Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Major (Retired) H. Richard Miller, Jr., chief of staff of the Office of Organizational Analysis, and Mrs. Agnes Forbison, the OOA's deputy chief for administration, were in the hangar when the convoy of four identical black GMC Yukon XLs drove in through a rear door and began to unload passengers and cargo.

The first passenger to leap nimbly from a Yukon was Dona Alicia Castillo, who had been riding in the front passenger seat of what the Secret Service had been describing on their radio network as "Don Juan Two Four." That translated to mean the second of four vehicles in the Don Juan convoy. Don Juan was the code name of the senior person in the convoy.

When the director of the Washington-area Secret Service communications network had been directed to add then-Major Castillo to his net, a code name had been required. For example, the secretary of Homeland Security, who was well over six feet and two hundred pounds, was code-named Big Boy, and the director of National Intelligence was Double Oh Seven. Having seen the dashing young Army officer around town--and taking note of the string of attractive females on his arm--the communications director had to think neither long nor hard before coming up with Don Juan.

Dona Alicia walked quickly to Miller and kissed his cheek. She had known him since he and Castillo had been plebes at West Point.

The second exitee--from Don Juan Four Four--was Max, closely followed by the Secret Service agent attached to him by a strong leash. Max towed the agent to the nose gear of a glistening white Gulfstream III, where he raised his right rear leg and left a large, liquid message for any other canines in the area that the Gulfstream was his.

Gulfstream Three Seven Nine actually belonged to Gossinger Consultants, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., of Fulda, Germany, which had bought the aircraft from Lopez Fruit and Vegetables Mexico, a wholly owned subsidiary of Castillo Agriculture, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, whose honorary chairman of the board was Dona Alicia Castillo, whose president and chief executive officer was Fernando Lopez, and whose officers included Carlos Castillo.

The Office of Organizational Analysis "dry leased" on an "as needed" basis the Gulfstream from Gossinger Consultants on an agreed price of so much per day, plus an additional amount per flight hour.

OOA provided the crew and paid fuel, maintenance, insurance, and other costs, such as the hangar rent at Signature Flight Support. The Lorimer Charitable & Benevolent Fund reimbursed the OOA on a monthly basis for all of its aviation expenses involved with providing members of the LC&BF staff with the necessary transportation to carry out their charitable and benevolent duties.

It was the perhaps immodest opinion of David W. Yung, Jr.--BA, Stanford University, and MBA, Harvard Business School, who enjoyed a splendid reputation within the FBI and the IRS of being an extraordinarily talented rooter-out of money laundering and other chicanery--that if anyone could work their way through this obfuscatory arrangement he had set up, they would have to be a hell of a lot smarter than he was.

And there was little question in the minds of the cognoscenti that Two-Gun Yung was one smart character. It was he who had first found and then invisibly moved into the LC&BF account in the Riggs Bank in Washington a shade under forty-six million dollars of illicit oil-for-foo

d profits that Philip J. Kenyon III--chairman of the board, Kenyon Oil Refining and Brokerage Company, Midland, Texas--thought he secretly had squirreled away in the Caledonian Bank & Trust Limited in the Cayman Islands.

That transaction was described, perhaps irreverently, by Edgar Delchamps as selling a slimeball a $46,000,000 Stay Out of Jail Card.

Castillo, who had been riding in the front passenger seat of Don Juan Four Four, walked to Max at the nose of the Gulfstream.

"Sit," he ordered sternly in Hungarian. "Stay!"

Max complied.

"Okay, Billy!" Castillo called, motioning with a wave of his arm.

Eric Kocian got out of Don Juan Three Four. He removed Madchen--on a leash--and walked her to the rear of the Yukon. Edgar Delchamps and Sandor Tor next got out somewhat awkwardly, because they each held two of Madchen's pups, and also walked to the rear of the truck. By then the Secret Service driver had gotten out from behind the wheel, gone to the rear, and opened the door.

He took out a folded travel kennel. He expanded it, but not without some difficulty that bordered on being comical to those who tried not to watch. The pups were placed in the travel kennel, and then, as Billy Kocian and Madchen watched warily, Sandor Tor and the Secret Service agent picked up the kennel and followed Delchamps to the stair door of the Gulfstream.

Delchamps went up the stairs and into the plane, then turned so he could pull the kennel through the door.

He swore in German.

"I could have told you it wasn't going to fit through the door, sweetie," Jack Davidson called in a somewhat effeminate voice from near Don Juan One Four. "If you'd only asked! You never ask. You think you know everything!"

Delchamps made an obscene gesture to Davidson, which Dona Alicia and Agnes Forbison, who by then had walked over to Castillo, pretended not to see.

"What this reminds me of is sending Carlos and Fernando off to Boy Scout camp," Dona Alicia said.

"Yeah," Agnes agreed.

"You didn't have to come out here, Agnes," Castillo said.

"No, I didn't," she said. "But I thought you might need a little walking-around money."

She handed him a zippered cloth envelope marked RIGGS NATIONAL BANK. It appeared to be full.

"Thank you," Castillo said.

When he had put it in his briefcase, she handed him a receipt to sign. He used the briefcase as a desk to sign it, and gave it back.

"How long are you going to be?" Agnes asked.