The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“It’s ninety-two Fahrenheit in the sun outside,” Dennis said. “Or was, just before you landed. It’s probably a little hotter now.”

“What are you suggesting—that we thaw it in the sun?” Castillo asked, confused. “Wouldn’t that increase the risk that it wouldn’t be ‘all the way dead’?”

“It may be dead now, and we’re just wasting time thawing it.”

“What are you suggesting, Sergeant Dennis?” Castillo demanded.

Dennis looked very uncomfortable.

Castillo had an epiphany, and softly asked, “What does Colonel Hamilton think will happen if Congo-X is thawed rapidly?”

Dennis didn’t immediately reply.

“Goddamn it, Sergeant! What did Colonel Hamilton say?”

“He said that when magicians freeze goldfish with dry ice and then bring them back to life, they can do that because they were never completely dead. He said that he thinks when you get something down to minus two-seventy Celsius, it’s completely dead, and you couldn’t bring it back even by thawing it in a microwave.”

“Did he tell you not to tell me this?”

Dennis nodded.

“Did he say why?”

“He said if you heard he said it, you would treat it like he was talking in a cathedral—I don’t know what the hell he meant by that—and base your decisions on that.”

“Speaking ‘ex cathedra,’ Sergeant?”

“Right.”

“If we put one of those kegs in the sun for as long as it takes to thaw it, could you determine if the Congo-X was dead here?”

“I’ve got stuff with me that’ll let me test it so I’ll know with ninety-percent certainty whether or not that shit is still alive or not. To be absolutely sure, we’d have to test it in the lab at Fort Detrick.”

“How did you get here, Sergeant?”

“Mr. Casey picked me up in his airplane at Baltimore/Wash

ington. Nice airplane!”

“And Colonel Hamilton didn’t come. Why?”

“We don’t trust the people in the lab. They would tell somebody—probably those fuckers in Las Vegas—that he was gone. So I went to the PX, called the lab, and asked for the day off. Then I got on the bus and went out to Baltimore/ Washington.”

“If we put one of those beer kegs in the sun, how long would it take to thaw?” Castillo asked. “Let me put that another way: How long would we have to leave one of those kegs in the sun before loading it on Mr. Casey’s G-Five to fly it to Fort Detrick, so that it would be thawed, or damned near thawed, when it got there?”

“I been thinking about that, Colonel. It’s about seventy Fahrenheit in the airplane. I suppose you could up that some, if you wanted to?”

“Probably to eighty, maybe a little higher,” Castillo said.

“We’d have to leave the keg in the sun for two hours fifteen. Better yet two hours thirty. I think it would be pretty well thawed by the time we got it into the lab.”

Castillo looked at Leverette, and said, “Uncle Remus, will you please help Sergeant Dennis move one of those beer barrels into the sun—somewhere no one will see it? And then you two sit on it.” He heard what he had said, and added, “Correction. You don’t have to actually sit on it, but I want eyes on it all the time.”

“You know what you’re doing, Charley?”

“Hoping that I’m right, that Colonel Hamilton is right, and that Master Sergeant Dennis is right. Is that enough for you?”

“I always like you better when you admit you don’t really know what the fuck you’re doing,” Uncle Remus said. “Let’s go, Dennis.”