"Why don't you have a seat, please, Mrs. Wilson?" Mrs. Leonard said, waving at one of the armchairs. She walked to the DCI's desk and leaned against it.
"The DCI has been called away," Mrs. Leonard said. "Sorry. He asked me to deal with this for him. Perhaps if you had been able to get here at seven forty-five:"
"The traffic was unbelievable!" Mrs. Wilson said. "Perhaps it would be better if I came back when the DCI has time for me."
"That won't be necessary," Mary Leonard said. "This won't take any time at all and I know the DCI wants to get it behind him."
"What is it?"
"You've been reassigned," Mrs. Leonard said. "You're going back to Analysis. I don't know where they'll put you to work, but somewhere, I'm sure, where you'll be able to make a genuine contribution to the agency."
"But I like what I'm doing! I don't want to go back to Analysis."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Mary Leonard said. "But the decision has been made."
"I want to hear this from the DCI himself."
"I'm afraid that's out of the question."
"I'm being relieved of my duties, which, to the best of my knowledge, I have carried out to everyone's complete satisfaction."
"That's not exactly the case, I'm afraid. But I don't think we want to get into that, do we?"
"I demand an explanation!"
"Can I say you've demonstrated a lack of ability to deal with the problems you've encountered in the field and let it go at that? I really don't think you want to open that Pandora's box, Mrs. Wilson."
"Well, you think wrong," Mrs. Wilson said, flatly. "I have the right to appeal any adverse personnel action and I certainly will appeal this one."
Mary Leonard didn't say anything.
"This has something to do with what happened in Angola, doesn't it?" Mrs. Wilson asked.
"Yes, it does."
"Well, I may have made an error of judgment, but certainly not of a magnitude to justify:"
"Your major error in judgment: May I speak frankly?"
"Please do."
"Was in thinking you could lie to the DCI and get away with it."
"I never lied to the DCI. How dare you!"
"Didn't you tell the DCI that when you were in Luanda the assistant military attache, a Major Miller-who was also the station chief-made inappropriate advances to you?"
"And he did. Of course he would deny it."
"At the time you said you were having dinner with him, during which you said he made inappropriate advances, you were actually otherwise occupied, weren't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"For the sake of argument, if you weren't having dinner with Major Miller when you said you were that would be dishonest, wouldn't you say? A lie?"
"You're going to take the word of an incompetent Army officer who never should have been given an assignment like that in the first place over mine? Well, let's see what the appeals board has to say about that!"
She got out of the armchair and started for the door.
"Before you start the appeals process, Mrs. Wilson, I think you'd better take a look at something I have."
Patricia Wilson stopped and turned.
"What is it?"
Mrs. Leonard walked behind the DCI's desk, opened a drawer, and came out with a manila folder. She took an eight-by-ten-inch photograph from the folder and held it out to Patricia Wilson.
"You ever see this man before?" Mary Leonard asked.
"Yes, I have," she said.
"And who is he?"
"He's a German journalist. His name is Grossinger, Gossinger, something like that. He works for a small newspaper in Germany. Or so he said. I ordered Major Miller to check him out."
"Was that before or after you went to bed with him? With this man?"
"What did you say?"
"I said, did you tell Major Miller to check him out before or after you went to bed with this man?"
"I don't believe this," Patricia Wilson said. "I just don't believe it. This man actually said I went to bed with him? And you believe him?"
Mary Leonard nodded. "Yes, he did. And I believe him. So does the
DCI."
"Why-not admitting it for a minute, of course-would he say something like that?"
"Well, he probably decided that taking foreign journalists to bed after the most brief of associations was dangerous behavior for a regional director of the CIA-a married woman-and that the agency ought to know about it."
Patricia Wilson glowered at Mary Leonard.
"Your friend is not a German journalist, Mrs. Wilson," Mary Leonard said.
"He's an American, an intelligence officer working directly under the president to find flaws in the Intel community. And he found one.
She locked eyes with her and let that sink in.
"I think this conversation is over, Mrs. Wilson, don't you?" Mary Leonard asked.
Patricia Wilson stalked angrily out of the DCI's office.
Chapter XVII
[ONE]
Aboard Learjet 45X N5075L
23.01 degrees North Latitude
88.01 degrees West Longitude
Over the Gulf of Mexico
0930 10 June 2005
"I think from here on in, I better stop calling you colonel," Fernando said to Colonel J. D. Torine, USAF, "and you start playing the role of pilot-for-hire. Okay with you?"
"Yeah, sure. Call me 'Jake.' "
"And when we're dealing with Mexican customs and immigration, I think it would best if you called me 'Mr. Lopez' and Charley 'Mr. Castillo.' "
"Sure," Torine said and smiled. "You seem to have a feeling for this line of work, Mr. Lopez."
"The way it is, Jake, is that Five-Oh-Seven-Five has unlimited, frequent, unscheduled permission to enter Mexican airspace. Usually, our destination is Mexico City, Oaxaca, or Bahias de Huatulco, but I don't think alarm bells are going to go off when somebody reads our flight plan to Cozumel."
He saw the look of curiosity on Torine's face and responded to it. "The family has a ranch near Bahias de Huatulco. Used to be cattle, but now it's mostly grapefruit."
"I didn't think Americans could own property in Mexico," Torine said, and then quickly added, "I don't mean to pry."
"You goddamned yankees can't own land down here," Fernando explained. "Which is why my mother happened to be in Mexico when I was born. That made me a Mexican by birth."
"Dual citizenship?"
Fernando nodded and said, "So was our grandmother south of the border when Charley's father came along. Charley screwed up the system when he got himself born in Germany, but two of my kids are also bona fide Mexicanos. We won't tell them that until we have to."
Torine shook his head, smiling in wonder. "Why not?"
"It causes identity problems," Fernando said, chuckling. "And, sometimes, official ones. The Counterintelligence Corps shit a brick when they found out that Lieutenant F. Lopez of the 1st Armored Division held Mexican citizenship. For a couple of days, it looked like they were going to send me home from Desert One in handcuffs."
"What happened?"
"Our senator told the secretary of the Army whose side the Lopezes were on at the Alamo," Fernando said, chuckling. "And that Cousin Charley was a West Pointer, and his father-my uncle Jorge-had won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and that he didn't see any problems about wondering where our loyalties lay."
"General McNab told me about Charley's father," Torine said.
"He bought the farm before Charley and I were born," Fernando said, "but he was always a big presence around the family. Our grandfather hung his picture-and the medal, in a shadow box-in his office. It's still there. We knew all about him. He was right up there with Manuel Lopez and Guillermo de Castillo."
"Who were?"
"They bought the farm at the Alamo," Fernando said, and then went on, "Jake, why don't you go back in the cabin and get out of the flight suit? And wake up Sleeping Beauty? I want to get our little act for Mexican customs and immigration straight with him."
Torine unfastened his harness and started to get out of the copilot's seat.