Roscoe J. Danton said: “Deal. When does this come down?”
“Now. Truman, please call that Air Force colonel and have the plane ready by time we get to the airport.”
Truman Ellsworth said, “Yes, sir.”
Truman Ellsworth thought: If I thought there was any chance at all of Castillo, the Russians, or even Alex Darby actually being in Ushuaia, I would at this moment be experiencing shortness of breath, excruciating pain in my chest, and numbness of my left arm and waiting for the ambulance to haul me off to whatever hospital the embassy sends visiting VIPs suffering a heart attack.
But since I’m sure that all he’s going to find down there—at best—is Alex Darby suffering a midlife crisis in the arms of a girl young enough to be his daughter, I’m going to pretend I believe this idiocy.
For one thing, I simply have to see how Charles tries to talk himself out of this fiasco once it comes tumbling down around him. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t.
[ONE]
The Oval Office
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1405 8 February 2007
Secretary of State Natalie Cohen, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Powell, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Mark Schmidt, and General Allan B. Naylor, the commanding general of the United States Central Command, were all in the reception area of the Oval Office when the President of the United States, having returned from his trip to Chicago, entered.
They all rose to their feet when they saw the President. He acknowledged none of them.
Instead, Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen continued walking into his office, sat in the leather chair behind his desk, and issued two orders: “Get me some coffee. And then let them in.”
Three minutes later, Cohen, Powell, Schmidt, and Naylor filed into the Oval Office.
“I’m glad you weren’t in Timbuktu, General,” Clendennen said.
Thinking that the President was joking, Naylor replied in kind: “That’s next Thursday, Mr. President.”
“You’re not going anywhere, General, until this business is finished,” the President snapped.
“Yes, sir,” General Naylor said.
“Sit down,” the President said, gesturing to all of them.
“General, C. Harry Whelan, Jr., and Andy McClarren were talking about you on Wolf News last night. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whelan told McClarren that the chief of staff of the Army no longer runs it—he’s just in charge of administering it—and that since Central Command controls more troops, more airplanes, more ships, and more military assets in more places all around the world than any other headquarters, then that makes you, as its commanding general, the most important general in the Army. Did you see the program, by any chance?”
“It was brought to my attention, Mr. President.”
General Naylor did not think he should get into the details of how the Wolf News program had come to his attention. He had been reading in his living room, and ignoring the television. His wife, Elaine, and their son, Major Allan B. Naylor, Jr., and his family, who had come for supper, were watching the Wolf News program The Straight Scoop.
When the Whelan-McClarren exchange concluded, General Naylor’s wife and son went to him on their knees, called him “Oh, Great One!” and mimed kissing his West Point ring, then backed out of his presence into the kitchen convulsed with laughter and to the applause of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
He actually had had to demand to be told what the hell was going on.
What was so funny?
And when he was told, he didn’t think it was at all funny.