By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“That’s all, sir.”

“You probably won’t have a security clearance much longer so I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but, for auld lang syne, with warm memories of happier times, I will. I have received further orders from General Naylor. I am immediately to proceed to a field near Kwakoegron, Suriname, there to hold myself in readiness to neutralize an Air Suriname 727 when ordered to do so. In compliance with these orders, I am presently, I would estimate, about forty or fifty miles south of Hurlburt Field, over the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep in touch, Charley. McNab out.”

“It would appear, Charley,” Alex Pevsner said as Castillo laid the headset on the table, “that no one seems willing to call off the plan to neutralize the wrong airplane in Suriname. ”

“Once something like that is started, it’s hard to call it off,” Castillo said. “The only one who can overrule General Naylor is the secretary of defense. He’s not going to take what I think over the CIA . . .”

“Especially since the source of your information is an infamous Russian criminal?” Pevsner asked.

“Secretary Hall doesn’t feel that way,” Castillo said. “You heard what he said. And he’s going to see the president ..."

“And you think the president, looking at NSA photographs of an Air Suriname 727 on the field at Zandery, and with confirmation from a CIA man on the ground, is liable to decide that—how did

that general describe you earlier? —‘an Army officer assigned to Special Operations at Central Command’—is right and they’re wrong? Especially since he knows I’m the source of your information?”

“When I get on the radio and say, ‘I’m in Zippity Do Dah, Costa Rica’—or wherever the hell it is—‘looking at the airplane,’ they’re going to have to pay attention.” He touched Sergeant Sherman’s shoulder. “Pack it up, Sergeant. We’re going to Costa Rica.”

“Hold it a minute, Castillo,” Colonel Torine said. “Before you shut down the link. What if I got on there to General McFadden and tell him I think—I’m sure—you’re right?” He paused, and added, “We go back a long way.”

Castillo met his eyes.

“The most probable thing that would happen if we contacted anybody at MacDill would be that you would be ordered to place me under arrest and bring me to MacDill. I don’t want to put you in that spot. But thank you, sir.” He paused, and added, “Colonel, I think the best thing for you to do is escape from this drunk-out-of-his-mind-with-authority -he-doesn’t-have lunatic, go to the airport, and hop on a commercial flight to Tampa.”

“Well, you’re right about authority you don’t have, Castillo. You’re a major, as General McNab pointed out. You can’t give a colonel orders,” Colonel Torine said. “And General McNab said two other things. He ordered me to go with you, saying you needed a 727 expert.”

“As I recall, sir, you volunteered,” Castillo said.

“That was my last order, which I intend to obey,” Torine said. “And the second thing General McNab said that struck me as appropriate was, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ ” He met Castillo’s eyes for a moment, then turned to Sergeant Sherman. “Is there any way I can help you tear that thing down, Sergeant?”

“I’ve got it pretty much under control, sir,” Sherman said. “Major, do you want me to sign out of the net?”

“Just turn it off, Sergeant,” Castillo said. “Before it occurs to General Naylor to get on there and order us all to the States.”

Sergeant Sherman leaned slightly forward, pulled the power cord from the wall, and reported, “The link is down, sir.”

Aleksandr Pevsner picked up the hotel telephone.

“Have the vehicles prepared to go immediately to the airport, ” he ordered, in Spanish. “We will be in the garage immediately. ”

“Thank you,” Castillo said. “Thank you for everything, Alex.”

“On the contrary, my friend,” Pevsner said, “it is I who am grateful to you. You have made every effort to live up to your side of our arrangement. It’s not your fault that emperors, czars, and high-ranking generals have the tendency to want to kill the messenger bearing news they don’t want to hear.”

“And somewhere down the road, Charley,” Howard Kennedy said, “no matter what happens, someone—possibly even one of my former colleagues—is going to say, ‘That’s what Pevsner was trying to tell us.’ And it’s even possible this will be said with the right people listening.”

He offered his hand and Charley shook it, and then shook hands with Pevsner, and, as he did, thought it would be a long time before he saw Pevsner again. If he ever saw either of them again.

He was surprised when Pevsner went to the basement garage with them and even more surprised when Pevsner got behind the wheel of one of the Yukons, obviously intending to drive to the airport.

As they were driving down the beach road to the airport, Pevsner turned to Howard Kennedy, who was riding in the second seat beside Fernando, and ordered, “Write down the San José numbers—all three of them—and give them to Charley, Howard.”

“Yes, sir,” Kennedy said.

“What San José numbers?” Castillo asked.