By Order of the President Page 4

  If it was decided that Delta Force, Gray Fox—or any other special operations organization, such as the Air Commandos, the Navy SEALs, the Marines’ Force Recon—were to be deployed in connection with the missing airplane, the orders would come from Central Command.

  While his satburst message had reached Washington in literally a matter of seconds, it might not reach either Fort Bragg or MacDill for hours—or days—until the message had been evaluated at Langley, passed to the national security counselor, and evaluated again and a decision reached.

  Major Miller’s conscience did not bother him a bit for sending a heads-up that violated a long list of security restrictions. He’d done a tour with Delta and knew the sooner they got a heads-up, the better.

  He unplugged the laptop and locked it in his desk drawer. Then he changed into his work clothes and caught a taxicab out to the Quatro de Fevereiro Aeroporto to see what else he could find out about what had happened to his airplane.

  II

  [ONE]

  The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 1133 23 May 2005

  When, at 1530 Luanda time, Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., sent his first satellite burst message announcing the apparent theft from the Luanda airport of Lease-Aire’s 727, it took about three minutes in real time to reach the desk of his boss, the CIA’s regional director for Southwest Africa, in Langley. There is a four-hour difference in time between Angola and Virginia. When it is half past three in Luanda, it is half past eleven in Langley.

  The message was actually received by the regional director ’s executive administrative assistant as the regional director had not yet returned from a working lunch at the Department of State in the District.

  The operative word in the job title was “executive.” It meant that Mrs. Margaret Lee-Williamson was authorized to execute, in the regional director for Southwest Africa’s name, certain administrative actions, among them to receive material classified top secret addressed to the regional director and to take any appropriate action the material called for.

  What this meant was that when the computer terminal on Mrs. Lee-Williamson’s desk pinged and the message SATBURST CONFIDENTIAL FROM LUANDA FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA ENTER ACCESS CODE appeared on the screen, Mrs. Lee-Williamson typed in a ten-digit access code, whereupon the simple message from Miller appeared on the screen:

  CONFIDENTIAL

  SATBURST 01 LUANDA 23 MAY 1530

  FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA

  A BOEING 727 TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT LA-9021 REGISTERED TO LEASE-AIRE, INC., PHILA., PENN., TOOK OFF WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM QUATRO DE FEVEREIRO AEROPORTO INTERNACIONAL AT 1425 LOCAL TIME 23 MAY 2005 AND DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR SHORTLY THEREAFTER. ANGOLAN AUTHORITIES KNOWN TO BELIEVE AIRCRAFT WAS STOLEN. MORE TO FOLLOW. STACHIEF LUANDA

  Mrs. Lee-Williamson read it and pressed the PRINT key.

  She read the printout carefully, then decided that while the message should be forwarded it wasn’t really all that important. Very few things classified confidential are ever important. Certainly not important enough for her to try to get the regional director on the phone during lunch.

  Mrs. Lee-Williamson decided that she could handle this herself and tell her boss about it when the regional director returned from lunch.

  She highlighted Major Miller’s message with the cursor, pressed the COPY key, and then the END and WRITE keys. When a blank message form headed FROM CIA REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR SOUTHWEST AFRICA appeared on her screen, she typed, after she thought about it a moment, DISTLIST4, and, when she pressed the ENTER key, it caused distribution list number 4 to appear in the addressee box on the message form:

  NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

  SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

  SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

  SECRETARY OF STATE

  DIRECTOR, FBI

  DIRECTOR, FAA

  CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

  Then, as an afterthought, she added to the list of addressees:

  COMMANDING GENERAL CENTRAL COMMAND

  There had been several complaints from Central Command concerning their not being given timely notice of certain events and Angola was within CentCom’s area of responsibility.

  She moved her cursor to the message box and typed:

  FOLLOWING RECEIVED 1133 23 MAY 2005 FROM LUANDA, ANGOLA, IS FORWARDED FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

  Then she pressed the INSERT key and Miller’s message appeared on the screen.

  Mrs. Lee-Williamson then pressed the SEND key and the message was on its way. Then she called up a fresh message blank and began to type.

  STACHIEF LUANDA

  REFERENCE YOUR SATBURST 01 23MAY05 RE POSSIBLY STOLEN AIRCRAFT. WITHOUT DIVERTING SUBSTANTIAL ASSETS, ATTEMPT TO DEVELOP FURTHER REGDIR SWAFRICA

  When she had pressed the SEND key again, she decided it was time for a cup of coffee. She locked the printout of Miller’s message in a secure filing cabinet, locked the office door, and headed for the cafeteria.

  [TWO]

  Office of the Commanding General United States Central Command MacDill Air Force Base Tampa, Florida 1645 23 May 2005

  General Allan B. Naylor routinely used two computers in his office suite. One he thought of as the “desktop” computer, although it was actually on the floor under the credenza behind Naylor’s desk. The other, which he thought of as the “laptop” computer, he brought to work with him each morning and took home at night.

  When he was in the office, the laptop sat either on Naylor ’s desk, where it could be seen by those sitting at his of fice conference table, which butted up against his desk, or it sat before the commanding general’s chair on the larger conference table in the conference room next to his office, where it was similarly very visible to others at the table.

  Quite innocently, the laptop had acquired an almost menacing aura. None of those at either table could see what was on the laptop’s screen, and it is human nature to fear the unknown.

  Everyone at either conference table became aware that at least once every ten minutes or so, the CG’s attention was diverted from what was being discussed by the conferees to the laptop screen and he would either smile or frown, then look thoughtful, and then type something. Or return his attention to the conferees and ask a question, or issue an order obviously based on what had been on the laptop’s screen.

  General Naylor had learned his laptop was commonly known among the senior members of his staff as the “IBB”—for “Infernal Black Box.” More junior members of his staff referred to it, privately of course, in somewhat more imaginative and scatological terms.

  Having the laptop on the commanding general’s desk and on the conference table had been the idea of Command Sergeant Major Wesley Suggins.

  “General, if you turn that thing on and sign on to the Instant Messager, I can let you know who’s on the horn. You follow, sir?”

  It had taken General Naylor about ten seconds to follow Suggins’s reasoning.

  General Naylor often thought, and said to his inner circle, that Napoleon was right when he said, “Armies travel on their stomachs,” that during World War II someone was right to comment, “The Army moves on a road of paper,” and that, he was forced to the sad conclusion, "CentCom sails very slowly through a Sargasso Sea of conferences.”

  The problem during these conferences was that there were always telephone calls from important people—such as Mrs. Elaine Naylor, or the secretary of defense—for the commanding general. General Naylor always took calls from these two, but some of the calls were from less important people and could wait.

  Sergeant Major Suggins usually made that decision and informed the caller that General Naylor was in conference and would return the call as soon as he could. But sometimes Sergeant Major Suggins didn’t feel confident in telling, for example, the assistant secretary of defense for manpower or someone calling from the White House that he was just going to have to wait to talk to the boss.

  In that case, there were two options. He could enter Naylor ’s office, or the co
nference room, and go to the general and quietly tell him that he had a call from so-and-so, and did he wish to take it?

  The moment the sergeant major entered the conference room, or the office, whoever had the floor at the moment in the conference would stop—often in midsentence—and politely wait for the sergeant major and the general to finish.

  This wasted time, of course, and prolonged the conference.

  The second option—which Naylor originally thought showed great promise—was a telephone on his desk and the conference table, which had a flashing red button instead of a bell. That had been a failure, too, as the instant the button began to flash whoever was speaking stopped talking, in the reasonable presumption that if the general’s phone flashed, the call had to be more important than whatever he was saying at the moment.

  From the beginning, the use of the laptop to announce calls had been a success. Naylor always caught, out of the corner of his eye, activity on the laptop’s screen. He then dropped his eyes to it and read, for example:

  MRS N??????

  Or:

  SEC BEIDERMAN???

  Or:

  GEN HARDHEAD

  Whereupon he would put his fingers on the keyboard and type:

  BRT

  Which meant “Be Right There,” and, further, meant that he would stand up, say, “Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, ” and go into a small soundproof cubicle, which held a chair, a desk, and a secure telephone, and converse with his wife or the secretary of defense.

  Or, in the case of General Hardhead, for example, he would quickly type:

  NN. 1 HR

  Which stood for “Not Now. Have Him Call Back in an Hour.”

  Or:

  FOWDWIIP

  Which stood for “Find Out What, and Deal With It If Possible. ”

  General Naylor found he could get and receive messages in this manner without causing whoever had the floor to stop in midsentence and wait.

  But then, starting with Mrs. Naylor, he began to get messages directly from those in his inner circle, rather than via Sergeant Major Suggins, those who were very privy to the great secret of Naylor’s e-mail screen name.

  There would be a muted beep, he would drop his eyes to the screen and see that Mrs. Naylor was inquiring:

  CAN YOU PICK UP TWO DOZEN EGGS AND SOME RYE BREAD AT THE COMMISSARY??

  To which, without causing the conference to come to a complete stop, he could reply:

  SURE

  The next development—which he thought was probably inevitable—was the realization that since he was connected to the Internet, his personal e-mail was thus available.

  The purpose of the conferences was to make sure everybody knew what everybody else was thinking, had done, or was planning to do. Very often General Naylor knew what most of the conferees were going to say when they stood up. Listening to something he already knew—or at least assigning his full attention to it—was a waste of time. Time that could be better spent reading what, for example, his sons thought would interest him.

  Both of his sons were in the Army and in Iraq. The oldest was a lieutenant colonel who had followed his father and grandfather into Armor. The youngest was a captain who commanded a Special Forces A-Team engaged in rounding up Saddam Hussein loyalists.

  Both of them—and he was very proud of the way they handled this—routinely sent him information they thought he might not otherwise get—even though everything military in Iraq was under his command—and would like to have. The information they sent met two criteria: It was not classified, and it contained not the slightest hint of criticism of any officer.

  There were many periods in many conferences when Naylor felt justified in reading e-mails from his sons instead of hearing one colonel or general explain something for the fifth time to a colonel or general who just didn’t seem to be able to understand what he was being told.

  The conferees had no idea what the commanding general might be typing on his IBB, only that he had diverted his attention from them to it.

  The little box in the lower right corner of the laptop screen flicked brightly for an instant and then reported:

  YOU HAVE A NEW E-MAIL FROM CHARLEY@CASTILLO.COM

  Charley Castillo had a unique relationship on several levels with Allan B. Naylor, General, U.S. Army, Commanding General of the United States Central Command, any one of which would have given him access to Naylor’s private e-mail address.

  One, which Naylor often thought was the most important, was that both he and Elaine considered him a third son—the middle son, so to speak—even though there was no blood connection between them. They had known him since he was twelve, when Charley had become an orphan.

  He was also officially one of Naylor’s officers. The manning chart of CentCom showed under the J-5, the Special Activities Section, and under the SAS, the Special Assignments Section, a list of names of officers and enlisted men on special assignments. One of them read CASTILLO, C.G., MAJ.

  “J-5” stood for “Joint Staff Division 5, Special Operations. ” The Special Activities Section of J-5 had to do with things known only to a very few people, and the Special Assignments Section was sort of the holding tank—they had to appear on the manning chart somewhere.

  General Naylor had had nothing to do with Major Castillo’s assignment to what was colloquially known as “Jay-Five Sassas,” although many people—including, he suspected, his wife and sons—suspected he did. Castillo had been assigned there routinely when he came back from Afghanistan. It was an assignment appropriate for someone of his rank and experience.

  General Naylor, however, had had everything to do with Major Castillo’s present Jay-Five Sassas assignment.

  General Naylor was personally acquainted with Secretary of Homeland Security Matt Hall. They had met in Vietnam when Naylor had been a captain and Hall a sergeant and had stayed in touch and become close friends over the years as Naylor had risen in the Army hierarchy and Hall had become first a congressman and then governor of North Carolina and then secretary of homeland security.

  Hall, over a beer in the bar of the Army-Navy Club in Washington, had asked Naylor, “Allan, you don’t just happen to know of a hell of a good linguist with all the proper security clearances, do you?”

  “How do you define ‘good,’ Matt?”

  “Preferably, male and single—I need somebody around all the time and that’s awkward with a female—or a married person of either gender.”

  Major C. G. Castillo was the next day placed on Indefinite Temporary Duty with the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, with the understanding between the general and the secretary being that if he wasn’t what Hall needed, or they didn’t get along, Castillo would be returned to MacDill.

  Two weeks after Castillo had gone to Washington, Hall had telephoned Naylor about Castillo.

  “How’s Castillo doing?” Naylor had asked.

  “Until about an hour ago, I thought he was just what the doctor ordered,” Hall said.

  “What happened an hour ago?”

  “I found out he’s living in the Mayflower. How does he afford that on a major’s pay?”

  “Didn’t I mention that? He doesn’t have to live on his major’s pay.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Hall said. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t think it was important. Is it?”

  “Yeah. Washington is an expensive place to live. Now I won’t have to worry about him having to go to Household Finance to make ends meet. Can I keep him, Allan?”

  “For as long as you need him.”

  “Would you have any objection if I put him in civilian clothing most of the time and called him my executive assistant or something like that?”

  “He’ll be doing more than translating?”

  “Uh-huh. Any problem with that?”

  “He’s yours, Matt. I’m glad it’s worked out.”

  General Naylor clicked on the READ button. The laptop screen filled up almost instantly.

  WE
JUST GOT THIS FROM LANGLEY

  WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF IT?

  FOLLOWING RECEIVED 1133 23 MAY 2005 FROM LUANDA, ANGOLA, IS FORWARDED FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

  CONFIDENTIAL

  SATBURST 01 LUANDA 23 MAY 2005

  FOR REGDIR SWAFRICA

  A BOEING 727 TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT LA-9021 REGISTERED TO LEASE-AIRE, INC., PHILA., PENN., TOOK OFF WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM QUATRO DE FEVEREIRO AEROPORTO INTERNACIONAL AT 1425 LOCAL TIME 23 MAY 2005 AND DISAPPEARED FROM RADAR SHORTLY THEREAFTER. ANGOLAN AUTHORITIES KNOWN TO BELIEVE AIRCRAFT WAS STOLEN. MORE TO FOLLOW. STACHIEF LUANDA

  REGARDS

  CHARLEY

  There were several things wrong with Charley’s message, which caused Naylor to frown thoughtfully, and which, in turn, caused half a dozen of the people at the conference table to wonder what had come over that goddamned IBB to cause the commanding general to frown thoughtfully.

  For one thing, I don’t know if this is from Charley or Hall. Charley said, “We just got this message.” Does “we” mean the Department of Homeland Security, or Matt and Charley, or just Charley using the regal “we”? Or what?

  Was Matt standing there when the message arrived and said, “Why don’t we ask Naylor?” Or words to that effect?

  Or is this message a “What do you think of this, Uncle Allan?”-type message? Expressing idle curiosity? Or wanting to know what I think in case Matt asks him later?

  Damn it!

  The commanding general of Central Command rapped his water glass with a pencil and gained the attention of all the conferees.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “For several reasons, high among them that I think we’re all a little groggy after being at this so long, I hereby adjourn this conference until tomorrow morning, place and time to be announced by Sergeant Major Suggins.