The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“I was always taught that the ambassador has the right to know what any agency of the U.S. government is doing in his country.”

“Try to understand this, Yung. It would be a violation of the law for you to pass information to the ambassador that he is not entitled to have because he doesn’t have the proper security clearance. There are only two people who can give him that clearance: the President and me. The President has not done so and

I can’t see any good reason that I should.” He paused and then asked, “Are you going to do this, Yung, or not?”

Yung didn’t reply for thirty seconds, which seemed much longer.

“When you put it that way…” he began, then paused a moment. “You have to understand I’ve just never had any experience with…this sort of business.”

“Are you going to do it or not?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“I don’t have any idea what kind of an oath you FBI people take, but the oath an officer takes when he is commissioned has a phrase in it: ‘without any mental reservations whatsoever.’ Are you harboring any mental reservations?”

Yung cocked his head as he thought that over, then shook his head and said, “No, I guess I’m not.”

“Okay, we’ll be in touch. I’ll probably see you down there.”

“Come with me,” Agnes said to Yung, “and we’ll see what we can do with the travel agency.” Then she looked at Castillo. “I don’t know what else you have planned for right now, but Tom McGuire and Jack Britton are waiting to see you.”

Castillo waved as a signal for her to send them in. They came in immediately.

Supervisory Special Agent Thomas McGuire of the Secret Service was a large, red-haired Irishman in his forties. Until the reorganization following 9/11, the Secret Service had been under the Treasury Department. He and Supervisory Special Agent Joel Isaacson had been assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail.

When the Secret Service had been assigned to the Department of Homeland Security, McGuire and Isaacson became the first members of the secretary’s protection detail. And when McGuire had learned of the Presidential Finding and the formation of the Office of Organizational Analysis, he had gone to Secretary Hall—who was now the de facto head of the Secret Service—and asked that he be assigned to it.

“I’m a cop at heart, boss,” he’d said. “It looks to me like Charley is going to need somebody like me, and you don’t really need both Joel and me.”

Secret Service Special Agent Jack Britton, a tall black man with sharp features, was new to the Secret Service. He had been a Philadelphia Police Department detective assigned to the Counterterrorism Bureau. Castillo and Miller had met him while trying to find the stolen 727. The first time they spoke, Britton had “come in” from his undercover assignment—keeping track of what he, political correctness be damned, called the AAL, which stood for “African American Lunatics.”

He had been wearing a scraggly beard, a dark blue robe, sandals, had his hair braided with beads, and was known to his brother Muslims in Philadelphia’s Aari-Teg mosque as Ali Abid Ar-Raziq.

Impressed with Britton for many things, including his courage and dedication as well as his intimate knowledge of the Muslim world in the United States—both bona fide and AAL—Isaacson had recruited him for the Secret Service, together with another Philadelphia Police Department officer, Sergeant Elizabeth Schneider, of the Intelligence and Organized Crime unit.

Isaacson hadn’t been thinking of the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and certainly neither of them working with or for C. G. Castillo. He had recruited Britton and Schneider for the Secret Service, knowing of twenty places around the country that could really use Britton’s talents and thinking of Betty Schneider as a likely candidate for duty on one of the protection details.

That hadn’t happened. Both had just about completed Secret Service training when Mr. Elizabeth Masterson had been kidnapped. Castillo had had Britton and Schneider flown to Buenos Aires to assist in the investigation of the kidnapping and murders.

“Parties unknown” had ambushed the embassy car taking Special Agent Schneider from the Masterson home, killing the Marine driver and seriously wounding Schneider.

Once the Presidential Finding had been made, it had simply been assumed that Britton was assigned to the Office of Organizational Analysis and that when Special Agent Schneider recovered from her wounds and returned to duty she would be, too.

“It’s all right this time,” Castillo greeted McGuire and Britton, “but when you come to the throne room in the future please take off your shoes and wear white gloves.”

Miller and McGuire laughed.

“I’m impressed, Charley,” McGuire said.

Britton didn’t say anything, and his smile was strained.

I wonder what’s the matter with him? Castillo thought.

“I don’t know, Jack,” Castillo said. “Now that I think about it, you really didn’t look so bad in your blue robe and the beads in your hair.”

That got another chuckle from McGuire and Miller.

“I’d really like to see you in private, Charley,” Britton said. “Why don’t I come back in ten minutes?”