Black Ops

Black Ops

W. E. B. Griffin

26 July 1777

The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged.

George Washington

General and Commander in Chief

The Continental Army

FOR THE LATE

WILLIAM E. COLBY

An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant

who became director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

AARON BANK

An OSS Jedburgh First Lieutenant

who became a colonel and the father of Special Forces.

WILLIAM R. CORSON

A legendary Marine intelligence officer

whom the KGB hated more than any other U.S. intelligence officer—

and not only because he wrote the definitive work on them.

FOR THE LIVING

BILLY WAUGH

A legendary Special Forces Command Sergeant Major

who retired and then went on to hunt down the infamous Carlos the Jackal.

Billy could have terminated Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s

but could not get permission to do so. After fifty years in

the business, Billy is still going after the bad guys.

RENÉ J. DÉFOURNEAUX

A U.S. Army OSS Second Lieutenant attached to the British SOE

who jumped into Occupied France alone and later

became a legendary U.S. Army counterintelligence officer.

JOHNNY REITZEL

An Army Special Operations officer

who could have terminated the head terrorist of the seized cruise ship

Achille Lauro but could not get permission to do so.

RALPH PETERS

An Army intelligence officer

who has written the best analysis of our war against terrorists

and of our enemy that I have ever seen.

AND FOR THE NEW BREED

MARC L

A senior intelligence officer, despite his youth,

who reminds me of Bill Colby more and more each day.

FRANK L

A legendary Defense Intelligence Agency officer

who retired and now follows in Billy Waugh’s footsteps.

OUR NATION OWES ALL OF THESE PATRIOTS

A DEBT BEYOND REPAYMENT.

I

[ONE]

Marburg an der Lahn

Hesse, Germany

1905 24 December 2005

It was a picture-postcard Christmas Eve.

Snow covered the ground. It had been snowing on and off all day, and it was gently falling now.

The stained-glass windows of the ancient Church of St. Elisabeth glowed faintly from the forest of candles burning inside, and the church itself seemed to glow from the light of the candles in the hands of the faithful who had arrived to worship too late to find room inside and now stood outside.

A black Mercedes-Benz 600SL was stopped in traffic by the crowds on Elisabethstrasse, its wipers throwing snow off its windshield.

The front passenger door opened and a tall, heavyset, ruddy-faced man in his sixties got out. He looked at the crowds of the faithful, then up at the twin steeples of the church, then shook his head in disgust and impatience, and got back in the car.

“Seven hundred and sixty-nine fucking years, and they’re still waiting for a fucking virgin,” Otto Görner said, as much in disgust as awe.

“Excuse me, Herr Görner?” the driver asked, more than a little nervously.

Johan Schmidt, the large forty-year-old behind the wheel, was wearing a police-type uniform; he was a supervisor in the security firm that protected the personnel and property of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. Otto Görner was managing director of the holding company, among whose many corporate assets was the security firm.

Schmidt’s supervisor was in charge of security for what in America would be called the corporate headquarters of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., in Fulda, another small Hessian city about one hundred kilometers from Marburg an der Lahn. The supervisor had arrived at Schmidt’s home an hour and a half before, and had come right to the point.

“Herr Görner wants to go to Marburg,” he’d announced at Schmidt’s door. “And you’re going to drive him.”

He had then made two gestures, one toward the street, where a security car was parked behind the SL600, and one by putting his thumb to his lips.

Schmidt immediately understood both gestures. He was to drive Herr Görner to Marburg in the SL600, and the reason he was going to do so was that Herr Görner—who usually drove himself in a 6.0-liter V12-engined Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas—had been imbibing spirits. Görner was fond of saying he never got behind the wheel of a car if at any time in the preceding eight hours he had so much as sniffed a cork. The Mercedes was Frau Görner’s car; no one drove Otto Görner’s Jag but Otto Görner.

Görner’s physical appearance was that of a stereotypical Bavarian; he visually seemed to radiate gemütlichkeit. He was in fact a Hessian, and what he really radiated—even when he had not been drinking—was the antithesis of gemütlichkeit. It was said behind his back that only three people in the world were not afraid of him. One was his wife, Helena, who was paradoxically a Bavarian but looked and dressed like a Berlinerin or maybe a New Yorker. It was hard to imagine Helena Görner in a dirndl, her hair in pigtails, munching on a würstchen.

Frau Gertrud Schröeder, Görner’s secretary, had been known to tell him no and to shout back at him when that was necessary in the performance of her duties.

The third person who didn’t hold Görner in fearful awe didn’t have to. Herr Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger was by far the principal stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. Görner worked for him, at least theoretically. Gossinger lived in the United States under the polite fiction that he was the Washington, D.C., correspondent of the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain—there were seven scattered over Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary—which constituted another holding of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

It was commonly believed that the heir to the Gossinger fortune seldom wrote anything but his signature on a corporate check drawn to his credit and instead spent most of his time chasing movie stars, models, and other female prey in the beachside bars of Florida and California and in the après-ski lounges of Colorado and elsewhere.

“I said it’s been seven hundred and sixty-nine fucking years, and they’re still waiting for a fucking virgin,” Görner repeated.

“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said, now sorry he had asked.

“You do know the legend?” Görner challenged.

Schmidt resisted the temptation to say “of course” in the hope that would end the conversation. Instead, afraid that Görner would demand to hear what the legend was, he said, “I’m not sure, Herr Görner.”

“Not sure?” Görner replied scornfully. “You either do or you don’t.”

“The crooked steeples?” Schmidt asked, taking a chance.

“Steeple, singular,” Görner corrected him, and then went on: “The church was built to honor Elisabeth of Hungary, twelve hundred seven to twelve hundred thirty-one. She was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary. He married her off at age fourteen to Ludwig IV, one of whose descendants was Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, who lost his throne because he became involved with an American actress whose name I can’t at the moment recall, possibly because, before this came up, I got into the wassail cup.

“Anyway, Ludwig IV, the presumably sane one, went off somewhere for God and Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire. While so nobly employed, he caught a bug of some sort and died.

“Elisabeth, now a widow, interpreted this as a sign from God and thereafter devoted her life and fortune to good works and Holy Mother Church. For reasons I have never had satisfactorily explained, she came here and founded a hospital for the poor, right here behind the church—our destination, you understand?”

“I know where we’re going, Herr Görner.”

To see a dead man, he thought. A murdered man.

So why am I getting this Gottverdammt history lesson—because he’s feeling no pain?

Or because he doesn’t want to think about the real reason we’re here?

“That was before the church was built, you understand,” Görner had gone on. “The church came after she died in 1231. By then she had become a Franciscan nun and given all her money and property to the church.

“So, they decided to canonize her. Pope Gregory IX did so in 1235, and in the fall of that year, they laid the cornerstone of the church. It took them a couple of years to finish it, and nobody was so impolite as to mention that one of the steeples was crooked.

“But everybody saw it, of course, and a legend sprang up—possibly with a little help from the Vatican—that the steeple would be straightened by God himself just as soon as Saint Elisabeth’s bones were reburied under the altar. That happened in 1249. The steeple didn’t move.

“The legend changed to be that the steeple would be fixed when the first virgin was married in the church.” He paused, then drily added, “Your choice, Schmidt—either there was a shortage of virgins getting married, or the legend was baloney.”

Schmidt raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“The steeple was still crooked three hundred years later,” Görner continued, “when Landgrave Phillip of Hesse threw the Romans out of the church and turned it over to the Protestants. That was in 1527, if memory serves, and it usually does.

“He threw the Dominicans out of their monastery on the top of the hill”—Görner turned and pointed over his shoulder—“at about the same time and turned it into a university, which he modestly named after himself. That’s where I went to school.”

“So I have heard, Herr Görner.”

“Enough is enough,” Görner said.

“Sir?”

“It could be argued that inasmuch as poor Günther is dead, there is no reason for us to hurry,” Görner said. “But an equally heavy argument is there is no reason we should wait while they stand there with their fucking candles waiting for a fucking virgin. Sound the horn, Schmidt, and drive through them.”

“Herr Görner, are you sure you—”

Görner reached for the steering wheel and pressed hard on the horn for what seemed to Schmidt an interminable time.

This earned them looks of shock and indignation from the candle-bearing worshippers, but after a moment the crowd began to make room and the big Mercedes moved through the gap.

In the block behind the church, at Görner’s direction, Schmidt illegally parked the car before a PARKEN VERBOTEN! sign at the main entrance to the hospital, between a somewhat battered silver-and-white Opel Astra police car and an apparently brand-new, unmarked Astra that bore a magnet-based police blue light on its roof.

[TWO]

There were two men sitting on a bench in the corridor of the hospital. One was a stout, totally bald, decently dressed man in his fifties, the other a weasel-faced thirty-something-year-old in a well-worn blue suit that had not received the attention of a dry cleaner in a very long time.

When they saw Görner, they both rose, the older one first.

“Herr Görner?” he said.

Görner nodded and perfunctorily shook their hands.

“Where is he?” Görner said.

“You wish to see the victim, Herr Görner?”

Görner shut off the reply that sprang to his lips, and instead said, “If I may.”

“The ‘mortuary,’ using the term loosely, is down that way,” the older man said. “But I was ordered to have the body moved here from the coroner’s morgue.”

Görner nodded. He had been responsible for the order.

When the security duty officer at the office had called Herr Otto Görner to tell him he had just been informed that Herr Günther Friedler had been found dead “under disturbing circumstances” in his room in the Europäischer Hof in Marburg, the first thing Görner had done was to order that his wife’s car be brought to the house with a driver to take him to Marburg. Next, he had called an acquaintance—not a friend—in the Ministry of the Interior. The Interior Ministry controlled both the Federal Police and the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Investigation Bureau, known by its acronym, BKA. The acquaintance owed Otto Görner several large favors.

Görner had given him—“And yes, Stutmann, I know it’s Christmas Eve”—two “requests”:

One, that Görner wanted a senior officer of the BKA immediately dispatched to Marburg an der Lahn to “assist” the Hessian police in their investigation of the death of Günther Friedler, and, two, that while that official was on his way, Görner wanted the Hessian police to be told to move the body out of the coroner’s morgue; Saint Elisabeth’s Hospital would be a good place.

“What’s this all about, Otto?”

“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Your line is probably tapped.”

There was no blood on either the sheet that the weasel-faced plainclothes policeman pulled from the naked corpse of the late Günther Friedler or on the body itself. There were, however, too many stab wounds to the body to be easily counted, and there was an obscene wound on the face where the left eye had been cut from the skull.

Someone has worked very hard to clean you up, Günther.

“Merry Christmas,” Otto Görner said, and motioned for the plainclothes policeman to pull the sheet back over the body.

The completely bald police official signaled for the plainclothes policeman to leave the room.

“So what is the official theory?” Görner asked as soon as the door closed.

“Actually, Herr Görner, we see a case like this every once in a while.”

Görner waited for him to continue.

“When homosexual lovers quarrel, there is often a good deal of passion. And when knives are involved . . .” He shook his bald head and grimaced, then went on: “We’re looking for a ‘good friend’ rather than a male prostitute.”

Görner just looked at him.

“But we are, of course, talking to the male prostitutes,” the police official added.

“You are?” Görner asked.

“Yes, of course we are. This is murder, Herr Görner—”

“I was asking who you are,” Görner interrupted.

“Polizeirat Lumm, Herr Görner, of the Hessian Landespolizie.”

“Captain, whoever did this to Herr Friedler might well be a deviate, but he was neither a ‘good friend’ of Friedler nor a male whore.”

“How can you know—”

“A senior BKA investigator,” Görner said quickly, shutting him off, “is on his way here to assist you in your investigation. Until he gets here, I strongly suggest that you do whatever you have to do to protect the corpse and the scene of the crime.”

“Polizeidirektor Achter told me about the BKA getting involved when he told me you would be coming, Herr Görner.”

“Good.”

“Can you tell me what this is all about?”

“Friedler worked for me. He was in Marburg working on a story. There is no question in my mind that he was killed because he had—or was about to have—come upon something that would likely send someone to prison and/or embarrass someone very prominent.”

“Have you a name? Names?”

“As far as I know, Polizeirat Lumm, you are a paradigm of an honest police officer, but on the other hand, I don’t know that, and I never laid eyes on you until tonight, so I’m not going to give you any names.”

“With all respect, Herr Görner, that could be interpreted as refusing to cooperate with a police investigation.”

“Yes, I suppose it could. Are you thinking of arresting me?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.”

“I almost wish you would. If you did, I wouldn’t have to do what I must do next: go to Günther Friedler’s home on Christmas Eve and tell his widow that her thoroughly decent husband—they have four children, Lumm, two at school here at Phillips, two a little older with families of their own—will not be coming home late on Christmas Eve because he has been murdered by these bastards.”

[THREE]

3690 Churchill Lane

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1610 24 December 2005

After carefully checking his rearview mirror, John M. “Jack” Britton, a somewhat soberly dressed thirty-two-year-old black man, turned his silver Mazda MX-5 Miata right off Morrell Avenue onto West Crown Avenue, then almost immediately made another right onto Churchill Lane.

Churchill Lane—lined with clusters of two-story row houses, five to eight houses per cluster—made an almost ninety-degree turn to the left after the second cluster of homes. Britton followed the turn, then pulled the two-door convertible (he had the optional hardtop on it for the winter) to the curb in front of the center cluster. He was now nearly right in front of his home.

Britton got out of the car, looked down the street, and then, seeing nothing, walked around the nose of the Miata, pulled open the passenger door, and accepted an armload of packages from his wife, Sandra, a slim, tall, sharp-featured woman who was six days his senior in age.

They had come from a Bring One Present Christmas party held in a nearby restaurant by and for co-workers. Jack Britton had changed jobs, but he and his wife had been invited anyway. They came home with the two presents they had received in exchange for each of theirs, plus the door prize, an electric mixer for the kitchen that seemed to be made of lead and for which they had no use. On the way home, they had discussed giving it to Sandra’s brother, El-wood, who was getting married.

Knowing that her husband couldn’t unlock the front door with his arms full, Sandra preceded him past the three-foot-high brick wall that was topped with a four-foot-high aluminum rail fence—one that Britton bitterly complained had cost a bundle yet had done absolutely nothing to keep the local dogs from doing their business on his small but meticulously kept lawn.

Sandra was just inside the fence when Jack looked down the street again.

This time he saw what he was afraid he was going to see: a pale green Chrysler Town & Country minivan. It was slowly turning the ninety-degree bend in Churchill Lane. Then it rapidly accelerated.

“Sandy, get down behind the wall!” Britton ordered.

“What?”

He rushed to his wife, pushed her off the walkway and down onto the ground behind the wall, then covered her body with his.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, half angrily, half fearfully.

There came the sound of squealing tires.

Britton reached inside his jacket and pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .357 Magnum revolver from his shoulder holster. He rolled off of his wife and onto his back, bringing up the pistol with both hands and aiming at the top of the wall in case someone came over it.

There then came the sound of automatic-weapons fire—Kalashnikovs, he thought, two of them—and of a few ricochets and glass shattering, and the tinkle of ejected cartridge cases bouncing on the macadam pavement of Churchill Lane.

And then squealing tires and a revved-up engine.

Britton crawled to where he could look out the gate to the street. He saw the Town & Country turn onto Wessex Lane but knew there wasn’t time for a shot at the minivan. And he realized he couldn’t have fired if there had been time; another cluster of houses was in the line of fire.

He stood up, put the pistol back in the shoulder holster, then went to Sandra and pulled her to her feet.

“What the hell was that, Jack?” she asked, her voice faint.

“Let’s get you in the house,” he said, avoiding the question. “Into the cellar.”

He took her arm and led her up the walk to the door.

“I dropped the goddamn keys,” Sandra said.

He ran back to the fence, drawing the pistol again as he ran, found the keys, and then ran back to his front door.

There were half a dozen neat little holes in the door, and one of the small panes of glass in the door had been shattered.

He got the door unlocked and propelled Sandra through the living room to the door of the cellar, which he had finished out with a big-screen TV, a sectional couch, and a wet bar.

“Honey,” he said, his tone forceful, “stay down there until I tell you. If you want to be useful, make us a drink while I call the cavalry.”

“I don’t think this is funny, Jack, goddamn you!”

“I’ll be right outside. And when the cops get here, I’m going to need a drink.”

He closed the cellar door after she started down the stairs. Then he went quickly to the front door, took up a position where he could safely see out onto the street, and looked. He saw nothing alarming.

He took his cellular telephone from its belt clip and punched 9-1-1.

He didn’t even hear the phone ring a single time before a voice said: “Nine-one-one Emergency. Operator four-seven-one. What’s your emergency?”

“Assist officer! Shots fired! Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane. Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane.” He’d repeated the address, making sure the police dispatcher got it correct. “Two or more shooters in a pale green Chrysler Town & Country minivan. They went westbound on Wessex from Churchill. They used automatic weapons, possibly Kalashnikov rifles.”

He broke the connection, then looked out the window again, this time seeing something he hadn’t noticed before.

The MX-5 had bullet holes in the passenger door. The metal was torn outward, meaning that the bullets had passed through the driver’s door first.

If we had been in the car, they would’ve gotten us.

Goddamn! The car’s not two months old.

When he heard the howl of sirens, he went outside. He looked up and down the street, and then, taking the revolver out of its holster again, walked down to the sidewalk to see what else had happened to the Miata.

The first unit to respond to the call was DJ 811, a rather rough-looking Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor patrol car assigned to the Eighth District. The howl of its siren died as it turned onto Churchill Lane, and when Britton saw it coming around the curve, he noticed that the overhead lights were not flashing.

Britton turned his attention back to the Miata. The driver’s-side window was shattered and several bullets had penetrated the windshield. The windshield had not shattered, but Britton couldn’t help but think how the holes in it looked amazingly like someone had stuck all over it those cheap bullet-hole decals that could be bought at most auto-supply shops.

He walked around the front of the car and saw that it had taken hits in the right fender, the right front tire, and the hood.

He smelled gasoline.

Oh, shit! They got the gas tank!

Then he heard a voice bark: “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!”

Britton saw that two cops in a patrol car had arrived.

They were both out of their car and had their service Glock semiautomatics aimed at him from behind the passenger door and across the hood.

Both looked as if they had graduated from the academy last week.

The order reminded Britton that he was still holding the Smith & Wesson. At his side, to be sure, pointing at the ground. But holding it.

Not smart, Jack. Not smart!

“Three-six-nine! Three-six-nine!” Britton shouted, using the old Philadelphia police radio code for police officer.

The two very young cops, their Glocks still leveled on him, suddenly looked much older and in charge.

The one behind the driver door repeated the order: “Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!”

Britton’s problem was that he did not think he could safely do as ordered—“Drop the gun!”

The Smith & Wesson Model 29 is a double-action model, meaning he could squeeze the trigger to fire a round with the hammer forward or cocked back. The latter required less pressure from the trigger finger.

It was Britton’s belief that one well-aimed shot was more effective than a barrage of shots aimed in the general direction of a miscreant. He also knew that a shot fired in the single-action mode—with the hammer drawn back—was far more likely to strike its intended target than one fired by pulling hard on the trigger with the hammer in the forward—or uncocked—position. The extra effort required to fire from the uncocked position tended to disturb one’s aim.

He had, therefore, formed the habit, whenever drawing his weapon with any chance whatever that he might have to pull the trigger, of cocking the hammer. And he had done so just now when he walked out of his front door.

If I drop this sonofabitch, the impact’s liable to release the hammer, which will fire off a round, whereupon these two kids are going to empty their Glocks at me.

“Three-six-nine!” Britton said again. “I’m Jack Britton. I’m a detective. This is my house. My wife and I are the ones who were—”

“I’m not going to tell you again, you sonofabitch! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”

“May I lay it on the ground, please? The hammer—”

“Drop the fucking gun!”

“Take it easy, fellows,” a new voice said with authority.

Britton saw two more Philly policemen, a captain and a sergeant. He had not seen another car drive up, but now noticed there were four police cars on Churchill Lane. The wail of sirens in the distance announced the imminent arrival of others.

“Hello, Jack,” the captain said.

Britton now recognized him. He had been his sergeant, years ago, when Officer Britton was walking a beat in the Thirty-fifth District.

“If I drop this gun, the hammer’s back, and—”

“Holster your weapons,” the captain ordered firmly. “I know him. He’s one of us.”

When the police officers had complied with the order—and not a second before—the captain walked to Britton and squeezed his shoulder in an affectionate gesture that clearly said, Good to see you, pal.

“Jesus, Jack, they shot the car up, didn’t they?”

“It’s not even two months old,” Britton said.

“What the hell happened here, Jack?”

“Sandra and I were at the Rosewood Caterer’s, on Frankford Avenue, at the Northeast Detectives Christmas party. I thought I was being followed—2002, 2003 Chrysler Town and Country, pale green in color. I didn’t get the tag.”

“Tommy,” the captain ordered, “put out a flash on the car. . . .”

“Black males, maybe in Muslim clothing,” Britton furnished, “armed with automatic AKs, last seen heading west on Wessex Lane.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. He grabbed the lapel mike attached to his shirt epaulet, squeezed the PUSH TO TALK button, and began to relay the flash information to Police Radio.

“Kalashnikovs?” the captain asked, shaking his head. “Fully auto ones?”

Britton nodded. “And they got the gas tank.” He pointed.

The captain muttered an obscenity and then turned to the young policemen.

“Put in a call to the fire department—gasoline spill,” he ordered, and then looked at Britton.

“Well, although I thought for a minute they weren’t following me, they were,” Britton said. “They came around the bend”—he pointed—“just as Sandra and I got inside the fence. I tackled her behind the wall and then all hell broke loose. . . .”

“She all right?”

“She’s in the basement. Shook up, sure, but all right.”

“Why don’t you put that horse pistol away, and we’ll go talk to her?”

“Jesus,” Britton said, embarrassed that he hadn’t already lowered the hammer and put the Smith & Wesson in its holster.

The captain issued orders to first check to see if anyone might have been injured in the area, and then to protect the scene, and finally gestured to Britton to precede him into his house.

Sandra had left the cellar and now was in the living room, sprawled on the couch. There was a squat glass dark with whiskey on the coffee table, and she had one just like it in her hand.

“You remember Captain Donnelly, honey?”

“Yeah, sure. Long time. Merry Christmas.”

“You all right, Sandra?” Donnelly said, the genuine concern of an old friend clear in his tone.

“As well—after being tackled by my husband, then having those AALs shoot up our house and our new car—as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“AAL is politically incorrect, Sandra,” Captain Donnelly said, smiling.

“I can say it,” she said, pointing to her skin. “I can say African-American Lunatics. I could even say worse, but I’m a lady and I won’t.”

“Take it easy, honey,” Britton said.

“I thought Jack was finished with them,” Sandra said. “Naïve little ol’ me.”

Britton leaned over and picked up the whiskey glass.

“Can I offer you one of these?” he said to Donnelly.

“Of course not. I’m a captain, a district commander, and I’m on duty. But on the other hand, it’s Christmas Eve, isn’t it?”

“I’ll get it,” Sandra said, rising gracefully from the couch. “I moved the bottle to the kitchen knowing I would probably have more than one.”

Donnelly looked at Britton.

“Tough little lady,” he said admiringly.

“Yeah. Those bastards! I understand them wanting to whack me, but . . .”

“Jack, let’s get a few things out of the way.”

“Like what?”

“I heard you left the department, but that’s about all I know. You’re still in law enforcement?”

“I guess you could say that,” Britton said, and took a small leather wallet from his suit jacket and handed it to Donnelly, who opened it, examined it, and handed it back.

“Secret Service, eh?”

“Now, if anyone asks, you can say, ‘The victim identified himself to me by producing the credentials of a Secret Service special agent . . .’ ”

“ ‘... and authorized to carry firearms,’” Donnelly finished the quote. “You guys carry Smith & Wesson .357s?”

“I do.”

“What have they got you doing, Jack?”

“I’m assigned to Homeland Security.”

“That’s what Sandra meant when she said she thought you were through with the AALs?”

Britton nodded, then suddenly realized: “And speaking of Homeland Security, I’m going to have to tell them about this before they see it on Fox News. Excuse me.”

He took his cellular telephone from its holster and punched an autodial number.

[FOUR]

The Consulate of the United States of America

Parkring 12a

Vienna, Austria

2105 24 December 2005

The counselor for consular affairs of the United States embassy in Vienna, Miss Eleanor Dillworth, was aware that many people—including many, perhaps most, American citizens—were less than thrilled with the services the consular section offered, and with the very consular officials who offered them.

An American citizen who required consular service—for example, having pages added to a passport; registering the birth of a child; needing what amounted to notary public services—could acquire such services only from eight to eleven-thirty each morning, Monday through Friday—provided, of course, that that day was neither an American nor an Austrian holiday and, of course, with the understanding that the said American citizen could not get the passport pages added and make any inquiry of any consular official regarding visas.

Consular officials could not be troubled by being asked about the status of a visa application by anyone—including, for example, but not limited to, an American citizen wondering when his foreign wife was going to get the visa that she not only had applied for but was entitled to under the law.

Miss Dillworth understood that such dissatisfaction spread around the world.

A colleague—one Alexander B. Darby, who was the commercial attaché of the United States embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina—had told her that a well-known American artist living in Buenos Aires was going about loudly saying to anyone who would listen that whenever he went to the embassy there, he was made to feel by the consular officials as welcome as a registered sex offender seeking overnight lodging at a Girl Scout camp.

Eleanor and Alex had exchanged horror stories for at least a half hour when they had run into each other in Washington. They had even come up with an explanation why the Foreign Service got away with its arrogance and, indeed, incompetence.

It was, they concluded, a question of congressional oversight . . . or wanton lack thereof.

A farmer, for example, who felt that he had been mistreated by a farm agent would immediately get on the phone to his congressman or senator and complain, whereupon the congressman or senator would call the secretary of Agriculture, expressing his displeasure and reminding the secretary that the function of his agency was to serve the public, not antagonize it.

Doctors—and maybe especially lawyers—thought nothing, when they felt they were being improperly serviced, of going directly to the surgeon general, or the attorney general, with their complaints. Similarly, bankers would raise hell with the secretary of the Treasury, businessmen with the secretary of Commerce, und so weiter.

And they got results.

The only people who took a close look at the Foreign Service were members of Congress. They performed this duty by visiting embassies around the world—usually in places like Paris, London, and Tokyo—traveling in either USAF VIP jets or in the first-class compartment of a commercial airliner, and accompanied by their wives. On their arrival, they were housed in the best hotels and lavishly entertained, the costs thereof coming from the ambassadors’ “representational allowance” provided by the U.S. taxpayer. Then they got back on the airplanes and went home, having become “Experts in International Affairs” and bubbling all over with praise for the charming people of the State Department, those nobly serving their country on foreign shores.

There were exceptions, of course. Alex Darby couldn’t say enough nice things about the ambassador in Buenos Aires, even though he didn’t seem able to do much about his consular staff enraging American citizens—not to mention the natives—living in Argentina.

But Alex and Eleanor were agreed that the Foreign Service could be greatly improved if every other diplomat arriving for work in his chauffeur-driven embassy car—with consular diplomatic tags, which permitted him to ignore speed limits and park wherever he wished—were canned, and those dips remaining were seriously counseled to get their act in gear or be canned themselves.

At first glance—or even second—it might appear that Counselor for Consular Affairs Eleanor Dillworth and Commercial Attaché Alexander B. Darby were disgruntled employees and probably should never have been employed by the Foreign Service in the first place.

The truth here was that neither was a member of the Foreign Service, despite the good deal of effort expended to make that seem to be the case. In fact, Dillworth and Darby were the Central Intelligence Agency station chiefs in, respectively, Vienna and Buenos Aires, and the salary checks deposited once a month to their personal banking accounts came from the funds of the Clandestine Services Division of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia.

It was in this latter—which was to say real—role that Eleanor Dillworth sat in her consul general’s office on Parkring, waiting to have a word with a bona fide diplomat, Ronald J. Spearson, who was, as no one at the moment served as ambassador to Austria, the Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. of the American embassy.

“In case this somehow slipped by you, Eleanor, it’s Christmas Eve,” Spearson said when he walked into the office. He was a tall, trim man in his early forties.

“Well, in that case, Merry Christmas, Ronnie.”

Spearson believed that embassy staff should address him as “Mister,” and he did not like to be called “Ronnie,” not even by his wife.

He gave her a dirty look.

“I’m in no mood for your sarcasm,” she said. “I know what day this is, and I wouldn’t have asked you to come here unless it was important.”

“I meant no offense, Eleanor,” he said after a moment. “If an apology is in order, consider that it has been offered.”

She did consider that a moment, then nodded.

“Kurt Kuhl and his wife have been murdered,” she said.

“Kurt Kuhl of Kuhlhaus? That Kuhl?”

She nodded.

“About half past six tonight,” she said. “The bodies were found behind the Johann Strauss statue in the Stadtpark.”

She gestured in the direction of a window that overlooked Parkring and the Stadtpark.

“Well, I’m . . .”

“They were garroted,” she went on evenly, “with a metal garrote of the type the Hungarian secret police—the Államvédelmi Hatóság—used in the bad old days.”

“Eleanor, what has this to do with me? With the embassy?”

“As a result of which,” she went on, ignoring the questions, “there will be a new star on that wall in Langley. Two, if I have anything to say. Gertrud Kuhl is entitled to one, too.”

Spearson looked at her for a long moment.

“You’re not suggesting, Eleanor, are you, that Kurt Kuhl was one of your—”

“I’m telling you that Kurt Kuhl has been in the clandestine service of the company longer than you’re old.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Spearson said.

“I thought you might. Nevertheless, you have now been told.”

“My God, he’s an old man!”

“Seventy-five,” she said. “About as old as Billy Waugh.”

“Billy Waugh?”

“The fellow who bagged Carlos the Jackal. The last time I heard, Billy was running around Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden.”

Again he looked at her a long moment before replying.

“If what you say is true . . .”

“I just made this up to give you a little Christmas Eve excitement,” she said sarcastically.

“Then why wasn’t I told of this before?”

“You didn’t have the Need to Know. Now, in my judgment, you do.”

“And the ambassador? Did he know?”

“No. He didn’t have the Need to Know, either.”

“You made that decision, is that what you’re saying?”

“I was given the authority to tell him if I thought it was necessary. Or not to tell him.”

“That violates the Country Team principle.”

“The secretary of State signed on to what the DCI told me.”

“What was Kuhl doing for the CIA?”

“You want a thumbnail or the whole scenario?”

“I think I had better hear everything.”

“Okay. Kuhl was a Hungarian Jew. His family had been in the pastry shop business for a long time, way back before World War One. They saw what was happening and got out of Hungary to the States in 1939. Kurt was then ten years old, the youngest of their children.

“There was already a Kuhlhaus store in New York City and another in Chicago. The family went back to work in that business. When war came, his older brother, Gustav, went into the Army, was promptly recruited by the OSS, and was one of the original Jedburghs.”

“The original what?”

“Agents for the Office of Strategic Services trained at Jedburgh, Scotland, to jump into German-occupied Europe. Bill Colby, who, I’m sure you remember, went on to become DCI in ’73, was one of them. Gustav was captured in France, sent to Sachsenhausen, and executed there just before the Russians arrived.

“In 1946, just as soon as he turned seventeen, Kurt, by then an American citizen, enlisted in the Army. Getting to Europe to see what family assets he could salvage was one reason. Avenging his brother was another.

“He spoke German and Hungarian and Slovak, etcetera. He was assigned here as an interpreter at the Kommandatura—the Allied Control Commission. ‘Four men in a jeep.’ Remember that?”

Spearson shook his head.

“Toward the end of his tour, they found out that Corporal Kuhl had been sneaking in and out of what was then Czechoslovakia and Hungary and East Germany. That was in 1949. He should have been court-martialed, but somebody in the CIA was smart enough to offer him a deal.

“If he was willing to be of service, unspecified, if called upon, he not only would not be court-martialed but would be allowed to remain in Vienna to salvage what he could of the family business, and he would be helped to do that.

“He took the deal. I don’t know what he did between ’49 and ’56, but he was so helpful during the Hungarian uprising that the agency put him on the payroll, as field officer, clandestine service. He’s been on it ever since.”

“He’s been a spy all this time?”

“Not in the James Bond sense. What he has been doing—and if you think about it a moment, you’ll see how valuable this has been—is identify people the company could turn. He didn’t turn them. He just identified those people he thought could be turned. He became their friend, learned their strengths and weaknesses, and passed it to the company.

“The diplomatic and intelligence services of the old Soviet Union, and its satellites, as well as the Western countries, do—as we do—tend to move their people between assignments in an area. In this case, Eastern Europe. Their dips would be in Warsaw on one assignment, Vienna the next, maybe Rome, and later Budapest, then back to Vienna . . .”

“And we wouldn’t recruit them here, but when they were somewhere else?”

“Precisely. An Austrian passport was arranged for him. That happened to many ex-Hungarians who couldn’t get a Hungarian passport. He became a Viennese, the heir to the Kuhlhaus pastry shops. It was a perfect cover. When the wall came down, no one raised an eyebrow when Kuhlhauses were opened or reopened—in Prague, Budapest, all over—and no one thought it was in any way suspicious that Kurt Kuhl moved around Eastern Europe supervising his business.”

“Well, apparently someone did,” Spearson said. “If he was murdered.”

“Nobody ever accused the SVR of stupidity. I suppose we should have expected he would get burned. . . . My God, he was doing his job for fifty years. He didn’t think so. I tried to warn him it was just about inevitable.”

“You’ve been in touch with him?”

She nodded.

“About once a week. At the Kuhlhaus store on the Graben. He often took me in the back room for a little café mit schlagobers. And I will go to his funeral. I think it will probably be held in Saint Stephen’s. Over the years, he made a lot of important friends. I will go as an old customer, not as the counselor for consular affairs.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I hope nothing. But I thought you should know who he really was, and what he was doing, rather than be surprised when you read it on the front page of the Wiener Tages Zeitung.”

[FIVE]

Restaurant Oca

Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

1855 24 December 2005

In the opinion of Liam Duffy—a short, muscular, blond thirty-nine-year-old—there was a good deal to recommend the Restaurant Oca on a blistering hot Christmas Eve, starting with the fact that it would stay open until seven. Most other restaurants in this country of devout Catholics closed just after lunch to celebrate the night before Christ’s sacred birth.

The food was good, but the basic reason he had suggested to Mónica, his wife, that they take a ride out to Oca in Pilar from their apartment in Barrio Norte was the geese.

Oca was adjacent to a residential country club called The Farm. Just inside the gate to the guarded community of larger-than-ordinary houses, and immediately behind the restaurant, was a small lake that supported a large gaggle of geese.

The geese had learned to paddle up to the rear of the restaurant and beg for bread scraps. The Duffy kids—there were four, two girls and two boys, ranging in age from two to seven years—never tired of feeding them.

This meant that Liam and Mónica could linger over their dessert and coffee without having to separate the children from sibling disputes. These occurred often, of course, but far more frequently when the kids were excited, as they were by Christmas Eve and when the temperature and humidity were as oppressive as they were now.

Duffy ignored the waiter standing nearby with their check in hand as long as he could, but finally waved him over. Mónica collected the kids as her husband waited for his change.

From here, they would go to Mónica’s parents’ home in Belgrano for the ritual Christmas Eve “tea.” They would have Christmas dinner tomorrow with his parents and four other Duffy males and their families at their apartment in Palermo.

Mónica appeared with the children, holding the hand of the youngest boy and the ear of the elder. The other two children seemed delighted with the arrangement.

Duffy shook hands with the proprietor, whose smile seemed a little strained, then left the restaurant and got in the car. He handed the car-parker a five-peso note instead of the usual two. It was, after all, Christmas Eve.

And he was driving a year-old Mercedes-Benz 320 SUV, which suggested that he was affluent and could afford a five-peso tip. He wasn’t; the car belonged to the government. But the valet, of course, had no way of knowing this.

To get in the southbound lane of the Panamericana Expressway, it was necessary to pass through a tunnel under the toll road itself. As Duffy came out the far side of the tunnel and prepared to turn left onto the access ramp, an old battered white Ford F-150 pickup truck pulled in front of him, causing Liam Duffy to say certain words, ones Mónica quickly pointed out to him should not be used in the presence of children.

Duffy followed the Ford up the access ramp, where the sonofabitch driving the pickup suddenly slammed on its brakes.

Duffy stopped just before ramming him.

And then, as the hair on his neck curled, he looked over his left shoulder.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, not on fucking Christmas Eve!

He jammed the gearshift into low, spun the steering wheel to the right, and floored the accelerator. He rammed the right rear of the Ford. The pickup’s tires screamed as Duffy pushed it out of the way. The SUV—which was why Duffy had chosen it—had full-time four-wheel drive.

Mónica screamed.

Duffy then heard bullets impacting the Mercedes. By the time he reached the top of the access road, he had both offered a prayer for the safety of his family and drawn from under his shirt his semiautomatic pistol, an Argentine-manufactured version of the Model 1911A1 .45 ACP Colt.

He held down the horn with the hand holding the pistol as he drove through the traffic on the toll road.

Mónica was screaming again.

“The kids?” he shouted.

She stopped screaming and tried and failed to get into the backseat.

“Mónica, for Christ’s sake!”

“They’re all right,” she reported a moment later. “For God’s sake, slow down!”

Yeah, and let the bastards catch up with us!

He didn’t slow down, but did stop weaving through traffic.

Five kilometers down the toll road, he saw a Policía Federal police car parked in a Shell gasoline station.

He pulled off the highway and skidded to a stop by the car. The policemen inside looked at him more in annoyance than curiosity.

Duffy pushed the button on his door panel that rolled down his window.

“Comandante Duffy, Gendarmería Nacional!” he shouted at the Policía Federal policemen. “We have just been ambushed. Shot at. Look for a battered white Ford 150.”

They took him at his word.

The driver, a young officer, jumped out of the car, drew his pistol, and looked up the highway. The passenger, a sergeant, walked to the SUV.

By then Duffy had the microphone of his radio in his hand.

“All gendarmería hearing this. Comandante Duffy has just been ambushed at kilometer forty-six on the Panamericana. I want the nearest cars at the Shell station, kilometer thirty-eight, southbound. En route, stop all old white Ford 150 pickups and inspect right rear of vehicle for collision damage.”

It will do absolutely no fucking good, Duffy thought. The bastards are long gone.

But nobody’s hurt, and cars are on the way.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, thank you for answering my prayer.

Duffy got out of the car, put the pistol back in the holster in the small of his back under his shirt, then opened the rear door of the Mercedes.

He picked up the seven-year-old José and said, “Why don’t we go in there and get a Coke, and then we’ll go see Abuela?”

His wife, holding the baby, looked at him.

“Well, we’ll have something to talk about when we get to your mother’s, won’t we?” Liam asked.

“Goddamn you, Liam!” Mónica said.

II

[ONE]

7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia

1145 25 December 2005

A yellow Chrysler minivan with the legend Captain Al’s Taxi Service To All D.C. Airports painted on its back windows drove through the snow of the long, curving driveway up to the big house and stopped before the closed four doors of the basement garage.

The sole passenger—a trim woman who appeared to be in her sixties but was in fact a decade older, her jet-black hair, drawn tight in a bun, showing traces of gray—slid the door open before the driver could get out of the van to do it for her.

There was a path up a slope from the driveway to the front of the house, but there were no footprints in the snow to suggest that anyone had used it recently.

The driver took a small leather suitcase from the rear of the van, thought about it a moment—What the hell, it’s Christmas Day—and then said, “I’ll walk you to the door, ma’am.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

She followed him up the path. When he had put the suitcase at the foot of the door, she handed him a folded bill.

“Thank you,” she said. “And Merry Christmas.”

He looked at the money. It was a hundred-dollar note.

The fare was thirty-three fifty.

“Ma’am, I can’t change this.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said again, and pushed the doorbell button.

“Thank you very much, and a Merry Christmas to you, too.”

He got back in the van, waited to make sure that someone would answer her ring, and then drove away.

The door was opened by a large, muscular young man in a single-breasted suit.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Merry Christmas. Colonel Castillo, please.”

“There’s no one here by that name, ma’am.”

“Yes, there is,” she said politely but firmly. “Tell him his grandmother is here.”

The muscular young man considered that for a moment, then appeared to be talking to his suit lapel. It wasn’t the first time she had seen someone do that.

“Roger that,” he said again. “She says she’s Don Juan’s grandmother.”

Not ninety seconds later, a large, fair-skinned, blue-eyed man of thirty-six suddenly appeared at the front door. Lieutenant Colonel Carlos G. Castillo, Special Forces, U.S. Army, was wearing brown corduroy slacks and a battered sweatshirt with USMA printed on it. He held what could have been a glass of tomato juice in one hand, and a large, nearly black, eight-inch-long cigar in the other.

At his side was a very large silver-and-black shaggy dog about one and a half times the size of a very large boxer. At first sight, the dog—a one-hundred-forty-pound Bouvier des Flandres named Max—often frightened people, even dog lovers such as the muscular young man in the business suit who had answered the door, and who took some pride in thinking he was unflappable.

He flapped now in shock as the old lady, who, instead of recoiling in horror as Max rushed at her, dropped to her knees, cooed, “Hello, baby! Are you happy to see your old Abuela?” and wrapped her arms around Max’s massive neck.

Max whined happily as his shaggy stub of a tail spun like a helicopter rotor.

The old lady looked up at the man in the West Point sweatshirt.

“And what about you, Carlos? Are you happy to see your old Abuela?”

“Happy yes,” he said. “Shock will come later. What the he—What are you doing here?”

“Well, Fernando, Maria, and the children spent Christmas Eve with me at the house. Today I was faced with the choice of spending Christmas with Maria’s family or getting on the plane and spending it with you.”

“How’d you find the house, Abuela?”

“I told Fernando I was going to send you a turkey, and he gave me the address.”

“In other words, he doesn’t know you’re here?”

“Probably not,” Doña Alicia Castillo confessed as she stood up. “But the way that works, darling, is that I’m the Abuela and you and Fernando are the grandchildren. I don’t need anybody’s permission.”

“Welcome, welcome, Abuela,” Castillo said, smiling, and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the floor.

“I echo the sentiment,” a deep voice with a slight Eastern European accent said. “Until you arrived, Doña Alicia, I was sick with the thought of having to spend the day alone with these barbarians.”

Eric Kocian, a tall, erect man with a full head of silver hair, who also appeared to be in his sixties but was in fact eighty-two years of age, was in a starched white dress shirt, pressed woolen trousers, and a blue-striped chef’s apron. He walked to her and with great formality kissed her hand.

“Count your fingers, Abuela,” Castillo said. “And make sure you still have on your wedding ring.”

“Merry Christmas, Billy,” Doña Alicia said, using his nickname, and rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in an apron.”

“When one is being fed by vulgarians, one is wise to keep one’s eye on the cooks.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you. I somehow had the idea you’d gone back to Budapest.”

Kocian sighed dramatically. “I pray daily that I will soon be released from durance vile. So far the Good Lord has ignored my devout pleas.”

“I had no idea you were living here with Carlos.”

“I’m not,” he said a little too quickly. “Mädchen and I—with those few pups Karlchen has not torn cruelly from their mother—are staying in the Mayflower.”

“Four of those adorable pups, as I suspect you well know, Billy, are making this Christmas even more joyous for some very nice people.”

Kocian ignored that. He said, “May I offer you a glass of champagne, Doña Alicia? I took the precaution of bringing some, knowing that if the inhabitants of this monastery had any at all, it would be vinegar.”

“ ‘Monastery’?”

“That’s what they call it,” Kocian said with a nod at Castillo. “Their sense of humor is as perverse as their taste in food and wine.”

“I would love a glass of champagne,” Doña Alicia said, smiling.

“If you would be so kind as to follow me?”

Doña Alicia saw that the kitchen was large—even huge—and that the sliding doors open to the adjacent living room showed that it was sizable, too, causing her to idly wonder what exact purpose this great big house—and all these people—served for her grandson. There were seven people in the kitchen, six men and a woman, not counting Eric Kocian or Charley Castillo. Most were sprawled in chairs holding what could have been glasses of iced tomato juice, but what Doña Alicia knew had to be Bloody Marys. The woman and two of the men were standing at the stove, which was in an island in the center of the room.

There was also another Bouvier des Flandres, this one a third smaller than Max and lying on the floor beside an infant’s crib that held four sleeping puppies. She clearly was the mother—Mädchen—and sat up attentively when the others came into the room.

Castillo gestured toward the woman and one of the men at the stove. Dressed casually in nice blue jeans and sweaters, both were in their forties, a pleasant-looking pair yet average to the point that they would not stand out in a crowd on Main Street, U.S.A.

“Abuela,” Castillo said, “this is Dianne and Harold Sanders. They take care of us. This is my grandmother, Mrs. Alicia Castillo. Have we got enough to feed her?”

“No problem, Colonel,” Harold Sanders said as he stirred some dark sauce in a large pot. He looked at Abuela and nodded once. “It’s our honor to meet you, ma’am.”

“You know everybody else, right, Abuela?” Castillo went on.

“Enough,” she said, and went to Dianne Sanders. “My grandson should have given you Christmas off.”

“Unless we cooked dinner, ma’am,” Harold Sanders put in, “they’d poison themselves and we’d be out of a job.”

“If you say so,” she said with a smile.

She went in turn to the others, kissing the cheeks of the men she knew, shaking the hands of those she didn’t and saying she was happy to get to know them.

These included a young Chinese American whose name was David Yung; a nondescript man in his late fifties, wearing somewhat rumpled trousers and an unbuttoned vest, who introduced himself as Edgar Delchamps; a well-set-up man about Castillo’s age by the name of John Davidson; a ruddy-cheeked, middle-aged man who said he was Tom McGuire; and another middle-aged man whose name was Sándor Tor. Most were wearing suits, but not the jackets thereto.

And there were two others in the house: the muscular young man in the suit who had opened the front door to Doña Alicia, and another muscular young man in a suit who could have been his brother were he not a very dark-skinned African-American.

These two muscular young men were special agents of the United States Secret Service. Their mission was to provide security to the personnel of the Office of Organizational Analysis. While both the Secret Service and the OOA were in the Department of Homeland Security, almost no one knew of the OOA’s existence and even fewer were in fact members, including these special agents.

Of course, there were very good reasons for this—indeed, top secret ones—chief among them that the OOA had come into being only five months earlier at the direction—if not the fury—of the President of the United States:

TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

COPY 2 OF 3 (SECRETARY COHEN)

JULY 25, 2005.

PRESIDENTIAL FINDING.

IT HAS BEEN FOUND THAT THE ASSASSINATION OF J. WINSLOW MASTERSON, CHIEF OF MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA; THE ABDUCTION OF MR. MASTERSON’S WIFE, MRS. ELIZABETH LORIMER MASTERSON; THE ASSASSINATION OF SERGEANT ROGER MARKHAM, USMC; AND THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL

AGENT ELIZABETH T. SCHNEIDER INDICATES BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT THE EXISTENCE OF A CONTINUING PLOT OR PLOTS BY TERRORISTS, OR TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, TO CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO THE INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES, ITS DIPLOMATIC OFFICERS, AND ITS CITIZENS, AND THAT THIS SITUATION CANNOT BE TOLERATED.

IT IS FURTHER FOUND THAT THE EFFORTS AND ACTIONS TAKEN AND TO BE TAKEN BY THE SEVERAL BRANCHES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO DETECT AND APPREHEND THOSE INDIVIDUALS WHO COMMITTED THE TERRORIST ACTS PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED, AND TO PREVENT SIMILAR SUCH ACTS IN THE FUTURE ARE BEING AND WILL BE HAMPERED AND RENDERED LESS EFFECTIVE BY STRICT ADHERENCE TO APPLICABLE LAWS AND REGULATIONS.

IT IS THEREFORE FOUND THAT CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ACTION UNDER THE SOLE SUPERVISION OF THE PRESIDENT IS NECESSARY.

IT IS DIRECTED AND ORDERED THAT THERE IMMEDIATELY BE ESTABLISHED A CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WITH THE MISSION OF DETERMINING THE IDENTITY OF THE TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATIONS, ABDUCTION, AND ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED AND TO RENDER THEM HARMLESS. AND TO PERFORM SUCH OTHER COVERT AND CLANDESTINE ACTIVITIES AS THE PRESIDENT MAY ELECT TO ASSIGN.

FOR PURPOSES OF CONCEALMENT, THE AFOREMENTIONED CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WILL BE KNOWN AS THE OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. FUNDING WILL INITIALLY BE FROM DISCRETIONAL FUNDS OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. THE MANNING OF THE ORGANIZATION WILL BE DECIDED BY THE PRESIDENT ACTING ON THE ADVICE OF THE CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS.

MAJOR CARLOS G. CASTILLO, SPECIAL FORCES, U.S. ARMY, IS HEREWITH APPOINTED CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.

SIGNED:

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WITNESS:

Natalie G. Cohen

SECRETARY OF STATE

TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL

There at first had been only one member of the Office of Organizational Analysis—Castillo, who had recently returned from Afghanistan and was then assigned as an aide to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Matthew Hall—but the staff had quickly grown.

To guide the young Army major through the swamp of Washington bureaucracy and to protect him as much as this could be done from the alligators dwelling therein, Secretary Hall had given up two members of his personal staff, Mrs. Agnes Forbison and Thomas McGuire.

Mrs. Forbison, who was forty-nine, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby, was a GS-15, the most senior grade in the Federal Civil Service. She had been one of Hall’s executive assistants before being named deputy chief for administration of the Office of Organizational Analysis.

Tom McGuire, a supervisory special agent of the Secret Service, had been transferred to OOA because he knew the law-enforcement community and because—although he was not told this—Hall knew that whatever Castillo was going to do, it would take him far from Washington, and the secretary thought that getting away from Washington would take McGuire’s mind off the recent loss of his wife to cancer. He had been devastated.

The search for the assassins of J. Winslow Masterson had taken Castillo from Buenos Aires to the U.S. embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay. There he had met David W. Yung, Jr., ostensibly one of more than a dozen embassy “legal attachés”—actually, FBI agents—investigating the money laundering that was taking place in that small republic and its surrounding countries in what the U.S. State Department types called the Southern Cone.

About the time Yung had pointed Castillo toward a Uruguayan antiquities dealer—who was really one Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, an American employee of the United Nations and Elizabeth Masterson’s brother and deeply involved in the Iraqi-UN oil-for-food scandal—Castillo had learned that Yung—who spoke five languages, none of them Oriental—had been assigned duties in Uruguay that neither the ambassador nor the other “legal attachés” knew about.

The secretary of State and the U.S. attorney general had him investigating money laundering by prominent Americans of profits from the oil-for-food cesspool.

After Yung’s investigation helped unmask Lorimer, Castillo decided the best way to deal with the situation was to repatriate Lorimer to the United States—willingly or otherwise—where he could be interrogated by people like Tom McGuire.

Castillo then launched an ad hoc helicopter assault on Lorimer’s estancia, Shangri-La, to accomplish this. He used a helicopter borrowed from Aleksandr Pevsner, a Russian arms dealer living in secret in Argentina, and the few personnel immediately available to him, including Yung and a young—very young—U.S. Marine Corps corporal, Lester Bradley.

Castillo had sent Bradley—the clerk-typist of the Marine Guard at the American embassy in Buenos Aires, and thus best tasked to drive a truck on some unexplained mission—to Uruguay, at the wheel of a GMC Yukon XL, smuggling in two forty-two-gallon barrels for the refueling of the helicopter.

The raid, even though conducted by what Castillo painfully acknowledged were mostly amateurs, initially went well. But just as Castillo was about to tell Lorimer that he was being returned to the States—and right after he’d had Lorimer open his safe—a burst of small-arms fire announced that others were interested in Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer. He was killed instantly.

In the next five minutes, the estancia became littered with bodies, including one of the two Special Forces soldiers on Castillo’s team. Sergeant Seymour Krantz had been garroted to death. The other six dead were all of the unknown men who had begun the attack. One had been shot by David W. Yung, Jr., who for the first time in his law-enforcement career had drawn his pistol, and two others by Corporal Lester Bradley, who took them out with head shots from a sniper’s rifle at more than one hundred yards away.

Bradley later modestly confessed he had been a “designated marksman” when the Marines had marched on Baghdad, and there had been no question at all in his mind that he could make the shots at the estancia when he laid the crosshairs of the telescopic sight on the heads of the bad guys about to fire on Yung and Castillo.

The assault team immediately departed Estancia Shangri-La by helicopter, leaving behind Dr. Lorimer’s body but taking with them the body of Sergeant Krantz, the garroted Delta Force soldier; David W. Yung, Jr.; Corporal Lester W. Bradley, USMC—and some sixteen million dollars’ worth of what amounted to bearer bonds that Yung had found in Lorimer’s safe.

Castillo had ordered Yung aboard the helicopter for two reasons:

One, that Yung—even if he didn’t know it—had more information about the oil-for-food business behind the Masterson assassination than Castillo had been able to draw from him, and, Two, that Castillo didn’t think Yung would be able to keep his mouth shut during the interrogations that would begin the moment the black-clad bodies of whoever had attacked them were discovered at the estancia.

And so far as Corporal Bradley was concerned, this was an even worse situation. If Bradley went back to his duties at the embassy without the GMC truck, his gunnery sergeant in Buenos Aires was naturally going to ask, “So where’s the Yukon?”

Bradley obviously could not be allowed to reply that a Special Forces major had torched the vehicle with a thermite grenade during a clandestine helicopter assault on an estate in Uruguay—which was precisely what Bradley would understand that he would have to reply when so asked.

Marines learn at Parris Island that when a gunny asks them a question, they will respond with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the time they got to Washington, Yung had figured out a likely scenario to explain the money, and why they had been attacked at the estancia: Dr. Lorimer—by now identified as the bagman for oil-for-food bribes and payoffs—had stolen the sixteen million bucks from his as-yet-unidentified employers.

These people had kidnapped Lorimer’s sister—Mrs. J. Winslow Masterson—then murdered her husband before her eyes to impress upon her that they were quite serious about being willing to kill her and her children unless she told them where in hell they could find Lorimer and their sixteen million. But she hadn’t told them because she didn’t know.

The bad guys had found Estancia Shangri-La by themselves.

That they arrived there to reclaim their money and eliminate Lorimer ten minutes after Castillo’s covert team had arrived to repatriate Lorimer was pure coincidence. Not to mention damn bad luck.

“They didn’t expect to find anything at the estancia, Mr. President, but Dr. Lorimer and the sixteen million dollars in bearer bonds,” Castillo had explained the next day in the presidential apartment in the White House.

“Surprise, surprise, huh?” the President replied. “You have no idea who these people were, Charley?”

“I don’t think they were South American bandits, Mr. President. But aside from that—”

“Find out who they are, Major,” the President interrupted, “and render them harmless.”

Castillo noted that he’d been formally addressed. And, as such, so ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else, Charley?”

“Mr. President, what do we do with the money?”

“Sixteen million, right? Where is it? Are you sure you can cash those bearer bonds?”

“Sir, to make sure we could retain control of money, we already have. It’s now in the Riggs Bank.”

“I’m not going to get involved with dirty money,” the President said. “You understand that, of course?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. President.”

“But on the subject of money, and apropos of nothing else, Charley . . .”

“Yes, sir?”

“I funded OOA with two million from my discretionary funds. That’s really not very much money, and I have a good idea of how expensive your operations are. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to come to me for more money, and right now I just don’t see how it will be available. It’s something to keep in mind.”

“Sir, are you suggesting—?”

“Major, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What sixteen million?”

Thus was established the Lorimer Charitable & Benevolent Fund, with an initial donation the next day of nearly sixteen million dollars from an anonymous well-wisher.

On the same day, David W. Yung, Jr., and Corporal Lester Bradley were placed on indefinite temporary duty with the OOA.

At the time, there was only one true volunteer in the ranks of the OOA, essentially because very few people had even heard of it. Sergeant Major John K. “Jack” Davidson had learned of OOA from Corporal Bradley, whom Castillo, perhaps unwisely, had sent to Camp Mackall—the Special Forces/Delta Force training base near Fort Bragg, North Carolina—“for training” but actually to get him out of sight—and out of truthfully answering questions from his gunny and any other superior—short-term until Castillo could figure out what to do with him long-term.

Davidson’s function at Mackall was to evaluate students to see if they were psychologically and physically made up to justify their expensive training to become special operators. He had taken one look at nineteen-year-old Corporal Bradley—who stood five-four and weighed one thirty-two—then decided that someone with a sick sense of humor had sent the boy to Mackall as a joke.

Davidson put Bradley to work pushing the keys on a computer.

The next day, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, disabused Davidson of this notion that whatever the kid was, he was no warrior.

The general had choppered out to Mackall to take Corporal Bradley to Sergeant Krantz’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Davidson had no Need to Know, of course, but he and General McNab had been around several blocks together, and so the general told him what had happened to Krantz on Charley Castillo’s ad hoc assault, and how, had it not been for Corporal Bradley’s offhand hundred-yard head shots, Charley would be awaiting his own interment services at Arlington alongside Krantz.

Davidson, as he reminded General McNab, also had been around the block several times with Charley Castillo. He further reminded General McNab that the general knew as well as he did that while Charley was a splendid officer, he tended sometimes to do things that he would not do if he had a sober, experienced advisor, such as Davidson, at his side to counsel him.

General McNab, who first met Castillo when Castillo had been a second lieutenant, and who thus had been around the block with him on many occasions, considered this and agreed.

Sergeant Major Davidson was sent to OOA.

It was Davidson who had recruited Dianne and Harold Sanders to run the OOA safe house on West Boulevard Drive. Master Sergeant Harold Sanders, who had been around the block several times with both Jack Davidson and Charley Castillo, had been unhappy with his role after he had been medically retired. Sanders said that he had become a camp follower, because CWO3 Dianne Sanders had remained on active service. But recognizing the situation, she then had retired, too.

Living the retired life in Fayetteville, North Carolina, however, then caused the both of them to be bored—almost literally—out of their minds.

They had jumped at the chance to work again with Charley and Jack, even if it only would be guarding the mouth of the cave. Still, both suspected that Charley would sooner or later require the services of a cryptographic analyst—and Dianne, recognized as one of the best code-breakers around, would be there.

Edgar Delchamps had been the CIA station chief in Paris, France, when Castillo, running down Dr. Lorimer’s various connections, first met him. Men with thirty years in the Clandestine Services of the agency tended to regard thirty-six-year-old Army officers with something less than awe, and such had been the case when Delchamps laid eyes on then-Major C. G. Castillo.

He had told Castillo that he was the station chief in Paris as the result of an accommodation with his superiors in Langley. They didn’t want him to retire because his doing so would leave him free to more or less run at the mouth concerning a number of failed operations that the agency devoutly wished would never again be mentioned. Langley reasoned that if Delchamps was stationed in Paris—the only assignment he was willing to accept—he couldn’t do much harm. Paris wasn’t really important in the world of intelligence.

“Despite my name, I’m a Francophobe, Ace,” Delchamps had told Castillo. “My files say all sorts of unkind things about the Frogs. They are sent to Langley, where, of course, they are promptly shredded—unread—by a platoon of Francophiles humming ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris.’”

Delchamps made it perfectly clear that he had no desire whatever to become in any way associated with OOA. When, a month or so later, Castillo decided he had to have him whether or not he liked it, and Delchamps received orders to immediately report for indefinite temporary duty with OOA, he first had stopped by Langley to fill out his request for retirement, effective immediately.

He was dissuaded from going through with his retirement when Castillo told him he was going after the oil-for-food people with a presidential carte blanche to do what he thought had to be done, and that the carte blanche specifically ordered the Director of Central Intelligence to grant access to OOA to whatever intelligence—raw, in analysis, or confirmed—the CIA had in its possession. Castillo said he thought Edgar Delchamps was just the man to root around in Langley’s basement. It was an offer Delchamps could not refuse.

And there was one man in the kitchen who was neither an American nor a member of OOA. Sándor Tor was the chief of security for the Budapester Tages Zeitung, of which Eric Kocian was the managing director and editor in chief. Tor didn’t feel uncomfortable among the special operators and senior law-enforcement officers, as might be expected. Before he had gone to work for the newspaper, he had been an inspector on the Budapest police force and, before that, in his youth, a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion.

There were other people assigned to OOA, but all of those who had families—Corporal Lester Bradley, for example, and Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., USA (Retired), a West Point classmate of Colonel Castillo and OOA’s chief of staff—had been turned loose by Castillo to be with them at Christmas.

[TWO]

One of the pair of wall-mounted telephones in the kitchen rang a little after two o’clock.

The young, muscular black Secret Service agent answered it.

Castillo wondered idly who was calling. Neither of the telephone numbers was listed in the phone book. Both rarely were used; everyone had their own cellular telephone or two. There were two secure telephones, one in what was Castillo’s bedroom and the other in what he called his office, an anteroom off the great big living room.

Castillo was surprised when the Secret Service agent held out the phone receiver to him, indicating the call was for him. He crossed the room, took the phone, and, after putting his hand over the mouthpiece, asked with his eyebrows who was calling.

“Mr. Görner, Colonel. He’s on the list.”

Castillo nodded his thanks, and in German cheerfully said into the phone, “Merry Christmas, Otto!”

Nice that Abuela is here, Castillo thought, glancing across the room and making eye contact with her. She and Otto can talk.

“I hope you know where Billy Kocian is,” Görner said by way of greeting, his voice completely devoid of Christmas bonhomie.

Castillo turned his gaze just slightly. “As a matter of fact, I’m looking at him.”

“Thank God!” Görner exclaimed, his genuine relief evident in his tone. “There was no answer at the Mayflower.”

“Why do I think you’re not calling to wish him a Merry Christmas?” Castillo said.

“I’m calling first to tell you to make sure he’s safe.”

“He is. He frequently complains that he can’t go anywhere without being followed by two or more men who wear hearing aids and keep talking to themselves.”

Castillo expected to get a chuckle, if only a reluctant one. He didn’t.

“Günther Friedler has been murdered,” Görner went on, “his corpse mutilated.”

Who? Castillo thought.

Shit! Someone close to Billy obviously . . .

“Where are you?” Castillo asked quickly, his tone now one of growing concern.

The others in the kitchen picked up on that and Castillo’s body language, and had expressions that asked, What?

“In the office,” Görner said.

“I’ll call you right back,” Castillo said. “I can’t talk from this phone.”

He put the handset in its cradle before Görner could reply. He saw that Edgar Delchamps was looking at him. He nodded just enough to signal Delchamps to follow him, then left the kitchen to go to his office.

The anteroom was barely large enough to hold a small desk and a skeletal office chair, but the door to it could be closed and was thick enough to be mostly soundproof. Castillo picked up the telephone. It could be made secure when necessary, and came with earphone sets on long cords so that others could listen to the conversation. It also had a built-in digital recorder so that conversations could be replayed for any number of reasons.

He pushed the RECORD button, then dialed a long number from memory.

“Görner.”

“Karl. Who is Günther Fiedler?”

“Friedler,” Görner corrected him. “He was a staff reporter.”

Castillo knew enough of the operations of the Tages Zeitung newspapers to know that a staff reporter was analogous to a reporter for the Associated Press or other wire service in that the reporter’s stories were fed to all of the Tages Zeitung newspapers, rather than to any individual paper.

“I don’t think I knew him,” Castillo said.

“Probably not,” Görner said on the edge of sarcasm. “Billy did. Billy gave him his first job on the Weiner Tages Zeitung years ago. Billy was godfather to Peter, Günther’s oldest son.”

“Great news on Christmas Day. Who killed him and why?”

“He was working on a story about German involvement in that oil-for-food obscenity. Does that give a hint, Mr. Intelligence Officer?”

Castillo’s face tightened.

“Otto, I’m about to tell you to call back when you have your emotions under control.”

“I want to tell Billy before somebody else does.”

“But you can’t do that, can you, unless I put him on the phone?”

There was a ten-second silence—which seemed much longer—before Görner replied, “I suppose I am a little upset. Günther was my friend, too. I put him on that story, and I just now came from his house. On Christmas Day, as you say.”

Castillo realized it was as much of an apology as he was going to get.

“Okay. Do they have any idea who killed him?”

“The police tried to tell me it was a fairy lovers’ quarrel. My God!”

“What was that about his body being mutilated?”

“I couldn’t count the stab wounds in his body.”

Delchamps, holding one can of an earphone set to his ear, touched Castillo’s shoulder, and when Castillo looked at him, handed him a slip of paper on which he had quickly written, That’s all?

Castillo nodded and said into the phone, “You said ‘mutilated’?”

“They cut out his eye. That’s what I mean by mutilated.”

Delchamps nodded as if he expected that answer.

“I don’t think you should tell Billy that,” Castillo said. “And in your frame of mind, I really don’t think you should talk to him at all.”

He let that sink in a moment, then went on: “If I put Billy on the phone, can you leave out the mutilation?”

“That wouldn’t work, Karl, and you know it. No matter what I tell him, he’s going to look into it himself. And just as soon as he gets off the phone with me, he’ll be on the phone himself. And he has a lot of contacts.”

Shit, Castillo thought, he’s right!

When Castillo didn’t reply, Görner added, “And it’s already all over the front pages of the Frankfurt newspapers, the Allgemeine Zeitung and the Rundschau. And Berlin and Munich won’t be far behind. And as soon as Billy gets to reading his newspapers online, he’s going to find out. You can bet your ass on that.”

He paused again, then gave what he thought would be the headline: “ ‘Tages Zeitung Reporter Murdered. Police Suspect Gay Lovers Spat.’ Merry Christmas, Frau Friedler and family.”

Castillo was ashamed of the irreverent thought that popped into his mind—Is there no honor among journalists?—which immediately was replaced by another disturbing thought, which he said aloud: “Billy will want to go to the funeral.”

“Oh, God! I didn’t even think about that!”

“Right now, he’s surrounded by Secret Service agents. How am I going to protect him in Fulda?”

“Wetzlar,” Görner corrected automatically. “He lived in Wetzlar. He’s from Wetzlar.” Another brief pause. “You can’t keep him there?”

Castillo didn’t reply.

In as many seconds as it takes Otto to hear what he just said, he will realize that the only way to keep Billy Kocian from doing whatever he wants to do is convince him he really doesn’t want to do it, and that’s not going to happen.

A moment later, Görner thought aloud: “Let me know what flight he’ll be on and I’ll have some of our security people waiting at the gate. Better yet—I have some friends—send me the flight number and I will get agents of the Bundeskriminalamt to take him off the airplane before it gets to the gate.”

“I’ll bring him in the Gulfstream,” Castillo said. “For one thing, he won’t leave the dogs, and I don’t want—”

“I thought you went out of your way not to attract attention,” Görner interrupted.

“Here’s a headline for you, Otto: ‘Tages Zeitung Publisher Returns from America for Friedler Last Rites.’ ”

“Okay,” Görner said after a moment. “But don’t bring anybody from the CIA to mourn with you.”

Castillo looked at Delchamps and smiled.

He would no more have gone to Germany without Delchamps than he would have gone without shoes, but this was not the time to argue with Görner about that, or even tell him.

As a practical matter, before this came up, they had been planning to go to Europe, taking Billy Kocian with them, and not only because they knew Kocian was out of patience with living in the Mayflower Hotel and spending his days searching his copious memory to fill in the blanks of the investigation.

Delchamps and FBI Inspector John J. Doherty—another at-first-very-reluctant recruit to OOA—were agreed that the time had come to move the investigation out of the bubble at Langley and onto the ground.

They would start in Budapest, Doherty had suggested—and Delchamps had agreed—then move almost certainly to Vienna, then to Berlin and Paris and wherever else the trail led, preceded by a message from either—or both—Secretary of State Natalie Cohen and Director of National Intelligence Charles M. Montvale ordering the ambassadors and CIA station chiefs to provide the people from OOA whatever support they requested, specifically including access to all their intelligence.

All that this latest development had changed was that they first would go to Hesse in Germany—seeing Otto Görner in Fulda had been on the original agenda—rather than to Budapest, and that they would go as soon as possible, rather than “right after the first of the year.”

“If you think you have your emotions under control, Otto,” Castillo said, “I’ll go get Billy.”

Görner got his emotions under control to the point where he was able to say, in a reasonably civil voice, “Thank you.”

Delchamps followed Castillo through the office door, touched his arm, and softly said, “I presume you know, Ace, that cutting out someone’s eye is Middle East speak—and, come to think of it, Sicilian—for This is what happens to people who get caught looking at things they shouldn’t.”

Castillo nodded, then said, “But setting up something like this to look as if it’s a homosexual love affair gone wrong isn’t Middle East speak, is it?”

“That may have been a message to your Onkel Otto,” Delchamps said. “You keep sending people to look at things they shouldn’t be looking at, and the way we take them out will humiliate their families and the Tages Zeitung.”

Castillo considered that a moment, then nodded.

“Billy, can I see you a moment?” he said, and mimed holding a telephone to his ear.

Kocian came back into the kitchen ten minutes later, which told Castillo that he had subjected Otto Görner to a thorough interrogation, which in turn meant Kocian knew all the sordid details of his friend’s death. But there was nothing on his face to suggest anything unpleasant.

He’s one tough old bastard, Castillo thought admiringly.

Doña Alicia was more perceptive.

“Not bad news, I hope, Billy?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so. A dear friend has passed on unexpectedly.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Doña Alicia said. “And at Christmastime!”

“I’ll have to go to the funeral, of course,” Kocian said, and looked at Castillo. “How much of an inconvenience for you would it be, Karlchen, if we went to Germany very soon—say, tomorrow—rather than after New Year’s?”

“That can be arranged, I’m sure,” Castillo said, adding mentally, because I know, and you know I know, just how quickly the Hungarian charm would vanish if I even looked like I was going to suggest it would be “inconvenient.”

“You’re very kind, Karlchen. You get that from your mother.” Kocian paused. “I refuse to let my personal loss cast a pall on everybody else’s Christmas. So while you’re making the necessary arrangements, I will open an absolutely superb bottle of wine from a vineyard that was once the property of the Esterhazys.”

[THREE]

Colonel Jacob D. Torine, United States Air Force, answered his cellular telephone on the third buzz.

“Torine.”

“Merry Christmas, Jake. How would you like to go to Germany?”

“That would depend on when,” Torine replied, and belatedly added, “And Merry Christmas to you, too, Charley.”

“Early tomorrow morning. Something’s come up.”

“You want me to get on a secure line?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.”

“This is going to cost me two hundred dollars,” Torine said.

“Excuse me?”

“At dinner, I said something to the effect that it was nice, for a change, to be home for the holidays, to which my bride replied, ‘I’ve got a hundred dollars that says you won’t be here through New Year’s Day,’ to which I replied, ‘Oh, I think I will be,’ to which she replied, ‘Double down if the phone rings before we’re finished with dinner.’”

“I’m sorry, Jake. If it’s a real problem, I can get Miller to come down from Philly.”

“Thank you just the same, but I don’t want to have to explain to your boss why I wasn’t driving—and you and Gimpy were—when you got lost, ran out of gas, and put the bird down in the North Atlantic, never to be seen again. I’ll be at Signature at half past seven. That will mean I will have to tear Sparkman, weeping piteously, from the bosom of his beloved, but that can’t be helped.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t married?”

“He’s not. What’s that got to do with anything, Don Juan?”

Castillo caught the crack, smiled, but ignored it. He instead replied, “Do it, Jake. It’s important we get to Rhine-Main.”

“I have told you and told you, Colonel, that Rhine-Main is only a memory of our youth. I’ll have Sparkman file a flight plan to Flughafen Frankfurt am Main.”

“I’m really sorry to have to do this to you, Jake.”

“Yeah,” Torine said, and broke the connection.

Captain Richard M. Sparkman, USAF, was the most recent addition to OOA. After five years flying an AC-130H Spectre gunship in the Air Force Special Operations Command, he had been reassigned to the Presidential Airlift Group, 89th Airlift Wing, based at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

His superiors—the ones in the Pentagon, not those at Hurlburt Field, home of the AF Special Operations Command—had decided that it was time to rescue him from those regulation-busting special operations savages and bring him back to the real Air Force. He was, after all, an Air Force Academy graduate, and stars were in his future.

It was solemnly decided that flying very important people—very senior military officers and high-ranking government officials—around in a C-20, the Air Force’s designation for the Gulfstream III, would broaden his experience and hopefully cause him to forget the outrageously unconventional things he had learned and practiced in special operations.

When he had politely asked if he had any choice in the matter, he was politely told he did not and advised that down the line he would appreciate what was being done for him.

Shortly after he’d begun seriously contemplating resigning his commission—sitting in the right seat of a G-III and flying a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Whatever around was not what he’d had in mind when he applied for the academy—he’d run into Colonel Jacob Torine again.

Torine was sort of a legend in the Air Force Special Operations community. Sparkman had flown his Spectre in a black mission that Torine had run in Central America, and had come to greatly admire him. So when he’d come across Torine again, he’d told him of his frustrations—and of his thoughts of getting out to go fly commercial passenger airliners. “If I’m flying taxis, I might as well make some money at it.”

Torine, as one ring-knocker to another, had counseled him against that.

And Sparkman had taken the advice, and some time later wound up then and again in the right seat of a Gulfstream V that ostensibly “belonged” to Director of National Intelligence Charles W. Montvale, though he’d yet to meet the man or have him on board.

Sparkman had heard that when Torine later had been given command of a wing of Lockheed Martin C-5B Galaxy aircraft, he had been as enthusiastic about it as Sparkman had been when ordered to park his AC-130H and get in the right seat of a Gulfstream, even though a colonel’s eagle had come with Torine’s reassignment.

And small wonder, Sparkman had thought, considering what Torine had to leave behind.

It wasn’t much of a secret that Torine had been in charge of the Air Force’s contribution to the Army’s Delta Force and the even more clandestine Gray Fox unit. Nor was it super secret that a certain C-22, the Air Force designation for the Boeing 727, sat in a heavily guarded hangar at Pope Air Force Base, which adjoins Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This aircraft had been extensively modified; it was whispered to have almost twice the range of the standard 727, was capable of being refueled in the air—and had a passenger compartment that could be depressurized at 35,000 feet so that Delta Force and Gray Fox special operators could make undetected high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) parachute jumps.

It also was rumored that in two hours, the so-called Delta Force 727 could be painted in the color scheme of any airline in the world.

Sparkman thought that that seemed a bit over the top—a two-hour paint job?—but he had never seen the aircraft, so he didn’t know for sure anything about it, save that a Delta Force 727 existed.

But he believed another story going around: that Torine had used the aircraft in a black op in which another 727, a stolen one, had been recovered from a fanatic Islamic group that planned to demonstrate its disapproval of everything American by crashing the fuel-bladder-packed aircraft into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Sparkman did know a little about that. He had been the co-pilot on a Gulfstream flight that had flown a hurry-up mission to take the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

As they taxied to MacDill Base Operations, Sparkman had seen a great deal of unusual activity on the field. Yellow fire trucks had lined the main runway, and that implied an aircraft in trouble. But alongside the fire trucks were a half-dozen HUMVs manned by airfield Security Forces. Not only were there .50-caliber machine guns in the ready position on the HUMVs, but belts of ammunition gleamed in the sun. That rarely happened.

Even more interesting were two vans conspicuously labeled EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL.

Minutes later, two F-15s made a low-speed pass over the field, giving Sparkman time to remember that that was the type of aircraft he had expected to fly after joining the Air Force. Not some itsy-bitsy VIP aerial taxi.

And then something else very interesting appeared: a Costa Rican Air Transport Boeing 727 on final, about to touch down.

Costa Rican Air Transport? he’d thought.

MacDill was closed to civilian traffic.

The 727 had made a perfectly ordinary landing but was not allowed to leave the runway. The fleet of emergency vehicles—now joined by a half-dozen staff cars, most of these bearing general officer’s starred license plates—rushed out to meet the plane.

Then a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment fluttered to the ground as a pickup truck with mounted stairs backed up to the forward door in the civilian transport’s fuselage.

The plane’s door opened and two men got off. They were wearing jungle camouflage uniforms and their hands and faces were streaked with the grease-paint normally worn by special operators deployed in the boonies.

The taller one, seeing all the brass, saluted, and it was then that Sparkman recognized Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF.

There was no way—not with all the brass around—that Sparkman could make his manners to Colonel Torine and politely inquire what the hell was going on.

But when he heard the rumors that Torine and a Special Forces major had stolen a 727 back from Muslim fanatics who had taken it with the idea of each of them collecting a harem of heavenly virgins just as soon as they crashed it into the Liberty Bell, he thought there might be something to it.

Especially after he heard two weeks later that Torine had been awarded another Distinguished Flying Cross, for unspecified actions of a classified nature.

The next time Captain Sparkman had seen Colonel Torine was at Andrews, as Sparkman was taxiing a Citation III to the runway for takeoff, this time hauling a senator to Kansas to give a speech.

Torine was in civilian clothing and doing a preflight inspection walkaround of a Gulfstream. A civilian G-III, which was interesting because Andrews also was closed to civilian aircraft.

Sparkman again had no idea what was going on, but he was determined to find out. If the Air Force insisted that he fly itsy-bitsy aircraft, he would see if he could fly Torine’s.

It took some doing, but Sparkman was an enterprising young officer, and within a few days, he learned that Colonel Torine had been assigned to some outfit called the Office of Organizational Analysis, which was under the Department of Homeland Security, which had its offices in the Nebraska Avenue Complex in Washington.

When Sparkman went there, though, the security guard denied any knowledge of any Colonel Torine or of any Office of Organizational Analysis.

Which of course really got Sparkman’s attention. And so he took a chance: “You get on that phone and tell Colonel Torine that Captain Richard Sparkman has to see him now on a matter of great importance.”

The security guard considered that for a long moment, then picked up his telephone. Sparkman couldn’t hear what he said, but a minute later, an elevator door opened, and a muscular man, who might as well have had Federal Special Agent tattooed on his forehead, got off.

“Captain Sparkman?”

Sparkman nodded.

“ID, please, sir.”

Sparkman gave it to him. He studied it carefully, then waved Sparkman onto the elevator.

Colonel Torine, in civilian clothing, was waiting for the elevator when it stopped on the top floor.

“Okay,” Torine said to the agent. “Thanks.” He offered his hand to Sparkman. “Long time no see, Lieutenant. Come on in.”

“Actually, sir, it’s captain.”

“Well, sooner or later they finally get to the bottom of the barrel, don’t they?”

Torine had an impressive office. Behind a massive wooden desk were three flags: the national colors, the Air Force flag, and one that Sparkman had never seen before but correctly guessed was that of the Department of Homeland Security.

Torine sat in a red leather judge’s chair. He waved Sparkman into one of two leather-upholstered chairs before his desk.

“Okay . . . Dick, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the matter of great importance?”

“Sir, I thought maybe you could use a co-pilot for your Gulfstream.”

Torine’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t speak for a long moment.

“How do you know about the Gulfstream?” he asked finally.

“I saw you doing a walkaround at Andrews, sir.”

Torine shook his head.

“Make a note, Captain. You never saw me with a Gulfstream at Andrews or anywhere else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Still driving a gunship, are you, Sparkman?”

“No, sir. I’m flying the right seat of mostly C-20s for the Presidential Airlift Group.”

“How did you get a soft billet like that?”

“Over my strongest objections, sir.”

“How much Gulfstream time do you have?”

“Pushing six hundred hours, sir.”

Torine tapped the balls of his fingers together for perhaps fifteen seconds, then shrugged and punched buttons on a telephone.

“Got a minute, boss?”

“Sure,” a voice came from a speaker Sparkman could not see.

“Put your shoes on and restrain the beast. I’m on my way.”

Torine led Sparkman through an inner corridor to a closed door. He knocked, but went through it without waiting for a reply.

Sparkman found himself in an even more impressive office. It was occupied by a very large—six-foot-two, two-twenty—very black man, a slightly smaller white man, and a very large dog that held a soccer ball in his mouth with no more difficulty than a lesser dog would have with a tennis ball.

When the dog saw Sparkman, he dropped the soccer ball, walked to Sparkman, and showed him what looked like five pounds of sharp white teeth.

The white man said something to the dog in a foreign language Sparkman could not identify, whereupon the dog sat on his haunches, closed his mouth, and offered Sparkman his paw.

“Shake Max’s hand, Sparkman,” Torine ordered.

Sparkman did so.

Pointing first at the black man, then at the white man, Torine said, “Major Miller, Colonel Castillo, this is Captain Dick Sparkman, whom, I believe, the good Lord has just dropped in our lap.”

Sparkman saw the nameplate on the desk: LT. COL. C. G. CASTILLO.

A light bird, he thought, and Torine, a full bull colonel, calls him “boss”?

And his office is fancier than Torine’s. . . .

“I have this unfortunate tendency to look your gift horses in the mouth, Jake,” Castillo had said as he took a long, thin black cigar from a humidor and started to clip the end.

“Do you remember Captain Sparkman?”

“I just did. You were driving a Gulfstream that gave me a ride to Fort Rucker, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain Sparkman has nearly six hundred hours in the right seat of a G-III,” Torine explained.

“Ah!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

“Before that, he was flying an AC-130H gunship out of Hurlburt,” Torine went on. “We once very quietly toured Central America together.”

“Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

“And he saw me doing a walkaround of our bird at Andrews.”

“And, Captain, who did you tell about that?” Major Miller asked.

“No one, sir,” Sparkman said.

“And how did you find Colonel Torine, Captain?” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo asked.

“I asked around, sir.”

“And how did you get past the receptionist downstairs?” Major Miller asked. “He’s supposed to tell people he has never heard of Colonel Jake Torine.”

“The receptionist did,” Torine said. “The captain here then told him, forcefully, to get on the phone and tell me that he had to see me on a matter of great importance.”

“Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

“Which was?” Major Miller inquired.

“That if I had to fly the right seat of a Gulfstream,” Sparkman offered, “I’d rather fly Colonel Torine’s.”

“Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said for the third time, then looked at Major Miller, who paused a moment for thought and then shrugged.

“Tell me, Captain,” Castillo said. “Is there any pressing business, personal or official, which would keep you from going to Buenos Aires first thing in the morning?”

“I’m on the board for a flight to Saint Louis at 0830, sir.”

“Jake, call out there and tell them the captain will be otherwise occupied,” Castillo said, and then turned to Sparkman. “Prefacing this with the caveat that anything you hear, see, or intuit from this moment on is classified Top Secret Presidential, the disclosure of which will see you punished by your castration with a very dull knife, plus imprisonment for the rest of your natural life, let me welcome you to the Office of Organizational Analysis, where you will serve as our most experienced Gulfstream jockey and perform such other duties as may be required.”

“Just like that?” Sparkman blurted.

“Just like that, Dick,” Torine said, chuckling.

“Go pack a bag with enough civvies—you won’t need your uniform—for a week, and then come back here,” Castillo ordered. “Major Miller here will run you through our in-processing procedures.”

At the safe house in Alexandria, Castillo cut his end of the cellular telephone connection with Torine, put the telephone in his trousers pocket, then picked up the handset of another secure telephone on his office desk. He pushed one key on the base and said, “C. G. Castillo.”

It took a second or two—no more—for the voice-recognition circuitry to function, flashing the caller’s name before the White House operator.

“White House,” the pleasant young female operator’s voice said. “Merry Christmas, Colonel Castillo.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too. Can you get me Ambassador Montvale on a secure line, please?”

The rule was that those people given access to the special White House switchboard circuit were expected to answer their telephones within sixty seconds. Charles W. Montvale, former deputy secretary of State, former secretary of the Treasury, former ambassador to the European Union, and currently United States director of National Intelligence, took twenty-seven seconds to come on the line.

“Charles Montvale,” he said. His voice was deep, cultured, and charming.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Ambassador. Colonel Castillo for you,” the White House operator told him. “The line is secure.”

Castillo picked up on the ambassador’s failure to return the operator’s Christmas greetings.

“Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year, Mr. Ambassador,” Castillo said cheerfully.

The ambassador did not respond in kind, but instead said, “Actually, I was about to call you, Charley.”

“Mental telepathy, sir?”

“Does the name Kurt Kuhl mean anything to you, Colonel?”

Montvale’s tone, and the use of Castillo’s rank, suggested that Montvale was displeased with him. Again. As usual.

There is an exception, so they say, to every absolute statement. The exception to the absolute statement that the director of National Intelligence exercised authority over everyone and everything in the intelligence community was the Office of Organizational Analysis, which answered only to the commander in chief.

Ambassador Montvale found this both absurd and unacceptable, but had been unable to take OOA under his wing beyond an agreement with Castillo that he would be informed in a timely fashion of what Castillo was up to.

On Castillo’s part this meant it was frequently necessary to remind the director of National Intelligence of the great difference between Castillo telling Montvale about taking some action and Castillo asking Montvale’s permission—or even Montvale’s advice—about taking some action.

“No, sir. It doesn’t ring a bell. Who is he?”

There was a perceptible pause before Montvale replied: “Kuhl was a deep-cover CIA asset in Vienna and elsewhere in that part of the world.”

“Past tense?”

“I was informed an hour or so ago that he and his wife were found garroted to death behind the Johann Strauss statue in the Stadtpark in Vienna yesterday.”

“They know who did it?”

“I was hoping you might be able to offer a suggestion. I seem to recall that you have some experience with people who are garroted to death.”

“Sorry. I never heard of him.”

There was a moment’s silence while Montvale considered that, then he abruptly changed the subject: “What’s on your mind, Castillo?”

“I’m going to Germany in the morning.”

“Is that so? And are you going to share with me why?”

“Otto Görner called a few minutes ago to tell me that a Tages Zeitung reporter was found murdered in interesting circumstances.”

“How interesting?”

“The body was mutilated. First, Otto thinks, to make it look as if it was a homosexual lovers’ quarrel—multiple stab wounds.”

“And second?”

“One of the victim’s eyes was cut out.”

“Suggesting the message ‘This is what happens when you look at something you shouldn’t’?”

“That’s what Mr. Delchamps suggests. It follows, as Otto says this reporter was working on the oil-for-food scheme.”

“And your—our—interest in this tragic event, Colonel?”

“Eric Kocian insists on going to the funeral. The man was an old friend of his.”

“He can’t be dissuaded?”

“Not a chance.”

“How hard did you try?”

“Not at all. It would have been a waste of time.”

“The President happened to mention at dinner that he hadn’t seen you since he visited you at Walter Reed, and perhaps there would be a chance to do so over the next few days. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“That in keeping with the accord between us, I told you where I was going and why.”

“How much is this going to delay the investigation?”

“It might speed it up.”

“You need anything, Charley?”

“Can’t think of a thing.”

“Keep in touch,” Montvale said, and broke the connection.

“Anything else, Colonel?” the pleasant young female White House operator’s voice asked.

“That’ll do it. Thanks very much. And Merry Christmas.”

“You, too, Colonel.”

Castillo put the handset back in its cradle and thought hard about what else he had to do.

After a long moment he decided that he had done everything necessary, and that it was highly unlikely that anything else was going to come up and interfere with their Christmas dinner.

That carefully considered prediction proved false about seventeen minutes later, when the cellular in his trousers pocket vibrated against his leg while his grandmother was invoking the Lord’s blessing on all those gathered at the table.

He of course could not answer it while his grandmother was praying.

Sixty seconds later, the White House phone buzzed imperiously. One of the Secret Service agents quickly rose from the table to answer it.

Thirty seconds after that, surprising Castillo not at all, the agent reappeared and mimed that the call was for Castillo.

Doña Alicia looked at him as he rose from the table. He wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or felt sorry for him.

The legend on the small LCD screen next to the telephone read: SECURE JOEL ISAACSON SECURE.

Castillo picked up the handset, said “C. G. Castillo,” waited for the voice recognition circuitry to kick in, then said, “What’s up, Joel?”

Joel Isaacson was the Secret Service supervisory special agent in charge of the protection detail for Homeland Security Secretary Matt Hall. But the tall, slim, forty-year-old Isaacson, who had once been number two on the presidential detail, was de facto more than that.

In the reorganization after 9/11, the Secret Service, which had been under the Treasury Department, was transferred to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

The chief of the Secret Service had assigned two old and trusted pals, Supervisory Special Agents Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire, to the secretary’s protection detail. It was understood between them that their mission was as much to protect the Secret Service from its new boss—new brooms have been known to sweep out the good and keep the garbage—as it was to protect him from Islamic lunatics.

It had worked out well from the beginning. The secretary quickly learned that if he wanted something from the Secret Service—about whose operations he knew virtually nothing—Isaacson or McGuire could get it for him. Similarly, the chief of the Secret Service quickly learned that if he wanted something from the secretary, it was better and quicker to make the request of McGuire or Isaacson than directly of the secretary, who made no decisions involving the Secret Service without getting the opinion of one or the other.

And then when the President issued the Finding setting up the Office of Organizational Analysis—which in the chief of the Secret Service’s very private opinion was not one of his wiser decisions—Tom McGuire was one of the first people assigned to it. The chief did not entirely trust Isaacson’s and McGuire’s opinion that despite his youth, junior rank, and reputation, Major C. G. Castillo was just the guy to run what the chief very privately thought of as the President’s Own CIA/FBI/Delta Force.

The assignment of McGuire to OOA left Isaacson as the chief’s conduit to the secretary, and that was just fine. But he worried about Tom McGuire getting burned when someone burned the OOA, which seemed to the chief to be inevitable.

My God, that crazy Green Beret launched an invasion of Paraguay to rescue a DEA agent the druggies had kidnapped.

That the mission had succeeded did not, in the chief’s opinion, mean the operation was not as lunatic an operation as he had ever heard of, and he’d been around the Secret Service for a long time.

“Jack Britton and his wife are on their way out there, Charley,” Joel Isaacson announced without any preliminaries. “I need you to talk to him. Okay? As a favor to me?”

“Talk to him about what?” Castillo replied, and then: “And his wife?”

“They had to take him off the Vice President’s protection detail. And he’s pretty annoyed.”

“What did he do to get canned?”

“Somebody, most likely those AALs in Philadelphia, tried to take out him, and his wife, yesterday afternoon.”

“Is he all right?”

“They weren’t hit, but the supervisor in Philadelphia told me he counted sixteen bullet holes in Britton’s new car. Plus about that many in his front door, picture window, etcetera. They used automatic Kalashnikovs.”

“What’s this got to do with him getting taken off the Vice President’s protection detail?”

There was a just-perceptible pause before Isaacson said, “Think about it, Charley. These people try to take him out again when he’s on duty, then the Vice President becomes collateral damage.”

“Stupid question. Sorry. Britton didn’t understand?”

“What he didn’t understand was being brought here. Standard procedure when something like this happens. Gets them out of the line of fire.”

“That made him mad?”

“What made him mad was being told that he was going to be placed on administrative duties in—I forget where; probably Saint Louis—until the matter is resolved. When he heard that, the kindest thing he had to say to the supervisor on duty downtown was that the supervisor could insert the whole Secret Service into his anal orifice. That’s when they brought him to me.”

“What’s Jack want to do?”

“He wants to go back to Philly and play Bat Masterson with the people who shot at his wife,” Isaacson said.

“This is probably the wrong thing to say, but I can understand that.”

“You’re right. It is the wrong thing to say. Charley, I assumed responsibility for them. The big brass are determined he will not go back to Philadelphia; they wanted to hold him—them—as material witnesses to an assault on a federal officer.”

“Can they do that?”

“They could her. What I told the supervisor was that they were going to have a hard time convincing a judge that a member of the Vice President’s protection detail—and a highly decorated former Philly cop—was going to vanish so that he wouldn’t have to testify against the bad guys who had tried to whack him and his wife. That’s when they turned them over to me. They’d rather that I be responsible for putting this little escapade on the front page of The Washington Post.”

When Castillo didn’t immediately reply, Isaacson went on: “Or for a headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer: ‘Secret Service Agent Guns Down Area Muslims; Alleges They Tried to Kill Him and His Wife.’”

“So that’s the priority? Keeping egg off the face of the Secret Service?”

“That, and keeping Jack out of jail.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Convince him that going back to Philly would be stupid, then put them on ice someplace until this can be worked out.”

“Personally, I’ll do anything I can for Jack. But why me?”

“Because the chief of the Secret Service has been told that any inquiries he wishes to make about OOA will have to go through me.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Indeed. Merry Christmas, Charley. Please don’t tell me what you decide to do with them; that way I’ll truthfully be able to say I don’t know where they are when I’m asked. And I will be asked.”

“Jesus Christ!” Castillo said again.

But no one heard him.

The legend on the screen now read: CALL TERMINATED.

III

[ONE]

7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia

1445 25 December 2005

“Not more bad news, I hope, Carlos?” Doña Alicia asked as Castillo took what Davidson referred to as the “paterfamilias seat” at the head of the table.

Castillo looked at her and had the first not-unpleasant thought he’d had in the last five minutes: This is not classified. I won’t have to take Delchamps and McGuire into the office or, even worse, ask Abuela to leave the room so we can discuss it.

“There’s some good news,” he said. “And . . .”

“Let’s have that first,” Doña Alicia said. “The good news.”

“Okay. Jack Britton and his wife will appear here shortly.”

“Oh, good!” Tom McGuire said. “You’ll like them, Doña Alicia. Particularly her. Great sense of humor. As my sainted mother used to say, she’s the kind of girl who can make a corpse sit up in his casket at the funeral and start whistling.”

“Tom, that’s terrible,” Doña Alicia said, but she was smiling.

“And the bad news, Ace?” Delchamps asked.

“They have been wrapped in the protective arms of the Secret Service.”

McGuire’s smile vanished. He liked Britton. He had recruited him for the Secret Service.

“Why?” he asked softly.

“Isaacson told me that that’s standard procedure when a special agent is attacked. As is taking a member of the Protection Service off the detail and assigning him administrative duties.”

“Somebody attacked Jack?” Davidson asked.

“And Sandra,” Castillo confirmed. “Sixteen bullet holes in his new Mazda convertible. And that many more in the picture window of his house.”

“Oh, my God! How terrible!” Doña Alicia said.

“The African-American Lunatics?” David W. Yung asked.

Doña Alicia looked at him in confusion.

“Who else?” Castillo said.

“Where are they sending him?” McGuire said. Before Castillo could reply, he added, surprised, “They want to keep him here?”

“They wanted to send them to Saint Louis, or someplace like that.”

“And?” McGuire pursued.

“When they told him that, Jack said something very, very rude to the supervisor who told him, and then said he was going back to Philadelphia. That’s when he was turned over to Joel.” He paused. “And then Joel turned him over to me.”

McGuire grunted. “Philadelphia’s not an option,” he said. “And I don’t know about here. There’s a train from Union Station to Philadelphia about every hour.”

“Nuestra Pequeña Casa,” Delchamps suggested. “Better yet, Shangri-La.”

McGuire considered that a moment, then nodded. “That’d do it.”

Doña Alicia’s face showed that she didn’t understand any of what had been said.

“Ace, you think your lady friend would go along with one more legal attaché in Buenos Aires or Montevideo?” Delchamps asked.

“Probably. But asking her on Christmas Day?”

“Good point,” Delchamps said.

“Let’s get them down there and worry about that later,” McGuire said. “Worst case, they make us bring them back.”

“Why don’t we wait and see what kind of a frame of mind Jack’s in before we do anything?” Davidson asked.

“If I could repeat in mixed company what he told the Secret Service supervisor, Jack, that would give you a good idea,” Castillo said. “But for the moment, would someone please pass me the cranberry sauce?”

Special Agent and Mrs. Britton arrived fifteen minutes later. They were accompanied by four Secret Service agents. All of the men at the table stood when they came into the dining room.

“If you have any clout with the guards, Tom,” Sandra Britton said, “I’d really like to have a little something to eat before I’m strip-searched and put in my cell.”

“Sandra!” McGuire said uncomfortably.

She went on, unrepentant: “The only thing the prisoners have had to eat today is an Egg McMuffin as we began our journey and, for Christmas dinner, a hamburger in a Wendy’s outside Baltimore.”

She directed her attention to Castillo.

“You’re the warden, right, Colonel? When do I get my one telephone call? I just can’t wait to talk to the ACLU.”

“Just as soon as I introduce you to my grandmother,” Castillo said, laughing. “Abuela, this is Sandra Britton. Sandra, Doña Alicia Castillo.”

“I’m very happy to meet you,” Sandra said. “But what in the world is a nice grandmother doing sitting down with this company?”

“I told you you’d like her, Doña Alicia,” McGuire said.

“Or are you also under-arrest-by-another-name?” Sandra pursued.

“Sit down, my dear,” Doña Alicia said. “We’ll get you some dinner.”

“I understand why you’re a little upset, Sandra,” McGuire said.

“ ‘A little’?”

“My dear young woman,” Billy Kocian said. “I recognize in you not only a kindred soul, but someone else suffering velvet-cell incarceration at the hands of these thugs. May I offer you a glass of champagne? Or perhaps something stronger?”

“Both,” she said. “Who the hell are you?”

Kocian walked quickly to her and kissed her hand.

“Eric Kocian, madam. I am enchanted.”

“As well you should be, Billy,” Doña Alicia said.

“Pray take my seat, and I’ll get the champagne,” Kocian said.

“Hey, Jack!” Davidson said. “How goes it?”

Britton shook his head.

“Ginger-peachy,” he said. “How could it be otherwise?”

Kocian took a bottle of champagne from a cooler, poured some in a glass, and handed it to Sandra.

“Please excuse the stem. It originally came, I believe, filled with yogurt and decorated with a picture of Mickey Mouse.”

“Thank you,” Sandra said. A smile flickered across her lips.

“As a prisoner, of course, I am told nothing,” Kocian said. “So I am therefore quite curious about your obvious distress. What have these terrible people done to you?”

“You sound like a Viennese,” Sandra said.

“How perceptive of you, dear lady. I was born and spent many years in that city.”

“I’m a semanticist—I teach at the University of Pennsylvania. Or I was teaching at the university before I was hustled into the backseat of a Secret Service SUV and hauled off before my neighbors.” She paused. “You’re familiar with Franz Kafka?”

“Indeed.”

“He would have had a ball with this,” she said.

“You are implying bureaucracy run amok?”

“Am I ever.”

“Tell me all, my dear.”

Sandra sipped appreciatively at her champagne, pursed her lips, and then drained the glass.

“Was the offer of something stronger bona fide?”

Kocian nodded.

“In that case, Colonel, I will have one of your famous McNab martinis, thank you ever so much.”

“My pleasure,” Castillo said, and went to a sideboard loaded with spirits and drinking paraphernalia.

“So, what happened, Sandra?” David W. Yung asked.

“Cutting to the chase, Two-Gun,” Sandra said, “ten minutes after my better half here assured me that all was well as the Secret Service was on its way to our bullet-shattered cottage by the side of the road—before which sat our bullet-shattered new car—they did in fact arrive, sirens screaming, lights flashing. I expected Bruce Willis to leap out and wrap me in his masterly arms. By then, of course, the AALs who had turned tranquil Churchill Lane into the OK Corral were in Atlantic City. But what the hell, I thought, naïve little ol’ me, I shouldn’t fault them for trying.”

“Then what happened?” Davidson asked.

“The first thing they did was tell the Philly cops to get lost,” Sandra said. “My living room was now a federal crime scene. And they hustled Jack and me into the back of one of their SUVs and drove off with sirens screaming. I thought they had word the AALs were coming back.”

“The what, my dear?” Doña Alicia asked.

“African-American Lunatics, make-believe Muslims who don’t like Jack very much.”

“Why not?” Doña Alicia asked.

“I kept an eye on them for the police department,” Britton said.

“What he did, Abuela,” Castillo said, “was live with them for long years. He wore sandals, a dark blue robe, had his hair braided with beads. They thought his name was Ali Abid ar-Raziq.”

“And for that they tried to kill him?”

“Actually, they came pretty close to killing both of us,” Britton said.

“Sandra,” Yung said reasonably, “an attack on Jack, a federal officer, made it a federal case.”

“Is that why they took Jack downtown and took his gun and badge away? The way that looked to me was that Jack was the villain for getting shot at.”

“They took your credentials and weapon, Jack?” McGuire asked.

“And it was my pistol, not the Secret Service’s.”

“Had you fired it at the bad guys?”

Britton shook his head.

McGuire looked at the four Secret Service agents who had brought the Brittons to the house.

“Who’s in charge?”

“I am, sir,” the shortest one, who held a briefcase, said.

“Where’s his credentials and weapon?”

“I have them, sir,” the agent said, holding up the briefcase. “Mr. Isaacson said I was to turn them over to you.”

“Give Special Agent Britton his credentials and his pistol.”

“Sir, I don’t—”

“That was an order, not a suggestion,” McGuire said. “And then you guys can wait in the kitchen.”

They did.

“Just to keep all the ducks in a row, Tom,” Britton said as he carefully examined the revolver, reloaded it, and put it in his lap, “Joel didn’t take them. The clown in Philadelphia did.”

“ ‘The clown’?” McGuire asked. “Supervisory Special Agent in Charge Morrell? That clown, Special Agent Britton?”

“Right. Just before he told me I was being transferred to Kansas or someplace just as soon as the, quote, interview, close quote, was over.”

“And was that the clown you told what he could do with the Secret Service, Jack?” Delchamps asked.

“You’re not being helpful, Edgar,” McGuire said.

“No. I told that to the clown here in D.C.,” Britton said thoughtfully. “But I think he was a supervisory special agent in charge, too.”

Castillo, Delchamps, and Davidson laughed.

Britton picked up his Secret Service credentials, examined them, and held them up. “Does this mean, as they say in the movies, that I’m ‘free to go’?”

“Not back to Philly to shoot up a mosque, Jack,” McGuire said. “Think that through.”

“Where the hell did you get that? From the clown in Philly?”

“I got that from Joel,” Castillo said. “I think he got it from the clown in Philly. You apparently said something about knowing, quote, how to get the bastards, unquote.”

“By which I meant I was going to go to Counterterrorism—I used to work there, remember?—and see if we couldn’t send several of the bastards away on a federal firearms rap. In the commission of a felony—and shooting up Sandra and my house and car is a felony—everybody participating is chargeable. Use of a weapon in the commission of a felony is another five years, mandatory. Not to mention just having a fully auto AK is worth ten years in the slam and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.” He paused and exhaled audibly. “Did that ass . . . Sorry. Did that supervisory special agent in charge really think I was going to walk into the mosque and open fire? For Christ’s sake, I’m a cop.”

“I don’t think you left him with that good-cop impression, Jack,” Davidson said, chuckling. “I think he saw you as Rambo in a rage.”

“The Philly cops could have gotten a judge to give us a probable-cause warrant to search both the mosque and the place in Philadelphia because of the attack on Sandra, and the Secret Service wouldn’t have been involved,” Britton went on.

“Sandra, do you happen to speak Spanish?” Castillo asked.

“Why? Is that also some sort of Secret Service no-no?”

“Yes or no?”

“Now, why in the world would you suspect that a semanticist might speak Spanish?”

Castillo switched to Spanish: “Fiery Spanish temper, maybe?”

She flashed her eyes at him, then laughed.

“Yeah,” she replied in Spanish. “Classical, Mexican, and Puerto Rican Harlem. What’s that you’re speaking?”

“I was hoping it would sound Porteño.”

It took her a moment to make the connection.

“Yeah,” she said. “You could pass.”

“So how do you think you’re going to like Buenos Aires?”

“I don’t know. I seem to recall another ex-Philly cop got herself shot there.”

“I would say it’s Jack’s call, but that wouldn’t be true, would it? Your call, Sandra: You two go to Buenos Aires, or stay here and Jack continues his war with the Secret Service. And he’s going to lose that war. They are not going to put him back on the Protection Detail. . . .”

“It’s not fair, Sandra,” McGuire said. “But that’s the way it is. They just don’t take chances with the President and the Vice President. As a matter of fact, there’s an old pal of mine . . . ” He stopped.

“Go on, Tom,” Castillo said. “They’ll find out anyhow.”

“ . . . There’s an old pal of mine who fell off the side step of the Vice President’s limo. It didn’t matter that it was covered with ice. He fell off. And he was off the detail.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He’s in Buenos Aires.”

“So . . . is this what you’re saying?” Britton asked a bit bitterly. “That Buenos Aires is sort of a Secret Service gulag? The dumping ground for Protection Service rejects?”

“Enough is enough, Jack,” Castillo said, his tone now cold. “What’s it going to be?”

“If we go down there, what happens to my job?” Sandra asked.

Castillo didn’t reply.

Sandra then answered the question herself: “The same that would happen if we went to Saint Louis, Kansas City, or wherever that guy said. How long would we have to stay?”

“As long as Tom and I think is necessary,” Castillo said.

“And the AALs walk on this,” Britton said more than a little bitterly.

“Not necessarily,” Castillo said. “But you’re never going back on the Protection Detail.”

“So then what finally happens to me?”

“Tom and I will, sooner or later but probably sooner, find something for you to do.”

“You mean go to work for you?”

Castillo nodded.

“You didn’t mention that,” Britton said.

“You didn’t give him much of a chance, Rambo,” Davidson said.

“I’d like that,” Britton said simply. “Thank you.”

“When do we go?” Sandra asked.

“As soon as we can get you on a plane,” Castillo said. “Maybe even tonight.”

“All we have is an overnight bag,” Sandra said.

“They have wonderful shops in Buenos Aires,” Doña Alicia said.

“Let’s give Tony a heads-up,” McGuire said, and added to the Brittons: “Tony Santini’s the old pal who fell off the limo.”

“We have a state-of-the-art communications system down there,” Castillo said, “but in his wisdom the kindly chief of OOA figured the odds of anything happening today were slim to none, and so told the guys sitting on the radio to take Christmas day off. So we’ll have to use this primitive device.”

Castillo put his cellular telephone on the table, pushed a speed-dial button, then the speakerphone button.

Proof that the system worked came twenty seconds later when a male voice answered, “Boy, it didn’t take long for Munz to call you to tell you, did it, Charley?”

“And a merry, merry Christmas to you, too, Tony. It didn’t take Munz long to call me to tell me what?”

“You haven’t heard about your Irish pal Duffy?”

“What about him?”

“They tried to take him out about seven o’clock last night. He had his wife and kids with him. Out in Pilar. He’s one pissed-off Irishman.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No. Thank God.”

“They get the people that did it?”

“No. But this is not the time to be on the roads in a Ford F-150 pickup with a dented rear end. Duffy rammed his way through what was supposed to be a stop-and-shoot ambush. Every gendarme in Argentina is working Christmas looking for it.”

“Is Alfredo looking into who did it?”

“I thought it was probably him on the phone just now.”

“Have him send what he finds out to Miller.”

“Done.”

“What I called about, Tony: You remember Jack Britton?”

“Sure.”

“Party or parties unknown—probably those Muslims he was undercover with—tried to take him and his wife out yesterday afternoon.”

“Well, so long Protection Detail. Is he all right? His wife? Where are they going to send him? I could sure use him down here when they’re through with him.”

“How about as soon as I can get them on a plane?”

“That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”

“He said unkind things to the supervisory special agent in charge when he told him he was off the detail. Isaacson turned him over to me just before they were going to handcuff him. I need to put him on ice.”

“He told off the SAC? Good for him! I wish I had.”

Delchamps laughed.

“Who was that?” Santini said.

“Edgar Delchamps,” Delchamps said. “Ace has you on speakerphone, Tony. We’ve got a whole host of folks at the Christmas dinner table working on this.”

“Glad to hear it,” Santini said.

“Why do you need Britton, Tony?” Castillo said.

“I keep hearing things like there’s a raghead connection with our friends in Asunción that we didn’t pick up on. He can pass himself off as a raghead, I seem to recall.”

“I don’t want him going undercover.”

“Why not?”

“Say, ‘Yes, sir, Charley. I understand he’s not to go undercover.’ ”

“Yes, sir, Charley.”

Castillo thought he heard a mix of annoyance and sarcasm in the reply. He knew he saw gratitude in Sandra Britton’s eyes.

“Okay,” he went on, “as soon as we have the schedule, we’ll give you a heads-up. Put them in Nuestra Pequeña Casa. If Munz wants to tell Duffy, fine. Otherwise, not. I have a gut feeling.”

“Yes, sir, Charley, sir.”

Castillo ignored that. He said, “Alex Darby presumably knows about Duffy?”

“Yeah, sure. And anticipating your next question, Alex called Bob Howell in Montevideo so that he could give a heads-up to the China Post people sitting on the ambassador at Shangri-La. He told me that Munz had already called Ordóñez to give him a heads-up. I’d say all the bases are pretty well covered. But what the hell’s going on, Charley?”

“I wish I knew. You’ll be among the first to know if I ever find out. I’ll be in touch, Tony. Take good care of the Brittons.”

“Anybody who says rude things to a SAC is my kind of guy, Charley. Try to stay out of trouble.”

Castillo broke the connection.

He looked at Britton.

“Masterson’s mother and father—ambassador, retired—lost their home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. They’re now living on the estancia in Uruguay—Shangri-La—which he inherited from his late son, who was the bagman for the oil-for-food cesspool. I couldn’t talk the ambassador out of it. And I really had a hard time getting him to agree to having four guys from China Post—even on our payroll, not that he couldn’t have easily afforded paying them himself—to go down there to sit on him.”

“ ‘China Post’?” Mr. and Mrs. Britton asked in unison.

“Some people think that Shanghai Post Number One (In Exile) of the American Legion,” Davidson explained, “is sort of an employment agency for retired special operators seeking more or less honest employment.”

“What Santini just told me,” Castillo said, “was that Alex Darby, the CIA station chief in Buenos Aires, has given Bob Howell, the station chief in Montevideo, a heads-up, and that Alfredo Munz, who works for us . . .”

“Sort of the OOA station chief,” Davidson injected drily.

“. . . down there has given a heads-up to Chief Inspector José Ordóñez of the Interior Police Division of the Policía Nacional del Uruguay,” Castillo went on. “A really smart cop, even if he doesn’t like me very much. One of the first things I want you to do down there is get with him. Bottom line, I think, as Santini said, we have all the bases covered down there.”

“Carlos,” Doña Alicia said. “Did I understand correctly that another friend of yours has been attacked? He and his family?”

He looked at her for a long moment before replying.

“It looks that way, Abuela. But Liam Duffy is more a friend of Alfredo Munz than mine.”

“Just a coincidence, would you say, Karlchen?” Kocian asked. “Two such incidents on the same day?”

Plus your friend, Billy. That makes three.

And the deep-cover asset in Vienna makes four.

Shit . . . five if you count his wife.

Castillo said: “What Montvale described as a deep-cover asset in Vienna, a man named Kuhl and his wife—”

“Kurt Kuhl?” Delchamps interrupted, and when Castillo nodded, he asked, “What the hell happened to him?”

“Merry Christmas,” Castillo said. “The Kuhls were found garroted to death behind the statue of Johann Strauss on the Ring in Vienna yesterday. You knew him?”

“Yeah, I knew both of them well,” Delchamps said.

“You’re talking about Kurt Kuhl who ran the chain of pastry shops?” Kocian asked, and looked at Delchamps.

“I think it has to be him,” Delchamps said. “Them.”

“Then so did I know them,” Kocian said. “They were friends for many years.” He paused, then asked incredulously, “ ‘Deep-cover asset’? You’re not suggesting he had a connection with the CIA?”

“For longer than our leader here is old,” Delchamps said. “If there’s going to be a star on the wall—and there should be two stars; Gertrud was as good as Kurt was—it should be studded with diamonds.”

“I don’t understand,” Doña Alicia said.

“There’s a wall in Langley, Doña Alicia, at the CIA headquarters, with stars to memorialize spooks who got unlucky.”

“I didn’t know,” she said softly.

“Am I permitted to ask what Kurt and Gertrud did for the CIA?” Kocian asked.

After a moment, Delchamps said, somewhat sadly: “Well, why not? They turned people, Billy. Or they set them up to be turned. . . .”

“Turned?” Doña Alicia asked softly, as if she hated to interrupt but really wanted to know.

“They made good guys out of bad guys, Abuela,” Castillo said. “They got Russian intelligence people to come to our side.”

“And East Germans and Poles and Czechs and Hungarians,” Delchamps said. “What I can’t understand is why they were just killed. Excuse me, garroted.”

“Instead of ‘interviewing them’ at length?” Davidson asked. “Getting a list of names? Some of them, I’ll bet, are still being worked.”

“A lot of them are still being worked,” Delchamps said matter-of-factly. “I had three in Paris. One in the Bulgarian embassy and two in the Russian.”

“At the risk of sounding paranoid, I think there’s a pattern to this,” Castillo said.

“Just because you’re paranoid, Ace, doesn’t mean that ugly little men from Mars—or from Pushkinskaya Square—aren’t chasing you with evil intentions.”

That got some chuckles.

“Pushkinskaya Square?” Doña Alicia asked.

My God, Castillo thought. She’s not just being polite; she’s fascinated with this business.

What kind of a man discusses multiple murders—or attempted murders—with his grandmother at the Christmas dinner table?

“It’s in Moscow, Doña Alicia,” Delchamps explained. “It’s famous for two things: a statue of Pushkin, the Russian poet, and an ugly building that’s the headquarters of the SVR, which used to be the KGB.”

“Oh, yes,” Doña Alicia said politely, then asked, “Does ‘garroted’ mean what I think it does?”

“Why don’t we change the subject?” Castillo said. “It’s Christmas!”

“Yes, dear,” Doña Alicia said. “I agree. But I’m interested.”

“They put a thing around your neck, Doña Alicia,” Delchamps said. “Sometimes plastic, sometimes metal. It causes strangulation. It was sort of the signature of the ÁVH, the Államvédelmi Hatóság, Hungary’s secret police. When they wanted it known they had taken somebody out, they used a metal garrote.”

“The sort of thing the Indian assassins, the thugs, used?”

“So far as I know, they used a rope, a cord, with a ball on each end so that they could get a good grip. What the Hungarians used was sort of a metal version of the plastic handcuffs you see the cops use. Once it’s in place, it’s hard, impossible, to remove.”

Davidson saw Castillo glaring at Delchamps.

“What kind of a garrote was used in Vienna, Charley?” Davidson asked innocently.

Castillo moved his glare to Davidson.

“How long does it take for someone to die when this happens to them?” Doña Alicia asked.

McGuire saw the look on Castillo’s face and took pity on him.

“You think there’s a pattern, Charley?” McGuire asked, moving the subject from people being garroted. “What kind?”

Castillo shrugged. “All these hits were on the same day.”

“First,” Delchamps went on, “the victim loses consciousness as oxygen to the brain is shut off. After that, it doesn’t take long.”

“Is it very painful?” Doña Alicia said.

“I would suppose it’s damned uncomfortable,” Delchamps answered. “But I would say it’s more terrifying; you can’t breathe.”

“How awful!” Doña Alicia said.

Castillo’s cellular rattled on the table as the vibration function announced an incoming call. He looked at the caller identity illuminated on its screen.

“Quiet, please,” he ordered, and pushed the SPEAKERPHONE button. “Homicide. Strangulation Division.”

“I don’t suppose you know, Gringo, you wiseass, where Abuela might be?”

“Abuela,” Castillo said. “It’s your other grandson. The fat one.”

“That’s not kind, Carlos. Shame on you!” Doña Alicia said. “And Fernando, you know how I feel about you calling Carlos ‘Gringo.’ ”

“Abuela, you could have told me you were going there.”

“I didn’t want to bother you, my darling. Merry Christmas!”

“I was worried sick. There was no answer at the house. I was just about to get in the car and go over there.”

“Nobody answered the phone because I gave everybody the day off. Did you have a nice Christmas dinner?”

“Very nice, thank you.”

“We had a wonderful dinner,” she went on as others around the table exchanged grins. “Billy Kocian is here and he made some sort of Hungarian dessert with cherries, brandy, and brown sugar with whipped cream. It was marvelous! And now we’re sitting around chatting. And having a little champagne, if it is the truth you really want. There’s no cause for concern.”

“When do you want to come home?”

“If it wasn’t for Carlos going out of town tomorrow, I’d stay awhile. But sometime tomorrow, probably.”

“I’ll come pick you up.”

“You’re not thinking of coming here in the plane, Fernando?”

“The plane” was the Bombardier/Learjet 45XR owned by the family company and piloted more often than not by one Fernando Lopez, the company’s president and Castillo’s cousin and Abuela’s grandson.

“Yes, I am, Abuela.”

“That’s very kind, darling, but I know what it costs by the hour to fly the plane; and that there’s no way that we can claim it as a business deduction and get away with it. I’m perfectly capable of getting on an airliner by myself. Now, get off the phone and enjoy your family at Christmas!”

“Fernando?” Castillo called.

“What?”

“A penny saved is a penny earned. Try to keep that in mind while you’re running our family business.”

“Gringo! You son—”

“ ’Bye, now, Fernando!” Castillo called cheerfully, and quickly broke the connection.

“You were saying, Edgar,” Doña Alicia said, “that being garroted is more frightening than painful?”

[TWO]

Signature Flight Support, Inc.

Baltimore-Washington International Airport

Baltimore, Maryland

0725 26 December 2005

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 Doña 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.

Doña 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 Doña 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-food 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 Mädchen—on a leash—and walked her to the rear of the Yukon. Edgar Delchamps and Sándor Tor next got out somewhat awkwardly, because they each held two of Mädchen’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 Mädchen watched warily, Sándor 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 Doña 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,” Doña 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.

“I don’t know,” Castillo said. He paused. “Abuela, don’t let him know I told you, but Billy’s friend didn’t die of natural causes.”

“I’m not surprised. It was in his eyes.”

“What I’m saying is that Billy is now pretty angry, and that may help us with Otto.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Doña Alicia said.

“He doesn’t like us using the Tages Zeitung as a source of information.”

“But you’re the boss,” Agnes said.

“I don’t want to have to confront him more than I already have,” Castillo said. “I don’t want him to quit.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Doña Alicia said. “Not only is the Tages Zeitung his life, but he loves you.”

“He also has the journalistic ethical standards he got from my grandfather, and he doesn’t think my grandfather would give the CIA the time of day.”

“But you’re not CIA,” Agnes said.

“I don’t think Otto believes that,” Castillo said. “Anyway, Billy was closer to my grandfather than Otto was—closer than anyone else ever was—and what I’m hoping is that he will go through the Tages Zeitung database like a vacuum cleaner on overdrive and Otto will get the message. We’ll see.”

The rear door of the hangar rose with a metallic screech.

“For what we’re paying for this place, you’d think they could afford a little grease,” Castillo said.

Three cars drove into the hangar. A total of five uniformed officers got out.

“Here comes the bureaucracy,” Castillo said. “I guess we can leave now.”

“Not until you arrange the dogs,” Agnes said. “How long is that going to go on?”

“Otto’s kids get one of the puppies, whether or not Otto likes it—”

“Carlos!”

“One pup I’m keeping for a friend of mine in Argentina,” Castillo went on. “That leaves two. One of which Delchamps says he wants.”

“Of course he does! Didn’t you see him on his knees with the puppies yesterday?”

“And Billy says he wants one to keep Mädchen company. So that’s it. Once we get Billy back to Budapest, no more airborne Noah’s ark.”

“And you keep Max?” Doña Alicia asked.

“It will be Max and me alone against the cold cruel world.”

“Billy doesn’t want him? Or he’s just saying that to be nice to you?”

“I don’t know, Abuela,” Castillo said. “I asked him. He said he doesn’t think Mädchen will betray him the way Max has.”

“He doesn’t mean that,” Doña Alicia said.

“Yeah, I know. But he’s already named the pup Max, making that his Max the Tenth or Twelfth.” Castillo looked at Agnes and changed the subject. “Are you going to put my grandma on her plane?”

“After we have a nice lunch in the Old Ebbitt Grill, I will,” Agnes said. “What do I do about the apartment in the Mayflower?”

“When does the lease run out?”

“The end of next month; you have to give them ten days’ notice.”

“Well, let’s see what happens toward the end of next month,” Castillo said. Then he saw Jake Torine and Dick Sparkman walking across the hangar floor toward them. “Well, here come the airplane drivers. I guess it’s time to go.”

[THREE]

Above Antwerp, Belgium

2045 26 December 2005

Jake Torine said, “You’ve got it, Dick,” then removed his headset, unstrapped himself, and went into the passenger compartment.

It was crowded. The travel kennel was in the aisle at the rear. Mädchen was lying in the aisle in front of it, keeping an eye on Max, who was lying in the aisle just inside the passenger compartment—and attached to Jack Davidson by a strong leash. Max was having trouble understanding not only that the honeymoon was over, but that the mother of their offspring had decided that he was a bad influence on their progeny and didn’t want him anywhere near them.

There were two couches, one on each side of the aisle. Billy Kocian—in a red silk dressing gown—was sprawled regally on one of them, reading, and Jack Doherty was on the other, snoring softly with his mouth open. David W. Yung was in the right forward-facing seat and typing on the computer in his lap. Edgar Delchamps was sitting, asleep, in the forward-facing seat nearest the stair door. Sándor Tor, also asleep, sat in the rear-facing chair across from Delchamps.

Across the aisle, Davidson, with Max attached to him, was sitting in the rear-facing seat across from Castillo, who was on the telephone. When Castillo saw Torine, he held up a finger to signal Jake to wait.

“I don’t think there’ll be a problem with our ambassador,” Castillo said. “But this will make sure there’s no problem with the other one.” He paused to listen, then said, “Thank you very much, ma’am.”

This strongly suggested to Torine that Castillo was talking to Secretary of State Natalie Cohen.

“Yes, ma’am, I will,” Castillo said. “Thank you again, Madam Secretary.” And then he said: “Break it down, please, White House,” and put the handset in its cradle on the bulkhead.

“What was that all about?”

“The secretary of State is about to telephone our evil leprechaun in Montevideo—”

“I thought Duffy was our evil leprechaun.”

“Comandante Liam Duffy is our evil leprechaun in Argentina. I was referring to our evil leprechaun in Uruguay, one Ambassador Michael A. McGrory.”

“Oh. Thank you for the clarification. And what is the secretary going to say to the ambassador?”

“That she is dispatching a Secret Service agent by the name of Britton—recently a member of the Vice President’s Protection Detail—to ensure the safety of Ambassador Lorimer, and that he is to be given what support he asks for and not to be assigned other duties.”

“Did you happen to mention the circumstances under which Britton left the protection detail?”

“Yeah. I don’t try to con her. She’s (a) too nice and (b) too smart. I told her just about everything except his rudeness to the SACs. And then I asked her what she thought about sending him to check on the ambassador’s security arrangements, and she thought that was a splendid idea.”

“You knew she would. She really likes the old guy. You don’t consider that conning her?”

“No, I don’t.”

Torine shook his head.

“You noticed that thanks to a lovely tailwind we didn’t have to land for fuel?” Torine asked.

Castillo nodded.

“We’re about two hundred miles—half an hour—from Flughafen Frankfurt am Main,” Torine went on.“There was an in-flight advisory just now; we are to be met by unidentified government authorities.”

Castillo raised his eyebrows, then looked at Davidson. “Jack, make sure to remind me to remind everybody my name is Gossinger.”

“Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”

“Just ‘herr,’ Jack. My grandfather was the oberst. I’m the ne’er-do-well heir to the fruit of his hard labor.”

“I knew that,” Davidson said.

Ground Control directed the Gulfstream to a tarmac and collection of buildings away from the main terminal. Castillo thought—but wasn’t sure—that it was probably what was left of what had been Rhine-Main USAF Base.

A number of vehicles—Castillo recognized both Otto Görner’s company Mercedes-Benz S600 and his personal Jaguar XJ—were waiting for them. Görner was out of his Jaguar and headed for the airplane before the stair door swung open.

When Görner came up the stairs, Max growled.

“Get your goddamned animal under control, Billy!” Görner almost shouted.

“That’s Karlchen’s goddamned animal, Otto,” Kocian replied. “Talk to him.”

Görner looked around the cabin, then at Castillo.

“I thought you were coming alone,” he said unpleasantly, the translation of which was I told you not to bring anybody from the CIA with you.

“Obviously, you were wrong,” Kocian said, then nodded in the direction of the crowd outside his window. “Who are all these people, Otto?”

“Some are from the Bundeskriminalamt, some are our security people, and some are the press.”

“The press?” Castillo asked incredulously.

“The Tages Zeitung is going to offer a reward—fifty thousand euros—for information leading to the arrest of the people who killed Günther Friedler,” Görner said evenly. “And that announcement will be made by you, Herr von und zu Gossinger, as chairman of the executive committee, just as soon as you get off this airplane.”

He handed Castillo a sheet of paper.

“I took the liberty of preparing a few words for you to say when you make the announcement,” Görner said.

Jack Davidson saw the look in Castillo’s eyes.

“Easy, Charley,” Davidson said softly in Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian. “Be cool. Count to two thousand five hundred eleven. By threes. In Russian. Slowly.”

Görner looked at Davidson, clearly annoyed that he didn’t understand what had been said.

Castillo met Davidson’s eyes. He nodded and smiled just perceptibly. He was aware that he was furious, and had already ordered himself to put his mouth on total shutdown.

He glanced at Görner and thought: Since I don’t think you want me set up to be killed, Otto, what the fuck were you thinking?

Is this punishment for bringing what you think is the CIA with me?

No. You wrote my speech before you knew I had.

What this is, is Teutonic stupidity!

He looked back at Davidson and said in Russian, “Two thousand five hundred eight. Two thousand five hundred eleven.”

Now both Kocian and Görner looked at him in confusion.

“Daddy’s proud of you,” Davidson said in Pashtu, and meant it. He had been witness to Castillo losing his temper. “You get a gold star to take home to Mommy.”

“That’s a very good idea, Otto,” Castillo said in English. “And thank you for this.” He held up the sheet of paper. “After I announce the reward, what happens?”

“We go to Wetzlar so that you and Billy can pay your respects to Frau Friedler.”

“I see a couple of problems with that, Otto. One is that I didn’t know Herr Friedler or his wife and feel that I would be intruding on Frau Friedler’s time with Billy.”

Kocian grunted his agreement.

“Another is the dogs,” Castillo went on. “I don’t think Billy wants to take Mädchen and the pups, and I know I don’t want—”

“Pups?” Görner asked. “You mean baby dogs?”

“Four of them,” Castillo said, pointing down the aisle at the travel kennel. “One of them is a gift from Billy and myself to your kids, our godchildren.”

“We can talk about that later,” Görner said.

“And I want to get Inspector Doherty and Special Agent Yung—”

“Who?”

“They’re FBI, Otto. I want to get them together with the German police as quickly as possible—”

“Karl, I don’t know about that,” Görner protested.

“We’re going to need all the help we can get to find these murderers, Otto,” Billy Kocian said. “And Doherty and Yung are recognized experts in their fields.”

He didn’t say which fields, Castillo thought admiringly.

I don’t think either one of them knows much about investigating a murder. But Billy knows Otto can be a self-righteous pain in the ass unless you control him.

And already Billy is acting in charge, letting Otto know, as I’d hoped.

“I’ll get on the phone,” Görner said.

“So what I’m thinking, Otto, is that it would be best if you took Billy to Wetzlar and I took Doherty and Yung to Marburg—put them up in the Europäischer Hof, where they could get together with the authorities first thing in the morning. Then I’ll take everybody else—including the dogs—with me in either the Jag or the Mercedes and the van to the Haus im Wald. That make sense?”

“It does to me,” Billy Kocian said, his tone suggesting his opinion settled the matter once and for all.

Görner looked at him for a long moment, made a face of resignation, and nodded.

“Take my Jaguar,” he said. “I suspect I will need a drink—several drinks—in Wetzlar, and I don’t want to drink and drive.”

[FOUR]

Route A5

Near Bad Homburg

2210 26 December 2005

“Please do so,” Castillo said in response to an announcement from the information operator that, having found the number he asked for, they would for a small fee be happy to connect him directly.

Castillo was driving the Jaguar. Edgar Delchamps was in the front passenger seat. David Yung and Jack Davidson were squeezed in the backseat with Max between them. Max looked out the rear window at the Mercedes-Benz van that was following them and carrying Jack Doherty, Jake Torine, Dick Sparkman, Mädchen, the puppies, two members of the Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., security staff, and their luggage.

“Europäischer Hof,” came over the speaker system of the Jaguar. “Guten Abend.”

“Here is Karl von und zu Gossinger, of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft,” Castillo replied more than a little imperiously in German.

“And how may we be of service, Herr von und zu Gossinger?”

“I will require accommodations for the next few days for two business associates. A suite with separate bedrooms would be preferable, but failing that, two of your better singles.”

“We will be honored to be of service, Herr von und zu Gossinger. When may we expect your associates?”

“In about an hour. I presume there will be no difficulty in billing this directly to the firm?”

“None whatever.”

“We will wish to eat. Will that pose a problem?”

“We will keep the restaurant open for your guests, Herr Gossinger.”

Castillo’s face wrinkled as he continued looking forward and mentally counted heads.

“There will be nine of us.”

“We look forward to serving you, Herr von und zu Gossinger.”

“Thank you very much,” Castillo said, and reached for the telephone’s OFF button on the spoke of the steering wheel.

Edgar Delchamps applauded.

“Very good, Herr von und zu Gossinger,” he said. “Just the right touch of polite arrogance. I could hear him clicking his heels.”

“Well, you know what they say, Edgar. ‘When in Rome,’ or for that matter, in Das Vaterland . . .”

“That said, don’t you think it’s about time to bring your business associates up to speed about where everybody, including you, fits into the landscape?”

Castillo was silent a long time as he considered that. Then he made a small frown that suggested, Why not?

“Okay,” he said. “Take notes. There will be a quiz. Think Stalingrad. The Red Army is firing harassing and intermittent artillery at the Germans. They get lucky and make a hit on a Kublewagon—”

“A what?” Yung asked.

“The military version of the Volkswagen Bug,” Davidson furnished. “They were selling them in the States a while back.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember,” Yung said. “Cute little car!”

“If I may be permitted to continue with the history lesson?” In the rearview mirror, he saw Yung mouth, Sorry. “Thank you. Said Kublewagon was carrying a light bird, general staff corps, on Von Paulus’s staff—”

“I remember Von Paulus,” Delchamps said. “He got on the phone to Hitler, told him they were surrounded, out of ammo, down to eating their horses, and could he please surrender? To which Der Führer replied, ‘Congratulations, General, you are now a field marshal. German field marshals do not surrender. You do have, of course, the option of suicide. . . .’ ”

“Really?” Yung asked.

“And the next day, Field Marshal von Paulus surrendered,” Delchamps finished, “in effect telling Hitler, ‘Screw you, my Führer.’ ”

Castillo said: “If I may continue: The light bird in the Kublewagon suffered life-threatening wounds and would have been KIA had not an eighteen-year-old Gefreite—a corporal—from Vienna dragged him into the basement of a building and applied lifesaving measures. No good deed goes unpunished, as you know. The next couple of H-and-I rounds hit the building, causing the corporal to also suffer grievous wounds.

“The next day, the medics found both of them and loaded them—my grandfather the light bird and Billy Kocian the corporal—on one of the last medical evacuation flights back to the Fatherland . . .”

“No shit!” Yung said wonderingly.

“. . . where both were put into an army hospital in Giessen, which is not far from where we’re going. Billy got out first. To keep him from being sent back to the Eastern Front, good ol’ Grandpa got him assigned as his orderly. When Grandpa got out of the hospital, they put him in charge of an officer’s POW camp in Poland. He took Gefreite Kocian with him.

“This place was the nearest officers’ POW camp to the Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, in Russia. A couple of hundred miles—”

“You’re losing me, Charley,” Jack Davidson said.

“When the Germans and Russians were pals, and they invaded Poland in 1940, the Russians took almost five thousand Polish officers who had surrendered out to the Katyn Forest. First they made them dig holes . . .”

“Okay,” Davidson said. “I’m now with you.”

“I’m so glad, Jack,” Castillo said. “After the officers had dug the holes, the Russians wired their hands behind them, shot them in the back of the head with small-caliber pistols, and dumped them in the holes, which were then covered up.”

“Nice people, the Russians,” Delchamps said. “Anybody who knows me knows I’ve always said that.”

Castillo went on: “When the Germans and the Russians were no longer pals, and the Germans invaded Russia, and they got to Smolensk, they found the graves. The Russians denied any knowledge, said if anybody shot Polish POWs, it had to be those terrible Germans.

“How to get the truth out? wondered those terrible Germans.

“One of the prisoners in my grandfather’s POW camp was Patton’s son-in-law. My grandfather was ordered to take him and a bunch of other American field-grade officers, including some doctors, to the site, and proved to them that their Russian buddies were the bad guys.

“The story didn’t come out for years, but the Americans who had been taken to Katyn knew about it, and remembered the German officer who had taken them to see the graves.

“Okay. So now the war is over. My grandfather and Billy are released from our POW camps and go home. Grandpa goes home and finds that all of his newspapers have been bombed and that most of his farmland is on the wrong side of the fence between the American and Russian zones. Meanwhile, Billy goes home to Vienna and finds that all of his family was killed the day we bombed Saint Stephen’s Cathedral and the Opera House.

“Billy then makes his way to Fulda. My grandfather had become a father figure to him. And vice versa. The two of them dig into the rubble that had been the printing plant of the Fulda Tages Zeitung and put together one Mergenthaler Linotype machine from what was left of two dozen of them.

“That machine is now on display in the lobby of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. It was used to set the type for the first postwar edition of the Tages Zeitung.

“When my grandfather had applied to the American Military Government for permission to publish, he thought he had one thing going for him. A classmate at Philipps University—an American brigadier general—was military governor of Hesse and knew my grandfather was not a Nazi.

“Actually, Grandpa had three things going for him. Second was that counterintelligence had found his name on a Gestapo hit list; he was involved in the 1944 bomb plot. The only reason he hadn’t been shot—or hung on a butcher’s hook—was that the Gestapo thought he was already dead. And, third, the officers he’d taken to Katyn remembered him as a good guy.

“The first post-war Tages Zeitung was in Fulda. Then Kassel. Then Munich. Billy Kocian was sent to Vienna to get the presses up and running and then to look around for a staff, including editors, for my grandfather to vet. He was then twenty-one or twenty-two. The next time my grandfather heard from Billy was when Billy sent him the first edition of the Wien Tages Zeitung. The masthead read: Eric Kocian, Associate Publisher and Editor in Chief.

“My grandfather in effect said, ‘What the hell, why not? Give him a chance. See if he sinks or swims.’ Billy swam.”

“Herr Oberst,” Yung said. “Billy Kocian’s history is fascinating, but is there a bigger point to all this?”

“Bear with me,” Castillo said. “So things were looking up. My grandfather had two children, my Uncle Willi and my mother. Uncle Willi went to Philipps, took a degree in political science, and went to work for Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, bringing with him his buddy Otto Görner.

“My mother was the princess in the castle. Everybody thought that as soon as she was old enough to make it socially acceptable, she would marry Otto, who was being groomed to handle the business side—as opposed to just the newspaper side—of the business.

“And then into the princess’s life appeared the evil American—in the right seat of a D-model Huey—playing war with the Fourteenth Armored Cavalry, which in those days patrolled our fence line with East Germany. And three or four days later, said evil American disappeared, never again to be seen by the princess.

“The kindest thing my grandfather had to say when he was told he was going to be a grandfather was that he thanked God my grandmother wasn’t alive to be shamed by my mother’s blatant immorality.

“When I asked why I didn’t have a daddy like the other kids, Grandpa would walk out of the room and my Uncle Willi would tell me—little Karlchen—that that was not to be discussed. All my mother would say was that my father was an American army officer who had had to go away and would not be coming back, and that I was not to talk about him to Grandpa, Uncle Willi, or ‘Uncle’ Otto.

“Then, when I was about eleven, Uncle Willi, with my grandfather next to him on their way home from Kassel, drove his Gullwing Mercedes off a bridge on the A7 Autobahn at an estimated one hundred thirty miles an hour.

“That left my mother and me alone in the Haus im Wald, the family castle, which actually looks more like a factory. Mother again declined Otto’s offer of marriage. She inherited her one-quarter of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, the other three-fourths going to Uncle Willi and Uncle Billy and yours truly in equal parts. Uncle Willi had left everything he owned—his quarter—to my mother in the belief that she would eventually come to her senses and marry Otto. So she got that share, too.

“But it wasn’t in the cards for my mother to live happily ever after with Little Karlchen in the castle. Six months after Uncle Willi and Grandpa went off the A7 bridge, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Terminal. Two months to live.”

“Jesus!” David Yung exclaimed.

“At which point, Mother, apparently deciding that the orphan-to-be needed to establish contact with his father, whether or not the father was going to be pleased to learn that he had left a love child behind in Germany, turned to the 14th Armored Cavalry for help, giving them the father’s name—Castillo—that she had steadfastly refused to give her father.

“The Fourteenth’s regimental commander turned over the task of locating the father to one of his majors, one Allan B. Naylor—”

“Who now has four stars—that Naylor?” Davidson asked.

“That’s the guy,” Castillo confirmed. “He had a little trouble locating a Huey jockey named Castillo who had once maneuvered with the Fourteenth. Reason being: He was in San Antonio, in the National Cemetery there, with a representation of the Medal of Honor chiseled into his headstone.”

“Your father won the Congressional Medal of Honor?” Yung asked softly.

“It’s properly just the ‘Medal of Honor,’ David. And you don’t win it. You receive it.”

“No offense, Charley.”

“None taken. Well, this changed things a good deal. The illegitimate offspring of a Medal of Honor recipient can’t be treated like just one more bastard among the maybe a hundred thousand bastards spawned by the U.S. Army of Occupation. And Naylor, being Naylor, had also found out that I would own, when my mother died, all of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft with the exception of Billy Kocian’s quarter-share.

“That raised the very real possibility that a wetback Texican family living in squalor on the riverbank in San Antonio was suddenly going to get their hands on the considerable fortune of the grandchild, nephew, cousin, whatever, they didn’t even know existed.

“Naylor was dispatched to reconnoiter the terrain in San Antone while the brightest Army lawyers gathered in emergency session to come up with some way to protect the kid’s assets from said wetbacks.

“What Naylor found, instead, was that my so-called wetback grandfather was just about convinced that some greedy fräulein of loose morals was trying to get her hands into the Castillo cash box and he was going to do whatever had to be done to keep that from happening.

“My grandmother had no such concerns. She took one look at the photo of Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger that Naylor had shown her and said she could tell from the eyes—which were the same as his father’s—her son’s—that this was her grandson. Two hours after she met Allan Naylor for the first time, she went wheels-up with Naylor in my grandfather’s Lear for New York, where they caught the five-fifteen PanAm flight to Frankfurt that afternoon.

“My grandfather caught up with her the next day. A week after that, clutching his brand-new American passport, Carlos Guillermo Castillo got on another PanAm 747 at Rhine-Main with his grandmother. My grandfather stayed in Germany a little longer. He buried my mother—she didn’t want me to see her in her last days of that horrible disease—and he left Otto Görner in charge—temporarily—of my assets. He’s still in charge.

“As far as the German government is concerned, I am Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, which means I have a German passport. That’s proven useful more than once in our line of work, and when, for example, I need a couple of hotel rooms in a hurry.”

“Ace, if you think I’m going to be nicer to you,” Delchamps said, “now that I know how rich you are—well, then, yes, sir, your excellency, mine Führer, you handsome, wise, charming sonofabitch, I certainly will be.”

“Screw you, Edgar,” Castillo said. Then he exhaled audibly and added: “Okay, that’s the story. Aside from bringing Jack Doherty and Sparkman up to speed—Jake has already heard all this—I’d really appreciate your keeping it—especially the soap opera details—to yourselves.”

IV

[ONE]

Das Haus im Wald

Near Bad Hersfeld

Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg

Hesse, Germany

2315 26 December 2005

“We’re almost there,” Castillo said as the Jaguar swiftly moved down a macadam road winding through a thick pine forest.

A moment later, he braked very sharply and with a squeal of tires made a right turn onto an almost identical road. The driver of the van behind them decided it best not to try to turn so fast and went past the turn, then stopped and backed up, then followed.

The headlights of the Jaguar lit up reflective signs on each side of the road. Each two-foot-square sign showed a skull and bones and the legend, ZUGANG VERBOTEN!!!

“Looks like they expect you, Ace,” Edgar Delchamps said. “Welcome home!”

Then the headlights picked up the form of a heavyset man standing in the middle of the road. He was swinging a heavy-duty flashlight back and forth as a signal to stop. The man was wearing a heavy Loden cloth cape, the drape of which was distorted by what Castillo professionally guessed to be a submachine gun, probably a Heckler & Koch MP7A1.

He approached the car. Castillo put the window down.

“Wie gehts, Karlchen?” the man said, offering Castillo his hand.

From the backseat, Max moved so that his front paws were on the console between the front seats. He showed his teeth and growled deep in his chest.

“Oh, shut up, Max,” the man said. “You know me.”

Max sat down.

“Guten Abend, Siggie,” Castillo said, chuckling.

“It is good to see you again, Karlchen.”

“It’s good to see you.”

“You have Max. Are Herr Görner and Herr Kocian close behind you?”

“I have Max and family. His wife, so to speak, and four of their pups are in a van coming right behind me. Otto and Uncle Billy went to Wetzlar; they should be along shortly.”

“Frau Görner will be overjoyed. You know how she loves dogs.”

Castillo grinned broadly. “Wait until she learns one of the pups is for Willi and Hermann.”

The man returned the grin. “It will make her Christmas complete, Karlchen.”

The man noticed movement coming up behind the Jaguar. It was the van. He then stepped back and waved both vehicles down the road.

The House in the Woods appeared in the headlights five minutes later. It sat against a hill, near the top, and did in fact look more like a collection of factory buildings than a residence.

As the Jaguar and the van stopped on a cobblestoned area, floodlights came on. Castillo got out, motioned for the people in the van to follow him, then walked across a shallow flagstone verandah to a large double door, opened the right side without knocking, and stepped inside.

Frau Helena Görner was standing just inside the vestibule. With her were two young boys, the housekeeper, and a maid. No one seemed surprised at his presence.

As Castillo approached, he decided that Siggie—“Siggie the Game Warden,” he’d explained to all in the car, “stops everyone who gets past the skull-and-bones signs and announces that he’s making sure they’re not poachers before turning them away”—had either a cellular telephone or a radio, and then changed his mind: Siggie has a cellular and a radio, and called ahead with one or both.

“It’s always good to see you, Karl,” Helena said, offering him both her hand and her cheek, both of which were nearly as cold as her smile.

“You’re looking as lovely as always, Helena.” He turned to those following him. “Gentlemen, may I present our hostess, Frau Helena Görner? And my god-sons, Willi and Hermann?”

Max towed Jack Davidson to the boys, who were obviously as glad to see the dog as Max was to see them.

Helena was not touched by the sight. She offered a strained smile, extended her hand to Edgar Delchamps, and said, “Welcome to our home. We have dinner waiting for you. I’m sure you must be . . .” She looked past the visitors toward the van. “What the hell is that they’re carrying in?”

It was hard to know what tested Frau Helena Görner’s good manners more in the next couple of minutes: her learning that she had gone to the trouble of having dinner prepared for her guests only to be told they had already eaten in Marburg; her learning that not only was Max going to spend the night—or the next few days—in her home but that he had his family with him; or her learning that one of the pups—which would certainly grow as enormous as his parents—was going to stay forever.

But Helena prided herself on being a lady, and the only expletive she uttered was the mild one that she had used when inquiring about the travel kennel being carried to the house, and five minutes after the visitors had walked into the vestibule, they now were all in the big room of the House in the Woods and having a little something liquid to cut the chill.

The big room was on the top—third—floor of the house, and was reached by both an enormous wide set of stairs and an elevator. It served as a combined reception and dining room for guests. The Görner family had their own dining and living rooms on the floors below.

One entire wall of the big room was curtained; the heavy curtains were now drawn. When uncovered, plateglass windows offered a view of the fields in the valley below. The housekeeper and a maid began to reset the dining table for breakfast.

The pups had been freed from the kennel and were playing with the boys in front of the fireplace. Max, lying next to Castillo, was whining because the moment he moved, Mädchen’s teeth told him that he was not welcome to join in the fun.

There was the clunking sound of the elevator car rising, then its doors opening.

“Are they likely to soil the carpet?” Helena inquired of Castillo.

“Unless you get some newspapers on it, they certainly will,” Eric Kocian announced as he walked from the elevator toward the dogs.

Otto Görner and Sándor Tor followed him off the elevator.

“Otto, darling,” Helena greeted him, her tone somewhat less than warm. “I was thinking I’d make a place for the dogs in the stable.”

“That won’t work, Helena,” Kocian said. “It’d be too cold for the pups in the stable. Mädchen and the pups will be in my room. For the time being, I suggest newspaper—appropriately, considering Karlchen’s recent plagiaristic writings therein.”

He squatted beside Mädchen and scratched her ears.

“Sándor,” Kocian called. “Be a good fellow and get me a little Slivovitz from the bar, will you, please?”

He held his hand over his head, his thumb and index fingers at least three inches apart to indicate his idea of a little sip of the 120-proof Hungarian plum brandy.

Then he stood and turned to Castillo. “I am after the numbing effect, not the taste.”

“It was bad in Wetzlar?” Castillo asked.

“That qualifies as an understatement, Karlchen,” Kocian said. He exhaled audibly, then went on, measuring his words, “As does this: I want to get the Gottverdammt sonsofbitches—”

“Eric, the children!” Helena protested.

Kocian flashed her an icy look, then went on: “... who did this to Günther Friedler and his family. And the Tages Zeitung newspapers will do whatever we can toward that objective. Starting with doubling that reward to a hundred thousand euros.” He took a sip of Slivovitz, then added, “And—if I have to say this—by providing our Karlchen-the-intelligence-officer and his friends with whatever we have in the files that might help them to find these bastards.”

“Eric, the children shouldn’t hear this!” Helena said, moving toward the boys, presumably to usher them out of earshot.

“They can read; they’ve seen the newspapers,” Kocian said. “And so far as Helena’s concern with my language, I remember you, Otto, and Willi teaching Karlchen all the dirty words when he was a lot younger than your two boys.”

Sándor Tor handed Kocian a water glass three-quarters full with a clear liquid. He raised it to his lips and drank half.

He looked at Helena.

“I was led to believe there would be something to eat when we got here.”

She flushed and then walked quickly out of the room.

Otto looked uncomfortable.

And so did everybody else in the room. Including Willi and Hermann.

Castillo thought: You can’t honestly say there’s no excuse for Billy’s behavior. There is. He obviously regards Friedler’s murder as far more than the loss of a faithful employee under sordid circumstances. There was an emotional relationship between the two—maybe even father and son-like—but whatever it was, it was apparently a lot closer than anyone, maybe even Otto, suspected.

Maybe Billy started out blaming Otto for putting Friedler on the story, knowing it was dangerous. But Billy has had plenty of time to think that through, time to conclude that maybe Otto didn’t know that Friedler was in the line of fire.