The shooters pa-4

by W. E. B Griffin

  "I'm the copilot, sir."

  "Air Force?"

  "Secret Service."

  Crenshaw studied him a moment, then nodded. Then he raised his voice to those in the cabin:

  "Although I understand you're not here, gentlemen, welcome to Cairns Army Airfield and the Army Aviation Center. If you'd care to use our facilities while you're here, we'll throw in coffee and doughnuts."

  Then he turned to Castillo again.

  "Where'd you learn how to fly? If you don't mind my asking?"

  "In Texas, sir."

  Crenshaw looked at him again, then nodded, and went down the stairs.

  Did he remember my face from somewhere?

  He didn't ask my name.

  My replies to his questions weren't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but I really did learn to fly in Texas, rather than here, which is what I think he was asking. And I have bona fide credentials of a Secret Service supervisory agent in my pocket.

  So why am I uncomfortable?

  Because while I'm wildly out of step with others in the Long Gray Line, I'm still in it. And a cadet does not lie, or cheat, or tolerate those who do.

  How the hell did a nice young West Pointer like me wind up doing what I'm doing?

  Thirty-five minutes later, Cairns departure control cleared Gulfstream Three Seven Nine for immediate takeoff.

  III

  [ONE]

  Signature Flight Support, Inc.

  Baltimore-Washington International Airport Baltimore, Maryland 2205 1 September 2005 A black Chevrolet sedan with a United States Customs and Border Protection Service decal on the door and four identical dark blue GMC Yukon XL Denalis were waiting for the Gulfstream III when it taxied up to the Signature tarmac.

  Two uniformed customs officers got out of the Chevrolet sedan and walked across the tarmac toward the aircraft. Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., in civilian clothing, slid gingerly out of the front seat of the first Yukon in the line, turned and retrieved a crutch, stuck it under his arm, and moved with surprising agility after them.

  As soon as the stair door opened into place, one of the customs officers, a gray-haired man in his fifties, bounded quickly up it, then stopped, exclaimed, "Jesus Christ!" and then backed up so quickly that he knocked the second customs officer, by then right behind him, off the stairs and then fell backward onto him.

  Max appeared in the door, growling deeply and showing an impressive array of teeth. Madchen moved beside him and added her voice and teeth to the display.

  Castillo appeared in the door.

  "Gentlemen," he said, solemnly, "you have just personally witnessed the Office of Organizational Analysis Aircraft Anti-Intrusion Team in action."

  The gray-haired customs officer gained his feet, glared for a moment at the stair door, and then, shaking his head, smiled.

  "Very impressive, Colonel," he said, finally.

  "They're okay, Max," Castillo said, in Hungarian. "You may now go piss."

  Max looked at him, stopped growling, went down the stairs, and headed for the nose gear. Madchen went modestly to the other side of the fuselage.

  "You all right?" Castillo said.

  "What the hell kind of dogs are they?" the gray-haired customs officer asked.

  "Bouvier des Flandres," Castillo said.

  The customs officer shook his head. "What do they weigh?" he asked.

  "Max has been known to hit one-thirty-five, Madchen maybe one-ten."

  "You understand, Colonel, sir," Miller said, "that you may now expect these gentlemen to really search your person and luggage?"

  "What I'm hoping you'll say, Colonel," the customs officer said, "is that you're going to show me evidence that you passed through customs someplace else."

  "No," Castillo said. "We were going to do that at Hurlburt Field, but the hurricane got Hurlburt. We refueled at Fort Rucker, but we have to do the customs and immigration here."

  "Everybody aboard American?"

  "No," Castillo replied, and waved them onto the Gulfstream. "No more surprises, I promise."

  "Welcome to the United States," the large customs officer said when he had stepped into the cabin. "Or welcome home, whichever the case may be. There would be a band, but I have been led to believe that everybody would prefer to enter the United States as quietly as possible. What we're going to do is collect the American passports and run them through the computers in the main terminal. Then-presuming the computer doesn't tell us there are outstanding warrants on anybody-they will be returned to you and you can be on your way."

  He looked around the cabin and continued: "I just learned that some of you are not American citizens, which means that we'll have to check your visas. I think we can run them through the computers without any trouble, but I think we'd better have a look at them before we try to do that. Understood?"

  When there were nods, he pulled a heavy plastic bag from his pocket and finished his speech: "And if any of you are carrying forbidden substances, not only mood-altering chemicals of one kind or another but raw fruits and vegetables, any meat product not in an unopened can-that sort of thing-now is the time to deposit them in this bag."

  "As my patriotic duty," Castillo said, "I have to mention that the cigarettes that Irishman has been smoking don't smell like Marlboros."

  He pointed. The customs officer looked.

  "And I've seen his picture hanging in the post office, too," the customs officer said, and walked to the man with his hand extended. "How are you, Jack? And what the hell are you doing with this crew?"

  "Hoping nobody sees me," Inspector Doherty said. "And what are you doing in a uniform?"

  "The director of National Intelligence suggested it would be appropriate."

  "Say hello to Edgar Delchamps," Doherty said. "I'll vouch for him. Use your judgment about the others. Ed, this is Chief Inspector Bob Mitchell."

  The men shook hands.

  "You're with the bureau?" Mitchell asked.

  "Ed's the exception to the rule about people who get paid from Langley," Doherty said. "When he shakes your hand, Bob, you get all five fingers back."

  "Actually, I'm with the Fish and Wildlife Service," Delchamps said.

  Mitchell chuckled.

  The other customs officer handed Mitchell several passports.

  "Take a look at these, Inspector," he said. "When was the last time you saw a handwritten, non-expiring, multivisit visa signed by an ambassador?"

  "It's been a while," Mitchell said. He looked at the passports and added, "An Argentine, a German, and two Hungarians. All issued the same day in Buenos Aires. Interesting. I'd love to know what's going on here."

  "But you were told not to ask, right?" Doherty said. "Sorry, Bob."

  "We also serve who look but do not see or ask questions," Mitchell said. "Well, I think I had better run these through the computer myself. I'm sure all kinds of warning bells and whistles are going to go off."

  "Thank you, Mr. Mitchell," Castillo said.

  "I always try to be nice to people I feel sorry for, Colonel," Mitchell said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I bear a message from our boss, Colonel. The ambassador said, quote, Ask Colonel Castillo to please call me the minute he gets off the airplane, unquote."

  "Oh. I see what you mean."

  "That's the first time I can remember the ambassador saying 'please.'"

  "That's probably because he's not my boss," Castillo replied. "He just thinks he is."

  "That's probably even worse, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it is," Castillo agreed.

  Mitchell smiled and nodded.

  "Okay, this'll take ten or fifteen minutes. You can start unloading whatever you have to unload."

  "Thank you," Castillo said.

  "Consider it your hearty meal for the condemned man," Mitchell said, shook his hand, and went to the stair door.

  Castillo turned to Miller.

  "So where do I find a secure phone?"

  "There's one in
your Yukon."

  "I said a secure phone."

  "And I said, Colonel, sir, 'In your Yukon,'" Miller said, and made a grand gesture toward the stair door.

  Miller motioned for Castillo to precede him into the backseat of one of the dark blue Yukons. Then, not without difficulty, he stowed his crutch, got in beside him, and closed the door.

  There was a telephone handset mounted on the rear of the driver's seat in the Yukon. Except for an extraordinarily thick cord, it looked like a perfectly normal handset.

  "That's secure?" Castillo asked.

  "Secure and brand-new," Miller replied. "A present from your pal Aloysius."

  "Really?"

  "He called up three or four days ago, asked of your general health and welfare, then asked if there was anything he could do for us. I told him I couldn't think of a thing. He said he had a new toy he thought you might like to play with, one in its developmental phase."

  Miller pointed at the telephone.

  "So yesterday, I was not surprised when the Secret Service guy said there were some people from AFC seeking access to your throne room in the complex. I was surprised when they came up to see that one of them was Aloysius in the flesh."

  Aloysius Francis Casey (Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, MIT) was a small, pale-faced man who customarily dressed in baggy black suits. He also was the founder, chairman of the board, and principal stockholder of the AFC Corporation. AFC had a vast laboratory and three manufacturing facilities that provided a substantial portion of worldwide encrypted communications to industry in the form of leased technology.

  During the Vietnam War, then-Sergeant Casey had served with distinction as the commo man on several Special Forces A-Teams. He had decided, immediately after the First Desert War, that it was payback time. Preceded by a telephone call from the senior U.S. senator from Nevada, he had arrived at Fort Bragg in one of AFC's smaller jets and explained to then-Major General Bruce J. McNab that, save for the confidence that being a Green Beanie had given him, he would almost certainly have become either a Boston cop-or maybe a postman-after his Vietnam service.

  Not that Casey found either occupation wanting.

  Instead, he said, his Green Beanie service had given him the confidence to attempt the impossible. In his case, he explained, that meant getting into MIT without a high school diploma on the strength of his self-taught comprehension of both radio wave propagation and cryptographic algorithms.

  "A professor," Casey had said, "took a chance on a scrawny little Irishman with the balls to ask for something like getting into MIT and arranged for me to audit classes. By the end of my freshman year, I got my high school diploma. By the end of my second year, I had my BS. The next year, I got my master's and started AFC. By the time I got my doctorate two years later, AFC was up and running. The professor who gave me my chance-Heinz Walle-is now AFC's vice president of research and development. I now have more money than I can spend, so it's payback time."

  General McNab had asked him exactly what he had in mind. Dr. Casey replied that he knew the Army's equipment was two, three years obsolete before the first piece of it was delivered.

  "What I'm going to do is see that Special Forces has state-of-the-art stuff."

  General McNab said that was a great idea, but as Sergeant/Dr. Casey must know, procurement of signal equipment was handled by Signal Corps procurement officials, over whom Special Forces had absolutely no control.

  "I'm not about to get involved trying to sell anything to those paper-pushing bastards," Dr. Casey had said. "What I'm going to do is give you the stuff and charge it off to R amp;D."

  General McNab was never one to pass up an opportunity, and asked, "It sounds like a great idea. How would you suggest we get started?"

  Dr. Casey had then jerked his thumb at General McNab's aide-de-camp, Second Lieutenant C. G. Castillo, who had met Dr. Casey's Lear at Pope AFB.

  Because General McNab had better things to do with his time than entertain some [expletive deleted] civilian with friends in the [expletive deleted] U.S. Senate any further than buying the [expletive deleted] lunch, Lieutenant Castillo had taken Dr. Casey on a helicopter tour of Fort Bragg and Fayetteville, North Carolina, until lunchtime.

  By the time they landed on the Officers' Club lawn, Dr. Casey had learned the young officer had earned both the pilot's wings and Combat Infantry Badge sewn to his BDU jacket and decided he was one tough and smart little sonofabitch.

  "What about me taking the boy wonder here back to Vegas with me after lunch? He can see what we have and what you need, and we can wing it from there."

  "Charley," General McNab had ordered Lieutenant Castillo, "go pack a bag. And try to stay out of trouble in Las Vegas."

  "Aloysius had this put in?" Castillo asked, picking up the handset.

  "You're not listening, Colonel, sir," Dick Miller said. "Aloysius put it in with his own freckled fingers."

  "White House," the handset announced.

  "Jesus!" Castillo said.

  "I'm afraid he's not on the circuit," the White House operator said. "Anyone else you'd like to speak to?"

  "This line is secure?" Castillo asked, doubtfully.

  "This line is secure."

  "I'll be damned!"

  "If you keep up the profanity, you probably will be, Colonel."

  "How do you know I'm a Colonel?" Castillo said.

  "Because this link is listed as Colonel Castillo's Mobile One," the operator said, "and because the voice identification circuit just identified you as Colonel Castillo himself."

  "I will be damned."

  "It's amazing, isn't it?" the operator said. "And aside from Major Miller, you're the first call we've handled. Even my boss is amazed. Can I put you through to someone, Colonel? Or are you just seeing how it works?"

  "Ambassador Montvale on a secure line, please."

  "Montvale."

  "Good evening, sir. Castillo."

  "Didn't take you long to find a secure line, did it, Charley? You've been on the ground only twelve minutes."

  "Well, I'm using the one in my Yukon."

  "Then this is not a secure line?"

  "The White House assures me it's secure, sir."

  "In your truck?"

  "Yes, sir. Don't you have a secure line in your vehicle?"

  There was a pause, which caused Castillo to smirk at the mental image he had of the face that Montvale was now making.

  "We'll talk about that when I see you," Montvale said. "How long is it going to take you to get to your Alexandria house?"

  "Well, I think we can leave here in fifteen minutes or so. And then however long it takes to get to the house. I've never been there."

  "Who's with you, Charley?" Montvale asked, and then before Castillo could answer, went on: "Bring everybody with you who might know something about the possible compromise."

  "I gather that you mean, sir, to the house in Alexandria?"

  "Are there any problems with that?"

  "None, sir, except-"

  "You and I are meeting with the President at eight o'clock tomorrow morning," Montvale interrupted. "I don't want to meet him unprepared. Any problems with that?"

  "Inspector Doherty was just on the phone to his wife, telling her he'd be right home."

  "Well, I especially want to see him. Have him call her back and tell her he's being delayed. I want everybody at your house."

  "Excuse me, Mr. Ambassador, but isn't there an agreement between us that you don't give me orders?"

  "For the moment, there is," Montvale said, icily. "Let me rephrase. I'll be grateful, Colonel, for the opportunity to meet with you and everybody with knowledge of the possible compromise at your earliest convenience. Say in approximately one hour in Alexandria?"

  "I'll do my best to have everyone there as soon as possible, Mr. Ambassador."

  There was a click on the line as Montvale hung up without saying anything else.

  Castillo put the handset in its cradle.

  "I didn'
t see Doherty using his cellular," Miller said.

  "Either did I," Castillo said.

  "You just like to pull the tiger's tail, right?"

  "If I don't, Dick, I'd find myself asking permission to take a leak."

  "Yeah," Miller said thoughtfully after a moment. Then he asked, "What has to go to the complex?"

  "Not that much. One filing cabinet just about full of paper. And then a dozen external hard drives. What do I do about the weapons?"

  "I'd take them to the house," Miller said.

  "Okay," Castillo said.

  "You heard all this, Stan?" Miller asked the Secret Service driver.

  "Uh-huh. I'll take care of it."

  "Somebody'll have to sit on the filing cabinet and the hard drives," Castillo said. "Unless we can get everything into the vault tonight."

  "I think I'll have somebody sit on the vault, Colonel, after we get everything inside."

  "Thank you," Castillo said.

  [TWO] 7200 West Boulevard Drive

  Alexandria, Virginia 2325 1 September 2005 The first impression Castillo had of the new property was that it was a typical Alexandria redbrick two-story home. The exception being, perhaps, the size of its lot; the front lawn was at least one hundred yards from West Boulevard Drive.

  But his first impression changed as the Yukon rolled up the driveway.

  Castillo saw that the rise in the lawn concealed both a circular drive in front of the house and a large area in front of the basement garage on the right. There was another Yukon XL parked there, and a Buick sedan, but there was still room enough for the three Yukons in the convoy to park easily.

  The Yukon's probably Montvale's. He's too exalted to drive a lowly Buick, particularly since a Yukon with a Secret Service driver from the White House pool is the status symbol in Washington.

  And if it is his, he's waiting for me in the living room, in the largest chair, finally having succeeded in summoning me to the throne room.

  As the first Yukon reached the house, the triple garage doors opened one by one. The Secret Service driver of Castillo's Yukon drove inside the garage and the other two followed suit. The doors began to close.

  The garage ran all the way under the house. There was room for three more Yukons. And some other vehicles. The walls were lined with shelves, and on them were old cans of paint, coils of water hose, and other things that people stored in garages.