The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Read online

  Montvale decided to wait until he was sure he had his emotions under control before going on.

  “Silvio was right, Charles, and you were wrong,” the President said. “The President gave him an order, and he was obeying it. Disobeying it, getting around it, would have been damned near treason. And you were wrong to ask him.”

  “Mr. President, I was trying to protect the President,” Montvale said.

  “What you should have done was go to the President,” Clendennen said. “It’s as simple as that. You’re the director of National Intelligence, Charles, not Benjamin Disraeli!”

  “I realize now that I was wrong, Mr. President,” Montvale said.

  The President made another impatient gesture for Montvale to continue.

  “The next time I saw Castillo was in Philadelphia. The President was giving a speech. I didn’t know Castillo was coming. The last word I’d had on him was that he was in Las Vegas.”

  “In Las Vegas? Doing what?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. President. I’m not even sure he was in Las Vegas. Anyway, Castillo showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel. The President gave him the opportunity to explain his incredible chemical warfare factory scenario. The President obviously didn’t believe it any more than anyone else did, but Castillo still had enough remaining clout with him for the President to turn to DCI Powell and direct him to send somebody to the Congo.

  “Castillo said, ‘I’ve already got some people in the Congo, Mr. President.’

  “The President said, ‘Jesus Christ! Who?’

  “And Castillo told him Colonel J. Porter Hamilton, and the President asked ‘Who the hell is Colonel Hamilton?’ and Powell, who was really surprised, blurted that Colonel Hamilton of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick was the CIA’s—for that matter, the nation’s—preeminent expert on biological and chemical warfare.”

  “Are you telling me that Castillo, on his own authority—or no authority—actually sent an expert on biological warfare into the Congo?”

  “Yes, sir, and not only that, he put him on the phone—actually a secure radio-telephone link—with the President right there in the Four Seasons.”

  “How the hell did he manage to do that?”

  Montvale said: “I really have no idea, sir.”

  Montvale thought: But I’ll bet my last dime that Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab of the Special Operations Command was in that operation up to that ridiculous mustache of his.

  Still, I’m not positive, and certainly can’t prove it, so I’m not going to tell you.

  I have been painfully cut off at the knees already today by you, Clendennen, and once a day is more than enough.

  “And what did this expert say?”

  “The phrase he used to describe what he found in the Congo, Mr. President, was ‘an abomination before God.’ He said that if it got out of control, it would be perhaps a thousand times more of a disaster than was Chernobyl, and urged the President to destroy the entire complex as soon as he could.”

  President Clendennen didn’t reply.

  “The mission was launched almost immediately, Mr. President, as you know.”

  “And we were at the brink of a nuclear exchange,” President Clendennen said pointedly.

  “That didn’t happen, sir.”

  “I noticed,” the President said, thickly sarcastic. “So, what happened to Castillo for rubbing the nose of the CIA in chemical-biological waste?”

  “Right after the President ordered the secretary of Defense to immediately have an operation laid on to take out the Fish Farm, he told Castillo that OOA was dead, had never existed, and that what Castillo was to do was make himself scarce until his retirement parade, and after that to disappear from the face of the earth.”

  “And?”

  “Castillo and the military personnel who had been assigned to OOA were retired at Fort Rucker, Alabama, with appropriate panoply on January thirty-first. There was a parade. Everyone was decorated. Castillo and a Delta Force warrant officer named Leverette, who took Colonel Hamilton into the Congo and then got him out, got their third Distinguished Service Medals.

  “And then, in compliance with their orders, they got into the Gulfstream and disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  “You mean you don’t know where any of these people are? You don’t even know where Castillo is?”

  “I know they went from Fort Rucker to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, and from there to Cancún.”

  “And from Cancún?”

  “I simply do not know, Mr. President.”

  “Find out. The next time I ask, be prepared to answer.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “And where are the Russians?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. President. I do know that the President told the DCI that the attempt to cause them to defect was to be called off, and that he was not even to look for them.”

  “Why the hell did he do that?”

  “I would suggest, Mr. President, that it was because the information they provided about the Congo was true.”

  The President considered that, snorted, and then said, “Well, Charles, that seems to be it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, it would seem so.”

  “Thank you for coming to see me. We’ll be in touch.”

  [THREE]

  Old Ebbitt Grill

  675 15th Street, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1530 2 February 2007

  No one is ever really surprised when a first- or second-tier member of the Washington press corps walks into the Old Ebbitt looking for someone.

  For one thing, the Old Ebbitt is just about equidistant between the White House—a block away at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—and the National Press Club—a block away at 529 14th Street, N.W. It’s right down the street from the Hotel Washington, and maybe a three-minute walk from the Willard Hotel, whose lobby added the term “lobbyist” to the political/journalistic lexicon.

  Furthermore, the Old Ebbitt’s service, menu, ambiance, and stock of intoxicants was superb. The one thing on which all observers of the press corps agreed was that nothing appeals more to the gentlemen and ladies of the Fourth Estate than, say, a shrimp cocktail and a nice New York strip steak, plus a stiff drink, served promptly onto a table covered with crisp linen in a charming environment.

  This is especially true if the journalist can reasonably expect that someone else—one of those trolling for a favorable relationship with the press lobbyists from the Willard, for example—would happily reach for the check.

  Roscoe J. Danton—a tall, starting to get a little plump, thirty-eight-year-old who was employed by The Washington Times-Post—was, depending on to whom one might talk, either near the bottom of the list of first-tier journalists, or at the very top of the second tier.

  Roscoe walked into the Old Ebbitt, nodded at the ever affable Tony the Maître d’ at his stand, and walked on to the bar along the wall behind Tony. He continued slowly down it—toward the rear—and had gone perhaps halfway when he spotted the people he had agreed to meet.

  They were two women, and they were sitting at a banquette. The one he had talked to said that he would have no trouble spotting them: “Look for two thirtyish blondes at one of the banquettes at the end of the bar.”

  The description, Roscoe decided, was not entirely accurate. While both were bleached blonde, one of them was far closer to fiftyish than thirtyish, and the younger one was on the cusp of fortyish.

  But there being no other banquette holding two blondes, Roscoe walked to their table.

  Roscoe began, “Excuse me—”

  “Sit down, Mr. Danton,” the older of the two immediately said.

  The younger one patted the red leather next to her.

  Roscoe Danton sat down.

  “Whatever this is, I don’t have much time,” he announced. “There’s a press conference at four-fifteen.”

  “This won’t take long,” the olde
r one said. “And I really think it will be worth your time.”

  A waiter appeared.

  The older woman signaled the waiter to bring what she and her companion were drinking, and then asked, “Mr. Danton?”

  “What is that you’re having?”

  “A Bombay martini, no vegetables,” she said.

  “That should give me courage to face the mob,” he said, smiled at the waiter, and told him, “The same for me, please.”

  The older woman waited until the waiter had left and then reached to the fluffy lace collar at her neck. She unbuttoned two buttons, put her hand inside, and withdrew a plastic card. It was attached with an alligator clip to what looked like a dog-tag chain. She pressed the clip, removed the card, more or less concealed it in her hand, and laid it flat on the tablecloth.

  “Make sure the waiter doesn’t see that, please,” she said as she withdrew her hand.

  Danton held his hand to at least partially conceal the card and took a good look at it.

  The card bore the woman’s photograph, the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency, a number, some stripes of various colors, and her name, Eleanor Dillworth.

  It clearly was an employee identification card. Danton had enough experience at the CIA complex just across the Potomac River in Langley, Virginia, to know that while it was not one of the very coveted Any Area/Any Time cards worn by very senior CIA officers with as much élan as a four-star general wears his stars in the Pentagon, this one identified someone fairly high up in the hierarchy.

  He met Miss Dillworth’s eyes, and slid the card back across the table.

  The younger blonde took a nearly identical card from her purse and laid it before Danton. It said her name was Patricia Davies Wilson.

  “I told them I had lost that when I was fired,” Mrs. Wilson said. “And kept it as a souvenir.”

  Danton met her eyes, too, but said nothing.

  She took the card back, and put it in her purse.

  “What’s this all about?” he finally asked when his silence didn’t elicit the response it was supposed to.

  Miss Dillworth held up her finger as a signal to wait.

  The waiter delivered three Bombay Sapphire gin martinis, no vegetables.

  “That was quick, wasn’t it?” Eleanor Dillworth asked.

  “That’s why I like to come here,” Patricia Davies Wilson said.

  The three took an appreciative sip of their cocktails.

  “I was asking, ‘What’s this all about?’” Danton said.

  “Disgruntled employees, Mr. Danton,” Patricia Davies Wilson said.

  “Who, as you know, sometimes become whistleblowers,” Eleanor Dillworth said, and then asked, “Interested?”

  “That would depend on what, or on whom, you’re thinking of blowing the whistle,” Danton replied.

  “I was about to say the agency,” Patricia Davies Wilson said. “But it goes beyond the agency.”

  “Where does it go beyond the agency?” Danton asked.

  “Among other places, to the Oval Office.”

  “In that case, I’m fascinated,” Danton said. “What have you got?”

  “Have you ever heard of an intelligence officer-slash-special operator by the name of Carlos Castillo?” Eleanor Dillworth asked.

  Danton shook his head.

  “How about the Office of Organizational Analysis?”

  He shook his head, and then asked, “In the CIA?”

  Dillworth shook her head. “In the office of our late and not especially grieved-for President,” she said.

  “And apparently to be kept alive in the administration of our new and not-too-bright chief executive. But that’s presuming Montvale has told him.”

  “What does this organization do? What has it done in the past?”

  “If we told you, Mr. Danton, I don’t think you would believe us,” Eleanor Dillworth said.

  Danton sipped his martini, and thought: Probably not.

  Disgruntled employee whistleblowers almost invariably tell wild tales with little or no basis in fact.

  He said: “I don’t think I understand.”

  “You’re going to have to learn this yourself,” Patricia Wilson said. “We’ll point you in the right direction, but you’ll have to do the digging. That way you’ll believe it.”

  “How do I know you know what you’re talking about?” Danton challenged.

  “Before I was recalled, I was the CIA’s station chief in Vienna,” Dillworth said. “I’ve been in—was in—the Clandestine Service for twenty-three years.”

  “Before that bastard got me fired,” Patricia Wilson added, “I was the agency’s regional director for Southwest Africa, everything from Nigeria to South Africa, including the Congo. You will recall the Congo is where World War Three was nearly started last month.”

  “‘That bastard’ is presumably this Mr. Costillo?”

  “‘Castillo,’ with an ‘a,’” she said. “And lieutenant colonel, not mister. He’s in the Army.”

  “Okay,” Danton said, “point me.”

  “You said you were going to the four-fifteen White House press conference,” Dillworth said. “Ask Porky. Don’t take no for an answer.”

  John David “Jack” Parker, the White House spokesman, was sometimes unkindly referred to—the forty-two-year-old Vermont native was a little on the far side of pleasingly plump—as Porky Parker. And sometimes, when his responses to questions tested the limits of credulity, some members of the Fourth Estate had been known to make oink-oink sounds from the back of the White House press room.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. How do I get in touch with you if I decide this goes any further?”

  Eleanor Dillworth slid a small sheet of notebook paper across the table.

  “If there’s no answer, say you’re Joe Smith and leave a number.”

  [FOUR]

  The Press Room

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  1715 2 February 2007

  “Well, that’s it, fellows,” Jack Parker said. “We agreed that these would last one hour, and that’s what the clock says.”

  Ignoring muted oink-oink sounds from the back of the room, he left the podium and headed for the door, where he was intercepted by Roscoe J. Danton of The Washington Times-Post.

  “Aw, come on, Roscoe, this one-hour business was as much your idea as anybody else’s.”

  “Well, screw you,” Danton said, loud enough for other members of the Fourth Estate also bent on intercepting Porky to hear, and at the same time asking with a pointed finger and a raised eyebrow if he could go to Parker’s office as soon as the area emptied.

  Parker nodded, just barely perceptibly.

  Danton went out onto the driveway and smoked a cigarette. Smoking was prohibited in the White House, the rule strictly enforced when anyone was watching. And then he went back into the White House.

  “What do you need, Roscoe?” Parker asked.

  “Tell me about the Office of Organizational Analysis and Colonel Carlos Costello. Castillo.”

  Parker thought, shrugged, and said, “I draw a blank.”

  “Can you check?”

  “Sure. In connection with what?”

  “I have some almost certainly unreliable information that he and the Office of Organizational Analysis were involved in almost starting World War Three.”

  “One hears a lot of rumors like that about all kinds of people, doesn’t one?” Parker said mockingly. “There was one going around that the Lambda Legal Foundation were the ones behind it; somebody told them they stone gays in the Congo.”

  “Shame on you!” Danton said. “Check it for me, will you?”

  Parker nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  [FIVE]

  The City Room

  The Washington Times-Post

  1365 15th Street, N.W.

  Washington, D.C.

  2225 2 February 2007

  Ro
scoe Danton’s office was a small and cluttered glass-walled cubicle off the large room housing the “city desk.” Two small exterior windows offered a clear view of a solid brick wall. He had wondered for years what was behind it.

  His e-mail had just offered him Viagra at a discount and a guaranteed penis enlargement concoction. He was wondering whether he could get away with sending either or both offers to the executive editor without getting caught, when another e-mail arrived.

  FROM: White House Press Office

  TO: Roscoe J. Danton

  SENT: 2 Feb 19:34:13 2007

  SUBJECT: Costello/Castillo

  Roscoe

  After you left, I had a memory tinkle about Costello/Castillo and the Office of Organizational Analysis, so I really tried—-with almost no success—-to check it out.

  I found a phone number for an OOA in the Department of Homeland Security with an office in the DHS Compound in the Nebraska Avenue complex. When I called it, I got a recorded message saying that it had been closed. So I called DHS and they told me OOA had been closed, they didn’t know when. When I asked what it had done, they helpfully told me my guess was as good as theirs, but it probably had something to do with analyzing operations.

  At this point, I suspected that you had been down this route yourself before you dumped it on me.

  So I called the Pentagon. You would be astonished at the number of lieutenant colonels named Castillo and Costello there are/were in the Army. There is a retired Lt Col Carlos Castillo, and he’s interesting, but I don’t think he’s the man you’re looking for. This one is a West Pointer to which institution he gained entrance because his father, a nineteen-year-old warrant officer helicopter pilot, posthumously received the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.