“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 Chávez 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.
[ELEVEN]
The Mayflower Hotel
1127 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0925 14 February 2007
There is another, more elegant, name for it, in keeping with the elegance of the Mayflower itself, but most people think of it simply as “The Lobby Bar.”
It’s on the left of the hotel, and has windows opening on the Desales Street sidewalk. It offers morning coffee and a simple but of course elegant breakfast menu.
There were perhaps twenty people in it when Sergei Murov walked in.
“Over here, Sergei,” Frank Lammelle called.
He was standing beside one of the tables near the window. There were three men and a woman sitting at the table.
“Thank you for coming, Sergei,” Lammelle said as Murov approached the table. “I know it was more than a little inconvenient for you.”
“Anything for you, Frank,” Murov said.
“I don’t think you know this fellow, but I understand you’ve been anxious to meet him. Charley, say hello to Sergei.”
“How do you do, Colonel Castillo?” Murov said in English as he sat down.
“Frank’s been telling me a lot about you, Sergei,” Castillo said in Russian. “But not that you look like cousins.”
“My Carlitos sounds as if he’s a Saint Petersburger, wouldn’t you agree, Sergei?” Sweaty asked.
She put her hand out. Murov rose, bowed, took her hand, kissed it, and then sat down.
“Svetlana, you are even more lovely than I remembered,” Murov said.
“And of course you and Dmitri are old friends, right?” Lammelle said.
“We have known each other for a very long time,” Murov said. “But perhaps ‘acquaintances’ would be the more accurate term.”
“Charley’s right,” Berezovsky said. “You and Frank do look like cousins.”
A waiter appeared with a silver coffee service on a tray and poured a cup for Murov.
“Lovely place, the Lobby Bar, isn’t it, Sergei?” Lammelle asked.
“I come here often,” Murov said.
“So I expect you’ll miss it?”
“Excuse me?”
“As soon as he gets to his office, your ambassador will be getting a call from Secretary of State Cohen. She will suggest to him that it would be best if you voluntarily gave up your post here and returned to Moscow. Today. If that is not acceptable, you will be declared persona non grata. In that case, you would have seventy-two hours to leave the country, but you will be leaving, Sergei.”
“Is that why you asked me to come here, Frank, to tell me that?”
“No. Actually, it was to ask a favor of you. I want you to take something to Moscow for me when you go, and see, personally, that it gets into the hands of Mr. Putin.”
“What would that be?”
“It looks like a blue rubber beer keg,” Castillo said. “I happened to come across it on a little island off the coast of Venezuela.”
“Not to worry, Sergei,” Sweaty said. “It’s quite dead. It would be nice if you dropped it on Yakov Vladimirovich’s foot, but I don’t want to kill you or him. Or anyone else that way.”
Murov lost his diplomatic composure.
“It’s dead?”
“As a doornail,” Castillo said.
“And that’s why I’d like you to take it to Mr. Putin, so he can see that for himself. And the sooner the better, of course,” Lammelle said. “Today. Rather than insisting on the seventy-two hours to which you are entitled before being expelled.”
“If you look out the window, Sergei, you will see that the beer barrel is being loaded into your Mercedes SUV right now,” Castillo said.
Murov looked.
“There’s just a little more, Sergei. I’m sure you have by now seen the Wolf News report . . .”
“You can’t miss it. It’s been on since last night.”
“Then you probably noticed that nothing was said about Congo-X.”
Murov nodded.
“Not a word about General Sirinov jumping Spetsnaz into the Congo, to see if we’d missed any Congo-X when we took out the Fish Farm,” Lammelle said. “Not a word about him personally flying into El Obeid Airport in North Kurdufan, Sudan, on a Tu-934A when they did find some that we missed. Not a word about the seventeen bodies he left at the airfield when he took off for what we now call ‘Drug Cartel International Airport’ in Mexico. Not a word about him watching as Pavel Koslov, the Mexico City rezident, loaded the two beer kegs you sent to Fort Detrick into a Mexican embassy Suburban for later movement across the border. Not a word about his then flying to La Orchila Island in Venezuela with what was left of the Congo-X.”
“We have movies of most of this, Sergei,” Castillo said.
“And General Sirinov has decided it’s safer for him to be here, talking to Frank, than it would be for him in Moscow, tr
ying to explain his failure to Vladimir Vladimirovich,” Berezovsky said.
“And are you also talking to Frank, Dmitri?” Murov asked.
“I could tell you no, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“We can keep it that way, Sergei,” Lammelle said. “If Vladimir Vladimirovich agrees that getting into the question of Congo-X would not be good for either Russia or the United States.”
“‘Keep it that way’?”
“Well, your Ministry of Information could deny the whole thing. They could say it wasn’t a brilliant intelligence operation, that they had sold the Tu-934A to . . . what’s the name of that corporation, Charley?”
“LCBF. The LCBF Corporation,” Castillo furnished.
“Who then turned a quick profit by selling it to the CIA.”
“No one would believe that,” Murov said.
“There are always some people who will believe anything,” Sweaty said. “Including that Vladimir Vladimirovich is a fool.”
“I don’t quite understand, my dear Svetlana.”
“Sorry, Frank,” Svetlana said. “I know how much you and Sergei love to show each other how brilliant and civilized you are, but I’ve had enough of it.”
“Which means?” Murov asked.
“You tell Vladimir Vladimirovich that I said that if so much as a thimbleful of Congo-X turns up anywhere, or if I even suspect he’s trying to hurt any member of my family—and that includes my Carlitos, of course—I will make sure that every member of the SVR learns in detail how reckless and incompetent he is.
“And if he thinks this is an idle bluff, tell him to watch what happens if Koussevitzky’s wife Olga—he’s a Spetsnaz major; I shot him in the leg and left him on that island—and the entire Koussevitzky family are not in Budapest within seventy-two hours of your arrival in Moscow. I’ll have two out of three SVR officers giggling behind Vladimir Vladimirovich’s back, whispering that what he did when he was head of the KGB in Saint Petersburg was close his door and write poetry.”
She wet her index finger with her tongue and ran it over her eyebrow.
“Dmitri,” Lammelle said. “You’re right. Her bite is worse than her bark.”
The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Page 53
