Covert Warriors

by W. E. B. Griffin

  “Good. It’s nice to see I have at least one loyal member of my Cabinet. I think the FBI would be the best agency to establish contact with these people, whoever they are. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Now, since Mr. Lammelle has brought up the possibility that this has something to do with these Russian traitors, it might be useful to know where they are. Anyone know? There are Interpol warrants out for them, I believe. In addition to being traitors, they’re accused of stealing large amounts of money from their government.”

  “Those Interpol warrants have been withdrawn, Mr. President,” FBI Director Schmidt said. “I believe it was part of the armistice agreement Colonel Castillo made with Putin. The Russian embassy sent me a document stating that not only had a full investigation of those charges against Colonel Berezovsky and Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva cleared them entirely, but also they had been granted permission to leave Russia, and were ‘no longer persons of any interest to the Russian Federation.’”

  “‘The armistice agreement Colonel Castillo made with Putin’?” the President parroted. “I thought it was illegal for an American citizen to do something like that. Could he be prosecuted for doing so?”

  Vice President Montvale said, “The, quote unquote, armistice was between Castillo and Putin, Mr. President, not between the respective governments. I don’t think it was even committed to paper.”

  “It sounds as if my Vice President approves of this ‘armistice.’”

  “I do,” Montvale said simply.

  “As do I, Mr. President,” Natalie Cohen said.

  “It would appear to some people that Colonel Castillo may be angling for your job, Madam Secretary. How do you feel about that?”

  “I feel that’s preposterous, Mr. President.”

  “Speaking of the colonel and the traitors, where are they?” the President asked. When no one immediately replied, he went on, “There has been no contact with him?”

  “No official contact, Mr. President,” Lammelle said. “But Colonel Castillo and I are friends.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “He was recently in Cozumel, Mexico. I don’t know if he’s still there.”

  “What was he doing there? Were the traitors with him?”

  “I don’t know about the Russians,” Lammelle said, “but he mentioned that Mr. Parker was there. And Roscoe Danton.”

  The President, whose face showed he didn’t like that, looked as if he was going to say something, but changed his mind, and then said, “Birds of a feather, they say, flock together.”

  No one replied.

  “Well, let me spell things out. I intend, with the cooperation of the Mexican government, to see that Colonel Ferris is released. I will do whatever I think is necessary to accomplish that, and I will not tolerate any interference from anyone, and I don’t want any assistance from Castillo or his Merry Band of Outlaws.

  “Furthermore, Secretary Beiderman, I want you to personally inform General Naylor that he is not even to contemplate any military action of any kind whatsoever with regard to Colonel Ferris. And tell him I personally told you to make sure General McNab is aware of this order.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Beiderman said.

  “That’s it. I’ll see you all at the interment in Arlington. McCarthy will furnish the details, just as soon as he’s set them up.”

  He suddenly stood and, with McCarthy and Mulligan following him, marched out of the Situation Room.

  The Vice President turned to the attorney general.

  “Don’t look so unhappy, Stan,” Montvale said. “He gave you the option of resigning.”

  The attorney general looked at the Vice President for a moment and then gave him the finger.

  “He does tend to bring out the worst in people, doesn’t he?” Secretary of State Cohen said to no one in particular.

  V

  [ONE]

  The Mayflower Hotel

  1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1005 15 April 2007

  Mr. and Mrs. J. Herbert Kramer and Mr. and Mrs. Robert V. Dabney came out of what Herb Kramer described as “the restaurant or coffee shop or whateverthehell it is off the lobby” and took seats on two couches in the lobby, from which they had a good view of both the entrance and the bank of elevators.

  Herb Kramer was pleased with his breakfast of corned beef hash topped with poached eggs.

  “Most of the time you get corned beef, it’s hash fresh from a can,” Herb observed. “That was homemade, from real corned beef.” Then he observed, “But they didn’t give it away, did they?”

  “What the hell, it’s deductible,” Bob Dabney said. “Live it up!”

  Herb and Bob were in Washington to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Wholesale Hardware Dealers. Both were in that business in Missouri, Herb in St. Louis and Bob in Kansas City. They had been pals since their days at the University of Missouri, where Bob married Kate the day after they graduated. Herb had married his Delores some years later.

  They were staying at the Mayflower because of Delores. Someone had told her that the best place in Washington to see the big shots was in the lobby of the Mayflower, and Delores generally got what she wanted. She was far more interested in seeing the big shots up close than she was in seeing a bunch of old airplanes at the National Aerospace Museum, which was high on Herb and Bob’s agenda for their free time while in the nation’s capital.

  They didn’t have to wait long to learn that what Delores had been told was true.

  “Look!” Delores whispered loudly as a group of ten men came down the lobby to the elevator bank. “There’s Whatsisname!”

  “Who?” Herb asked in a normal voice.

  “The guy we see on Wolf News all the time,” Delores said impatiently.

  “Roger Danton,” Kate furnished.

  “Roscoe Danton,” Bob corrected her. “And there’s the President’s press secretary.”

  “Ex–press secretary,” Herb said. “He got canned last week.”

  “That’s right, isn’t it? What did he do?”

  Bob shrugged. “Or didn’t do. It sounded like incompetence.”

  “Well, I will be damned,” Herb said. “That was them, sure as Christ made little apples.”

  “I wonder who the other ones are,” Delores said as the men disappeared into an elevator.

  Bob and Herb shrugged.

  “I wonder what they’re doing here?” Delores went on.

  “They probably came to see Monica Lewinsky,” Herb said with a straight face.

  “That’s right!” Delores said. “This is that place, isn’t it?”

  “That’s how they get away with charging so much for the rooms,” Herb said.

  What happened next, three minutes later, was even more exciting.

  Four large and muscular men strode purposefully into the lobby, looked around suspiciously—including at Herb, Bob, Kate, and Delores—and then took up positions along the corridor. One of them stood in the door of an elevator so that the door would remain open.

  Then another five men entered the lobby from the street and headed for the elevators, two in front of and two behind the Vice President of the United States. They all got in the open elevator.

  “I will be damned,” Herb said. “Vice President Montvale.”

  “He probably wants to see ol’ Monica, too,” Bob said, grinning at his own joke.

  “Will you stop that?” Delores said. “That’s the Vice President.”

  And the parade of bigwigs was not over.

  Four people—two of them women—strode purposefully into the lobby and did just about what the members of the Vice President’s protection detail had done.

  After looking carefully at Delores, Kate, Bob, and Herb, the men and one of the women took up positions in the lobby, beside the protection detail men already there. The second woman stood in an elevator door and kept it from closing.


  Next, five people marched into the lobby, two men and two women surrounding a third, much smaller woman. They marched to the elevator and got on.

  “My God, that was the secretary of State!” Kate said. “What’s her name?”

  “Something Cohen,” Bob furnished, and then added, “Natalie Cohen. That’s her name, Natalie Cohen.”

  “I’d really love to know what’s going on up there,” Delores said.

  [TWO]

  Suite 1002

  The Mayflower Hotel

  1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1010 15 April 2007

  Suite 1002—which consisted of a sitting room, two bedrooms, and a small kitchen—was registered to Herr Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, the Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain, and billed on a monthly basis to Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., of Fulda, Germany, which owned the Tages Zeitung chain and a good deal more.

  When Herr Gossinger—who was also known as Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Lieutenant Colonel, Special Forces, U.S. Army, Retired—had called the general manager of the Mayflower the day before to announce that he not only would be checking in later that day but would require in-room late-afternoon cocktails with finger food for probably fifteen or twenty people, and possibly in-room dinner for that many people later, the GM had told Herr von und zu Gossinger not to worry, that he personally would take care of everything.

  When Castillo, Lester Bradley, and Major Dick Miller arrived at about 1700, they found that the general manager—who appreciated guests who not only did not question prices but also paid promptly—had obligingly made the suite adjacent to 1002 available. The suites were identical. Hotel staff had opened the double door between the two suites and converted the sitting room of 1004 into a dining room with bar.

  When the door chimes bonged, Castillo pulled the door open.

  A large, middle-aged Irishman stood there.

  “You’re welcome here, Tom, even if I suspect you’re here officially,” Castillo greeted him. “Come on in. You want some coffee?”

  “The Vice President’s sixty seconds behind me, Charley,” Supervisory Secret Service Special Agent Thomas McGuire, chief of the Vice Presidential Protection Detail, said.

  “Why do I suspect I’m not going to like what he wants to tell me?” Castillo asked.

  McGuire did not reply directly, instead saying: “When we heard you were in Washington, we went to the house in Alexandria. They told us you were here.”

  “Did you ask personally, Tom? Or in your official capacity?”

  McGuire looked uncomfortable.

  “Charley, I work for him,” he said.

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  The chime bonged again.

  Castillo gestured for McGuire to open the door, and he did so.

  The Vice President of the United States walked into the room and looked around. He saw Roscoe J. Danton, John David Parker, Lester Bradley, Colonel Jake Torine, Major Richard Miller, and CWO5 Colin Leverette, all of whom he knew, and in the sitting room and dining room maybe ten more men he didn’t know. No one was wearing a uniform, but Montvale correctly intuited they were all soldiers.

  What the hell did Castillo do, Montvale thought, bring half of Gray Fox up here?

  “Now that I think of it, Mr. Vice President,” Castillo said, “I do seem to recall telling you that if you were in the neighborhood anytime, you should feel free to drop in. So welcome, welcome!”

  “What the hell is going on here, Castillo?”

  “Actually, we’re getting ready to go to the interment of a friend. You may have heard . . .”

  “What I would like to know is how you heard. Did that goddamn McNab tell you?”

  “I have not had any contact with General McNab—to whom I presume you refer—for some time, now. You can ask him yourself; I presume he’ll be at Arlington.”

  “Then how the hell—”

  The chime bonged again.

  “I wonder who else might be calling?” Castillo said. “Mr. McGuire, if you’d be so kind?”

  McGuire opened the door. The secretary of State stood there.

  “May I come in?” Natalie Cohen asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s always a pleasure to see you,” Castillo said.

  She took a quick look around the room and smiled at the few people she knew.

  “Let me get right to the point, Charley,” she said. “You’re not thinking of going out to Arlington, are you?”

  “I’m going,” Castillo said, and gestured around the suite. “We’re all going.”

  “That wouldn’t be a wise thing to do, Charley,” she said. “Have you considered that?”

  “Are you and Vice President Montvale here to try to talk me out of going to my friend Mr. Salazar’s interment?”

  “Is there somewhere we can speak privately, Charley?” she asked.

  He indicated the door to what turned out to be, when she and Montvale and Castillo walked through it, the master bedroom.

  She closed the door, then turned to the men and said, “What is said in here goes no further. Agreed?”

  Both men nodded.

  “I understand you’re aware, Charley, of the meeting in which it became apparent that the President thinks we have been engaged in a coup d’état that would see Charles in the Oval Office?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “The fact that that’s absolutely untrue is really irrelevant; that’s what the President believes, and it’s what we have to deal with. Understood?”

  Castillo nodded again.

  “There was another meeting, yesterday, in the Situation Room that”—she glanced at Montvale—“with the Vice President’s permission, I’d like to tell you about. All right, Charles?”

  Montvale hesitated a moment and then nodded.

  The secretary picked up on the hesitation, and said, “Would you prefer to tell him about it?”

  “You tell him,” Montvale said. “I don’t think he trusts me.”

  “True,” Castillo said.

  “Well, you’d better learn to trust him, Charley,” Cohen said. “If we don’t stick together, the President is going to take us down one by one. He’s already gotten rid of John David Parker. And what is Parker doing here?”

  “As of a few minutes ago, he’s director of public relations of the LCBF Corporation,” Castillo said.

  “What the hell is that all about?” Montvale asked.

  “Keeping our names out of the newspapers and our faces off Wolf News. You were about to tell me about the meeting, Madam Secretary.”

  “Tell me if I leave anything out, would you, please, Charles?”

  She then began to deliver a report of who had said what to whom, which ultimately lasted ten minutes.

  About a minute into it, Castillo realized it was almost a verbatim report of the meeting, and moments after that, “Almost”?

  Hell, it’s not only verbatim, but with footnotes!

  She’s got a photographic memory!

  No, that’s not right. What she has is total recall. If I asked her, she could probably tell me what kind of a tie Clendennen was wearing.

  Finally, she finished and looked at Montvale.

  “Did I leave anything out?” she asked.

  “What kind of a tie was the President wearing?” Castillo asked.

  Secretary Cohen hesitated just a moment, looked confused, and then replied, “Dark blue, with what looked like crests on it. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I’m awed, ma’am, with your powers of total recall,” Castillo said.

  “Don’t be, Charley. I was born this way.” She paused. “It’s the same sort of thing you have with languages. An aberration. You speak what—fourteen?—languages. And I can recall things in great detail. It’s a gift, so it’s nothing to be proud of. But it does give us a leg up in our professions, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ve found that.”

  “Do you un
derstand now why I think it would be unwise for you to go to Arlington? He’d see you. He hates you—he thinks you’re involved in this coup d’état fantasy of his, among other things, such as you wanting my job—and seeing you there would likely set him off. The one thing none of us should do now is do anything to make him lose control.”

  “I want to be secretary of State?” Castillo said.

  Secretary of State Cohen made a face, then nodded gently.

  “Unbelievable. But what’s not unbelievable is that I’m going to Mr. Salazar’s interment. Everybody out there is going to it. I’m sorry if that causes any problems, ma’am.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Castillo, didn’t you hear what she said?” Vice President Montvale snapped.

  “I’m sure you have your reasons,” Secretary Cohen said.

  “To hell with his reasons,” Montvale exploded. “He’s not going out there! I’ll have the Secret Service confine him and the rest of them in the suite until the interment’s over.”

  “If you do that, Mr. Vice President,” Castillo said calmly, “it will be on Wolf News and on the front page of the Times-Post. You did see Roscoe Danton out there, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t you threaten me, you arrogant sonofabitch! I’m the Vice President of the United States.”

  “Get your temper under control, Charles,” Natalie Cohen said calmly. “Charley, why is this so important to you?”

  “Yesterday, Mrs. Salazar telephoned me—”

  “How the hell did she know where to find you?” Montvale demanded.

  Castillo ignored Montvale.

  “If I may continue, Madam Secretary?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “I’ll answer Mr. Montvale’s question for your background, ma’am. Special Operations, Special Forces generally, and especially Delta Force and Gray Fox—and just about everybody outside who is or has been one or the other or both—is like a family. We take care of each other; we know how to find each other when there is a problem.”

  “And Mrs. Salazar had a problem?” Secretary Cohen asked. “She didn’t want her husband interred in Arlington?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “She told me that General Naylor had telephoned her—and now I know where that order came from—and fed her a line about the great honor it was for Danny to be interred in Arlington, with the President himself attending.