By Order of the President

Chapter III

[ONE]

The Oval Office

The White House

Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

0845 24 May 2005

"Natalie, Matt," the president of the United States said, "would you stay a minute, please?"

Dr. Natalie Cohen, the national security advisor, and the Hon. Matt Hall, secretary of homeland security, who were sitting on the same couch, and both of whom had started to get up, relaxed against the cushions. Hall then leaned forward and picked up his unfinished cup of coffee from the coffee table.

The president waited until the others in the room had filed out and then motioned to the Secret Service agent at the door to close it.

Cohen and Hall looked at the president, who seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Finally, he smiled and spoke.

"Maybe I missed something just now," the president said. "But I didn't hear from anyone that anyone knows any more about that airliner that went missing in Angola than anyone did yesterday."

Cohen and Hall exchanged glances but neither said anything.

"And I think-I may be wrong; the intelligence community is so enormous that sometimes I just can't remember every agency who's part of it-that we had in here just now just about everybody who should know what's going on with that airplane. Maybe not all of them. Maybe just a few of them, but certainly at least one of them. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Mr. President," Dr. Cohen said, "I checked with the CIA and the Air Force again this morning. They are agreed that there is virtually no possibility of that airplane being able to fly here-or, for that matter, to Europe-without being detected."

"That's reassuring, Natalie. And is that the reason, would you say, that nobody mentioned this missing airplane? Or, maybe-I realize this may sound as if I'm a little cynical-was it because they hoped I wouldn't notice that they have no idea what the hell's going on with that airplane?"

"Mr. President," Hall spoke up, "I'm sure that they-and that means the entire intelligence community, sir-are working on it."

"Come on, Matt," the president said. "We know that." He paused and then looked at Dr. Cohen.

"Remember what we talked about last night, Natalie? I told you when Matt came for supper, I was going to ask him to think out of the box-I have no idea what that really means-about this?"

"Yes, I do, Mr. President," she said and looked at Hall.

"That I wished I could think about some way to shake up the intelligence community?" the president went on.

"Yes, sir," she said and paused.

Dr. Cohen was fully aware that the man sitting at the desk across the room was the most powerful man in the world. And that she worked for him. And that meant she was supposed to do what he said, not argue with him, unless she was absolutely convinced he was dead wrong, when she saw it as her duty to argue with him.

And she wasn't absolutely sure he was right about this. Or absolutely sure he was wrong.

"Are you sure you want to shake them up, sir?" she asked. "Even more than the 9/11 commission report did?"

"If they're not doing their job," the president said, "they deserve to be shaken up."

That, Dr. Cohen thought, is a statement of policy. And I don't think it's open for discussion.

"And doesn't this missing 727 business give us the chance to find out whether they're doing their job or not?" the president asked. "Something real-world and real-time above and beyond what the 9/11 commission report called for?" He paused. "This could put us ahead of the curve."

"Very possibly it does, sir," she said.

"It looks to me, and Matt, like an ideal situation to run an 'internal review,' " the president went on, "without it interfering with anything important. And without anybody having to know about it unless we catch somebody with their pants down." He heard what he said. "Sorry, Natalie. That slipped out. But wouldn't you agree with Matt?"

So Matt, too, has decided arguing with him about this would be futile?

"What's your idea, Matt?" she asked.

"As I understand what the president wants," Hall said, "it's for someone-one man-to check everybody's intel files and compare them against both what he can find out, and what the others have found out, and when."

"Isn't that a lot to throw at one man?" she asked.

"That's a lot of work for one man, but I think that if we used even as few as three or four people on this, the question of who's in charge would come up; they'd probably be stumbling over each other trying to look good; and the more people involved, the greater the risk that somebody would suspect something like this was going on."

"That's the idea, Natalie," the president said. "What do you think?"

I think Matt has resigned himself to there being – what did he say? "An internal review"?- and he wants to keep it small, low-key, and, if at all possible, a secret.

"Have you got the man to do it?" she asked.

"I asked him last night to think about that," the president said.

"I think I have the man, sir," Hall said.

"Who?" the president asked.

"My executive assistant," Hall said.

"That good-looking young guy who speaks Hungarian?" Cohen asked.

Hall nodded.

"You know him, Natalie?" the president asked.

"I don't know him, but I saw him translating for Matt at a reception at the Hungarian embassy," she said.

"Why do you need a Hungarian translator, Matt?" the president asked with a smile.

"The Hungarian came with the package," Hall said. "He speaks seven, maybe more, languages, among them Hungarian."

"He's a linguist?" the president asked.

Hall understood the meaning of the question: How is a linguist going to do what we need here?

"Well, that, too, sir. But he's also a Green Beret."

"A Green Beret?" the president asked, his tone suggesting that the term had struck a sympathetic chord.

"Yes, sir," Hall replied. "He's a Special Forces major. I went to General Naylor and asked him if he could come up with somebody who had more than language skills. He sent Charley to me. He's a good man, Mr. President. He can do this."

"Makes sense to me," Cohen said. "Matt thinks he's smart, which is good enough for me. And no one is going to suspect that a Special Forces major would be given a job like this."

"I'd like to meet this guy," the president said. "Okay, what else do we need to get this started?"

"We'll need all the intelligence filings," Hall said. "I suppose Natalie will have most of them-or synopses of them, anyway."

"Mostly, all I get is the synopses," Cohen said. "I have to ask for the original filing, and raw data if I want to look at that."

The president thought that over a moment.

"We don't know that somebody is not going to try to fly this airplane into the White House or the Golden Gate Bridge:"

Hall opened his mouth to say something, but the president held up his hand in a gesture meaning he didn't want to be interrupted.

": so I think it could be reasonably argued that the missing 727 is something in which Homeland Security would have a natural interest."

Hall and Cohen nodded.

"So, Natalie, why don't you send a memo telling everybody to send the intelligence filings to Matt?"

"And the raw data, Mr. President?" Hall asked.

The president nodded.

"All filings and all raw data, from everybody," the president ordered. "Yes, sir, Mr. President," Dr. Cohen said. "Okay. We're on our way," the president said.

[TWO]

Hunter Army Airfield

Savannah, Georgia

1315 27 May 2005

The Cessna Citation X attracted little attention as it touched down smoothly just past the threshold of the runway, possibly because one of the world's most famous airplanes was moving majestically down the parallel taxiway.

The copilot of the Citation looked at the enormous airplane as they rolled past it, and turned to the pilot, as the pilot reported, "Six-Oh-One on the ground."

"Twenty-nine," the copilot said.

The pilot nodded.

"Six-Oh-One, take Four Right to the parallel," Hunter ground control ordered the smaller jet. "Be advised there is a 747 on the parallel. Turn left on the parallel. Hold at the threshold."

"Understand Four Right," the pilot replied, "then turn left to hold at the threshold. Thank you for advising about taxiway traffic. I might have not seen that airplane."

"You're welcome, Six-Oh-One," the ground traffic controller replied with a chuckle in his voice.

"And by the way, Hunter," the pilot said. "I think that's a VC-25A, not a 747."

"Thank you so much, Six-Oh-One," the controller replied. "Duly noted."

"Hunter, Air Force Two-Niner-Triple-Zero, I have that cute little airplane in sight and will endeavor not to run over it."

"Two-Niner-Triple-Zero," the pilot of the Citation said. "It's not nice to make fun of little airplanes, especially ones flown by birdmen in their dotage."

"Who is that?" the copilot of the Citation asked. "Jerry?"

"It sounds like him," the pilot said.

Both the pilot and the copilot of the Citation knew Air Force VC-25A tail number 29000 well. Both had more than a thousand hours at the controls of it, or its identical twin, tail number 28000. Flying the specially configured Boeings-whose call sign changed to Air Force One whenever the president of the United States was on board-had been their last assignment before their retirement.

Twenty-nine, both believed, was now being flown-or, actually, both strongly suspected, just taxied to the end of the runway for a precautionary engine run-up-by Colonel Jerome T. McCandlish, USAF, whom they had, after exhaustive tests and examinations, signed off on two years before as qualified to fly the commander in chief.

The proof-in addition to the sound of his voice-seemed to be that he had recognized the tail number on the Citation and felt sure he knew who was flying it.

Citation tail number NC-3055 was the aircraft provided for the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, although there was nothing to suggest this in its appearance. It was intended to look like-and did look like-most other Citations. And with the exception of some very special avionics not available on the civilian market it was essentially just like every other Citation X in the air.

"Miss it, Jack?" the pilot inquired as 29000 fell behind them.

"Sure," the copilot said. "Don't you?"

"The question is, 'Would I go back tomorrow?,' " the pilot said, "and the answer is, 'No, I don't think so.' This is just about as much fun, and it's a hell of a lot less:"

"Responsibility?"

"I was going to say that, but: work. It's a lot less work."

"I agree."

When the time had come for them to be replaced as pilots-in-command of the presidential aircraft-six months apart-they had been offered, within reason, any assignment appropriate to full colonels and command pilots. There were problems with the word "appropriate." They were led to understand that although colonels command groups, it would not really be appropriate for them to be given command of, for example, one of the groups in the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.

That would be a great flying job, but the cold facts were that they had spent very little time at the controls of various C-130 aircraft, such as the Spectre and Spooky gunships best known for their fierce cannons, and actually knew very little about what Special Operations really did.

The same was true of taking command of a fighter wing or a bomber wing.

Although both had once been fighter pilots and bomber pilots, that had been early on in their careers, decades ago, and now they were almost in their fifties.

What was appropriate, it seemed, was command of one of the Flying Training Wings in the Nineteenth Air Force. They had training experience, and knowing that they were being taught how to fly by pilots who had flown the commander in chief in Air Force One would certainly inspire fledgling birdmen.

So would becoming a professor at the Air Force Academy be appropriate and for the same reasons. It would also be appropriate for them to become air attaches at a major American embassy somewhere; they certainly had plenty of experience being around senior officials, foreign and domestic. But that would not be a flying assignment and they both wanted to continue flying.

Their other option was to retire and get a civilian flying job. The problem there was the strong airline pilots' unions, which made absolutely sure every newly hired airline pilot started at the bottom of the seniority list. No matter how much time one had at the controls of a 747/VC-25A, those airline pilot positions went only to pilots who had worked their way up the seniority ladder.

In favor of retirement, however, was that the Air Force retirement pay wasn't bad, and they would get it in addition to what they would make sitting in the copilot's seat of a twin-engine turboprop of Itsy-Bitsy Airlines, and both had just about decided that's what it would be when the rag-heads flew skyjacked 767s into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania ground.

The Department of Homeland Security had come out of that, and, with that, the secretary of homeland security. Even before Congress had passed the necessary legislation-there had been no doubt that it was going to happen-certain steps were taken, among them providing the secretary designate with suitable air transportation.

He didn't need a VC-25A, of course, or even another of the airliner-sized transports in the Air Force inventory. What he needed was a small, fast airplane to carry him on a moment's notice wherever he had to go.

The Citation X, which was capable of carrying eight passengers 3,300 miles-San Francisco, for example, to Washington-in fewer than four hours was just what was needed. There is always a financial cushion in the budget of the Secret Service to take care of unexpected expenses, and this was used to rent the Citation from Cessna.

Part of the rationale to do this was that the Secret Service was to be transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security anyway.

The Secret Service had some pilots but would need four more to fly the secretary's new Citation. All the t s were crossed and the is dotted on the appropriate Civil Service Commission Application for Employment forms, of course, and the applications examined carefully and honestly, but no one was surprised when two about-to-retire Air Force colonels who had been flying the president were adjudged to be best qualified for appointment as Pilots, Aircraft, GS-15, Step 8, to fill two of the four newly established positions.

"Citation Thirty-Fifty-Five, be advised that two Hueys are moving to the threshold," Hunter ground control announced just as the Citation X turned left onto the parallel.

"Roger that, we have them in sight," the copilot said, and then added, "Jerry, remember to lock the brakes before you start your run-up."

The Cessna pilot chuckled.

Through the windshield they could see two Army UH-1H helicopters slowly approaching the threshold of the runway about twenty feet off the ground.

The pilot touched the announce button.

"Mr. Secretary, we can see the choppers."

"Me, too, Frank. Thank you," Secretary Hall called back.

There were four passengers in the Citation today. Secretary Hall; Joel Isaacson, the supervisory Secret Service agent in charge of Hall's security detail; Tom McGuire, another Secret Service bodyguard; and an Army major, today in civilian clothing, whose code name for Secret Service purposes was "Don Juan."

The secretary's code name was "Big Boy," which more than likely made reference to his size and appearance.

Why the major was "Don Juan" wasn't known for sure. It could have something to do with his Spanish- or Italian-sounding name, Castillo, or, Frank and Jack had privately joked, it could have to do with what the Secret Service secretly knew about him. At thirty-six, he was a great big guy-a little bigger than the secretary-good-looking, nice thick head of hair, blue-eyed, no wedding ring, and-considering the foregoing-he probably got laid a lot.

They had no idea what his function in the department was, or, for that matter, if he was even in the department. And, of course, they didn't ask. If it was important for them to know more than his name, they would be told.

He accompanied the secretary often enough to have his own code name, and on the occasions when he did so in uniform he sported not only the usual merit badges-parachutist's wings, senior Army Aviators' wings, a Combat Infantry Badge-but also a ring signifying that he had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. They found it interesting that when he took off his uniform, he also took off the West Point ring. That offered the interesting possibility that he wasn't a soldier at all but put on the uniform-and the West Point ring-as a disguise when that was required.

Their best guess, however, was that he was in fact an officer, probably a West Pointer, and more than likely some kind of liaison officer, probably between the department and the Army or the Defense Department.

The two UH-lHs touched down on the grass just outside the threshold to the active runway as the Citation X rolled to a stop.

The Secret Service agents got out of their seats and opened the stair door and then went outside. The pilot of the closest Huey got out. She was slight and trim, with short blond hair. She tucked her flight helmet under her arm and walked toward the Citation X.

The secretary deplaned first, carrying a briefcase, and Don Juan got off last.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary," the pilot said, saluting.

"Good afternoon, Colonel," the secretary said.

"Sir, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Messinger," the pilot said. "I'll be flying you to the island. I know you're familiar with the aircraft, but I'll have to ask this gentleman:"

"He's familiar with it, Colonel," the secretary said. "I think you're probably both graduates of the same flying school."

"You're a Huey driver, sir?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am," Don Juan said. "And you outrank me, Colonel."

"Colonel," the secretary said, visibly amused by the interchange, "this is Major Charley Castillo."

"How do you do, Major?" Lieutenant Colonel Messinger said, offering her hand and a firm handshake. "The weather's fine; it's a short hop-about thirty-five miles-I already have the clearance to penetrate the P-49 area, so there won't be Marine jets from Beaufort around, and anytime the secretary is ready we can go."

She made a gesture toward the helicopters. Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire walked to the more distant aircraft and got in.

Major Castillo knew the drill: The Huey with the Secret Service agents in it would wait until the one carrying the secretary took off and then follow it until they reached their destination. Then the Secret Service Huey would land first to make sure there were no problems and then radio the second helicopter that it could land.

He thought it was a little silly. They were going to the Carolina White House, and, if there was something wrong there, they would certainly have heard about it.

But it's Standing Operating Procedure, which is like Holy Writ in the U.S. Army.

Colonel Messinger double-checked to see that Sergeant First Class DeLaney, her crew chief, had properly strapped in the secretary and the major in civvies, smiled at them both, and then got back in the right seat.

A moment later, the Huey went light on the skids, lifted into the air, dropped its nose, and began to move ever more rapidly across the airfield. Cooler air rushed in the big doors left open on either side of the helicopter against the Georgia heat.

Major Castillo unfastened his seat belt and started to stand.

"Sir!" Sergeant First Class DeLaney began to protest.

Major Castillo put his finger to his lips, signifying silence.

Sergeant First Class DeLaney, visibly upset, looked to the secretary for help.

The secretary signaled the sergeant that if Castillo wanted to stand, it was fine with him.

With a firm grip on a fuselage rib, Major Castillo stood in the doorway for about two minutes, looking down at what he could see of Fort Stewart.

Then he quickly resumed his seat and strapped himself in.

"I once spent a summer here, Sergeant," he said, smiling at DeLaney. "Mostly washing Georgia mud from tracks and bogie wheels. I haven't been back since."

"Yes, sir," Sergeant DeLaney said.

"Sergeant," the secretary said, smiling. "If you don't tell the colonel, we won't."

"Yes, sir."

"On the other hand, Charley," the secretary said, "I have seen people take a last dive out of one of these things when there was a sudden change of course."

"Sir," Castillo said, "I have a finely honed sense of self-preservation. Not to worry."

"So I have been reliably informed," the secretary said. "I think the colonel likes you, Charley. She spent much more time strapping you in than she did me."

"It's my cologne, sir," Castillo said. "Eau de Harley-Davidson. It gets them every time."

The secretary laughed.

Sergeant First Class DeLaney smiled somewhat uneasily.

Jesus, DeLaney thought, what if that big bastard had taken a dive out the door?

[THREE]

The Carolina White House

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

1355 27 May 2005

The president of the United States was sitting in one of the upholstered wicker rocking chairs on the porch of an eight-year-old house that had been carefully designed and built so that most people thought it was bona fide antebellum and surprised that such a house had been built way back then overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

The president, who was wearing a somewhat faded yellow polo shirt with the Brooks Brothers sheep embroidered on the chest, sharply creased but obviously not new khaki trousers, and highly polished loafers, was drinking Heineken beer from the bottle. A galvanized bucket on the floor beside his chair held a reserve buried in ice.

The president pushed himself out of his chair and set his beer bottle on the wicker table as a white GMC Yukon with heavily tinted windows pulled up.

The driver got out quickly and ran around the front of the Yukon in a vain attempt to open the driver's door before the secretary could do so himself.

"Hey, Matt!" the president greeted the secretary, his accent sounding comfortable at home in its native Carolina.

The secretary walked up on the porch and offered his hand.

"Good afternoon, Mr. President," he said.

"It's always a pleasure to see you, Matt," the president said with a smile.

Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Aviation, U.S. Army, stood by the Yukon waiting for some indication of what he should do.

The president looked at him and smiled and then turned his back on the Yukon.

"Don't tell me that's your Tex-Mex linguist?" the president asked.

"That's him, Mr. President," the secretary said.

"That guy's name is Guillermo Castillo?"

" Carlos Guillermo Castillo," the secretary said, smiling. "Yes, sir, Mr. President."

The president chuckled, and then with a smile and a friendly wave ordered Castillo onto the porch.

"Welcome to the island, Major," the president said, offering him his hand.

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"Where's home, Major?" the president asked.

"San Antonio, sir," Castillo said.

"I've got two questions for you, Major," the president said. "The first is, Can I offer you a beer?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you very much," Castillo said.

The president took two bottles of beer from the bucket and handed one to Castillo and the other to Secretary Hall and then produced a bottle opener.

"Every time I try to twist one of the easy-open caps off, I cut the hell out of my hand," the president announced. He waited a beat, then added with a grin: "Especially when they're not twist-off caps." He waved Hall and Castillo into wicker rockers and then sat down himself.

"My mother would tell me, Major, that a question like this is tacky, but I just have to ask it. You're really not what I expected. Where did a fair-skinned, blue-eyed guy like you get a name like Carlos Guillermo Castillo?"

"My father's family, sir, is Tex-Mex. My mother was German."

"I didn't mean to embarrass you," the president said.

"The question comes up frequently, sir," Castillo said. "Usually followed by, 'Are you adopted?,' to which I reply, sir, 'No, it's a question of genes.' "

The president chuckled, then grew serious.

"I guess the secretary has brought you up to speed on this," he said.

"Yes, sir, he has."

"What did he tell you?" the president asked.

Castillo's somewhat bushy left eyebrow rose momentarily as he visibly gathered his thoughts.

"As I understood the secretary, Mr. President," Castillo began, "a Boeing 727 which had been parked at the Luanda, Angola, airfield for fourteen months took off without clearance on 23 May and hasn't been seen since. The incident is being investigated by just about all of our intelligence agencies, none of which has come up with anything about where the aircraft is or what happened to it. The secretary, sir, led me to believe that he wants me to conduct an investigation:"

" I want you to conduct an investigation," the president interrupted.

"Yes, sir. The purpose of my investigation would be to serve as sort of a check on the investigations of the various agencies involved:"

"What I'd like to know," the president said, with a dry smile on his face and in his voice, "is what did they know, and when did they know it?' "

Secretary Hall chuckled.

"There is nothing to suggest," the president said, "that any of the agencies looking into the 727 gone missing have either done anything they shouldn't have or not done something they should have. Or that anyone suspects they will in the future. You should have that clear in your mind from the beginning."

"Yes, sir."

"On the other hand," the president went on, "I can't help but have in mind that a highly placed officer in the agency who was in the pay of the Russians for years was not even suspected of doing anything wrong-despite his living a lifestyle he could obviously not support on his CIA pay-until, against considerable resistance from the agency bureaucracy, an investigation was launched. You're familiar with that story?"

"Yes, sir, I am."

"And then-it came far too belatedly to light-the FBI had a highly placed officer in charge of counterintelligence who had taken a million dollars from the Russians in exchange for information that led to the deaths of people we had working for us in Moscow and elsewhere."

"Yes, sir. I know that story, too."

"That's what the agency would call the worst possible scenario," the president went on. "But there is another scenario-scenarios-that, while falling short of moles actually in the pay of a foreign intelligence service, can do just as much harm to the country as a mole can do. Are you following me, Major?"

"I hope so, sir."

"Intelligence-as you probably are well aware-is too often colored, or maybe diluted or poisoned, I learned, by three factors. I'm not sure which is worst. One of them is interagency rivalry, making their agency look good and another look bad. Another is to send up intelligence that they believe is what their superiors want to hear, or, the reverse, not sending up intelligence that they think their superiors don't want to hear. And yet another is an unwillingness to admit failure. You understand this, I'm sure. You must have seen examples yourself."

"Yes, sir, I have."

"Matt: Secretary Hall and I," the president said, "are agreed that in the intelligence community there is too much of a tendency to rely on what the other fellow has to say. I mean, in the absence of anything specific, the CIA will go with what the FBI tells them, or the ONI on what the DIA has developed. You're still with me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Some of that, obviously, has to do with funding. Funding is finite. One agency feels that if another agency has come up with something, there's no sense in duplicating the effort, which means spending money. That's just human nature."

"Yes, sir, I understand."

"And then Secretary Hall came up with the idea that one way to have a look at what's really going on in the field would be to have a quiet look at an active case where more than one agency-the more, the better-is involved. This gone-missing airplane is a case where not just two or three agencies but most of them are involved. I don't have to get into that with you, do I, Major? The jealously guarded turf of the various agencies?"

"No, sir. I'm familiar with the Statements of Mission."

"Okay," the president said. "In the case of this missing 727 airplane, the agency has primary responsibility. But the State Department has been told to find out what they can. And the Defense Intelligence Agency. And DHS, because one scenario is that the plane was stolen for use as a flying bomb against a target in this country. There is not much credence being placed in that story, but the fact is we just don't know. What we do know is that we cannot afford to allow it-or any other act of terrorism-to happen again. And certainly not as a result of interagency squabbling: or one agency deciding it doesn't want to spend money because it (a) would be duplication and (b) could be more profitably spent on something else.

"So that gives Secretary Hall reason to send someone to find out what he can. Because the agency and the others are involved, and he will have access-at least in theory-to what intelligence they develop, he will not be expected to send a team, just go through the motions with someone junior who can be spared. You with me, Major?"

"Yes, sir. I think I am."

"The question then became who could Secretary Hall send on this mission, and he answered that by saying he had just the man, and he thought I would like him because he was just like Vernon Walters. You know who General Walters was, of course?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Well, are you like Vernon Walters, Major? You do speak a number of languages fluently?"

"Yes, sir."

"Russian?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hungarian?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many in all?"

"Seven or eight, sir," Castillo said, "depending on whether Spanish and Tex-Mex are counted as one language or two."

The president chuckled. "How did you come to speak Russian?" he asked.

"When I was growing up, sir, my mother thought it would be useful if the Russians won. We lived right on the East/West German border, sir."

"And Hungarian?" the president asked.

"An elderly grandaunt who was Hungarian lived with us, sir. I got it from her."

"General Walters:" the president began, then paused. "I suppose protocol would dictate that I refer to him as Ambassador Walters, but I think he liked being a general far more than he ever liked being an ambassador. Anyway, he told me that languages just came to him naturally, that they hadn't been acquired by serious study. Is that the way it is with you, Major?"

"Yes, sir. Pretty much."

The president studied Castillo carefully for a moment and then asked, "You think you're up to what's being asked of you, Major?"

"Yes, sir," Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo said, confidently.

"Okay. It's settled," the president said. "I was about to say, 'Good luck, thank you for coming, and one of the Hueys will take you back to Fort Stewart to wait for Matt: for the secretary.'"

"There's no reason for him to stay at Fort Stewart, Mr. President," Hall said. "Actually, I promised him the long weekend off if we finished here quickly."

The president nodded, then asked Castillo: "Well, we are done. Any plans?"

"Yes, sir. I promised my grandmother a visit."

"She's where?"

"Outside San Antonio, sir."

"Would a chopper ride to Atlanta cut some travel time for you, Major?"

"Yes, sir. It would. But a ride back to Fort Stewart is all I'll need, sir."

"How's that?"

"Sir, I'm going to meet a cousin at Savannah. We're going to Texas together."

The president raised his voice. "Nathan!"

A very large, very black man appeared almost immediately from inside the house. He had an earphone in his ear and a bulge under his arm suggested the presence of either a large pistol or perhaps an Uzi. Right on his heels was one of the secretary's Secret Service bodyguards.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"See that Major Castillo gets to a Huey and that it takes him back to Stewart," the president ordered.

"Yes, Mr. President."

The president offered Castillo his hand and put a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll see each other again," the president said. "Thank you."

"I'll do my best, Mr. President."

"I'm sure you will," the president said.

Secretary Hall shook Castillo's hand. Hall said: "See you in my office at noon on Tuesday."

A Secret Service Yukon rolled up a moment later. The president and Secretary Hall watched as Castillo got in the front seat and they waved as the SUV started off.

"A very interesting guy, Matt," the president said.

"The Secret Service dubbed him 'Don Juan,' " the secretary said. "I never asked them why."

The president chuckled.

"Where did you get him, Matt?"

"From General Naylor," the secretary said. "I got on my knees and told him I really needed him more than he did."

"That's right," the president said. "You and Naylor go back a long way, don't you?"

"To Vietnam," the secretary said. "He was a brand-new captain and I was a brand-new shake-and-bake buck sergeant."

"A what?" the president asked.

"They were so short of noncoms, Mr. President, that they had sort of an OCS to make them. I went there right out of basic training, got through it, and became what was somewhat contemptuously known as a 'shake-and-bake sergeant.' "

"Where did Naylor get him?" the president asked.

"Actually, he and Charley go a long way back, too," the secretary said.

" Charley?" the president parroted.

"He doesn't look much like a Carlos, does he?" the secretary said. "Yeah, I call him Charley."

"So where did Naylor get him? Where does he come from?"

"It's a long story, Mr. President," the secretary said. The president looked at his watch.

"If you're not in a rush to get back," the president said, motioning toward the wicker rockers and the tub of iced bottles of beer, "I have a little time."