The outlaws

[EIGHT]

The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1745 13 February 2007 The manager on duty, who wore a frock coat with a tiny rose pinned to the lapel, intercepted the party before they were more than one hundred yards into the lobby.

"Mr. Barlow?"

"I am Thomas Barlow," Berezovsky said.

"My name is Winfield Broom, Mr. Barlow, I am the manager on duty. Welcome to the Mayflower."

"Thank you," Berezovsky said.

"From time to time, little mistakes are made, but sometimes-as now-they have a pleasant result."

"I don't think I understand."

"Well, when Mr. Darby called to make your reservations, we were of course happy to accommodate him and you. But then Mr. Darby called back a few minutes later and asked if Mr. von und zu Gossinger still kept an apartment here. I told him he did, although we haven't seen him for some time. And then thirty minutes after that, Mr. von und zu Gossinger himself called. He said he was skiing in Gstaad, but that he would be very pleased if you would stay in his apartment while you're here."

"That's very kind of Mr. von und zu Gossinger," Barlow said.

"Right this way, please," Mr. Broom said, gesturing toward the elevator bank. "This is really very nice," Svetlana said five minutes later. "Not at all what comes to mind when you hear 'motel.'"

"I'm glad you think so," Mr. Broom said. "Now, the sauna is separate…"

"Why does Mr. von und zu Gossinger call this hotel the 'Monica Lewinsky Motel'?" Svetlana asked.

"I'm sure I have no idea, madam," Mr. Broom said, just a little huffily. "Now, if you'll please come this way?" [NINE] Old Ebbitt Grill 675 15th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1750 13 February 2007 "Truman, I told you that if we just waited, Roscoe would inevitably show up," Ambassador Charles M. Montvale said to Mr. Truman Ellsworth looking over his shoulder to the end of the massive bar. "Hello, Roscoe!"

"Your office said I could find you here," Danton said, taking a seat next to them at the bar.

"Waiting for my master's call, Roscoe. The odds are strongly against it ever coming."

"I'll have one of those," Danton said to the bartender. "And if these two are not already over their limit, give them another."

"What happened to you after we came back?" Ellsworth asked.

"I thought you would never ask," Danton said, and told them… "And Castillo's on the airplane with Naylor?" Ellsworth said when he finished.

"Naylor, McNab, and General Yakov Sirinov."

"That, I am having a hard time believing," Montvale said.

"What if I told you the airplane is a Tu-934A?"

"Even harder to believe."

"Charles, I think Roscoe is serious," Ellsworth said.

Montvale looked at Danton, who nodded.

"The plane should land at Andrews about nine o'clock," he said.

"And the Russians?"

"Maybe I'll tell you later. What I need right now is a way to get onto Andrews."

"I think we could arrange that," Ellsworth said. "And I submit, Charles, that we are indebted to Roscoe."

"I'd like to see this myself," Montvale said.

"And I would like somehow to get in touch with C. Harry Whelan, that sonofabitch, and get him and Wolf News out there," Danton said.

"That also I can handle," Ellsworth said. "He's been driving us crazy wanting to talk to us. The ambassador has qualms-which I frankly don't share-about embarrassing the President."

"The Office of the President," Montvale corrected him. "I would happily embarrass Clendennen but I can't figure out how to separate in the mind of the people the asshole from the office he holds."

The obscenity and a general slurring of speech confirmed to Danton that the ambassador and Ellsworth had been at the bar for some time.

Danton looked at Ellsworth with a raised eyebrow.

"The ambassador is no longer on the red phone circuit," Ellsworth said. "The President won't even return the ambassador's calls. And we no longer have access to the White House Yukon fleet."

"That sonofabitch!" Danton said.

"He has also taken to referring to me as 'Ambassador Stupid,'" Montvale said. "The director of National Stupidity."

Ellsworth said, "You wouldn't look stupid, Charles, if you were at Andrews when Castillo and Company arrive."

"True."

"I've got some caveats," Danton said. "I don't want to get into the Congo-X business until Lammelle has a chance to deal with Murov, the rezident."

"My, people have been baring their hearts to you, haven't they, Roscoe?" Montvale asked.

"What I'd really like to do is have Sirinov on Wolf News, being carried off the Tu-934A."

"Carried off? He has been injured?"

"Sweaty shot him in the foot," Danton said.

"'Sweaty'?"

"Former Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva of the SVR," Danton said.

"And where did this altercation occur?"

"I can't tell you that. Not now."

"I don't want to be responsible in any way for any Congo-X being released anywhere," Montvale said.

"That's not a problem. We know how to kill it. We've killed all the Russians have. Hamilton's got some in his lab, but the Russians are out of ammo."

"How do you know that?" Montvale asked softly.

His speech, Danton noticed, was no longer slurred.

"Frank Lammelle told me thirty-five minutes ago. He was then at Fort Detrick."

Montvale considered that a moment, and then said, "Truman, be so good as to call Mr. Whelan. Tell him I will agree to be interviewed tonight, providing that it is on my terms, and that he and a camera crew are outside in thirty minutes."

"My pleasure," Ellsworth said.

"If he agrees, I will spend that thirty minutes getting those terms from Roscoe and drinking black coffee. I understand that the only thing that black coffee does to a drunk is make him a bright-eyed drunk, but perhaps C. Harry Whelan, who is not too bright, will not notice.

"If Whelan agrees to come, call the limousine service and have a car outside in thirty minutes."

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador," Truman Ellsworth said as he took his cell phone from his pocket. [TEN] The President's Study The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 2055 13 February 2007 DCI Jack Powell put his hand over the telephone microphone.

"Mr. President, that airplane is on final approach to Andrews."

"Have they got cameras out there? I want to see it," the President said.

"Wolf News does, Mr. President," presidential spokesman Jack Parker said, and, when the President turned, pointed to one of the televisions mounted on the wall.

The monitor showed a flashing banner-WOLF NEWS BREAKING NEWS ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE WASHINGTON DC-and an image of the Tu-934A making its approach.

"Turn the fucking sound up, Porky! I'm not psychic!"

The stirring strands of the "William Tell Overture" filled the President's study.

"Shit," the President said, then asked, "What kind of an airplane is that?"

"I believe that's a Tupolev Tu-934A, Mr. President," Powell said.

"Where the hell did Naylor get that?" the President asked rhetorically. Wolf News cameras followed the airplane as it touched down, and until its landing roll took it far down the runway.

Then C. Harry Whelan and Roscoe J. Danton appeared on the screen.

"Good evening. This is C. Harry Whelan. What we all have just seen is the landing of a super-secret Russian airplane, the Tupolev Tu-934A. And standing with me is my good friend, the distinguished, prize-winning journalist Roscoe J. Danton of The Washington Times-Post, who knows the details of this incredible intelligence accomplishment."

"What the hell is he talking about?" the President asked.

"Thank you, Harry," Danton said, patting Whelan's back almost affectionately. "The CIA has had a long-standing offer of one hundred and twenty-five million dollars to anyone who could bring them one of these airplanes. That prize-I see the deputy director of the CIA, Franklin Lammelle, standing over there beside our director of National Intelligence, Ambassador Charles M. Montvale, both of them wearing big smiles; they were the brains behind this incredible operation-"

"What the hell is Lammelle doing out there with Ambassador Stupid?" the President asked. "I thought he was with Naylor, getting Castillo and those Russian traitors."

"I don't know, Mr. President," DCI Powell said.

"-has apparently just been claimed by two recently retired American officers, Colonel Jacob Torine, U.S. Air Force, and Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Castillo, U.S. Army."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" the President said.

"Where did they get it, Roscoe?" Whelan asked.

"From an island off an unnamed South American country."

"How do you know that, Roscoe?"

"I'm proud to say I was with them, Harry."

"But you won't identify that country?"

"I don't think I'd better at this time, Harry."

"But you are telling the millions of Wolf News watchers that these two former officers-"

"Retired officers, Harry."

"All right, Roscoe, old buddy, 'retired' officers. These two retired officers invaded an unnamed South American country-"

"'Invaded,' Harry, implies boots on the ground. We were on the ground twelve minutes and twenty-two seconds. You really can't call that an invasion, can you?"

"-and stole this super-secret Russian airplane-"

"I think that they like to think they 'took possession of it,' Harry."

"And now the CIA is going to pay them one hundred and twenty-five million dollars?"

"That's what Franklin Lammelle told me earlier today."

"We've heard that General Allan Naylor is aboard that airplane. True?"

"As soon as they reached American soil, they turned it over to the military. I don't really know what happened after that, but I can guess."

"Please guess, Roscoe, for the millions of Wolf News viewers around the globe watching this exclusively on Wolf News."

"I would guess that General Naylor decided the Tu-934A belonged in Washington, and that since Colonel Torine and Colonel Castillo were the only ones who knew how to fly it…"

"Well, that makes sense," Whelan said. "Oh, look, here it comes! Get a shot of that!"

The monitor showed the Tu-934A taxiing to where Whelan and Danton were standing. Then the aircraft turned around, the engines died, and the ramp started to slowly open.

A siren was heard, and then an ambulance appeared on the screen.

"An ambulance!" C. Harry Whelan said. "Looks like someone on the T-O-whatever you said…"

"Tu-934A, Harry. Yes, I would say that the appearance of an ambulance would suggest there's someone in need of medical attention."

Two men in white coats got out of the ambulance and ran up the ramp. Moments later, they came out carrying an unconscious man on a stretcher. Lester Bradley walked beside them.

"Who's that, Roscoe?" Whelan asked.

"I have no idea," Danton said. "I don't speak Russian and he doesn't speak English."

"Who the fuck was that on the stretcher?" the President of the United States inquired.

"The guy on the stretcher, Mr. President, was General Yakov Sirinov," DCI Powell said.

"What happened to him, Roscoe?"

"Another Russian shot him. I don't think he's seriously wounded."

The stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.

Colonel Torine and Lieutenant Colonel Castillo appeared in the door, acknowledged the applause of the Air Force personnel, and then trotted down the ramp, with Max beside them. They got into the ambulance, which immediately drove off.

Generals Naylor and McNab appeared in the ramp door, walked down it, and got into a staff car. "I want those two bastards here in thirty minutes," the President ordered. "I want-"

"Mr. President," Porky Parker said. "May I respectfully suggest that we have to carefully consider the ramifications of this?"

President Clendennen glared at him. "The next time those two sonsofbitches go to Fort Leavenworth, they'll be in handcuffs on their way to the Army prison…"

"Porky's right, Mr. President," DCI Powell said. "If we've invaded some South American country-"

"If? If? You just heard Roscoe J. Danton tell the whole goddamned world we did! Putin was probably watching us carry that general we kidnapped off that fucking airplane we stole."

"Or is watching it being replayed for him as we speak," Parker said. "I'm told the Ministry of Information tapes Wolf News and then distributes the significant stories around the Kremlin."

"That's true, Mr. President," DCI Powell said. "I really think we should get the secretary of State's input on this, so we can decide how to react."

"Well, get her here. In thirty minutes."

"Secretary Cohen is in New York, at the UN, Mr. President," Porky Parker said. "At a reception for President Chavez of Venezuela."

"And if you plan to arrest General Naylor, Mr. President," DCI Powell said, "I think we ought to hear what the attorney general has to say. And/or the secretary of Defense."

"Maybe we should all give this some thought, Mr. President, overnight," Porky Parker said. "Collect all the facts, and then, say, at ten tomorrow morning…"

"We really don't want to act precipitously in the heat of the moment," DCI Powell said.

The President looked between them for a good thirty seconds before saying, "Okay, ten tomorrow morning. Just make sure they're all here."

He then walked out of the presidential study, slamming the door behind him.

A moment later there was the sound of a vase falling to the floor.

Or perhaps of one being thrown against a wall.