“General, Mr. Lammelle is here.”
“Ask him to come in, please,” Naylor said.
“And Major Naylor and a man from Global Communications, who says he has an appointment.”
“Ask them to wait, but you come in, please, Colonel.”
Naylor got up from behind his desk and met Lammelle as he came through the door.
“Good morning, General,” Lammelle said. “Can I ask what Scotty McNab was doing here? Is he going to be working with us, I hope, on this?”
“Actually, Mr. Lammelle, I’ve just about decided I made a terrible mistake vis-à-vis General McNab.”
“Excuse me?”
“What I am now convinced I should have done was place him under arrest.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let me tell you what just happened, and then you tell me what you think I should have done—should do—about it.”
Five minutes later, Frank Lammelle said, “General, I’m in no position to comment upon, much less judge, your differences with General McNab vis-à-vis insubordination, that sort of thing, but—and you may not like hearing this—it looks to me that instead of being a problem, McNab may be the answer to ours.”
“I don’t see that,” Naylor said.
“Our problem is that we have been charged with locating Colonel Castillo, and through him, to take control of the two Russians. And we don’t know where any of them are.”
“A subparagraph of ‘facts bearing on the problem’ there, it seems to me,” Naylor said, “would be ‘how to transport the Russian defectors and/or Castillo from where we find them to where they have to go.’ Or words to that effect. And where do they go, to add that factor?”
“Castillo,” Lammelle replied, “is going to have to be transported to either Washington, or, perhaps, some mi
litary base in the United States. The Russians only have to be transported someplace where they can be turned over to the SVR. I think that will probably mean that we’ll have to transport them to some place served by Aeroflot. We turn them over at the airport to officers of the SVR, who will then repatriate them.”
Naylor glanced at Colonel Jack Brewer, then looked at Lammelle, and said, “And how are we going to do that? Am I supposed to take soldiers with me? Soldiers for that sort of thing come from Special Operations, the Delta Force, or Gray Fox. Which of course are commanded by General McNab.”
“General, since eight o’clock this morning, a Gulfstream V has been sitting at Saint Petersburg-Clearwater International. It is registered to a CIA asset—a chicken-packing company in Des Moines, Iowa. I was amazed to learn how much chicken the United States exports.
“Anyway, the plane will attract no undue attention. The crew are CIA. The aircraft is equipped with the very latest—and I mean the very latest—avionics that the AFC Corporation has for sale. All sorts of bells and whistles. Communication with that airplane and Langley is available wherever that airplane is—on the ground or in the air, anywhere in the world. That airplane is going to follow you and me no matter where General McNab leads us. There are four Clandestine Service officers aboard. Once we lay eyes on Colonel Castillo and the Russians, transporting them wherever they have to go will pose no problems at all.”
“What if they resist?” Colonel Brewer asked.
“The officers are equipped with the very latest nonlethal weaponry—and the other kind as well, of course. What the nonlethal weaponry provides, in a pistol about the size of a Glock, are six darts with a range of about fifty feet. Anyone struck with one of these darts will lose consciousness in fifteen seconds or less. They will regain consciousness without intervention in about two hours. They can be brought back immediately by injection.”
“Fascinating,” General Naylor said. “Then, if I understand you, Mr. Lammelle, it is your recommendation that we sit tight and do nothing while we wait for General McNab to find Castillo and the Russians?”
“That is my recommendation, General.”
Naylor looked at his aide-de-camp, and said, “You see anything wrong with that, Jack?”
Colonel Jack Brewer said, “No, sir. It makes a lot of sense to me.”
“And what about the man McNab left here?” Naylor asked.
“He’s very good,” Lammelle said. “I’ve known Vic D’Allessando for a long time. He’s been around Delta Force and Gray Fox for years.”
“Which tends to suggest that his greatest loyalty may be to General McNab,” General Naylor said.
“Well, I suggest we treat him with respect and as a member of the team,” Lammelle said. He stopped and opened his briefcase. “And if he shows any suggestion of being about to interfere with our mission, General ...” He paused and took from the briefcase what looked like a Glock semiautomatic pistol with a grossly swollen slide. He aimed it at a leather couch and pulled the trigger. There was an almost inaudible psssst sound. “. . . in fifteen seconds or less, General, your couch will be sound asleep.”