Covert Warriors

TWO

The Oval Office The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1005 20 April 2007

Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan pushed open the door and announced, “Mr. President, His Excellency Raul Vargas, ambassador of the United States of Mexico to the United States, and Secretary of State Natalie Cohen.”

President Clendennen rose from behind his desk and with a cordial smile and his hand extended walked toward Vargas-a tall, olive-skinned, elegantly dressed man with a carefully trimmed pencil-line mustache-and the secretary of State.

“How nice to see you again, Mr. Ambassador,” he said.

“The pleasure is entirely mine, Mr. President,” Vargas replied.

“Secretary Cohen tells me you’re carrying a letter for me?”

“Yes, I am, Mr. President,” Vargas said.

He took a business-size envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it over.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Ambassador, while I read what my friend Ramon has to say.”

He indicated one of the couches, turned to Clemens McCarthy, and ordered, “Get the ambassador some coffee, McCarthy.”

McCarthy in turn gestured more than a little imperiously to Mulligan, who in turn gestured, even more imperiously, to Special Agent Douglas.

“May I sit, Mr. President?” Secretary Cohen asked.

Clendennen waved in the general direction of the couch as he sat down at his desk but did not otherwise respond. The President then tore open the envelope, took out the letter it contained, and began to read it:

Ramon Manuel Martinez Mexico City D.F. 19 April 2007

My Dear Joshua:

Ambassador McCann was kind enough to personally deliver your letter of 18th April, and I hasten to reply.

I am of course anxious to do what I can to see that Colonel Ferris is returned safely to his family. I fully agree with your belief that interrogation of Felix Abrego by Mexican law enforcement authorities will be quite helpful in identifying those responsible for his kidnapping and the murder of the other American officers.

To this end, I have instructed the Oaxaca State Prison officials to be prepared to receive Felix Abrego when he is delivered there by your Marshals, and to make him available for interrogation by Mexican officials.

Further, as soon as I can contact-at the moment, he’s not available-Senor Juan Carlos Pena, chief of the Policia Federal for Oaxaca State, I will direct him to call Ambassador McCann to coordinate with your Marshals the moving of Abrego to the Oaxaca State Prison, and to personally supervise his interrogation.

If there is anything else I can do, please let me know.

With warm personal regards,

Ramon

When Clendennen had finished reading the letter, he looked at Ambassador Vargas and started to say something.

The secretary of State, who had seen President Martinez’s letter, thought, He’s about to lose control.

“Mr. President,” Vargas spoke first, “there is something else-another message.”

“Really?” Clendennen asked coldly.

“Yes, sir. President Martinez thought it best under the circumstances that it be delivered privately and verbally, rather than commit it to paper.”

“Privately?” Clendennen asked, then said, “Madam Secretary, would you give us a moment in privacy?”

“Mr. President,” Vargas said, “Secretary Cohen is familiar with the contents of the message. President Martinez suggested that she be with me when I deliver it, to assure you of its accuracy.”

“Well, then, Mr. Ambassador, why don’t you deliver the message President Martinez doesn’t want committed to paper?”

“Yes, sir. Quote. I am sure you will understand that what I propose is the best I can do under the circumstances at this time. End quote.”

Cohen thought: If he didn’t lose control a moment ago, he will now.

He didn’t.

President Clendennen considered that calmly for a moment, and then politely asked, “Madam Secretary, is that the message you understand President Martinez wanted the ambassador to verbally deliver?”

“Yes, it is, Mr. President,” Cohen replied.

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” the President said. “There’s no point in keeping you from the press of your duties any longer. Please be good enough to pass to President Martinez both my gratitude and my best wishes.”

“It will be my pleasure, Mr. President,” Vargas said.

“Madam Secretary,” Clendennen asked politely, “may I have a few minutes more of your time?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. President.”

The President waited until the door had closed behind Vargas, and then stood up, holding Martinez’s letter.

“Have you seen this fucking thing?” he asked furiously.

“Yes, sir, I have,” Cohen said.

“May I see it, Mr. President?” Clemens McCarthy asked.

The President threw it at him. McCarthy tried and failed to catch it in the air. It fell to the carpet in front of the President’s desk, and then floated out of sight under the left pedestal of the desk.

McCarthy got on his hands and knees and tried to retrieve it.

“That is not the letter I asked that sonofabitch to send me,” the President said.

“No, sir, it is not,” Cohen agreed.

“What happened to my letter? The one I wanted him to send me?”

“I delivered it to President Martinez, sir,” she said, “and told him what you were asking.”

“I told you to have Ambassador McCann do that,” the President said.

“Ambassador McCann thought it would be best if I went with him, and I agreed.”

She remembered exactly what McCann had said: “I am not going to Martinez with that crazy letter. Is Clendennen out of his mind, thinking that he can push Martinez around like that? I’ll go with you, but that’s it. Otherwise, you can have my resignation.”

“And?” Clendennen pursued.

“President Martinez asked us to wait. .”

“Mulligan,” Clemens McCarthy interrupted, “get me something so I can get this goddamn letter.”

“What should I get, Mr. McCarthy?”

“An umbrella, a ruler. . just something that’ll reach the fucking letter!”

The President looked from McCarthy to Cohen: “And?”

“. . and about forty-five minutes later, he called us back into his office, and gave us the letter Ambassador Vargas gave you. He then told us Ambassador Vargas was on the telephone. He told Vargas that I was going to bring a letter he wished Vargas to give to you, and that verbal message. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked me if I would accompany Ambassador Vargas here to verify the verbal message.”

“But you have seen the letter?”

She glanced at McCarthy on his knees digging for the letter, then looked back to Clendennen. “Yes, sir. Ambassador Vargas showed it to me on our way here from the Mexican embassy.”

“That miserable, ungrateful sonofabitch!” Clendennen exploded. “After all I’ve done for him! Millions of dollars in aid! Ten fucking Black Hawk helicopters! Pretending I don’t know what’s going on at the border. Not one word about his being blind to that secret drug cartel airport! And all I wanted him to do was provide me a little cover in case something goes wrong.”

Cohen didn’t reply.

“And what is this bullshit about taking this Abrego character to a prison. . the Ox something. .”

He looked to where now both McCarthy and Mulligan were on their hands and knees, trying with a letter opener to get the letter from under the desk.

“Just pick up the fucking desk and move it out of the way, for Christ’s sake!” the President ordered.

They immediately tried. It proved too heavy for both of them.

“Jesus Christ!” the President said. “Douglas, get them some help. I want that goddamn letter!”

Special Agent Douglas went to the outer office and returned with the two Secret Service agents who guarded the outer office.

As Mulligan, Douglas, McCarthy, and one of the latter took a grip on the desk, one of the outer-office Secret Service agents fashioned a hook from a wire clothes hanger and, as they lifted, he managed to stab the letter with it, then pull it out from under the desk.

He extended it to the President, who snatched it, tearing it on the makeshift hook of the clothes hanger.

The President looked at the letter and found what he wanted.

McCarthy walked quickly to him and read over his shoulder.

“What’s this business about taking Abrego to the. . how the hell do you pronounce this prison?”

Secretary Cohen furnished the correct pronunciation of Oaxaca to the President.

“Never heard of it,” the President said. “Or anything about us taking Abrego there. Thus, I know goddamn well it wasn’t in my letter to Martinez.”

He looked at McCarthy.

“Was it?” he asked.

“No, Mr. President, it wasn’t,” McCarthy said.

Cohen thought: Yes, it was. What’s McCarthy up to? I read the draft letter aloud right here in the Oval Office!

“Then where the hell did it come from?”

“Possibly from the FBI?” McCarthy asked innocently.

“That’s probably it, Mr. President,” Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan chimed in. “No telling what the FBI said to those people, or vive-ah-versa.”

Secretary Cohen thought: That’s vice versa, you cretin, not vive-ah-versa.

Then she thought: So Mulligan’s part of whatever is going on here.

What the hell is going on here?

And then she noticed that McCarthy was looking at her carefully, as if he expected her to say, “I’m sorry, but in the letter I took to President Martinez-the one he said you wrote, Mr. McCarthy-there were specific references to taking Abrego to the Oaxaca State Prison.”

She said nothing.

“Get Schmidt and Crenshaw in here,” the President ordered.

“Right now. I want to know what the hell is going on.”

“You don’t want to talk to them on the telephone, Mr. President?” Special Agent Douglas asked.

“If I did, Douglas,” the President replied sarcastically, “I would have said, ‘Get Schmidt and then Crenshaw on the phone.’ ”

“Yes, sir,” Douglas said, and walked to a telephone on a sideboard to summon Schmidt and Crenshaw.

The President turned to the secretary of State.

“You don’t know anything about this Oaxaca Prison?”

Cohen was aware that McCarthy seemed very interested in what her reply would be.

“Just what I’ve heard and seen here, Mr. President,” she said.

“Then I don’t see any point in taking any more of your valuable time, Madam Secretary. If I need you later, I’ll call.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Cohen said, and stood up and walked out of the Oval Office.

When the door had closed, the President asked, “McCarthy, do you think she’s telling the truth?”

“I have no reason to believe she’s not, Mr. President,” McCarthy said. “But I just thought it might be wise to ask her to keep what she heard here to herself.”

“Yeah,” the President said.

“Should I bring her back in here, Mr. President?”

“No. You can tell her as well as I can that she goddamn well better keep what she just heard in here to herself.”

McCarthy caught up with the secretary of State as she was about to get in her limousine.

“Madam Secretary!” McCarthy called. “A moment, please.”

She turned to face him but didn’t speak.

“The President asked me to tell you he hopes you understand that what took place in the Oval Office just now has to be kept between us.”

Cohen nodded but didn’t reply.

“And let me say I appreciate your wisdom in not getting further into the business of what was and what was not in the letter you took to President Martinez,” McCarthy said.

Again she didn’t reply. But her eyebrows rose in question.

“None of us want him to go off the deep end just now, do we, Madam Secretary? Now would be a very bad time for something like that to happen.”

“Now?” she asked, and then before he had a chance to reply, said, “Good morning, Mr. McCarthy,” got into the limousine, and gestured to the State Department security officer who was holding the door open to close it.