The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

Okay, he means Montvale.

“…and that you were going to keep him in your loop. The last several calls, he wondered where you were, since you told somebody you wouldn’t be going to Berlin.”

“I think by now he knows where I am, sir.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

“I used an air taxi with which he has a connection.”

There was a pause. After a moment, Hall said, “Okay. I get it. And the last several times, he’s been very interested in explosive briefcases. Asked me if I had heard about them. I told him I hadn’t.”

“There’s nothing to tell, sir.”

“Later, Joel told me Tom McGuire had told him about it. I understand. But our mutual friend seemed very surprised that you hadn’t passed this information on to him or me.”

“Dick Miller told him about the briefcases. I told him to tell him.”

Why are we talking in verbal code on a secure line?

Because Hall thinks it’s entirely possible that “our mutual friend” has told the friendly NSA folks at Fort Meade that it might be a good idea to scan Hall’s calls for names like “Montvale.” And he could easily do that. The National Security Agency works for him. No problem, either, with decrypting a White House secure line. NSA provides the encryption code to the White House.

“Dick told me. Just consider that a heads-up, Charley.”

“Yes, sir. I will.”

“What are you doing in Budapest?”

“I’m trying to get a source to relieve me from a promise that I wouldn’t pass a list of names he gave me to anyone else,” Castillo said. “I’m going to tell our mutual friend that when I talk to him. Which I will do as soon as we’re finished.”

“And where do you go from Budapest?”

“Sir, do you really want to know?”

Hall perceptibly thought that over before replying: “No, I don’t. You don’t work for me anymore. There’s no reason you should tell me. But, Charley, I suspect our mutual friend is going to ask you the same question.”

“I don’t work for our mutual friend, either, sir.”

There was another pause before Hall responded: “Charley, can you handle your arrangement with our mutual friend?”

“I really hope so, sir.”

“Another of our mutual friends, an old friend of yours…”

That has to be General Naylor.

“…doesn’t think so. The way he put it was he always thought David got awful lucky with that slingshot.”

What the hell does that mean?

Oh! David, as in David and Goliath.

“Sir, I’m not going to try to bring Goliath down. All I want him to do is leave me alone.”

“That was Jefferson Davis’s philosophy in the Civil War. He didn’t want to defeat the North. All he wanted was for the North to leave the South alone. You know how that turned out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s one more option, Charley,” Hall said.