By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“Well, let me see what’s going on,” Charley said and took out his cellular telephone.

“Where the hell have you been?” Miller asked.

Castillo put up his hand to tell him to wait.

"Sir, this is your personal FedEx international courier,” he began. “I have your Sacher torte for you—

“Yes, sir. I just walked into my apartment—

“Yes, sir. He’s here. If I can have twenty minutes for a shower and a shave, I’ll be right over—

“Sir, I can come over there—

“Yes, sir. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He hung up and turned to Miller.

“Get your ass off the chair and try to look respectable. My boss is on his way over here. And before he gets here, I need a shower.”

“You want me here?” Miller asked.

“I think he wants to see you, too,” Charley said after a just barely perceptible hesitation.

Castillo, freshly shaved and wearing crisp trousers and a dress shirt, opened the door to Secretary Hall.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“I tried to call you in Vienna,” Hall said. “I had all kinds of second thoughts about you and Pevsner. And all the Bristol would tell me was that you had checked out early this morning. I was really getting worried, Charley.”

Hall saw Miller.

“I’m Matt Hall, Major Miller,” he said, putting out his hand.

“How do you do, sir?”

“Now that our friend is back, in one piece, I’m feeling a lot better than I was a half hour ago. Did he tell you where’s he’s been, what he was trying to do?”

“No, sir,” Miller said. “I picked up on ‘Vienna.’ ”

Charley walked into the bedroom and came back with the Sacher torte from Demel’s.

“Here you go, sir,” he said. “One cake of fourteen raspberry layers.”

“I was kidding, Charley!”

“You sounded serious to me, sir. And it’s fresh. I picked it up on the way to the airport this morning.”

Hall took the box and shook his head.

“How’d you get it into the country?”

“A customs service captain at BW is one of your admirers. He said to tell you, one Vietnam sergeant to another, that he hopes you enjoy it.”

“You told him you worked for me?”

“It was either that or go to jail. I was in custody. Two armed females and a beagle. The beagle sniffed the cake.”

Hall shook his head but chuckled.