Black Ops (Presidential Agent) Page 7

  "What's this got to do with him getting taken off the Vice President's protection detail?"

  There was a just-perceptible pause before Isaacson said, "Think about it, Charley. These people try to take him out again when he's on duty, then the Vice President becomes collateral damage."

  "Stupid question. Sorry. Britton didn't understand?"

  "What he didn't understand was being brought here. Standard procedure when something like this happens. Gets them out of the line of fire."

  "That made him mad?"

  "What made him mad was being told that he was going to be placed on administrative duties in--I forget where; probably Saint Louis--until the matter is resolved. When he heard that, the kindest thing he had to say to the supervisor on duty downtown was that the supervisor could insert the whole Secret Service into his anal orifice. That's when they brought him to me."

  "What's Jack want to do?"

  "He wants to go back to Philly and play Bat Masterson with the people who shot at his wife," Isaacson said.

  "This is probably the wrong thing to say, but I can understand that."

  "You're right. It is the wrong thing to say. Charley, I assumed responsibility for them. The big brass are determined he will not go back to Philadelphia; they wanted to hold him--them--as material witnesses to an assault on a federal officer."

  "Can they do that?"

  "They could her. What I told the supervisor was that they were going to have a hard time convincing a judge that a member of the Vice President's protection detail--and a highly decorated former Philly cop--was going to vanish so that he wouldn't have to testify against the bad guys who had tried to whack him and his wife. That's when they turned them over to me. They'd rather that I be responsible for putting this little escapade on the front page of The Washington Post."

  When Castillo didn't immediately reply, Isaacson went on: "Or for a headline in The Philadelphia Inquirer: 'Secret Service Agent Guns Down Area Muslims; Alleges They Tried to Kill Him and His Wife.'"

  "So that's the priority? Keeping egg off the face of the Secret Service?"

  "That, and keeping Jack out of jail."

  "What am I supposed to do with them?"

  "Convince him that going back to Philly would be stupid, then put them on ice someplace until this can be worked out."

  "Personally, I'll do anything I can for Jack. But why me?"

  "Because the chief of the Secret Service has been told that any inquiries he wishes to make about OOA will have to go through me."

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "Indeed. Merry Christmas, Charley. Please don't tell me what you decide to do with them; that way I'll truthfully be able to say I don't know where they are when I'm asked. And I will be asked."

  "Jesus Christ!" Castillo said again.

  But no one heard him.

  The legend on the screen now read: CALL TERMINATED.

  III

  [ONE]

  7200 West Boulevard Drive

  Alexandria, Virginia

  1445 25 December 2005

  "Not more bad news, I hope, Carlos?" Dona Alicia asked as Castillo took what Davidson referred to as the "paterfamilias seat" at the head of the table.

  Castillo looked at her and had the first not-unpleasant thought he'd had in the last five minutes: This is not classified. I won't have to take Delchamps and McGuire into the office or, even worse, ask Abuela to leave the room so we can discuss it.

  "There's some good news," he said. "And . . ."

  "Let's have that first," Dona Alicia said. "The good news."

  "Okay. Jack Britton and his wife will appear here shortly."

  "Oh, good!" Tom McGuire said. "You'll like them, Dona Alicia. Particularly her. Great sense of humor. As my sainted mother used to say, she's the kind of girl who can make a corpse sit up in his casket at the funeral and start whistling."

  "Tom, that's terrible," Dona Alicia said, but she was smiling.

  "And the bad news, Ace?" Delchamps asked.

  "They have been wrapped in the protective arms of the Secret Service."

  McGuire's smile vanished. He liked Britton. He had recruited him for the Secret Service.

  "Why?" he asked softly.

  "Isaacson told me that that's standard procedure when a special agent is attacked. As is taking a member of the Protection Service off the detail and assigning him administrative duties."

  "Somebody attacked Jack?" Davidson asked.

  "And Sandra," Castillo confirmed. "Sixteen bullet holes in his new Mazda convertible. And that many more in the picture window of his house."

  "Oh, my God! How terrible!" Dona Alicia said.

  "The African-American Lunatics?" David W. Yung asked.

  Dona Alicia looked at him in confusion.

  "Who else?" Castillo said.

  "Where are they sending him?" McGuire said. Before Castillo could reply, he added, surprised, "They want to keep him here?"

  "They wanted to send them to Saint Louis, or someplace like that."

  "And?" McGuire pursued.

  "When they told him that, Jack said something very, very rude to the supervisor who told him, and then said he was going back to Philadelphia. That's when he was turned over to Joel." He paused. "And then Joel turned him over to me."

  McGuire grunted. "Philadelphia's not an option," he said. "And I don't know about here. There's a train from Union Station to Philadelphia about every hour."

  "Nuestra Pequena Casa," Delchamps suggested. "Better yet, Shangri-La."

  McGuire considered that a moment, then nodded. "That'd do it."

  Dona Alicia's face showed that she didn't understand any of what had been said.

  "Ace, you think your lady friend would go along with one more legal attache in Buenos Aires or Montevideo?" Delchamps asked.

  "Probably. But asking her on Christmas Day?"

  "Good point," Delchamps said.

  "Let's get them down there and worry about that later," McGuire said. "Worst case, they make us bring them back."

  "Why don't we wait and see what kind of a frame of mind Jack's in before we do anything?" Davidson asked.

  "If I could repeat in mixed company what he told the Secret Service supervisor, Jack, that would give you a good idea," Castillo said. "But for the moment, would someone please pass me the cranberry sauce?"

  Special Agent and Mrs. Britton arrived fifteen minutes later. They were accompanied by four Secret Service agents. All of the men at the table stood when they came into the dining room.

  "If you have any clout with the guards, Tom," Sandra Britton said, "I'd really like to have a little something to eat before I'm strip-searched and put in my cell."

  "Sandra!" McGuire said uncomfortably.

  She went on, unrepentant: "The only thing the prisoners have had to eat today is an Egg McMuffin as we began our journey and, for Christmas dinner, a hamburger in a Wendy's outside Baltimore."

  She directed her attention to Castillo.

  "You're the warden, right, Colonel? When do I get my one telephone call? I just can't wait to talk to the ACLU."

  "Just as soon as I introduce you to my grandmother," Castillo said, laughing. "Abuela, this is Sandra Britton. Sandra, Dona Alicia Castillo."

  "I'm very happy to meet you," Sandra said. "But what in the world is a nice grandmother doing sitting down with this company?"

  "I told you you'd like her, Dona Alicia," McGuire said.

  "Or are you also under-arrest-by-another-name?" Sandra pursued.

  "Sit down, my dear," Dona Alicia said. "We'll get you some dinner."

  "I understand why you're a little upset, Sandra," McGuire said.

  " 'A little'?"

  "My dear young woman," Billy Kocian said. "I recognize in you not only a kindred soul, but someone else suffering velvet-cell incarceration at the hands of these thugs. May I offer you a glass of champagne? Or perhaps something stronger?"

  "Both," she said. "Who the hell are you?"

  Kocian walked quickly to
her and kissed her hand.

  "Eric Kocian, madam. I am enchanted."

  "As well you should be, Billy," Dona Alicia said.

  "Pray take my seat, and I'll get the champagne," Kocian said.

  "Hey, Jack!" Davidson said. "How goes it?"

  Britton shook his head.

  "Ginger-peachy," he said. "How could it be otherwise?"

  Kocian took a bottle of champagne from a cooler, poured some in a glass, and handed it to Sandra.

  "Please excuse the stem. It originally came, I believe, filled with yogurt and decorated with a picture of Mickey Mouse."

  "Thank you," Sandra said. A smile flickered across her lips.

  "As a prisoner, of course, I am told nothing," Kocian said. "So I am therefore quite curious about your obvious distress. What have these terrible people done to you?"

  "You sound like a Viennese," Sandra said.

  "How perceptive of you, dear lady. I was born and spent many years in that city."

  "I'm a semanticist--I teach at the University of Pennsylvania. Or I was teaching at the university before I was hustled into the backseat of a Secret Service SUV and hauled off before my neighbors." She paused. "You're familiar with Franz Kafka?"

  "Indeed."

  "He would have had a ball with this," she said.

  "You are implying bureaucracy run amok?"

  "Am I ever."

  "Tell me all, my dear."

  Sandra sipped appreciatively at her champagne, pursed her lips, and then drained the glass.

  "Was the offer of something stronger bona fide?"

  Kocian nodded.

  "In that case, Colonel, I will have one of your famous McNab martinis, thank you ever so much."

  "My pleasure," Castillo said, and went to a sideboard loaded with spirits and drinking paraphernalia.

  "So, what happened, Sandra?" David W. Yung asked.

  "Cutting to the chase, Two-Gun," Sandra said, "ten minutes after my better half here assured me that all was well as the Secret Service was on its way to our bullet-shattered cottage by the side of the road--before which sat our bullet-shattered new car--they did in fact arrive, sirens screaming, lights flashing. I expected Bruce Willis to leap out and wrap me in his masterly arms. By then, of course, the AALs who had turned tranquil Churchill Lane into the OK Corral were in Atlantic City. But what the hell, I thought, naive little ol' me, I shouldn't fault them for trying."

  "Then what happened?" Davidson asked.

  "The first thing they did was tell the Philly cops to get lost," Sandra said. "My living room was now a federal crime scene. And they hustled Jack and me into the back of one of their SUVs and drove off with sirens screaming. I thought they had word the AALs were coming back."

  "The what, my dear?" Dona Alicia asked.

  "African-American Lunatics, make-believe Muslims who don't like Jack very much."

  "Why not?" Dona Alicia asked.

  "I kept an eye on them for the police department," Britton said.

  "What he did, Abuela," Castillo said, "was live with them for long years. He wore sandals, a dark blue robe, had his hair braided with beads. They thought his name was Ali Abid ar-Raziq."

  "And for that they tried to kill him?"

  "Actually, they came pretty close to killing both of us," Britton said.

  "Sandra," Yung said reasonably, "an attack on Jack, a federal officer, made it a federal case."

  "Is that why they took Jack downtown and took his gun and badge away? The way that looked to me was that Jack was the villain for getting shot at."

  "They took your credentials and weapon, Jack?" McGuire asked.

  "And it was my pistol, not the Secret Service's."

  "Had you fired it at the bad guys?"

  Britton shook his head.

  McGuire looked at the four Secret Service agents who had brought the Brittons to the house.

  "Who's in charge?"

  "I am, sir," the shortest one, who held a briefcase, said.

  "Where's his credentials and weapon?"

  "I have them, sir," the agent said, holding up the briefcase. "Mr. Isaacson said I was to turn them over to you."

  "Give Special Agent Britton his credentials and his pistol."

  "Sir, I don't--"

  "That was an order, not a suggestion," McGuire said. "And then you guys can wait in the kitchen."

  They did.

  "Just to keep all the ducks in a row, Tom," Britton said as he carefully examined the revolver, reloaded it, and put it in his lap, "Joel didn't take them. The clown in Philadelphia did."

  " 'The clown'?" McGuire asked. "Supervisory Special Agent in Charge Morrell? That clown, Special Agent Britton?"

  "Right. Just before he told me I was being transferred to Kansas or someplace just as soon as the, quote, interview, close quote, was over."

  "And was that the clown you told what he could do with the Secret Service, Jack?" Delchamps asked.

  "You're not being helpful, Edgar," McGuire said.

  "No. I told that to the clown here in D.C.," Britton said thoughtfully. "But I think he was a supervisory special agent in charge, too."

  Castillo, Delchamps, and Davidson laughed.

  Britton picked up his Secret Service credentials, examined them, and held them up. "Does this mean, as they say in the movies, that I'm 'free to go'?"

  "Not back to Philly to shoot up a mosque, Jack," McGuire said. "Think that through."

  "Where the hell did you get that? From the clown in Philly?"

  "I got that from Joel," Castillo said. "I think he got it from the clown in Philly. You apparently said something about knowing, quote, how to get the bastards, unquote."

  "By which I meant I was going to go to Counterterrorism--I used to work there, remember?--and see if we couldn't send several of the bastards away on a federal firearms rap. In the commission of a felony--and shooting up Sandra and my house and car is a felony--everybody participating is chargeable. Use of a weapon in the commission of a felony is another five years, mandatory. Not to mention just having a fully auto AK is worth ten years in the slam and a ten-thousand-dollar fine." He paused and exhaled audibly. "Did that ass . . . Sorry. Did that supervisory special agent in charge really think I was going to walk into the mosque and open fire? For Christ's sake, I'm a cop."

  "I don't think you left him with that good-cop impression, Jack," Davidson said, chuckling. "I think he saw you as Rambo in a rage."

  "The Philly cops could have gotten a judge to give us a probable-cause warrant to search both the mosque and the place in Philadelphia because of the attack on Sandra, and the Secret Service wouldn't have been involved," Britton went on.

  "Sandra, do you happen to speak Spanish?" Castillo asked.

  "Why? Is that also some sort of Secret Service no-no?"

  "Yes or no?"

  "Now, why in the world would you suspect that a semanticist might speak Spanish?"

  Castillo switched to Spanish: "Fiery Spanish temper, maybe?"

  She flashed her eyes at him, then laughed.

  "Yeah," she replied in Spanish. "Classical, Mexican, and Puerto Rican Harlem. What's that you're speaking?"

  "I was hoping it would sound Porteno."

  It took her a moment to make the connection.

  "Yeah," she said. "You could pass."

  "So how do you think you're going to like Buenos Aires?"

  "I don't know. I seem to recall another ex-Philly cop got herself shot there."

  "I would say it's Jack's call, but that wouldn't be true, would it? Your call, Sandra: You two go to Buenos Aires, or stay here and Jack continues his war with the Secret Service. And he's going to lose that war. They are not going to put him back on the Protection Detail. . . ."

  "It's not fair, Sandra," McGuire said. "But that's the way it is. They just don't take chances with the President and the Vice President. As a matter of fact, there's an old pal of mine . . . " He stopped.

  "Go on, Tom," Castillo said. "They'll find out anyhow."

>   " . . . There's an old pal of mine who fell off the side step of the Vice President's limo. It didn't matter that it was covered with ice. He fell off. And he was off the detail."

  "And what happened to him?"

  "He's in Buenos Aires."

  "So . . . is this what you're saying?" Britton asked a bit bitterly. "That Buenos Aires is sort of a Secret Service gulag? The dumping ground for Protection Service rejects?"

  "Enough is enough, Jack," Castillo said, his tone now cold. "What's it going to be?"

  "If we go down there, what happens to my job?" Sandra asked.

  Castillo didn't reply.

  Sandra then answered the question herself: "The same that would happen if we went to Saint Louis, Kansas City, or wherever that guy said. How long would we have to stay?"

  "As long as Tom and I think is necessary," Castillo said.

  "And the AALs walk on this," Britton said more than a little bitterly.

  "Not necessarily," Castillo said. "But you're never going back on the Protection Detail."

  "So then what finally happens to me?"

  "Tom and I will, sooner or later but probably sooner, find something for you to do."

  "You mean go to work for you?"

  Castillo nodded.

  "You didn't mention that," Britton said.

  "You didn't give him much of a chance, Rambo," Davidson said.

  "I'd like that," Britton said simply. "Thank you."

  "When do we go?" Sandra asked.

  "As soon as we can get you on a plane," Castillo said. "Maybe even tonight."

  "All we have is an overnight bag," Sandra said.

  "They have wonderful shops in Buenos Aires," Dona Alicia said.

  "Let's give Tony a heads-up," McGuire said, and added to the Brittons: "Tony Santini's the old pal who fell off the limo."

  "We have a state-of-the-art communications system down there," Castillo said, "but in his wisdom the kindly chief of OOA figured the odds of anything happening today were slim to none, and so told the guys sitting on the radio to take Christmas day off. So we'll have to use this primitive device."

  Castillo put his cellular telephone on the table, pushed a speed-dial button, then the speakerphone button.