SLUG: OPERATION OUT OF THE BOX
TAKE TWO
BY ROSCOE J. DANTON
WASHINGTON TIMES-POST WRITERS SYNDICATE
DAY FIVE — JUNE 14, 2007
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
THIS REPORTER FLEW OVERNIGHT IN A CHARTERED GULFSTREAM V JET AIRCRAFT FROM COZUMEL, MEXICO, TO BUDAPEST, HUNGARY, WITH LIEUTENANT COLONEL ███ ██████ AND MEMBERS OF HIS TEAM, KNOWN AS “THE MERRY OUTLAWS,” CARRYING OUT PRESIDENT CLENDENNEN’S ORDERS TO INVESTIGATE THE SOMALIA PIRACY SITUATION AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS AS TO THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
WE WERE MET AT FERIHEGY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BY ███ ██████, EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE ██████ ████ ████ ████ NEWSPAPER AND ██████ ███, CHIEF OF SECURITY OF THE NEWSPAPER, AND TAKEN TO THE HOTEL GELLERT ON THE BANKS OF THE DANUBE RIVER, WHERE, AFTER DINNER, CASTILLO CONFERRED ON SOMALIA GENERALLY WITH THESE MEN.
OBVIOUSLY, THIS REPORTER CANNOT DIVULGE THE DETAILS OF ANYTHING DISCUSSED AT THAT MEETING, EXCEPT TO SAY THAT ██████ ARRANGED FOR ██████ TO MEET WITH JOURNALISTS KNOWN TO BE EXPERT ON SOMALIA TOMORROW IN ██████, GERMANY.
WE WILL BE FLYING THERE TOMORROW.
DAY SIX — JUNE 15, 2007
LEAVING ██████ THE ████ AND ██████ BEHIND IN BUDAPEST TO ARRANGE THEIR SURREPTITIOUS ENTRY INTO SOMALIA, THIS REPORTER FLEW THIS MORNING WITH LIEUTENANT COLONEL ██████ AND THE MERRY OUTLAWS ON THE GULFSTREAM V TO A PRIVATE AIRFIELD NEAR ██████, GERMANY.
THERE WE WERE MET BY ████ ██████ MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ██████ █████████████████, G.M.B.H., WHICH OWNS THE ████ ██████ NEWSPAPER CHAIN. HE IS A HESSIAN, BUT HE LOOKED LIKE A POSTCARD BAVARIAN. HE IS A TALL, HEAVYSET, RUDDY-FACED MAN.
██████ TOLD ██████ THE ████ ██████ CORRESPONDENTS HE HAD ORDERED TO COME FROM MOGADISHU TO ██████ HAD BEEN DELAYED IN ██████, ██████ AND HAD NOT YET ARRIVED. THEY ARE EXPECTED TOMORROW OR THE NEXT DAY. IN THE MEANTIME, ██████ AND HIS TEAM HAVE BEEN GIVEN ACCESS TO THE FILES OF THE NEWSPAPER CHAIN.
MORE TO FOLLOW
“Will there be a reply, Madam Secretary?”
“Martha, we’ve known each other ever since the UN, and you can’t bring yourself to call me Natalie, even when we’re alone?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Madam Secretary.”
“There won’t be a reply right now, Martha, thank you. If Charlene is out there, would you ask her to come in, please?”
Charlene Stevens, the former Secret Service agent who headed Secretary Cohen’s security detail, came into the office and announced, “Anytime you’re ready, boss.”
“We can’t leave until I deliver this to the President,” Cohen said, holding up the messages.
“I’ll tell them to stand down,” Charlene said. “Any guess as to when we can go?”
“Let’s find out,” Cohen said, and pressed the buttons on her red White House switchboard telephone that would connect her with the President and put the conversation on loudspeaker.
A male voice was on the line in less than ten seconds.
“The President’s line. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Secretary Cohen.”
“Madam Secretary, the President is not available at the moment, and has asked not to be disturbed in less than a Category Two Situation. Would you like me to put you through to the President?”
“No, thank you. Please tell the President I have information for him and that I would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”
“Yes, ma’am. I will pass on to the President that you would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”
“Thank you,” Secretary Cohen said, and broke the connection.
“Well, while obviously important,” Charlene said, “whatever that message says, it doesn’t pose as much of a threat to the nation’s security as getting the First Mother-in-Law back in the loony bin does.”
Natalie shook her head, but didn’t reply.
“You knew he wasn’t there, right?” Charlene asked. “That he’s in Biloxi?”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“Some of my boys were talking.”
“See if you can get some of your boys to let you know when they have an ETA for him at Andrews. I’d like to be at the White House when he gets back.”
“Done. Anything else?”
“Not unless you want to sit here and listen to me tell my boys that our golf at the Greenbrier will have to be delayed for a while.”
“I’ll pass, thank you,” Charlene said.
[FOUR]
The Oval Office
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1805 15 June 2007
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. President,” Secretary Cohen said. “But you said you wanted to see Colonel Naylor’s reports as soon as they arrived.”
“Actually, Madam Secretary,” Robin Hoboken said, “what the President said was that he wanted to see Colonel Castillo’s reports as soon as they arrived.”
“I stand corrected,” Cohen said.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” President Clendennen asked. “I just got back three minutes ago.”
“When I called earlier, when I first received these messages, Mr. President, I was told you were unavailable, not that you had gone somewhere.”
“Belinda-Sue’s mother, that saintly old woman,” the President said, “is very ill. She wanted to see me. I could not, of course, turn her down. God alone knows how long she’ll be with us. But I could not in good conscience ask the American taxpayer to pay the enormous expense of my going down to Biloxi in the 747 on a personal matter. So I went, very quietly, in a Gulfstream, taking only Robin and Mulligan with me.”
“How is the First Mother-in-Law?” Natalie asked.
“Not well, but with prayer there’s always hope,” the President said. “Now let me see Colonel Castillo’s report.”
“She doesn’t have Colonel Castillo’s report, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken said. “She said she had Colonel Naylor’s report.”
“And Mr. Whelan’s redacted news story,” Cohen said.
The President read both.
“Well,” he said, “to judge from this, and other information I have, I think it would be fair to assume my Out of the Box Operation is starting to take shape. Wouldn’t you agree, Madam Secretary?”
“‘Other information,’ Mr. President?”
“Natalie,” he said condescendingly, “I learned a long time ago that the more people who know a secret, the less chance there is that it will remain a secret. Right now, you don’t have the Need to Know about my other information.”
“May I ask, sir, if your other information might result in something that would require my services in the next twenty-four hours?”
“The President just told you, Madam Secretary, that you don’t have the Need to Know,” Robin Hoboken said.
“Why do you ask, Madam Secretary?” the President asked.
“I’d like to run down to the Greenbrier and play a little golf, Mr. President.”
“For how long?”
“I would be back tomorrow afternoon no later than five, sir.”
“Sure, go ahead. All work and no play makes Jack… in this case, Natalie, of course… the dull girl, as I always say.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Did you know, Natalie, that during the Cold War, they had a great big underground place at the Greenbrier where Congress could meet in case the Russians nuked Washington?”
“I’ve heard that, Mr. President.”
“Robin here told me that only last week. Which made me wonder what else is going on around here that I don’t know about.”
“Mr. President,” Natalie
said, “I would suggest that with Hoboken and Mulligan looking after you, there’s very little of that sort of thing.”
“You’re right,” the President said. “I only wish I was as sure of the loyalty of other people around here as I am of theirs.”
Then he added: “Have a good time playing golf at the Greenbrier, Natalie.”
[FIVE]
In the Secretary of State’s Yukon
Approaching Joint Base Andrews, Maryland
1835 15 June 2007
One of the three cellular telephones Charlene Stevens always carried with her rang — giving off a sound like that of a feline in heat — and she quickly put it to her ear.
She listened and then said, “Thanks. You are now forgiven for not putting out the garbage.”
She turned from the front passenger seat to address Secretary Cohen.
“That was my Lord and Master, boss.”
Secretary Cohen understood Charlene was referring to her husband, Arthur, who was known as “King Kong” to his fellow Secret Service agents, possibly because he stood five feet five inches tall and weighed 135 pounds.
“Arthur said,” Charlene reported, “that Mulligan just called the Presidential Flight Detachment and told them to get a chopper ready for a flight to carry two agents to the Greenbrier Valley Airport.”
“Damn!” Natalie Cohen said.
“And when the Air Force guy said you were getting ready to go there and were usually willing to carry people with you, Mulligan not only cut him off but said he didn’t even want you to know he was sending agents there.”
“Pull off somewhere, please, Tom,” Secretary Cohen ordered the Yukon’s driver as she searched in her purse for her CaseyBerry.
She pushed one autodial button and five seconds later A. Franklin Lammelle came over the phone’s loudspeaker.
“And how may the CIA be of service to the secretary of State?”
“Get on the phone and tell everybody the Greenbrier’s off,” she said.
“What happened?”
She told him.
“Do you think he figured this out himself, or was Mulligan involved?”
“I think he was suspicious — he’s paranoid about a coup — and Mulligan poured gasoline on those embers.”
“So no meeting?”
“Unless we can find someplace else to hold it, I really don’t know what to do.”
“Someplace else isn’t that much of a problem. I’ve got a safe house outside Harrisburg that isn’t in use at the moment.”
“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania?” she asked incredulously.
“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,” Lammelle confirmed. “And everybody but McNab and Naylor could drive there. And you could tell Naylor to visit the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, using his airplane and taking McNab with him.”
She considered that a moment. “This safe house of yours is really safe?”
“Who’s going to think there’d be a CIA safe house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania?”
“Make the calls, please, Frank, and get everybody there after eight o’clock tomorrow night.”
“And what about you, Madam Secretary, as the senior government official?”
“I’ll get back to Washington at five or a little after, let the President know I’m back—”
“Back from where?”
“Playing golf at the Greenbrier,” she replied, “and then I’ll drive up there. How do I find it?”
“I suppose Brünnhilde the Bodyguard is with you?”
“Up yours, Frank,” Charlene said.
“I’ll see that Art has a map by the time you need it,” Lammelle said.
“Fine,” Charlene said.
“You’re really going down there and play golf?”
“That’s what I told the President I was going to do. How could I not go? Call me and let me know what’s going on.”
“Yes, ma’am, Madam Secretary,” Lammelle said.
Cohen broke the connection.
“Agent Stevens, I wasn’t aware that you and Director Lammelle were so intimately acquainted,” she said.
“He and Art went through the FBI Academy together,” Charlene said. “They decided that they didn’t want to spend their lives investigating white-collar crimes, so Art went into the Secret Service, and Frank into the Agency. Frank was Art’s best man when we got married, and I held Frank’s hand through both of his divorces.”
“You never said anything.”
“Yeah, well,” Charlene said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t talk about you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that Frank thinks you’re the cat’s pajamas, boss.”
Natalie shook her head, then pressed another autodial button and then shut off the loudspeaker function. Charlene heard only one side of the conversation:
“I hope you didn’t have big plans for tomorrow, sweetheart…
“Put enough clothes in your bag for a fancy dinner tonight, and then take your golf clubs and get in a cab and go out to Teterboro. I’m about ten minutes from taking off from Andrews for Teterboro…
“Because we’re going to the Greenbrier to play golf…
“Of course you can make time for something like that. Your call, sweetheart. Would you rather have a romantic dinner with me tonight, and eighteen holes tomorrow, or the next time your Aunt Rebecca wants me to talk to the girls at the Beth Sinai Home have me tell her to go suck on a lemon…?
“That’s what my mother said about you, too, darling. That I would regret marrying you. See you at Teterboro…”
[SIX]
Aboard Der Stadt Köln
The River Rhine
Koblenz, Germany
1125 16 June 2007
Charley Castillo’s CaseyBerry sounded “Charge!” and he picked it up, saw who was calling, and put it to his ear.
“Hey, Paul.”
“Charley, are you really in the middle of the Rhine River, or did you tell Aloysius to send out spurious GPS data again?” Paul Sieno asked.
“Not exactly in the middle; we’re about to tie up in Koblenz. How are things in sunny Cozumel?”
“Getting interesting, which is why I called.”
“How so?”
“You’ll never guess who’s here.”
“But you are going to tell me, right? I’m so exhausted from my labors that I’m not up to playing guessing games.”
“Grigori Slobozhanin.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“He’s the chief coach of the Greater Sverdlovsk Table Tennis Association, and he brought a half-dozen of his better Ping-Pong players here with him. Plus a couple of dozen Cuban Ping-Pongers.”
“Okay, Paul, I give up.”
“Before he took up table tennis, he was known as General Sergei Murov.”
Castillo was suddenly very serious.
“Paul, get with Juan Carlos Pena as soon as you can—”
“Way ahead of you, Charley,” Sieno interrupted.
“I know Juan Carlos doesn’t exactly look like that suave Mexican actor,” Castillo went on, stopping when he couldn’t recall the actor’s name, and then, when he had partial recall, continuing, “Antonio Bandana, or whatever the hell his name is, but he’s not only one damned smart cop but one of my oldest friends.”
“Gringo, if I can have ‘one damned smart cop’ in writing, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear your unflattering comparison of me to Antonio Whatsisname,” Juan Carlos Pena said.
“How are you, Juan Carlos?” Castillo asked.
“I hope we interrupted something important,” Pena said.
“You did. I was sitting here in a deck chair drinking wine and watching Sweaty sunbathe in a bikini.”
“You both better stay there,” Pena said. “Why don’t you go to Las Vegas and get married in the Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel, like normal people?”
“Instead of Cozumel, you mean?”
“I have enough trouble in Cozumel already. I don’t need another river of b
lood scaring the tourists away because the Cuban DGI doesn’t like you.”
“What makes you think the Cuban DGI doesn’t like me?”
“When Paul told me that General Sergei Murov was here with his Ping-Pong players, and General Jesus Manuel Cosada was here with a dozen of his Ping-Pong players—”
“Who?”
“I can hear your abuela saying, ‘Carlos, you have to learn not to interrupt your betters when they’re talking, otherwise people won’t like you.’”
“My abuela was talking about adults, Juan Carlos, and if you recall, I’m three weeks older than you are.”
“As I was saying, when I heard General Jesus Manuel Cosada, who became DGI after Raúl moved up to be president when ol’ Fidel retired from public life, was here, the really wild thought that it might be connected with you just sort of popped into my mind.
“Then, when Paul told me he’d seen several DGI heavyweights in addition to the general, and happened to mention you were planning to tie the knot here, things that were happening began to make sense.”
“What sort of things were happening?”
“Well, the DGI guys immediately began finding employment at the Cruise Ship Terminal and several of the hotels, including the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort, which seemed a little odd.”
“The Grand Cozumel hired some of them?”
“The Grand Cozumel hired seven Cubans and the Terminal six.”
“That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know who runs the Terminal for Aleksandr Pevsner, but Sweaty told me that the guy who runs the Grand Cozumel learned the hotel trade running the SVR dachas in Sochi.”
“The what, where?”
“Sochi, on the Black Sea, is sort of the Mexican Cozumel. I don’t know about the czars, but important Russians from Stalin down—”
“It goes back to the later czars,” Sweaty said. Charley looked at her and saw she had her CaseyBerry to her ear.
Where the hell did she have that phone? There’s not enough material in her bikini to safely blow her nose!
“Starting in the 1860s,” Sweaty went on, “they started developing it as a place for sanatoriums; tuberculosis was a big problem then.”
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