Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

1710 11 April 2007

Aloysius F. Casey, Ph.D., chairman of the board of the AFC Corporation, stepped off the elevator onto the upper-level reception foyer of the Machiavelli Suite, and then stepped to one side, graciously waving out the two females from the elevator.

The first woman was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, who was fifty-one, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby. Mrs. Forbison was vice president, administration, of the LCBF Corporation. Previously she had been—as a GS-15—administrative assistant to the Honorable Thomas Hall, secretary of the then–newly formed Department of Homeland Security, and aft

er that, deputy chief for administration of the now-defunct Office of Organizational Analysis.

Second to get off the elevator was a stunningly beautiful woman with luxuriant dark red hair. Her passport identified her as a Uruguayan citizen by the name of Susanna Barlow.

Following Señorita Barlow off the elevator was Lieutenant Colonel Carlos G. Castillo, Ret.—a good-looking, six-foot, 190-pound thirty-seven-year-old—who was the president of the LCBF Corporation. Castillo was followed by an enormous black dog, a Bouvier des Flandres, who answered to Max.

As Castillo stood beside Miss Barlow, she said—hissed perhaps would be more accurate—“You remember I told you this was a mistake.”

On Castillo’s heels came Mr. Edgar Delchamps, a nondescript man in his early sixties, who was vice president, planning and operations, of the LCBF Corporation. He was retired from the Central Intelligence Agency, where he had served for more than thirty years as an officer of the Clandestine Service.

Delchamps was followed by thirty-three-year-old David W. Yung, Jr., who stood five feet eight and weighed 150 pounds. Despite his obvious Oriental heritage, Mr. Yung could not speak any of the languages of the Orient. He was fluent, however, in four other languages. The vice president, financial, of the LCBF Corporation was an attorney and previously had been a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The final passenger stepped off the elevator. His Argentine passport identified him as Tomás Barlow. He was about the same age as Castillo and was built like him. He was Señorita Barlow’s brother. In a previous life, they had been Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky, the SVR rezident in Berlin, and Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva, the SVR rezident in Copenhagen.

Castillo walked to the edge of the upper-level entrance foyer, rested his hands on the bronze rail atop the glass wall, and looked down to the lower level. Max went with him, put his front paws on the rail, and barked.

Four men—three of them well, even elegantly, dressed—were standing there, looking up at the upper level. One of them was a legendary hotelier who owned four of the more glitzy Las Vegas hotels, and three more in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Biloxi, Mississippi.

Another was a well-known, perhaps even famous, investment banker. Another had made an enormous fortune in data processing. Castillo knew him to be a U.S. Naval Academy graduate. The fourth man was a sort of mousy-looking character in a suit that looked as if it had come off the final-clearance rack at Goodwill. All that Castillo knew about him was that no one knew exactly how many radio and television stations he owned.

Those People and the executive board of the LCBF were about to meet.

Castillo turned and walked back to the people by the elevator door.

“This is your show, Aloysius,” he said, loudly enough for Those People to hear. “You get to choose who gets thrown off the balcony first.”

Delchamps and Tom Barlow chuckled. Yung smiled.

Casey shook his head and walked toward the head of the curving staircase leading to the lower level. Max trotted after him, then turned to look at Castillo as if expecting an order to “stay.” When that did not come, he went down the stairs ahead of Casey, headed directly for a coffee table laden with hors d’oeuvres, and with great delicacy helped himself to a caviar-topped cracker.

“Careful, Max,” Castillo called. “They’re probably poisoned.”

“Enough, Carlito!” Señorita Barlow ordered.

She then started down the stairs. Everyone followed, Casey last, after Castillo, as if to ensure that Castillo didn’t get away.

“Annapolis,” as Castillo thought of him, waited at the foot of the stairs and put out his right hand.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “We have to get this straightened out between us.”

Castillo took the hand with visible reluctance.

“For the good of the country,” Annapolis added.

“We don’t seem to agree on what’s good for the country, do we?” Castillo replied.

“I thought champagne would be in order,” “Hotelier” said, “to toast the success of the latest operation. What was it called?”

He snapped his fingers, and two waiters moved to coolers and began to open bottles of champagne.

“I understand some people called it March Hare,” Edgar Delchamps offered.

“Well, whatever it was called, it was one hell of a success,” “Radio and TV Stations” said.