By Order of the President

by W. E. B Griffin

  The new personnel policy was implemented. Post stockade populations dropped precipitously all over the Army, including Fort Bragg, at just about the time the new, supersecret Delta Force was formed.

  It was decided that Delta Force should have a very secure base, isolated from the rest of sprawling Fort Bragg, protected by a double line of chain-link fences topped with razor wire, with floodlights, guard towers, and the like, and that inside the fence there should be barracks, a mess hall, supply buildings, and so on.

  Someone then pointed out that a system designed to keep people in, like the Fort Bragg stockade, would probably, with minor modifications, be entirely suitable to keep people out.

  Delta Force moved into the old stockade.

  Most of the Delta Force people, who were of course the cream of Special Forces, thought moving into the stockade not only was hilarious but also had the additional benefit of keeping Fort Bragg’s complement of candy-ass officers from snooping around to see where they could apply chickenshit.

  No one was allowed in the Delta Force compound without specific authorization and only a few senior officers had the authority to issue that authorization, and, as a rule of thumb, they checked with Delta Force officers before granting it.

  From his seat in the motor pool van, Major C. G. Castillo, who had done his time in the Fort Bragg stockade, was not at all surprised to see a tall, muscular lieutenant colonel wearing a green beret and a shoulder holster standing inside the outer fence of the Delta Force compound, or that the gate in the twelve-foot, razor wire-topped fence was closed.

  Floodlights pushed back the deep darkness of the North Carolina night to provide enough illumination to make the signs hanging from the chain-link fence every twenty feet clearly legible.

  They read:

  DO NOT APPROACH FENCE

  RESTRICTED AREA

  ABSOLUTELY NO ADMISSION

  GUARDS WILL FIRE WITHOUT WARNING

  Castillo got out of the back of the van, marched up to the outer fence, and saluted crisply. The tall officer returned the salute casually.

  “Colonel Fortinot?” Castillo asked.

  The tall officer nodded, just perceptibly.

  “Sir, my name is Castillo . . .”

  “Stop right there, Major,” Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot said. “This is a restricted area. You need written authorization to enter this area. Do you have such authority?”

  “No, sir. I do not.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot pointed at Captain Brewster.

  “Are you the officer who called the duty officer here, asking that I come here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re General Gonzalez’s aide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you should know better than bringing any unauthorized personnel out here. I think you can count on General Gonzalez getting a memo for record reporting this incident. Good night, gentlemen.”

  He turned, marched toward the inner gate, and made an “open it up” gesture.

  “Colonel,” Castillo called out. “Before you go through that gate, I respectfully suggest you hear me out.”

  Colonel Fortinot continued walking.

  “Sir,” Castillo called, “I’m privy to the Gray Fox op in progress.”

  Colonel Fortinot stopped, turned, and walked back to the fence. He looked intently at Castillo for a moment. “Major, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Gray Fox? Never heard of it.”

  Then he turned and made another “open it up” gesture toward the compound.

  The gate began to swing inward.

  A barrel-chested, very short, totally bald civilian—in a red polo shirt and khaki trousers and carrying a CAR-4 in his hand—came out.

  “Goddamn, I thought that was you!” CWO-5 Victor D’Alessandro, USA, Retired, called. “How the hell are you, Charley?”

  “Hello, Vic,” Castillo called.

  Saved by the goddamned bell!

  D’Alessandro marched through the inner gate, made an “open it up” gesture over his head, and marched toward the outer gate, which swung inward as he approached.

  He walked up to Charley, looked at him carefully for a moment, said, “You looked better with the beard. What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Then he wrapped his arms around Castillo, which placed his face against Castillo’s chest, and lifted him off the ground.

  “Presumably, Mr. D’Alessandro, you know this officer?” Colonel Fortinot said.

  “Goddamn right, Colonel,” D’Alessandro said, dropping Castillo to the ground. “Charley and I go way back. Word I had was that he was in Washington trying to learn how to act like a lieutenant colonel.”

  “Something like that, Vic,” Castillo said, chuckling.

  “The major does not have authorization to be here,” Fortinot said.

  “He does now,” D’Alessandro said and turned to Charley. “They made me retire when I came back from Afghanistan the last time, Charley. So I hired on as a fucking double-dipper. I’m director of security for the stockade. GS-fucking fifteen. I’m an assimilated full fucking bird colonel. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”

  Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot nodded.

  “You came at a bad time, Charley—knowing you, no fucking surprise—we got a Gray Fox going,” D’Alessandro said.

  “That’s why I’m here, Vic,” Castillo said. “I came up with the intel that set that off.”

  “Again, knowing you, no fucking surprise. So what do you need?”

  “Have you got a link to General McNab?”

  “Data, imagery, voice. You wouldn’t believe the gear your pal Casey has come up with.”

  “I’d like to talk to him,” Castillo said.

  “No problem. He’s getting ready to go wheels-up in Morocco with the backup team. I think there’s still an open link. Come on. We’ll see.” Then he had a second thought and pointed at Captain Brewster. “Who you be, Captain?”

  “My name is Brewster . . .”

  “Gonzalez’s aide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re on the Snoopy list,” D’Alessandro said. Then he said, “D’Alessandro coming in with two. On my authority.”

  Castillo noticed for the first time that D’Alessandro had what looked like a flesh-colored hearing aid in his right ear and that a barely visible cord ran from it into the collar of his polo shirt. There was obviously a microphone under the shirt.

  “Sir,” Castillo said to Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot, “may I suggest you come with us?”

  Lieutenant Colonel Fortinot nodded just perceptibly and then followed D’Alessandro, Castillo, and Brewster into the compound. First the outer gate, and then the inner gate, swung closed as they marched toward the single-story brick building that had once been the headquarters of the U.S. Army Stockade, Fort Bragg.

  D’Alessandro led them down a corridor to a door guarded by a sergeant who had a CAR-4 cradled in his arm like a hunter’s shotgun.

  “They’re with me,” D’Alessandro said, and then added, to the microphone under his shirt, “Open the goddamned door!”

  There was a sound of a deadbolt being released and then the door opened inward.

  The room was square, about twenty-five feet to a side. In the center was a very large oblong table, with room for perhaps twenty people. There were six people sitting at it. There were paper maps on one wall and video monitors showing maps of various parts of the world—including the area around Abéché, Chad—on another. There was a row of twenty-four-inch video monitors showing areas in and around the compound. Charley could see the van in which they’d come.

  There was a captain sitting at the far end of the table. D’Alessandro walked there and sat down next to him and gestured for the others to take chairs.

  “This is Major Castillo,” D’Alessandro said. “He’s in on Snoopy. The captain is General Gonzalez’s aide; he’s on the Snoopy list. And you all know Colonel Fortinot. Major Castillo needs to talk to General McNab. We up?” />
  The captain nodded and said, “All green.”

  “Speakerphone all right with you, Charley?” D’Alessandro asked.

  “How secure is this connection?” Charley asked. “This room?”

  “Don’t get no more secure.”

  “Speakerphone’s fine,” Charley said.

  “Speakerphone green,” the captain said.

  “Old Fart for Snoopy-Six,” D’Alessandro said.

  Three seconds later, the surprisingly clear voice of Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab came over loudspeakers Castillo could not see. “Now what, Vic?”

  “Fellow here wants to talk to you,” D’Alessandro said and gestured to Castillo.

  “It’s Charley, General,” Castillo said.

  Three seconds later, McNab asked, “As in Castillo, that Charley?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve always had a talent for showing up at the worst possible time. What’s on your mind?”

  “I know what you were looking for, sir, and that it’s no longer there.”

  “Who the hell told you that?”

  “It was my intel that set the wheels turning.”

  “Okay. So what?”

  “My boss sent me here, sir, to both get your report . . .”

  “I already gave my so-far report to your Uncle Allan. You’re talking about Secretary Hall?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Captain Brewster said. “It was Dr. Cohen, the national security advisor, who telephoned General Gonzalez and said you were coming here at the personal order of the president.”

  The delay was just perceptibly a little longer before Mc-Nab ’s reply came.

  “That sounded like Brewster. Is your boss there, too?”

  “No, sir. He’s in his quarters.”

  “That figures. He’s got you babysitting Castillo?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, Charley, what do you want?”

  “I think we may soon know where the airplane is, sir, and I’d like to discuss with you plans to deal with it.”

  “You’re in on my schedule? Won’t that wait until I’m back?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course. But there’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I need three radios like these and people to operate them.”

  “Jesus Christ, Charley, you of all people should know how scarce they are!”

  “One for my boss, one for Dick Miller, who’s in Philadelphia, and one for me.”

  “What’s Miller—I thought he was in Angola or some other hellhole—doing in Philadelphia?”

  “Sir, we think the intention is to crash that airplane into the Liberty Bell. Miller’s been working with the cops to come up with a connection. A little while ago, he told me he had found connections. He couldn’t tell me what over cellular phone. We need secure commo.”

  The delay before McNab replied now was conspicuous.

  “Where the hell am I? In the twilight zone? The Liberty Bell?”

  “Yes, sir. What I would like to do is take a radio to Miller—and to my boss—so they have them up by the time you get back here.”

  “You’ve got a plane to do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Charley said. “Or I’m pretty sure I will have.”

  “Just ‘pretty sure’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You want me to call Naylor and make sure you have an airplane?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, sir.”

  “Okay, Charley. I know how close you and the Old Fart are, so this probably isn’t necessary, but I left a lieutenant colonel named Fortinot minding the store; you better find him and bring him up to speed on this.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in touch. I have to get wheels-up now. Snoopy-Six out.”

  The captain said, “Secure voice gone to standby.”

  D’Alessandro asked, incredulously, “These rag-head bastards are going to try to crash this airplane into the Liberty Bell? What the fuck is that all about?”

  “I don’t know, Vic,” Castillo admitted.

  His cell phone tinkled and he pulled it from his pocket.

  “Yeah?”

  “My toy, against my better judgment, will be wheels-up in about ninety seconds,” Fernando Lopez announced.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maria’s really pissed,” Fernando said. “And I mean really pissed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Castillo said.

  The line went dead.

  “I guess you missed the sign on your way in, Charley,” D’Alessandro said.

  “What?”

  “The sign that says, ‘THE USE, OR POSSESSION, OF PERSONAL CELLULAR TELEPHONES ANYWHERE IN THE COMPOUND IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN.’ ”

  “I can’t do without it,” Charley said. “That was word that my airplane is on the way. I’ve got to make—and expect— other calls.”

  “Sometimes, we just smash the phones,” D’Alessandro said. “Other times, we castrate the offender.”

  “I have to have it, Vic,” Castillo said.

  D’Alessandro locked eyes with him for a moment, then finally shrugged.

  “There’s always an exception to every rule,” he said, finally. “General Bruce J. McNab himself once told me that personally.”

  “It’s about twelve hundred miles from San Antonio here,” Castillo said. “That’s about two hours and fifteen minutes flight time. That means we have that much time to find the radios, find three communicators, get them into civilian clothes, have them check out the radios, check me out on them, and get from here to Pope.”

  D’Alessandro looked at the captain.

  “Can do?”

  “I’m not only a green beanie, Vic, I’m a Delta Force guy in good standing. I can do fucking anything.” He turned to Castillo. “It’ll be cutting it close, sir, but it can be done.”

  [FOUR]

  Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina 0025 10 June 2005

  Sergeant Dwayne G. Lefler, USAF, who had sincerely believed the civilian who’d gotten off the Citation with no ID had been sent by Air Force counterintelligence to catch him with his security pants down, was still on duty at Pope Base Operations when Castillo led the three Delta Force communicators and Captain Brewster into the building.

  Sergeant Lefler eyed with some suspicion Major C. G. Castillo, now attired in the Class A uniform prescribed for field-grade officers.

  “Sorry about the confusion before, Sergeant,” Castillo said, going to him and offering his Army ID card. “It couldn’t be helped.”

  After examining the ID card, Sergeant Lefler said, “Yes, sir,” handed it back, and then reached for his telephone and punched in a number.

  “Major, I’m sorry to get you up again but I think you better come back down here.”

  Major Thomas F. Treward, USAF, appeared a minute or so later, took a good look at Castillo, and said, “Well, Major, back again?”

  “This time we’re looking for a civilian Lear that’s supposed to be here right about now.”

  “The tower just cleared him to land,” Treward said, gesturing toward the glass doors.

  Castillo went outside and looked up at the sky.

  There were a half-dozen flashing Grimes lights in the sky. After a moment, Castillo decided which of them were making an approach to the runway and followed them with his eyes. The first two aircraft in the pattern were USAF C-130s. The third was a glistening white Bombardier/Learjet 45XR.

  Two minutes later, it rolled up to the tarmac before base operations and stopped. Castillo saw the copilot take off his headset and then get out of his seat. Castillo walked toward the plane. Before he got there, the door opened and the copilot got out, carrying a small bag.

  He was a silver-haired man in his fifties whose zippered flight jacket was adored with the four-stripe shoulder boards of a captain. Castillo guessed that he was ex-military, maybe retired, who was on some sort of a list for people who needed a
pilot for a light jet on short notice.

  “You’re Major Castillo?” the copilot asked, and, when Castillo nodded, went on: “Two questions for you. He wants to know how long the airplane will be on the ground? And what about transportation to Fayetteville?”

  “I’ve arranged for a ride for you to Fayetteville, and made reservations for you in the Airport Motel, and on the Delta feeder flight to Atlanta leaving at eight forty-five in the morning. You’ll connect in Atlanta to San Antonio. I’d like to get off the ground as soon as possible. What’s the fuel aboard?”

  “Enough for another nine hundred miles, maybe a thousand. ”

  “There’s an Army captain inside base operations. Name of Brewster. He’ll take care of you from here on. If you’ll ask him to send the others out, I’ll talk to the pilot.”

  “Okay, thanks,” the copilot said and walked toward the base operations building.

  Castillo went in the airplane and walked to the cockpit.

  “Wow, don’t you look spiffy in your soldier suit!” Fernando Lopez said from the pilot’s seat.

  “Jesus, you didn’t have to come, Fernando.”

  “Yeah, I did, Gringo. I seem to recall you saying it was important.”

  “I made reservations for two at the motel, plus two Delta tickets back to San Antonio.”

  Lopez shrugged. “So now it’s reservations for one. Where do we go from here, Gringo? And when?”

  Castillo stared at his cousin, considered the options, then nodded slightly. “Washington, Philadelphia, and then back here. Now.”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Three guys—figure six hundred pounds—and another four hundred in gear.”

  “There’s enough fuel remaining to make Washington— Ronald Reagan—I know those approaches and it’s a good place to refuel. Okay?”

  “Sounds fine.”

  “I don’t suppose you remembered to check the weather and file a flight plan?”

  “Weather’s fine, and, yeah, they’re holding our clearance to Washington with a fuel stop at Raleigh-Durham. I didn’t know what your fuel remaining would be.”

  “We can change Raleigh-Durham once we’re up,” Fernando said.