By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“You want to top the tanks off and get the weather and file a flight plan back to Bragg?” Castillo asked.

“I’d rather go with you,” Fernando said. “You have a problem with that?”

Castillo thought it over a moment before answering, “No. Why not?”

“Good,” Fernando said.

“Okay, so what we have to do now is get the sergeants and the radio to the arsenal,” Castillo said. “And me, Fernando, and Dick to the Roundhouse. You said the Homicide Bureau? What’s the undercover officer doing there?”

“I’ll take you and Major Miller and Mr. Lopez . . .” Lieutenant Schneider said.

“No,” Betty said, flatly, cutting him off. “The sergeants and the radio go to the arsenal in Highway cars. I’ll take Major Castillo, Major Miller, and Mr. Lopez to the Roundhouse. ”

“Thanks just the same, Sergeant Schneider, but I’m not really afraid of him,” Castillo said.

“You better be, you sonofabitch!” Lieutenant Schneider said.

Betty was not amused. She was, instead, all business.

“What Lieutenant Schneider is going to do is stay here until we have a couple of uniforms sitting on your airplane,” she said. “He can do that better than anybody else. And then he’s going to catch up with us at Homicide. The other Highway car will take the sergeants and the radio to the arsenal. I’ll call ahead and set it up for them. And that car will stay there to provide whatever transport we need. If you have any problems with that, Frank, call Chief Kramer. He’s at Homicide. ”

Lieutenant Schneider looked for a moment as if he was going to say something, but, in the end, he turned wordlessly and walked toward his car.

Which almost certainly means that Chief Inspector Kramer has told him that Betty’s running this operation and that he takes his orders from her.

Betty gestured for the others to get in the unmarked Crown Victoria.

Castillo got in beside her.

Their eyes met—momentarily—for the first time as she backed away from the hangar.

“Why the uniform?” Betty asked.

“It made sense at Fort Bragg,” he said, and then, “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I picked up on that—that you’re an Army officer, as well as a Secret Service agent, and the executive assistant to the secretary of Homeland Security—at Dick’s house.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know who you are at any given moment?”

“Sometimes it’s difficult.”

“And, I forgot, the head of catering for . . . what was it you said? . . . Rig Service?”

“Rig Service,” he confirmed. “Sometimes I say I fly helicopters for them.”

“And is there such a company?”

“Yeah, there is,” Fernando said from the backseat. “And among other things I do for the Gringo whenever somebody calls up to check on him is say that he really is what he told somebody he is.”

“ ‘The Gringo’?” she repeated.

“Just a nickname,” Fernando explained, and even though the car interior was darkened Betty knew he said it with a smile. “You’re welcome to use it, too,” he added.

“Thanks. But how do you know what he’s told them?”

“Sometimes that’s very difficult,” Fernando said, chuckling.