By Order of the President

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Well, for the moment we’re finished here,” the president said. “But I’d like everybody to keep themselves available. ”

  “Why don’t we all go to my office,” Natalie Cohen said, “and have a cup of coffee and a Danish?”

  [FIVE]

  Office of the National Security Advisor The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 1150 10 June 2005

  “I’m going to the situation room,” Secretary of Defense Fred Beiderman announced. “I feel like a schoolboy in here, waiting to be called back to the principal’s office. Maybe they’ve managed to reestablish contact with McNab. Anyone want to go with me?”

  “I will,” Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall said.

  “I thought I would take Betty and Major Miller to the executive mess for lunch,” National Security Advisor Dr. Natalie Cohen said.

  “Good idea,” Hall said. “We’ll meet you there.”

  “Secretary Hall,” Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said. “May I have a minute, sir?”

  “Shoot,” Hall said.

  “Alone, sir. If you would, please, sir.”

  “You want to wait, Fred, or should I catch up with you?” Hall asked.

  “Catch up with me,” Beiderman said. “I’ll walk slow.”

  He went through the door.

  “I’ll take Betty and leave you two alone,” Dr. Cohen said.

  “You can hear this, ma’am,” Miller said. “I just didn’t want Secretary Beiderman to hear it. I just realized he will anyway, so it doesn’t make any sense . . .”

  “Neither are you making any sense, Major,” Hall said.

  “It’s about getting through to General McNab, sir. I don’t think all the communication is down.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hall said.

  “Sir, I’ve been on missions like this one. When it gets close to doing something . . . there’s often a link that goes down.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hall said.

  “I think I do,” Natalie Cohen said. “There is a point in time after which, thank you just the same, General McNab doesn’t want anyone looking over his shoulder offering friendly advice? He wants to get on with the job?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, you know why he didn’t want Fred to hear this,” Cohen said and turned back Miller. “You know how to get through to him?”

  “Usually, he leaves the imagery link open,” Miller said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Hall said.

  “It means he’s still able to receive an image. Some people know that,” Miller said. “If it’s important, they’ll send him one.”

  “An image? A picture?” Hall asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of what?” Hall asked.

  “Of a message. Right, Major?” Dr. Cohen asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’re saying you can get through to him with an image of a message?” Hall asked. When Miller nodded, Hall added, “Well, we’re going to have to tell Beiderman that, of course.”

  “Maybe not,” Natalie Cohen said. “Would he take a message from you, Major?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I think he would.”

  “How would that work?”

  “I’d write the message here, fax it out to the Nebraska Avenue place, and tell the operator to send it,” Miller said.

  “Nebraska Avenue?”

  “Castillo set up a Gray Fox radio out there,” Hall said.

  Dr. Cohen pulled open a drawer of her desk, took out a sheet of paper, and handed it and a ballpoint pen to Miller.

  “Go,” she said.

  “Ma’am, have you got a felt-tip, a Magic Marker? I need something big.”

  “Coming up,” she said and went back to her desk drawer.

  “Thank you,” Miller said. “Mr. Secretary, I’m going to need the numbers, fax and phone, out there.”

  Hall went into the outer office, where Isaacson and McGuire were waiting.

  “I need the numbers, phone and fax, for Nebraska Avenue, ” he said.

  By the time Isaacson had retrieved the numbers from his handheld computer, written them down, given them to Hall, and Hall went back into Cohen’s office, Miller had already fed the sheet of paper into the fax machine on the credenza behind Cohen’s desk.

  He gave them to Miller, who immediately punched them into the fax machine. The machine began to feed itself the paper.

  “Did you see that?” Hall asked Cohen.

  She shook her head. “No need to,” she said.

  Miller punched the numbers of the Nebraska Avenue of fice into his cellular.

  “This is Major Miller. I just sent you a fax. Image it to General McNab—now. I’ll hold for confirmation of receipt. ”

  The fax machine finished expelling the sheet of paper. Natalie Cohen took it, read it, and handed it Hall.

  “Let Betty read that—she’s entitled—and then burn it,” Natalie Cohen said.

  “Burn it?” Hall asked as he handed the sheet of paper to Betty Schneider.

  “There’s no reason Fred has to know about this,” Natalie Cohen said.

  Betty finished reading the message and handed it back to Hall, who read it again.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  DR. NATALIE COHEN

  NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR

  Go all green now.

  The president is trying to order Gen McNab to divert to Costa Rica

  H. R Miller, Jr.

  Maj, SF

  “You don’t think Beiderman is entitled to know about this?” Hall asked.

  “Entitled, maybe,” Natalie Cohen said. “Like the mayor of Philadelphia was entitled to know the CIA hasn’t really found the airplane. Did you tell him, Matt?”

  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, a confession that he hadn’t.

  “Both of these young people had to make a tough choice between two correct loyalties,” Dr. Cohen said. “Betty, to come here with you without telling her superiors in the cops what she knew about the not-found airplane, which some people would consider disloyal; and Miller had to tell you about General McNab’s ‘selective’ communications setup. Which made him feel disloyal to McNab. Both made the right choice. There is not panic in the streets in Philadelphia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Beiderman shortly can communicate with General McNab. So leave it there, Matt, please.”

  She put out her hand.

  “Anybody got a match?”

  Secretary Hall laid a somewhat battered Zippo in Dr. Cohen’s palm.

  [SIX]

  Aboard USAF C-17 036788 17.210 degrees North Latitude 82.680 degrees West Longitude Above the Atlantic Ocean 1158 10 June 2005

  “How very interesting,” Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab said and handed the message back to the Sergeant Kensington, who was manning the control panel. “I think you better put this in there.”

  He pointed to the burn bag tied to Kensington’s shelf, which was actually a small canvas bag holding three thermite grenades—two for the radio, one for messages—in case it became necessary to destroy either or both to keep them from falling into the wrong hands.

  Kensington did so, then looked at McNab, who made a “push ’em up” gesture with this fingers. Kensington turned to the control panel and started flipping switches.

  “Coming up . . . all green, sir,” Kensington said.

  “I wonder where Miller got that stationery?” McNab asked.

  “Knowing the major, sir, no telling,” Sergeant Kensington said.

  “We did not get any images, right?”

  “No, sir, we didn’t. The image link must have been down, too.”

  “See if you can get General Naylor on here for me, will you, please?” McNab asked.

  “McNab, sir. We had a little communications problem so I thought I had better check in with you, sir.”

  “Where are you, General?”

  “We just came out of the Gulf into the Atlantic,
sir. The pilot estimates we have about four hours to go. That would put us . . .”

  “There’s been a change of orders, General.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “The president directs that you divert to Costa Rica.”

  “Costa Rica?”

  “Either to Tomas Guardia International, on the west coast, or Juan Santamaria, which serves San José—your choice—there to prepare to neutralize the airplane we’re looking for.”

  “I thought it was in Suriname, sir.”

  “That was apparently faulty intel, General.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you see where this is going to pose any problems, General?”

  “No, sir. I can probably be on the ground at either field in, say, a little over an hour.”

  “Let me know when you get close to the coast,” Naylor ordered. “We’re trying to get you permission to enter their airspace. If that doesn’t come through, you’ll have to practice some sort of deception.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand. I’ll think of something.”

  “Your further orders, again from the president, General, are to neutralize this airplane as quietly as possible.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand. Neutralize as quietly as possible.”

  “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Sir, are you in a position to tell me where the airplane we’re looking for in Costa Rica is? Specifically, I mean?”

  “Not at this time. When I have that information, you’ll get it. The CIA is working on it and they are in the process of moving satellites.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, if the CIA’s working on it, then we’ll certainly know for sure where the airplane is, won’t we, sir?”

  “Naylor out.”

  [SEVEN]

  Office of the Commanding General United States Central Command MacDill Air Force Base Tampa, Florida 1215 10 June 2005

  General Albert McFadden, USAF, walked without knocking into the office of General Allan Naylor, USA, and stood before his desk for twenty seconds before Naylor sensed—or chose to acknowledge—his presence.

  “ ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men’—you ever hear that, Allan?” McFadden asked.

  “What went wrong now?” Naylor asked.

  “I was just talking with Larry Fremont,” McFadden said. “He’s been on the phone to the CIA guy in San José, Costa Rica ..."

  “And?”

  “The CIA guy says the way the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry is going to handle our ambassador’s request for permission to enter their airspace is to stall for at least a couple of days.”

  “We expected something like that,” Naylor said. “So we land without, do what has to be done, and let the State Department pick up the pieces.”

  “So I would interpret that to mean you believe the CIA?”

  “That’s a loaded question, Al.”

  “You want to shoot crap, Allan? How about taking another chance on the CIA?”

  “What are you talking about? You sound like you know something.”

  McFadden laid a small map on Naylor’s desk.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “That’s the Golfo de Nicoya.”

  “Okay. There’s nothing on the map but dirt roads and water. ”

  “Larry’s guy says there is a sandy beach about forty miles from Tomas Guardia International, and maybe fifty from Juan Santamaria, that’ll take the C-17, and there’s nothing around it for miles except fishing villages.”

  “That’s too good to be true,” Naylor said. “How does Larry’s guy know?”

  “Larry’s guy says he heard that they were moving drugs through the area, went there ‘while sportfishing,’ checked it out, measured it, did compression tests, found some aircraft tire tracks—he doesn’t know what kind of aircraft but not large ones—and thinks it’ll take a C-17, based on what he read in an Air Force Manual about C-17 tire loadings.”

  “How much credence does he place in his guy?”

  “That’s a little problem. This guy is like the one in Suriname. ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Think of him as a second lieutenant with the varnish still on his gold bars. What the agency does with their graduates is send them someplace where nothing is happening, where they get to practice being a spy and working under diplomatic cover.”

  “Oh, Christ!”

  “Larry said to tell you this guy sounds like an eager beaver.”

  “As in, ‘There’s nothing faster than a second lieutenant rushing to officer’s call’?”

  “I think Larry was being complimentary,” McFadden said. “I think he liked what he heard on the phone.”

  “Where is Larry?”

  “He’s trying to see if Langley has anything on this beach. He said I should tell you I have everything he knows, and he thought his time would be better spent seeing what else he could come up with.”

  “The admiral called the DIA and they had nothing on suitable landing areas in Costa Rica,” Naylor said.

  “Do we tell McNab or not?”

  Naylor put his hands together so quickly that there was a loud pop.

  “General McNab is not at the moment one of my favorite people,” Naylor said. “And when I say, ‘Yeah, we have to tell him,’ I have that in mind. The decision to use, or not use, this beach has to be his. If it won’t take the C-17, there will be a lot of dead people, and the 727 doesn’t get neutralized.”

  Naylor stood up and walked across his office toward the Phone Booth.

  [EIGHT]

  Tomas Guardia International Airport Liberia, Costa Rica 1310 10 June 2005

  “I’ll be a sonofabitch, there it is!” Castillo said as the Learjet taxied down a taxiway at another small but grandly named airfield.

  There was a Boeing 727 aircraft, connected to both a tug and a generator, sitting on the tarmac in front of a concrete-block building with a sign on it reading, in Spanish: CENTRAL AMERICAN AERIAL FREIGHT FORWARDING.

  There were red, white, and blue stripes on the vertical stabilizer and along the fuselage that looked to be freshly painted.

  “There is a 727 with the right paint scheme and registration numbers. We won’t know if it’s ours until we have a look inside,” Colonel Torine said.

  “You’re right,” Castillo agreed. “But I think we should tell MacDill this one’s here.”

  “You’re calling the shots,” Colonel Torine said.

  “Tell the tower you want to box the compass, Fernando,” Castillo ordered.

  “I’d rather stay.”

  “We’ve been all over that,” Castillo said.

  There had been no in-flight advisories on their way from Cozumel to Juan Santamaria International Airport in San José advising them where the 727 could be found in Costa Rica, and when Castillo had called the two numbers Pevsner had given him both of the people answering said that he must have the wrong number, they knew of no Karl Gossinger.

  “What are you going to do, Charley?” Colonel Torine had asked.

  “If it’s not here, it has to be at the other airport, Tomas Guardia.”

  “Or it’s not here at all. You’re still betting on Pevsner? He obviously doesn’t know where it is or we’d have gotten the in-flight advisory or one of those numbers you called would have paid off.”

  “Or something happened. Maybe his people here couldn’t find it here and he couldn’t get anybody to the other airport to see if it was there. Or he did and there’s a communications problem. But he was pretty sure the 727 is in Costa Rica and I think we have to go on that. And if it’s not here, then it has to be at Tomas Guardia.”

  “How are you going to handle it?” Colonel Torine asked.

  “We go to Tomas Guardia. Fernando gets permission to box his compass, we go to the threshold of a runway, and Sherman and I get out with the radio, go hide in the grass, and hope nobody sees us. You take the Lear to the nearest airport in Nicaragua, where you can call MacDill and tell them where we are in case Sherman can’t get the
radio up. And then we see what happens. We may get lucky—and, God knows, I’m not counting on that—and actually find the sonofabitch. If it’s there and it looks as if it’s going to take off, Sherman and I can probably disable it.”

  “Why don’t we just park the Lear and all of us get out?” Fernando said. “That would give us four people on the ground.”

  “Because somehow we have to get word to MacDill, and the only way to do that—we can’t count on Sherman’s radio —is for you to go to Nicaragua.”

  “Now that they’re this close, they probably have some pretty good perimeter defense around the airplane,” Fernando argued. “And Special Forces hotshots or not, you and Sherman adds up to two people.”

  “What I think we should do is split the difference,” Colonel Torine said. “I get out of the airplane with you.” He looked at Fernando and smiled. “That would make it two Green Beanie hotshots and one Air Commando hotshot. The bad guys won’t have a chance.”

  “I don’t like this, Gringo.”

  “Colonel, Sergeant Sherman and I can handle this,” Castillo said. “It doesn’t take much skill to shoot holes in airplane tires, but I suspect it’s really going to piss off the local authorities. Why don’t you go with Fernando? You’ll be better at getting through to MacDill than he will.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Torine replied. “For one thing, he speaks much better Spanish than I do; he’s going to have a lot of talking to Nicaraguan authorities to do. And, for another, this is more fun than I’ve had in years. I’ve always wanted to shoot holes in an airplane tire.”

  Fernando looked between them, shrugged, and then spoke to his microphone.

  “Tomas Guardia ground control. Lear Five-Oh-Seven-Five. I’ve got a compass I don’t trust. Request permission to go to the threshold of two-eight and box my compass.”

  The problem was how to get from the Lear where it sat on the threshold of the runway to a point two hundred yards north of the threshold, where the built-up area leading to the threshold and the runway suddenly dropped off precipitously.

  There was waist-high grass on either side of the threshold. The area leading up to the threshold was paved with macadam for about a hundred yards. It would be easier, and faster, to run down the macadam and enter the grass where it ended. On the other hand, they would almost certainly be seen if they ran down the macadam.