’t do that. When Mrs. Darby told me Alex Darby was down there in . . .”

“Ushuaia,” Ellsworth furnished.

“. . . with some floozy, I knew that wasn’t so. And when I told you, I told myself that you were too smart to swallow that whole. But what I came to tell you, Mr. Ambassador, is that I hoped you would.”

“I appreciate your honesty, Tom. Are you going to tell me why?”

“I just had enough of the whole scenario, Mr. Ambassador. I think what the President’s trying to do to Charley Castillo is rotten. I didn’t want to be part of it. I hope they never find him.”

“Prefacing this by saying that I’m about to join you in the army of the unemployed . . .”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been around the White House for a long time, Tom. What inferences would you draw if I told you that that red telephone no longer directly connects the director of National Intelligence to the President?”

He gave McGuire time to consider that, then went on: “And when the director of National Intelligence—to whom the President is now referring to as the ‘director of National Stupidity’—attempts to telephone the President using the White House switchboard, the President’s secretary answers and tells me the President is busy and will get back to me. Or words to that effect.”

“He’s going to throw you under the bus, too?” McGuire asked.

“That is the inference I have drawn. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“Then I am sorry, Mr. Ambassador. I didn’t think what I did would cost you your job.”