By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

SATBURST 03 LUANDA 23 MAY 2005

FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA

SOURCES AT POLICIA NACIONAL LUANDA CONFIRM THAT SERGEI NOSTROFF (RUSSIAN NATIONAL AND KNOWN ASSOCIATE OF VASILY RESPIN, ALLEGED ARMS DEALER) AND PAOLO WALLI (ANGOLAN NATIONAL SUSPECTED OF VARIOUS CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES) ARE KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN IN LUANDA IN PAST WEEK. PRESENT WHEREABOUTS OF EITHER ARE UNKNOWN.

UNDERSIGNED SUGGESTS POSSIBILITY THAT BOTH MAY BE INVOLVED WITH DISAPPEARANCE OF LA- 9021. RESPIN REPORTED TO OWN AT LEAST TWO AND POSSIBLY THREE BOEING 727 AIRCRAFT. LA-9021 MAY BE FLOWN ELSEWHERE, POSSIBLY TO SHARJAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, WHERE RESPIN CONTROLS THREE OR MORE AIRLINES EITHER FOR USE WITH FALSE IDENTITY NUMBERS, OR TO BE STRIPPED OF USABLE PARTS FOR OTHER AIRCRAFT.

STRONGLY RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE AND WIDESPREAD USE OF SATELLITE, AWACS, OTHER SURVEILLANCE ASSETS, AND HUMINTEL ON ALL POSSIBLE ROUTES BETWEEN LUANDA AND SHARJAH, AND OTHER POINTS IN MIDDLE EAST.

MORE TO FOLLOW. STACHIEF LUANDA

That should have been enough, Castillo thought when he read the satburst, of interest to anyone wondering what possibly could have happened to the missing 727.

And it certainly should have been sent to Secretary Hall.

And then he read the six pages of what Miller had written but not sent.

I don’t know if this Russian arms dealer theory holds water—there’s no proof—but, goddammit, this should have been brought to the attention of everybody who could possibly check it out.

What the hell’s going on here?

He read it through again and then inserted what Miller had sent to him into the middle of a lengthy article he had written —mostly paraphrased from The American Conservative— for the Tages Zeitung a week before and encrypted the whole thing. He deleted Miller’s file, “shredding” it so it would not be recoverable from his laptop computer’s hard drive.

Then he stood up and went to the window and looked down at the harbor and thought about what he should do next.

He went to his suitcase and took a tissue-wrapped Temple Hall cigar from a white-painted box, and by the time he had gone through the ritual of carefully unwrapping it, clipping the end, and lighting it he had made up his mind.

I told Otto Görner that I would file a story for the Tages Zeitung about the missing 727, and I will, including in it the rumor that the Russian arms dealer variously known as Vasily Respin and Aleksandr Pevsner is somehow involved.

I’ll send a copy of the story to Hall. He’ll have to have it translated from the German, but he will, and discreetly, knowing that I would not have sent to him a copy of the story unless there was a reason.

And when he gets to the part about Respin/Pevsner, he’ll understand what I meant about getting something I’m surprised he didn’t get.

And at that point, he’ll try to find out who Dick Miller is, and, when he does, everything will make sense to him.

I hope.

He went to the laptop, opened the Word program, and began to type. It took him about thirty minutes to write about seven hundred words. He read it over a final time, then went on the Internet, entered Tages Zeitung’s e-mail address, put Hall’s private e-mail address in the BLIND COPY TO block, and sent the story.

Then he sent a second e-mail to Hall to make sure, first, that he was doing what he could to cover Dick Miller’s tail, and also to make sure Hall understood what was going on.

I BUMPED INTO AN OLD FRIEND, DICK MILLER, WHO WORKS FOR UNCLE CHARLEY. I TOLD HIM NOT TO MENTION TO UNCLE CHARLEY THAT WE HAD MET OR KNEW EACH OTHER, AS I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE TIME TO SEE UNCLE CHARLEY, AND I DON’T WANT TO HURT HIS FEELINGS. DICK GAVE ME SOMETHING I THINK YOU’LL BE REALLY SURPRISED YOU DON’T ALREADY HAVE. I’M BRINGING IT HOME WITH ME. SEE YOU VERY SOON. CHARLEY.

He read it over, decided That should do it, and clicked on the SEND button. Then he picked up the telephone and told the hotel operator to connect him with British Airways.

The British Airways representative told him their next flight to London would depart Luanda tomorrow, at 2305. If Mr. Gossinger really had to get to London and then Frankfurt am Main as soon as possible, there were of course other ways to do this, but, unfortunately, they required changing planes and airlines at least once.

The British Airways representative spent fifteen minutes detailing other travel options available. The best of these alternate routes involved catching the once-a-week Air Chad flight to N’Djamena, which was conveniently departing Luanda at ten-fifty tonight, which would arrive at N’Djamena at five tomorrow morning. After a six-hour layover—which, unless he had a Chadian visa, and he didn’t, he would have to spend in the transient lounge at the airport—he could catch Egyptian Airways Flight 4044 to Cairo, where he would have his choice between three different flights to London, or, for that matter, to his ultimate destination, Frankfurt am Main. Presuming there was space on them. Making reservations in Luanda for flights departing from N’Djamena or Cairo sometimes was difficult.

“Just make sure I have a seat on your flight to London tomorrow night, please,” Castillo said.

“Our pleasure, Herr Gossinger.”

Castillo decided that it was beer time, no matter what time the clock said it was, and went to the minibar under the television. The key was in the lock, which surprised him until he opened the door and found the minibar empty.

I will just have to run the risk of running into Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson in the hotel bar, in which I will take the most remote table possible. Not only am I thirsty but the rumble in my stomach just reminded me that I didn’t have lunch.

[ELEVEN]