"Thanks just the same, Sergeant Schneider, but I'm not really afraid of him," Castillo said.
"You better be, you sonofabitch!" Lieutenant Schneider said.
Betty was not amused. She was, instead, all business.
"What Lieutenant Schneider is going to do is stay here until we have a couple of uniforms sitting on your airplane," she said. "He can do that better than anybody else. And then he's going to catch up with us at Homicide. The other Highway car will take the sergeants and the radio to the arsenal. I'll call ahead and set it up for them. And that car will stay there to provide whatever transport we need. If you have any problems with that, Frank, call Chief Kramer. He's at Homicide."
Lieutenant Schneider looked for a moment as if he was going to say something, but, in the end, he turned wordlessly and walked toward his car.
Which almost certainly means that Chief Inspector Kramer has told him that Betty's running this operation and that he takes his orders from her.
Betty gestured for the others to get in the unmarked Crown Victoria.
Castillo got in beside her.
Their eyes met-momentarily-for the first time as she backed away from the hangar.
"Why the uniform?" Betty asked.
"It made sense at Fort Bragg," he said, and then, "You don't seem surprised."
"I picked up on that-that you're an Army officer, as well as a Secret Service agent, and the executive assistant to the secretary of homeland security-at Dick's house."
"Yeah."
"How do you know who you are at any given moment?"
"Sometimes it's difficult."
"And, I forgot, the head of catering for: what was it you said?: Rig Service?"
"Rig Service," he confirmed. "Sometimes I say I fly helicopters for them."
"And is there such a company?"
"Yeah, there is," Fernando said from the backseat. "And among other things I do for the Gringo whenever somebody calls up to check on him is say that he really is what he told somebody he is."
"'The Gringo'?" she repeated.
"Just a nickname," Fernando explained, and even though the car interior was darkened Betty knew he said it with a smile. "You're welcome to use it, too," he added.
"Thanks. But how do you know what he's told them?"
"Sometimes that's very difficult," Fernando said, chuckling.
He started to say something else but saw that she had her cellular telephone out and had punched an autodial button.
"Sergeant Schneider, sir," she said a moment later. "I just picked up Mr. Castillo at the airport and we're headed for the Roundhouse. I sent one of the Highway cars out to the arsenal. Mr. Castillo brought some kind of special radio-and a guy to set it up and work it-with him. The antenna has to go someplace where it can be aimed at a satellite. The porch roof of Building 110 will work. Is that okay with you?"
"Whatever he wants, Schneider," Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer could be heard, faintly but clearly. "You want me to call out there and set it up?"
"That would probably be a good idea, sir."
"Okay, done. I'll see you in a couple of minutes."
A security guard waved them through the airport gate.
Betty reached to the dashboard and turned on the flashing lights under the grille and the siren, stepped heavily on the accelerator, then turned her head.
"You were saying, Mr. Lopez?"
"Call me Fernando, please," he replied. "I was wondering why your brother wants to break the Gringo's legs."
"Jesus Christ!" Castillo exclaimed.
There was another momentary meeting of Betty's and Charley's eyes and she shook her head.
Charley said to Dick: "What I'm wondering is what you found out from the undercover cop. Can we get to that, please, Dick?"
"Charley, not only because I also wonder what you've done to annoy Betty's brother, I think you'd better wait and get it straight from the undercover cop. It's pretty weird."
"Give me what you think I can understand," Charley ordered.
"Okay. None of this is confirmed. But I think there's a good chance the guys who stole the airplane have been here in Philadelphia, as mullahs, visiting from Somalia."
"You mean the guys who actually stole the airplane or the guys behind the idea?"
"Maybe both. According to Britton:"
"Britton is the undercover cop?" Castillo interrupted.
"Right. When these characters showed up at Britton's mosque, he reported it. Chief Inspector Kramer took it to the FBI. The names these two guys gave at the mosque didn't mean anything to the FBI, so Kramer got photos of them at the mosque. The FBI got a match and said they were legitimate, they were pilots for Air Yemen and in this country for flight training: some place in Oklahoma."
"Probably my alma mater," Castillo said.
"What?"
"On my graduation leave-remember, Fernando?-for reasons that now seem pretty foolish, I went to Spartan-the Spartan School of Aeronautics; it's been around forever-and got my Airline Transport rating. They train pilots from all over the world; from small airlines that don't have their own facilities. It's in Tulsa."
"Okay," Miller said. "That fits. And according to Britton, it's all over the AAL community that the Liberty Bell's going to be taken out."
"AAL, Dick?" Fernando asked.
"Cop shorthand for African American Lunatics,' " Miller said. "And defined as African American-and some white guys, believe it or not-quote, Muslims, end quote, who are not part of the bona fide Islamic community and who happen to be black."
"I don't think I understand," Fernando confessed.
I know I don't," Miller said. That's why I want Charley to hear all this from Britton. I don't want to say something, imply something, that may not be the case."
"But we have the names-and photographs, you said-of these people?" Castillo asked.
"Photos, probably," Betty Schneider said. "We tend to hang on to photos. I didn't think to ask. But we don't have names."
"Why not?"
"The FBI didn't give them to Chief Kramer, and-when this came up just now-he said if he called down there he was probably going to get the duty officer, who would stall him until the SAC came to work in the morning, so we decided to wait for you."
"Jesus Christ!" Castillo exclaimed. "You said the undercover cop, Britton, is in Homicide. What's that all about, Betty?"
"Why don't we go back to 'Sergeant Schneider'?" she said.
"You mean until this is over?"
"No, that's not what I mean," she said. "The reason Detective Britton is in Homicide is because we picked him-Ali Abd Ar-Raziq-up for questioning in a homicide."
"You're talking about the undercover cop?" Fernando asked.
"Yeah. The AALs like to know where every other AAL is all the time and what they're doing. So when we really have to talk to them-more often when they really have to talk to us-we pick them up, with other unsavory characters."
"Jesus Christ! I wouldn't mind taking on the FBI duty officer as a Secret Service agent, but I can't walk into an FBI office in my uniform! They'd lock me up until-"
He banged his fist on the dashboard.
"We need those damned names!" Castillo said, clearly frustrated.
No one said anything.
"And I don't have any dates or anything," he said after a moment. "Betty, when was this?"
"I'll have to look it up, Mr. Castillo," she said. "And I can't do that until we get to Homicide or out to the arsenal."
"'Mr. Castillo'?" he parroted.
"Yeah. You're 'Mr. Castillo,' and I'm 'Sergeant Schneider.' Okay?"
"Whatever you say, Sergeant Schneider."
"We'll be at the Roundhouse in just a couple of minutes, Mr. Castillo," she said. "We'll deal with it then."
[THREE]
Homicide Bureau
Police Administration Building
8th and Race Streets
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
0225 10 June 2005
Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer was almost visibly of two minds when he saw Major C. G. Castillo in his Class A uniform.