By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“You knew they sent me to the agency when I got out of the hospital?”

“I heard you were training nice young men to be spooks at the Farm.”

“That didn’t last long. I strongly suspect that my boss called in all favors due to have me reassigned elsewhere. Anywhere elsewhere.”

“So they sent you here? To do what?”

“On paper, I’m the assistant military attaché.”

“But, actually, you’re the resident spook, which you can’t talk about?”

Miller nodded.

Jesus, I wish I had known that. It would have saved me the trip over here.

“Actually, being the resident spook is a real pain in the ass,” Miller said.

“Why?”

“You met her,” Miller said. “My boss.”

“Excuse me?”

“Who sent me to find out who you really are. The lady suspects there is something fishy about you, my German journalist friend.”

“You’re talking about the blonde on the airplane?”

Miller nodded.

“Who is she?” Castillo asked.

“Her name is Wilson. Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson . . .”

“She’s not wearing a wedding ring,” Castillo interrupted.

“Ah, so you haven’t lost your legendary powers of observation, ” Miller said. “At the airport, I wasn’t sure.”

“Meaning?”

“I did everything, Charley, but blow you a kiss,” Miller said.

“I didn’t see you,” Castillo admitted. “So who is this . . . married . . . woman?”

“The company’s regional director for Southwest Africa,” Miller said. “Everything from Nigeria—actually, Cameroon, not including Nigeria—to South Africa, but excluding that, too. And halfway across the continent. None of the important countries. She’s spook-in-charge of what in a politically incorrect society one might think of as the African honey bucket.”

Castillo smiled. In military installations, the fifty-five-gallon barrels cut in half and placed as receptacles in “field sanitary facilities”—once known as “latrines”—are known as honey buckets.

“She told me she works for Forbes magazine,” Castillo said.

“That’s what they call a cover, Charley,” Miller said, dryly.

“And who is Mr. Wilson?”

“A paper pusher at Langley, middle level, maybe twenty years older than she is. One unkind rumor circulating is that he’s a fag with an independent income and married the lady to keep the whispers down. Having met him, I’m prone to believe the unkind rumor.”

“And what’s her background?”

“She was an agricultural analyst at Langley before she was smitten by Cupid’s arrow. Shortly after her marriage, she managed to get herself sent through the Farm, reclassi fied as a field officer, and has worked herself up to where she is now. Which she sees as a stepping-stone, which is what makes her a genuine pain in the ass, to get back to that.”