By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“The Secret Service dubbed him ‘Don Juan,’ ” the secretary said. “I never asked them why.”

The president chuckled.

“Where did you get him, Matt?”

“From General Naylor,” the secretary said. “I got on my knees and told him I really needed him more than he did.”

“That’s right,” the president said. “You and Naylor go back a long way, don’t you?”

“To Vietnam,” the secretary said. “He was a brand-new captain and I was a brand-new shake-and-bake buck sergeant. ”

“A what?” the president asked.

“They were so short of noncoms, Mr. President, that they had sort of an OCS to make them. I went there right out of basic training, got through it, and became what was somewhat contemptuously known as a ‘shake-and-bake sergeant. ’ ”

“Where did Naylor get him?” the president asked.

“Actually, he and Charley go a long way back, too,” the secretary said.

“Charley?” the president parroted.

“He doesn’t look much like a Carlos, does he?” the secretary said. “Yeah, I call him Charley.”

“So where did Naylor get him? Where does he come from?”

“It’s a long story, Mr. President,” the secretary said.

The president looked at his watch.

“If you’re not in a rush to get back,” the president said, motioning toward the wicker rockers and the tub of iced bottles of beer, “I have a little time.”

IV

WINTER 1981

[ONE]

Near Bad Hersfeld Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg Hesse, West Germany 1145 7 March 1981

“That has to be it, Netty,” Mrs. Elaine Naylor, a trim, pale-faced redhead of thirty-four, said to Mrs. Natalie “Netty” Lustrous, a trim, black-haired lady of forty-four, pointing. “It’s exactly three-point-three klicks from the little chapel.”

“Yeah,” Netty Lustrous said, slowing the nearly new black Mercedes-Benz 380SEL and then turning off the winding, narrow country road through an open gate in a ten-foot -high steel-mesh fence onto an even more narrow road.

Fifty yards down the road, a heavyset man stepped into the middle of it. He was wearing a heavy loden cloth jacket and cap and sturdy boots. A hunting rifle was slung muzzle downward from his shoulder.

Netty stopped the Mercedes and the man walked up to it.

“Guten tag,” the man said.

“Is this the road to the House in the Woods?” Netty asked, in German.

“Frau Lustrous?” the man asked.

“Ja.”

“Willkomen,” the man said, stepped back, and somewhat grandly waved her down the road.

Netty smiled at him. “Danke shoen,” she replied and drove on.