Hazardous Duty

[ONE]

Sweaty woke up, sat up, and shook Charley’s shoulder.

When he looked up at her, she ordered, “You better go, and quietly, down the corridor to your room.”

“Like a thief in the night?” Charley responded.

“I don’t want His Eminence to suspect we’re sleeping together,” she said.

“His Eminence either suspects we have been sharing this prenuptial couch for some time or is about to proclaim ‘Hallelujah! A second immaculate conception.’”

“God will punish you for your blasphemy,” Sweaty announced, and, when that triggered something else on her mind, went on: “And don’t try to tell me you didn’t tell His Eminence to go fu—”

“You heard what he said, my love,” Charley argued.

“His Eminence said he ‘would remember if you said something like that.’ Not that you didn’t say it. He remembers it all right!”

“Try to remember that you’re a bride-to-be and an expectant mother, and no longer an SVR podpolkovnik, my love.”

At that point, Sweaty literally kicked him out of the bed.

Then, with Max, his 120-pound Bouvier des Flandres, trailing along after him, he went down the corridor to “his room.”

Charley had “his room” in La Casa en el Bosque from his first visit, which was to say long before Sweaty. Originally, it had then been “the Blue Room,” the one from which he had just been expelled. After Sweaty, in consideration of “what the girls”—Alek’s and Dmitri’s daughters — would think of illicit cohabitation, the Blue Room had become Svetlana’s room, and the not-nearly-as-nice room he walked into now, his.

“The trouble with getting kicked out of bed at oh-six-hundred, Max,” Charley said as the dog met his eyes and turned his head, “is that I can never get back to sleep. Is it that way with you?”

There was no question in Charley’s mind that Max understood everything he said to him.

Without realizing that he was doing so, he had spoken in Hungarian. Max had been born and raised in Budapest, where he had lived with Eric Kocian, publisher of the Budapest edition of the Tages Zeitung.

Max cocked his head the other way, and then moved it again in what might well have been a nod, signaling that he, too, had trouble getting back to sleep after having been kicked out of bed.

Eric Kocian had been an eighteen-year-old unteroffizier—corporal — in the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad. Wounded, he had sought shelter in the basement of a ruined building, where he found a seriously wounded oberst—colonel — who he knew would die unless he immediately received medical attention.

At considerable risk to his own life, Kocian had carried the officer, Oberst Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, through heavy fire to an aid station. While doing so, he was again wounded.

At the aid station, doctors decided that the Herr Oberst be loaded onto a Junkers JU-88 for shipment out of Stalingrad. And done so immediately, as the Russians were about to take the airfield, after which there would be no more evacuation flights.

At the airstrip, Oberst von und zu Gossinger refused to allow himself to be loaded aboard “the Aunty Ju” unless Unteroffizier Kocian was allowed to go with him. There was literally no time to argue, and the young unteroffizier, dripping blood from his last wound, was hoisted aboard.

The aircraft — the last to leave Stalingrad — took off.

Surprising the medics, Oberst von und zu Gossinger lived and had recovered to the point where he was on active duty when the surrender came. Having found his name on an SS “Exterminate” list, his American captors quickly released him from the POW camp in which he and Kocian — now his orderly — were confined.

The oberst returned to the rubble of his home and business in Fulda, and Kocian went to Vienna, where he learned his family had been killed in an air raid. Kocian then went to Fulda.

It became a legend within the Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., organization that the type for the first postwar edition of any of the Tages Zeitung newspapers had been set on a Mergenthaler Linotype machine “the Colonel” and “Billy Kocian” had themselves assembled from parts salvaged from machines destroyed in the war.

Billy Kocian began to resurrect other Tages Zeitung newspapers — starting in Vienna — as the Colonel gave his attention to resurrecting the Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., empire in other areas.

After deciding he had all the Viennese gemütlichkeit he could stomach, Kocian moved to Budapest as soon as the Communists were gone, where he devoted his time to needling the Soviet Union and bureaucrats of all stripes on the pages of the Budapester Tages Zeitung,holding the editors of the seven other Tages Zeitung newspapers to his own high standards, and playing with his Bouvier des Flandres dog, Max.

Max was really Max IV, the fourth of his line. Billy had acquired Max I after checking into — and finding credible — the legend that a Bouvier des Flandres had bitten off one of Adolf Hitler’s testicles while Der Führer was serving in Belgium during the First World War.

Max II and Max III had appeared when their predecessors had, for one reason or another, gone to that great fireplug in the sky. Max IV was something special. It was quickly said that Billy Kocian was so enamored of Max IV that the animal could have anything it wanted.

What Max IV wanted became painfully obvious when the dog scandalized the guests of the luxurious and very proper Danubius Hotel Gellért — where he and Billy lived in a penthouse apartment overlooking the Danube — by pursuing a German shepherd bitch through the dining room, the lobby, and down into the Roman baths below the hotel, where he worked his lustful way on her for more than two hours.

As soon as he could, Billy procured suitable female companionship for Max. She was a ninety-something-pound Bouvier, one he named Madchen.

The Max — Madchen honeymoon lasted until Madchen realized she was in the family way and sensed that Max IV was responsible. Thereafter, she made her desire to painfully terminate his life by castration quite clear whenever Max IV came within twenty feet of her.

So, what to do? Billy dearly loved Max IV, but he had come to love Madchen, too, and couldn’t find it in his heart to banish her, after what Max IV had done to her.

The answer came quickly: give Max IV to Karlchen.

Karlchen was the Colonel’s grandson.

Karlchen had played with Max I as an infant; they had loved each other at first sight. When Max II had come along, same thing. It was only because of Karlchen’s mother’s awful sickness, her arguments that with the Colonel and her brother gone, and her being sick, she couldn’t care for the dog, that he hadn’t given Max II to Karlchen right then, to take his mind off things.

But Billy had taken Max II to Rhine-Main airfield to see Karlchen off to the United States just before his mother died. When Billy saw how the boy, crying, had wrapped his arms around the dog, he decided that Max II should go with him.

That had resulted in a front-page headline by the bastards at the Frankfurter Rundshau: “Tages Zeitung Publishing Empire Chief Jailed for Punching Pan-American Airlines Station Chief Who Refused Passage for Fifty-Kilo Dog.”

Things were different when Madchen banished Max IV from the canine connubial bed. Karlchen was now not only a man, but in the Colonel’s footsteps, an oberstleutnant in the American Army himself. He denied being an intelligence officer, but Billy had been around armies long enough to know better than that. Run-of-the-mill lieutenant colonels don’t fly themselves around the world in Gulfstream III airplanes.

The next time Karlchen — now known as Charley — appeared in Budapest, Uncle Billy explained the Max IV — Madchen problem to him. Charley had understood.

“Let’s see what he does when I tell him to get on the airplane. I’m not going to force him to go.”

He stood inside the door of the Gulfstream.

“Hey, Max,” he called in Hungarian. “You want to go to Argentina with me?”

Max looked at Billy for a moment, then trotted to the airplane and took the stair-door steps three at a time.

Billy Kocian went back to the penthouse in the Danubius Hotel Gellért and shared three bottles of the local grape — known as Bull’s Blood — with Sándor Tor. Tor, after doing hitches in the Wehrmacht, the French Foreign Legion, and the Budapest Police Department, was now chief of security for Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., and Billy’s best friend.

During their conversation, Billy told Sándor that he now knew what his father must have felt like “when, wagging my tail like Max just now, I left home to go in the goddamn Wehrmacht.”

“Let me get a quick shower and then I’ll get dressed, and we’ll go for a walk,” Castillo now said to Max IV. “I just can’t go back to sleep.”

Max leapt with amazing agility and grace for his size onto the bed, put his head between his paws, and closed his eyes, as if saying, “Okay, you have your shower and I’ll take a little nap while I’m waiting.”

Charley came out of the bathroom and asked, “Ready?”

Max got gracefully off the bed, walked to the French doors, and waited for Charley to open it. When he had, Max went through it, walked to a five-foot-tall marble statue of Saint Igor II of Kiev, who had been Grand Prince of Kiev before becoming a monk, which stood in the center of the patio, and raised his right rear leg.

“You know what’ll happen if Sweaty sees you pissing on her favorite saint again.”

Max ignored him, finished his business at hand, and then walked to the opening in the patio wall leading to the walkway and waited for Charley to join him.

The walkway led toward the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi. When Charley went through the opening, lights along the path automatically came on.

Nothing of La Casa en el Bosque or its outbuildings was visible from the lake, or from the Llao Llao Hotel, which was across the lake, but the reverse was not true. At four places along the nearly half-mile shoreline there were, just about entirely concealed by huge pine and hardwood trees, four patio-like areas from which just about all of the lake, and the hotel, was visible.

To a soldier’s eye, and Charley was a soldier, the patios appeared to have been designed and installed by someone familiar with the finer points of observation posts and machine-gun emplacements. While he had never seen a machine gun or a mortar tube in any of them, he would not have been surprised if such could be installed in minutes.

He didn’t know if the patios and the neat little buildings that might be holding machine guns and mortars had been there when Aleksandr Pevsner had bought the place — that it was a clone of Hermann Göring’s Karin Hall was very interesting — or whether Aleksandr Pevsner had put them in.

Just that they were there, and manned around the clock.

And being a soldier, Charley knew that when he and Max got to the patio now, they had arrived as the corporal of the guard, so to speak, was about to post the new guard.

There were five men on the patio, four sturdy, good-looking men with Uzi submachine guns hanging from their shoulders and a huge man, a Hungarian by the name of Janos Kodály, who had been in the Államvédelmi Hatóság before becoming Aleksandr Pevsner’s bodyguard, and was now in charge of his security.

They all came to attention — Castillo was not surprised, as he knew the four men were all ex-Spetsnaz, the Russian equivalent of Special Forces, and what to do when an officer appeared was a Pavlovian reaction for them — when Charley and Max walked onto the patio.

“Cтоять вольно,” Charley ordered in Russian, and the men stood “at ease” in response to Charley’s Pavlovian reaction. Then he switched to Hungarian and said, “Janos, aren’t you a little long in the tooth to be playing Corporal of the Guard at this hour?”

Two of the ex-Spetsnaz apparently spoke — or at least understood — Hungarian, because they smiled.

Janos didn’t reply directly, instead saying, “My Colonel, there is a thermos of tea.”

“Great,” Charley said.

When he was five, Charley’s great-aunt Erzsebet Cséfalzvik, his grandfather’s sister, had decided to teach him how to speak Hungarian. His response had been amazing. Within a week, he was chattering away fluently with the old woman, which greatly annoyed his mother, who did not speak Hungarian.

By the time he left for the United States, Aunt Erzsebet had died, but he had heard some of her story, and later learned the rest.

She was considerably older than her brother. As a very young woman she had married a Hungarian nobleman whom she had met while he was a student at Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn. That explained why Karlchen’s mother had sometimes derisively referred to her as “the Countess.”

There was some kind of bad blood between her and the Gossingers — Charley later learned his great-grandfather had been violently opposed to her marriage — and she never returned to Germany until after World War II. Then she showed up at her brother’s house in Fulda, destitute and starving. She had been evicted from “the estates” by the Communists, and had nowhere else, no one else, to turn to.

She earned her keep when Charley’s grandmother died soon after his mother was born. Aunt Erzsebet had raised his mother.

As long as she lived, the old woman regaled Karlchen with tales of life in Hungary during “the Good Times.” He regarded them as being something like the story of King Arthur in Camelot, nice, but unbelievable.

When he was six, Karlchen was enrolled in Saint Johan’s School, which was experimenting with the notion that a good way to teach a foreign language to the young was to start when they were young. Karlchen was enrolled in the English program, and was old enough to understand this had caused problems between his mother and his grandfather. Something to do with his mysteriously missing father.

Two weeks into that program, Charley’s teacher asked him, “I didn’t think you spoke any English at all.”

“I didn’t.”

“And all of a sudden you do?”

“I guess I got that from Allan,” he had truthfully replied, in English, making reference to his new buddy, an American boy by the name of Allan Naylor. “I started to talk to him, and pretty soon it got easy.”

By the time Karlchen went to the United States as Carlos Guillermo Castillo, he spoke Hungarian, Russian, French, Slovak, and Italian, in addition, of course, to German and English.

And he was also smart enough to know that his unusual facility with languages caused people to look upon him as some sort of freak, so he kept his mouth shut about it.

When two weeks of conversation with his newfound cousin Fernando Lopez had him speaking Spanish as well as Fernando, whose mother tongue it was, he kept that under his hat until his newfound abuela commented on it.

He started to lie to her, to tell her he had studied Spanish in Saint Johan’s School, but when he saw his grandmother’s eyes on him, he realized he couldn’t lie to her, and told her the truth.

His abuela told him that she thought it would be a good idea if he didn’t tell people about that gift from God; they probably wouldn’t understand.

Later, when the Army sent him as a young lieutenant to the Language School at Monterey for the basic course in Cantonese Chinese, he was rated as having “native fluency” in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese, when given those tests.

At this point another mentor, this one Brigadier General Bruce J. McNab, offered advice much like that offered by his grandmother.

“What we are going to do, Hotshot, is lose this report from the Language School. If those chair warmers in Washington learn about this, God only knows what they’ll come up with for you to do. They took a superb officer, Lieutenant General Vernon E. Walters, who has the same affliction you do — he hears a language and then can speak it — out of uniform and made the poor bastard ambassador to the goddamned United Nations.”

There had been one final contact with Karlchen’s first language instructor. In 1990, the newly independent government of Hungary had returned to their rightful owners all properties of the Hungarian nobility that had been seized on one pretense or another — or simply seized — by Admiral Miklós Horthy, the Hungarian regent; the Nazis, who replaced the admiral; and the Communists, who replaced the Nazis.

This included the estates of the late Grafin — Countess — Erzsebet of Cséfalzvik. In her last will and testament, the countess had left all of her property of whatever kind and wherever located to her beloved grandnephew, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, and decreed that the Cséfalzvik titles would pass on her death to her aforesaid beloved grandnephew.

Billy Kocian took over the administration of the estates, which included Castle Cséfalzvik, now a hotel, the farmlands, the vineyards, and considered then decided against moving into the Cséfalzvik mansion in Budapest. Instead, he rented it to a Saudi Arabian prince who was fascinated with Hungarian women and was willing and more than able to pay whatever asked to rent a suitable place to entertain them.

Billy Kocian also told Karlchen that if he was waiting for him to address him as His Grace, Duke Karl I of Cséfalzvik, it would be wise not to hold his breath.

[TWO]

Following Morning Prayer in the chapel, breakfast was served in the Breakfast Room of La Casa, which overlooked the mansion’s formal gardens.

Charley had attended Morning Prayer because he knew if he didn’t Sweaty would deny him the privileges of their prenuptial couch and also because he liked the ceremony itself. Much of the service was sung — men only, including about a dozen ex-Spetsnaz — and their voices had a haunting beauty.

His Eminence was in fine voice, and showed no signs of suffering from all the wine of the previous evening.

The breakfast that followed was literally a movable feast. Just as soon as His Eminence had expressed his gratitude to the Deity for the bounty they were about to receive, white-jacketed servants began rolling in that bounty on carts. There was champagne and cognac (Argentine, and labeled as such because the Argentines could see no reason to give the French exclusive rights to those appellations for sparkling wine or distilled white wine); salmon (Chilean, from a bona fide fish farm Aleksandr Pevsner owned there); caviar (Uruguayan, which Aleksandr Pevsner decreed as just about as good as that from the sturgeon in the Black Sea); the expected locally sourced eggs, breads, ham, trout, and fruit; and the not expected — Aleksandr Pevsner’s favorite breakfast food, American pancakes, served with what he called “that marvelous tree juice,” or maple syrup.

Sweaty beamed when His Eminence called to her to sit beside him at the long table. “And you, Carlos, my son, on my other side.”

And her smile grew even broader when His Eminence said, “I think the time has come to discuss plans for the wedding.”

It disappeared a moment later when His Eminence went on, “Starting with when. How long do you think your intended will be gone?”

“Gone where, Your Eminence?” Svetlana asked.

“Wherever this ‘extended hazardous active duty’ Colonel Naylor told us about takes him. How long would you say that’s going to take him?”

Svetlana was struck dumb.

“Carlos,” His Eminence went on, “is really fortunate in that very few brides-to-be have the sort of experience you do. Most would not understand how important answering the call of duty is.”

“Your Eminence,” Charley said, “I never like to take risks without a good reason, and I don’t see any good reason to take this one.”

“But I would suggest your friends do,” His Eminence reasoned, “otherwise they wouldn’t be here.”

His Eminence leaned over and looked past Svetlana to Jake Torine, who was sitting farther down the table.

“Colonel, why do you think Colonel Castillo should take this assignment?”

“Your Eminence,” Charley said politely, and then very quickly realized (a) that his temper was rising, (b) had in fact risen, and (c) that he had every right to be pissed—Who the hell are you to be deciding what I should or should not do? — went on, somewhat less politely, “I don’t give a damn what Jake thinks. It’s my ass on the line here, not his. Or, for that matter, yours.”

“Carlos!” Sweaty said, horrified.

The archbishop was unruffled.

“Perhaps you would be good enough, my son, to tell me why you are so opposed to doing your duty?”

“Generally, because it’s not my duty, and specifically because I don’t want to wind up in the basement of that beautiful building on Lubyanka Square.”

The beautiful building to which he referred had been built in Moscow in 1900 as luxury apartments renting for two or three times the norm. The Trump Towers or the One57 building of its time, so to speak. In 1919, the capitalist tenants were evicted by Felix Dzerzhinsky so that the building could be put to use for the benefit of the workers and peasants. The Cheka moved in, and the storage areas in the basement were converted to cells. The building has been occupied ever since by successor organizations to the Cheka.

His Eminence apparently knew about Lubyanka, but was again unruffled.

“And you believe, my son, that would be inevitable?”

“I don’t play Russian roulette, either,” Charley said.

Vic D’Alessandro laughed, then raised his hand and asked, “Permission to speak, Colonel, sir?”

“If you think this is funny, go fuck yourself,” Charley replied.

“I’ll take that as ‘Permission granted,’” D’Alessandro said. “Thank you, sir.”

Charley gave him the finger.

“Your Eminence,” Svetlana said, “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive my Carlos. He tends to forget his manners when he’s a little upset.”

The archbishop graciously gestured that he was prepared to forgive Svetlana’s Carlos, and then that D’Alessandro should continue.

“Your Eminence, I have known Colonel Castillo since he was a second lieutenant maybe five months out of West Point,” D’Alessandro said. “When I met him he already had the Distinguished Flying Cross and his first Purple Heart—”

“Jesus Christ!” Charley said.

“If you love God, you should not blaspheme, my son,” the archbishop said. “Please continue, Mr. D’Alessandro.”

“And in the next couple of weeks,” D’Alessandro went on, “he had the Silver Star, another Purple Heart, and an assignment as aide-de-camp to an up-and-coming new brigadier general.

“At that point, we began to call him, and he thought of himself, as ‘Hotshot.’”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Charley demanded. “And I never thought of myself as ‘Hotshot.’”

D’Alessandro laughed, shook his head, and then went on, “And what Hotshot decided then was that he had the Army figured out. Just so long as he kept getting medals, he wouldn’t have to do what ordinary soldiers spent most of their time doing.”

“I don’t think I understand,” the archbishop said.

“Napoleon said, ‘An army travels on its stomach,’” D’Alessandro said. “He was wrong. The army travels on paper.”

The archbishop shook his head, signaling he still didn’t understand.

“Soldiers, Your Eminence, especially officers, spend a great deal of time making reports of unimportant things that no one ever reads. For all of his career, Charley skillfully managed to avoid doing so. But that’s over.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Castillo asked.

“Solving your problem with the President.”

“By writing reports?” Castillo asked. “Reports about what?”

“On the way down here, Frank Lammelle sent me this,” D’Alessandro said, as he took out his CaseyBerry. “He recorded it while the President was telling everybody about his latest brilliant idea. Pay attention.”

He played the recording.

“Well,” D’Alessandro then asked Castillo, “what did you get out of that?”

His Eminence answered the question.

“Paraphrasing what the President said, he wants to involve Colonel Castillo as a knowledgeable, objective observer of the piracy and drug problems to see how those situations are being handled, and to report his observations and recommendations directly to him. What’s the problem there? That sounds reasonable. It doesn’t even seem hazardous.”

“He also asked, ‘How soon can we get him in here?’” Castillo said. “That sounds hazardous to me.”

“Cutting to the chase, Charley,” D’Alessandro said, “all you have to do is stall until the President gets tired of this nutty idea and moves on to the next one.”

“If ‘stall’ means ignore him, I’ve already figured that out myself,” Castillo said.

“Ignoring him won’t work. I said, ‘stall.’”

“How do I do that?”

“Tomorrow, Allan sends an Urgent message through the proper channels to POTUS—”

“POTUS?” His Eminence parroted.

“President of the United States, Your Eminence,” D’Alessandro explained. “And we send it through the military attaché at the embassy in Buenos Aires; that should slow it down three or four hours, maybe longer.”

“I don’t understand,” the archbishop said. “It sounds as if you intentionally wish to slow down what you just said was an urgent message.”

“Precisely,” D’Alessandro said. “An Urgent message, big ‘U,’ is the second-highest priority message. Operational Immediate is the highest. That’s reserved for ‘White House Nuked’ and things like that.

“So, what happens here is that Allan sends a message to the people who sent him down here. I mean the secretary of State, the CIA director, the director of National Intelligence, and of course, his daddy.

“The message says something like, ‘Located Castillo. Hope to establish contact with him within twenty-four hours.’

“That message goes from the embassy to the State Department. It will have to be encrypted in Buenos Aires and then decrypted at the State Department, and then forwarded to the Defense Department, the director of National Intelligence, and of course his daddy.

“That process will buy us probably three or four hours.

“Finally, Allan’s daddy — or maybe Natalie Cohen, that makes more sense — gets on the telephone to the White House and hopes the President is not available. But eventually the President will get the message and learn that his orders are being carried out.

“And then, twenty-four hours after the first message we send another, ‘Meeting with Castillo delayed for twenty-four hours.’ And we start that process all over. Getting the picture, Hotshot?”

“Vic,” Castillo said, “you know I never agreed with everyone who said you were a nice guy but a little slow and with no imagination.”

“I’m curious,” the archbishop said. “If you really had to communicate as quickly as possible with the President, or Colonel Naylor’s father in a hurry, urgently, how would you do that?”

D’Alessandro held out his CaseyBerry.

“If I push this button,” he said, “I’m connected with the White House switchboard. It will tell the operator I’m calling from Fort Bragg. If I push this button, the telephone on General Naylor’s desk will ring. The caller ID function will tell him I’m calling from Las Vegas, confirming General Naylor’s belief that I spend my time gambling and chasing scantily clad women.”

“Fascinating,” the archbishop said.

“But speaking of Vegas — with your kind permission, Colonel Castillo, sir, I’m going to call Aloysius and ask him to send Peg-Leg and your faithful bodyguard down here, just as soon as they can go wheels up in Aloysius’s Gulfstream.”

“Why Peg-Leg?” Castillo asked.

“Peg-Leg?” His Eminence repeated. “Bodyguard?”

“First Lieutenant Edmund Lorimer, Retired,” D’Alessandro answered most of both questions at once, “after losing his leg — hence the somewhat cruel if apt appellation — became expert in what might be called obfuscatory paper shuffling.

“I think we have to go with the worst scenario — that our beloved Commander in Chief will cling to this nutty idea of his for a long time — Peg-Leg can prepare the reports of your progress we’re going to have to send him from various tourist destinations around the world.”

“Yeah,” Castillo agreed.

“Bodyguard?” His Eminence asked. “You have a bodyguard, Carlos?”

Aleksandr Pevsner answered that question.

“To whom, Your Eminence, I owe my life,” he said. “He looks like he belongs in high school, but he’s very good at what he does.”

“Think the opposite of Aleksandr’s Janos, Your Eminence,” Sweaty chimed in. “Lester looks like a choirboy, and he is not going to stay in Las Vegas if Peg-Leg comes down here.”

The archbishop’s curiosity was not satisfied.

“‘Tourist destinations’?” he asked.

“Mogadishu, Somalia, comes immediately to mind,” D’Alessandro said. “Because of the pirates. And of course Mexico because of the drug problem Charley’s going to solve there. And a grand tour of Europe, probably starting with Budapest. But I would suggest that we start with Mexico, until the colonel is up to speed again. And then probably Fort Bragg, while he forms his team. Or maybe Fort Rucker, Charley. That would give you a chance to see your son.”

“His son?” His Eminence asked. “I was asked if Carlos had ever been married and told he had not.”

“There is one little problem with this scenario,” Charley said.

“Your hitherto undisclosed marriage, you mean?” His Eminence asked. “That opens a number of windows through which we must look before you can be married.”

“It’s not a problem, Your Eminence,” Sweaty said. “My Carlos has never been married.”

“The problem is,” Castillo said, “that I’m not going along with this tour of the world. I’m not going anywhere. Sweaty’s right: it would be committing suicide.”

“Don’t be silly, my darling,” Sweaty said. “Of course you are. You heard what His Eminence said about how important answering the call of duty is. You’re going, and I’m going with you.”

“‘And Ruth said,’” the archimandrite quoted approvingly, “‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go…. ’”

“First Ruth, sixteen,” the archbishop amplified.

“Vic, call Aloysius,” Sweaty ordered.

A moment later, Vic D’Alessandro said, “Hey, Aloysius, how’s things in Sin City?”

As that conversation began, His Eminence said, “Carlos, my son, tell me about your son.”

Charley said, “Jake, hand me that bottle of cognac.”

[THREE]

Former Major Kiril Koshkov, the onetime chief instructor pilot of the Spetsnaz Aviation School, flew Lieutenant Colonel Allan Naylor, Junior, to Buenos Aires’ Jorge Newbery International Airport in the Cessna Mustang twin-engine jet that Sweaty had given Charley for his birthday.

There they were met by a Mercedes SUV driven by another former member of Spetsnaz. He had been sent from Aleksandr Pevsner’s home in Pilar—“the World Capital of Polo,” forty kilometers from downtown — to take them to the embassy.

This took place during the Buenos Aires rush hour — actually hours, as the period started at half past four and did not slack off until eight, or thereabouts. They arrived at five past five. When Colonel Naylor presented himself at the embassy gate and said he wanted to see the Defense attaché, the Argentine Rent-A-Cop on duty announced that that official was gone for the day and he would have to return tomorrow.

Allan considered that information, and then decided that while a certain delay was what they were after, delaying fourteen hours was a bit too much of a good thing.

“In that case, I wish to speak to the duty officer,” Colonel Naylor announced.

To get through to the duty officer, Allan first had to deal with a Marine sergeant of the Embassy Guard, but finally an Air Force captain appeared. The captain was extremely reluctant to contact the Defense attaché at his residence without very good reason.

“What’s your business with the colonel, Colonel?”

Colonel Naylor had been around the military service all his life, and he knew that if he did tell the captain that he wished to send a highly classified message, the captain would almost certainly not have the authority to permit him to do so without checking with his superior, and that superior would not be the Defense attaché himself, but rather an officer, probably a major, immediately superior to the captain. And then the whole sequence would start again with the major’s superior, probably a lieutenant colonel. Et cetera.

Thus causing too much of a delay.

“Captain,” Naylor said, “you are not cleared for any knowledge of the nature of my business. Contact the Defense attaché immediately and inform him that an officer acting VOCICCENCOM demands to see him personally and now. That is an order, not a suggestion.”

The captain wasn’t sure he recognized what the acronym stood for, but did recognize an order when he heard one, and said, “Yes, sir. If the colonel will have a seat there, I will telephone Colonel Freedman.”

The captain pointed to a row of attached vinyl-upholstered chrome chairs against the wall.

Naylor did so. After five or six minutes he looked up at the wall and saw large photographs of President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, Vice President Charles W. Montvale, and Secretary of State Natalie Cohen smiling down at him.

He took out his CaseyBerry and punched a button.

“Yeah, Junior?” CIA Director A. Franklin Lammelle’s voice answered, after bouncing off a satellite floating twenty-seven thousand miles above the earth’s surface.

“Sir! Sir!” the Marine Guard sergeant called excitedly from behind the bulletproof glass of his station. “You can’t do that!”

“In the embassy, waiting for the attaché,” Naylor said.

“Good man! I’ll alert Natalie.”

Naylor put the CaseyBerry back in his shirt pocket.

“I can’t do what, Sergeant?”

“Use a cell phone in here.”

“This one worked just fine.”

“Sir, you’re not allowed to have a cell phone in here!”

“Why not?”

“You’re not a member of the embassy staff. I’ll have to ask you for your cell phone.”

“No.”

“Sir, I’ll have to insist.”

“Sergeant, the last I heard, sergeants can’t insist that lieutenant colonels do anything; it’s the other way around.”

“Sir, I’ll have to insist.”

“You already said that. The only way you’re going to get my cell phone, Sergeant, is to pry it from my cold dead fingers.”

As the sergeant considered that option, the situation was put on hold when the door to the plaza outside burst open and a spectacularly dressed officer entered.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

Naylor decided there was likely to be just one officer in the embassy who would be wearing the mess dress uniform of a full colonel of the USAF, and consequently this man had to be Colonel Freedman, the Defense attaché.

“Colonel, he has a cell phone and won’t give it up!” the Marine sergeant announced righteously.

“Who the hell are you?” Colonel Freedman demanded.

“Lieutenant Colonel Allan B. Naylor, Junior, sir. Are you the Defense attaché, sir?”

Naylor saw in Colonel Freedman’s eyes that the Air Force officer was aware that there was an Allan B. Naylor, Senior, and of the latter’s place in the military hierarchy.

“I’m Anthony Freedman, the Defense attaché. What can I do for you, Colonel?”

Freedman put out his hand and Naylor took it.

“Sir, I need the embassy’s communications facilities to send a Top Secret Message to Washington.”

Freedman considered that, nodded, and said, “Well, we can take care of that for you, Colonel. But just to dot all the ‘i’s… may I see your ID and your orders?”

Naylor handed him his identity card. Freedman examined it, handed it back, and then asked, “And your orders, Colonel?”

“I’m acting VOCICCENCOM, sir,” Naylor said.

That was the acronym — pronounced “Voe-Sik-Sen-Com”—for Verbal Order, Commander in Chief, Central Command. While it was in common usage around Central Command, and the Pentagon, the Office of the Defense Attaché in Buenos Aires is pretty near the foot of the military hierarchal totem pole and it was obvious from the look on Colonel Freedman’s face that he had no idea what it meant.

And equally obvious that he wasn’t going to admit that he didn’t to an Army lieutenant colonel.

“Yes, of course you are. But in the absence of written orders, Colonel, how can I know that?”

“Sir, may I suggest you call CICCENCOM at Combined Base MacDill for verification?”

CICCENCOM, pronounced Sik-Sen-Com, is the acronym for Commander in Chief, Central Command.

“Right,” Colonel Freedman said. “Sergeant, call what he said.”

“The extension is six-six-one,” Naylor said.

“Yes, sir.”

Two minutes later the sergeant reported, “Sir, they say the Sik-Sen-Sen… Sik-Sen-Com… is not available.”

“Try extension seven-seven-one, Sergeant,” Naylor suggested. “That’s the DEPCICCENCOM.”

DEPCICCENCOM, pronounced Dep-Sik-Sen-Com, is the acronym for Deputy Commander in Chief, Central Command.

Two minutes later, the sergeant reported, “I have General Albert McFadden on the line, sir. He wants to know who’s calling and how you got his personal number.”

Colonel Freedman’s face, as he reached for the telephone, which the sergeant was passing through an opening in the bulletproof glass, showed that he knew very well who the four-star Air Force general he was about to talk to was.

“Sir, this is Colonel Anthony Freedman, the Defense attaché…

“I was given this number by Lieutenant Colonel Naylor, who says you can verify he’s here acting… What the hell was it, Naylor?”

“VOCICCENCOM, sir.”

“Vok-Ick… Vodka-Ick…

“Yes, sir, General, Voe-Sik-Sen-Com. That’s it, sir.

“No, sir. Now that I think about it, I can’t imagine why a fine officer like Colonel Naylor would say something like that if it wasn’t the case.”

Colonel Freedman held out the phone to Naylor.

“The general wants to talk to you, Colonel.”

Naylor took the phone.

“Good afternoon, sir.

“Not a problem, sir. I spoke to the sheriff and the district attorney and they both assured me no one will be arrested just so long as we use chips and there’s no cash on the tables.

“Sir, I can only suggest the chaplain got carried away when he said we’re all going to go to jail.

“I really hope to be there, sir, but there’s no telling how long this job will take.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. My regards to Mrs. McFadden.”

Naylor handed the telephone back through the opening in the bulletproof glass. Then he saw the look on Colonel Freedman’s face and took pity on him.

“General McFadden’s wife,” he explained, “is raising money for the Parent — Teacher’s Association by running Las Vegas Night at the VFW Hall in Tampa. In addition to my other duties, I’m the de facto president of the school board. The chaplain, who thinks gambling is a sin, even for a good cause, has been giving us trouble, and the general was a little worried. I was able to put his concerns to rest.”

“Yes, of course you were,” Colonel Freedman said. “Now, about this Top Secret Message you want to transmit?”

“I’d prefer to get into that, sir, in a secure environment, sir.”

“Yes, of course you would. I can’t imagine what I was thinking,” Colonel Freedman said. “Sergeant, unlock the door.”

“Colonel, he’s still got his cell phone.”

“What cell phone?”

“The one in his pocket, sir. The one he said I’d have to pry from his cold dead fingers.”

“Just push the button and unlock the damned door, damn it!”

There was a buzz, and the door to the interior of the building swung open. Freedman led Naylor to an elevator, which took them to the top story of the building. The commo center was behind two locked steel doors that were about in the middle of the corridor.

There was an American man on duty, visibly surprised to see the Defense attaché there after duty hours and wearing his spectacular mess dress uniform.

“The colonel has a message to send—”

“Encrypt and send,” Naylor corrected him. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll operate the equipment myself. Just get me on the State Department circuit.”

Naylor sat down at the table, and as he waited for the technician to connect him with the State Department took a sheet of paper from his pocket and laid it next to the encryption device keyboard.

When he became aware that Colonel Freedman was trying desperately to sneak a look at the message, Naylor considered laying his hand on it, or turning it over, but in the end handed it to the Defense attaché.

“You’re onto State,” the technician announced.

Naylor waited until Freedman had finished reading, then laid the sheet of paper next to the keyboard again, tripped the ENCRYPT/TRANSMIT lever, and began to type. It didn’t take long.

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Colonel Freedman said, as Naylor waited for the machine to report the message had been received and decoded.

“I suppose not,” Naylor said.

The message wasn’t supposed to make a lot of sense to anyone except the President. Actually, it was intended to pacify the President, by deceiving him into thinking his orders to get Castillo on extended hazardous duty were being executed.

“Who is CGC? A person, presumably.”

“Sir, you’re not cleared for that information.”

Freedman was annoyed but tried hard not to let it show.

“I understand,” he said. “I’m not asking for classified information I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s a question of Need to Know, sir.”

“What I’m curious about, Colonel, and I don’t think it gets into a classified area, is why send the message at all? I mean, we had General McFadden on the phone. Presumably he knows what this is all about and—”

“I could have just given him the essence of it, paraphrased a bit?”

“Exactly.”

“Two reasons, sir. Because this is going to the President, and when you’re dealing with POTUS you go by the book. And also because General McFadden does not know what this is all about, just that I am acting pursuant to a VOCICCENCOM.”

“I can understand that.”

“And now I have to get out of here, sir. I have something else to do that can’t wait.”

“I understand. I’ll walk you out.”

“I really appreciate your assistance, sir.”

“Not at all. Glad that I could be of service.”

When Naylor had passed through the door of the embassy, the Marine sergeant asked, “Sir, what the hell was that all about?”

“You’re not cleared for information at that level, Sergeant,” Colonel Freedman replied. “And you should know better than to ask.”

Major Kiril Koshkov was waiting with the Mercedes SUV when Lieutenant Colonel Naylor came through the gate in the embassy fence.

Colonel Freedman watched until Naylor got in the Mercedes and it drove off. Then he looked at his watch and said, “Damn, I’m going to be late,” and hurried to his embassy car (actually a black GMC Yukon armored with ballistic steel) and told the driver to take him to the embassy of the Republic of Botswana.

The Botswanese really knew how to throw a cocktail party.

Aleksandr Pevsner’s Mercedes SUV took Naylor and Koshkov back to the airport, where they fired up Castillo’s Mustang and flew back to Bariloche.

[FOUR]

As A. Franklin Lammelle, the CIA director, removed a dart from the right ear of the photograph of Vladimir Putin he used as a target and was in the process of removing a second from Mr. Putin’s nose, his CaseyBerry buzzed.

He shoved the dart back into Putin’s left nostril, took the CaseyBerry from his shirt pocket, looked to see who was calling, and then inquired, “And how may the CIA be of service to the Queen of Foggy Bottom?”

Natalie Cohen, the United States secretary of State, got right to the point.

“I have an URGENT from Buenos Aires,” she said.

“Junior called to say he was at the embassy,” Lammelle replied.

“What do I do with it?”

“Unless memory fails, Madam Secretary, we were agreed that you would now dispatch a member of your security staff to make the other addressees familiar with it. ‘Eyes Only’ means you can’t send them a copy as it is one of those quote Duplication Forbidden end quote documents.”

“You’re an ‘other addressee,’ Frank.”

“Well, you can skip me. I know what it says. I wrote it.”

“And Truman Ellsworth is in Budapest, looking for Castillo. What do I do about him?”

“I’ve given that some thought, as a matter of fact. When you see the President, you can tell him where ol’ Truman is. One more proof that his faithful staff is carrying out his orders.”

“Faithfully carrying out his orders is not what we’re doing, Frank, and you know it.”

“Consider the alternative, Natalie.”

She didn’t respond to that directly. “And what do I do with General Naylor?”

“If the President convenes another meeting, you can show the message to General Naylor when he shows up.”

“And what do I do if I call the White House and he is available?”

“The last I heard was that Senator Foghorn and the other Good Ol’ Boys have already shown up at the White House for a little white lightning and two-bit-limit poker. I don’t think he will be available tonight.”

“And what if he decides to take Senator Fog… Forman into his confidence about this?”

“I think that’s unlikely; he knows what a loud mouth Forman has. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I’m very nervous about this whole thing.”

“Well, so am I. That’s why I’m paid the big bucks. You have to have nerves of steel to be the DCI.”

“Oh, God!” she said, and broke the connection.

He immediately called her back.

“What?”

“Our ‘keep me posted’ deal is still in place, right?”

“That’s why I’m paid the big bucks, Frank. Your word has to be good when you’re sec State.”

[FIVE]

“Mrs. Clendennen’s personal extension.”

“This is Natalie Cohen. Is the First Lady available?”

“One moment, please.”

“Hey, sweetie! How are you?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Clendennen—”

“Natalie, honey, I keep telling you and telling you that you can call me Belinda-Sue.”

“Belinda-Sue, that’s very kind of you.”

“Don’t be silly. We girls have to stick together, particularly since there are so few of us around here. What can I do for you, honey?”

“Well, I know the President would like to hear they’ve found Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, but when I called just now, they said he was in conference, and I wondered if you thought I should insist on talking to him, or whether telling him can wait until the morning.”

“Just between us, honey, what he’s doing is playing pinochle in Lincoln’s bedroom with the boys from Buildings, Bridges, and Monuments.”

“Excuse me? With whom?”

“When Zeke was in the House, he was co-chairman — with Senator Forman — of the Joint Select Committee on Buildings, Bridges, and Monuments. You know, when one of them loses an election and has to go home, they name a building or a bridge after him. Or put up a statue, a monument they call it, if his hometown allows it. Zeke said it’s the only really bipartisan committee in Congress. No arguments, no gridlock. Everybody gets one of the three.”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten,” the secretary said.

“Just between us girls, honey, he’s likely to be a little hungover tomorrow, so keep that in mind when you come in the morning.”

“You think it would be best if I came to the White House in the morning?”

“I’ll call the chief of staff to put you on the list as Number One. That’s the eight-thirty slot.”

“Thank you, Belinda-Sue.”

“My pleasure, honey,” the First Lady said. And then went on, “Say, I just thought, the next time he gets together with those bums, I’ll give you a ring, and you can come over and we’ll hoist a few belts ourselves. What’s gander for the goose, as they say.”

“That would be very nice, Belinda-Sue,” the secretary said.

[SIX]

President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, followed by Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan, walked into the Oval Office. The President’s secretary and Presidental Spokesman Robin Hoboken, who stood waiting, watched as Mulligan pulled out the chair behind the presidential desk and the President sat down.

Mulligan went to the wall beside the windows looking out into the Rose Garden and leaned on it.

The President jabbed his finger in the direction of the coffee service on a side table, indicating he could use a cup, and said, “And put a little Hair of the Dog in it.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” his secretary said.

“No,” the President said, pointing at Hoboken. “Let Whatsisname here do that. I need a confidential word with him. You go file something or something.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” his secretary said, and left the office.

Robin Hoboken went to the side table and poured a cup of coffee three-quarters full. Then he went to a bookcase and took from behind a book a large white medicine bottle labeled “Take Two Ounces Orally at First Sign of Catarrh Attack.”

He added two ounces of the palliative to the President’s coffee cup and then presented the cup and its saucer to the President.

The President picked up the cup with both hands and took a healthy swallow.

He did not say “Thank you.”

“Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken said, “your eight-thirty is Senator Forman. Is there anything I should know?”

“Wrong,” the President said. “For two reasons. One, Mulligan had to carry ol’ Foggy out of here last night and load him in his car, and the only place the senator’s going to be at eight-thirty is in bed. Two, the First Lady got me out of bed by telling me the secretary of State called her last night to tell her we’ve got a message saying they found Colonel Castillo, and Mrs. Clendennen told her to deliver it this morning.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I want you here for that. Don’t say anything, just listen. Sometimes, when I’m suffering from a catarrh attack — and this one’s a doozy — my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

“I understand, Mr. President.”

“I think I’ll have another little touch of that catarrh elixir, Robin,” the President said. “Why don’t you pour a little in a fresh coffee cup before you get ol’ Natalie in here? That way she wouldn’t see the bottle.”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

“Let her in, Mulligan,” the President ordered.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” Secretary of State Cohen said as she walked into the Oval Office.

“What’s so important that you told the First Lady you wanted to see me first thing this morning?”

“Actually, Mr. President, I wanted to see you — or at least talk to you — last night. When I spoke with Mrs. Clendennen she set up this appointment for me.”

“Well, what have you got?”

Cohen handed him the message.

He read it.

“What’s it mean?” he asked.

“Apparently Colonel Naylor has found Colonel Castillo.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he a lieutenant colonel?”

“You’re correct, Mr. President. Castillo is a lieutenant colonel, retired.”

“And LTC means lieutenant colonel, too, right? I thought I told General Naylor to go down there and look for Lieutenant Colonel Castillo. So how come LTC Naylor went?”

“That was my decision, sir. I felt that someone in the press would find out if General Naylor went down there—”

“Somebody like Roscoe J. Danton?”

“Yes, Mr. President. Somebody like Mr. Danton.”

“Good thinking, Madam Secretary. The less anybody knows about this the better, and if Danton, that sonofabitch, got wind of it…”

“That was my thinking, Mr. President.”

“… it would be all over Wolf News and in every goddamned newspaper in the country,” the President finished.

“Yes, sir,” the secretary of State said.

“It says on here No Duplication, but it also says Make Available to Lammelle, Ellsworth, and Whatsisname, the secretary of Defense. God, the Military Mind! How are you going to do that?”

“After I spoke with the First Lady, Mr. President, I showed the message to Secretary Beiderman and DCI Lammelle. And when I leave here, I will send a State Department security officer to Tampa to show it to General Naylor. And with your permission, sir, I will get in contact with Mr. Ellsworth, telling him to return. You will recall you sent him to Budapest. When he comes back, I’ll show the message to him.”

“And what we do now is wait until we see how this face-to-face meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Castillo comes off, right?”

“Yes, Mr. President. As I read the message, that may take place late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. We should know the results within an hour or two after that.”

“And you’ll bring me the results as quickly as you brought this message, right?”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Well, that’s it, then. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Mulligan, show the secretary to her car.”

Ten seconds after the door closed on Mulligan and Cohen, the President asked, “Robin, how the hell did that stupid woman ever get to be secretary of State?”

“I don’t know, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken confessed.

“All she had to do was get on the goddamn telephone to General Naylor and read the goddamn message to him. What she’s going to do is send one of her security people down to Tampa with the message. She may even fly him down there in an Air Force jet, just so he can say, ‘Take a quick look at this, General Naylor.’ How much is that going to cost the poor taxpayer?”

Robin Hoboken confessed, “I don’t know exactly, Mr. President. But you can bet a pretty penny.”

“I am surrounded by idiots and cretins, Robin.”

“‘Cretins,’ sir?”

“A cretin is a high-level moron. You didn’t know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t. But I will from here on.”

“On the other hand, there’s always a silver lining, as Belinda-Sue is always saying.”

“Silver lining, sir?”

“I’ve been thinking out of the box again, Robin.”

“You have, sir?”

“The more I think of this idea of mine of having Castillo look into the piracy and drug problems, the more I like it. Even if Castillo doesn’t come up with something useful — and he even might; strange things happen — if the word gets out that what I’ve done is tell a brilliant intelligence officer to look into the problem and make recommendations, I don’t think that would adversely affect my reelection campaign, do you?”

“You’re going to go on TV, sir? Or hold a press conference and make an announcement?”

“If I held a press conference, not only would it make me look immodest but some bastard would ask me questions I don’t want to answer. Christ, you should know that, you’re the presidential spokesman and nobody believes anything you say either.

“What I’m doing is going to have to reach the American people via the press who are going to discover what I’m doing.”

“How are you going to arrange that?”

“Roscoe J. Danton,” the President said.

“He hates you, sir.”

“Yeah, I know. And everybody knows he hates me. That’s why people will believe him.”

The President looked impatiently around the room.

“Where the hell is Mulligan? He’s never around when I need him. How the hell long does it take to load one pint-sized female into her car?”

“Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken replied thoughtfully, “I would estimate about four minutes — no longer than five, unless Special Agent Mulligan encountered an unexpected problem.”

“Tell me, my fine-feathered friend, when you spent all those years at the Missouri School of Journalism, or later when you were covering women’s lacrosse for Time magazine, did the subject of rhetorical questions ever come up?”

Mr. Hoboken opened his mouth so that he could reply in the affirmative and define “rhetorical question” for the President’s edification. But before a sound slipped out Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan came into the Oval Office.

“Saddle up, Mulligan, it’s Round-Up time,” the President said.