“That’s true, but would that be honest?”
“Trust me, Mr. President, I do things like that all the time.”
The President considered that option for a moment, and then said, “Okay, we’ll do it. But let’s make it quick. Before we go back to Washington, I’ve got to go to Biloxi and get Belinda-Sue’s mother out of ja… where she is and back in the Baptist assisted living place.”
[EIGHT]
“Get a couple more shots of General Whatsisname saluting the President farewell, and then we can get out of here,” Presidential Spokesperson Robin Hoboken ordered the photographers.
General McNab saluted the President farewell for the third time and then asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. President?”
“You’re really a slow learner, aren’t you, General?” President Clendennen replied. “We’ve already been down that street twice.”
“Excuse me, sir,” McNab said. “Is there anything else the President can do for the general?”
“The President — presuming the general can get Clendennen’s Commandos up and running and seizing Drug Cartel International smoothly — can get the general another star. How does that sound?”
“Just as soon as I can get the precise locality of the airfield, sir, I’ll get right on it.”
“And that process would be speeded up if you could get a little more enthusiasm for getting Clendennen’s Commandos into Clan Clendennen kilts, General.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mr. President,” General McNab said.
“Get Colonel Whatsisname, the Heraldry guy, to give your people a little historical background on kilts in warfare.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”
“As far as I’m concerned, those green berets you people wear make me think of wimpy Frenchmen. Who else wears a beret? Kilts, on the other hand, make me think of great big muscular, redheaded Scotchmen — like my ancestors in Clan Clendennen — waving great big swords.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. President,” General McNab said, evenly.
The President went up the stair door. Robin Hoboken and then the photographers and Supervisory Special Agent Mulligan followed him.
Sean O’Grogarty remained on the tarmac.
“Excuse me, sir,” General McNab said, “I think you’re about to get left behind.”
“That’s the idea,” Sean replied. “Special Agent Mulligan said I was to stick around and let him know how you’re doing.”
“Wonderful!” General McNab said, sharply sarcastic. “This just gets better by the moment.”
The stair door closed as the engines started. Sixty seconds later, the C-37A, call sign “Air Force One,” lifted off.
General McNab watched until the departing aircraft had vanished from sight, and then he walked away from the base operations building down a taxiway. When he was halfway to the runway and had looked around to make sure he was out of earshot, he took his CaseyBerry from his pocket and punched an autodial button.
“Good morning, Bruce,” Secretary of State Natalie Cohen said thirty seconds later.
“Madam Secretary, I believe it would be best if no one but you was in a position to hear any part of this conversation.”
“All right,” she said, and he heard her announce to someone, somewhat curtly, “You’ll have to excuse me while I take this call.”
Thirty seconds after that, she said, “I get the feeling this call is important.”
“The President just took off from here, back to Washington, via Biloxi.”
“What in the world was he doing at Fort Bragg?”
“He wanted to have his picture taken with Clendennen’s Commandos before they go to Mexico to seize Drug Cartel International Airport.”
“‘Clendennen’s Commandos’?”
“He has renamed Delta Force and Black Fox.”
“My God!”
“And he wants them to start wearing the kilts of Clan Clendennen.”
“Unbelievable!”
“I respectfully suggest, Madam Secretary, that you convene a conference of the senior officials aware of the problem to discuss bringing the matter to the Vice President and the Cabinet.”
“It looks as if we’re going to have to do that. Is that what you’re saying, Bruce?”
“Yes, Madam Secretary, it is.”
“Your formality is making me nervous, frankly.”
“I beg your pardon, if that is the case.”
“There’s a problem with convening something like that. Who are you thinking of?”
“Mr. Ellsworth, Mr. Lammelle, General Naylor, Attorney General Palmer, and FBI Director Schmidt, Madam Secretary.”
“Not the Vice President?”
“Vice President Montvale, Madam Secretary, came to me privately and said that if the situation ever came to this, he wished not to be involved, so that later there could be no accusations that he had led a coup.”
“He came to me saying the same thing. And he’s right. But if the President learns, as I am very afraid he will, that I have convened these people, he’s going to cry coup. What are we going to do about that?”
“Hold the meeting in secret, Madam Secretary.”
“That would be just about impossible, Bruce, and you know it.”
“Madam Secretary, I suggest we could hold the meeting in secret if we went to Greek Island.”
It took her a moment to reply.
“If we’re talking about the same Greek Island, Bruce, that was shut down shortly after the Berlin Wall came down.”
“It’s still there, Madam Secretary. No longer controlled by the government, but still there.”
“Are you suggesting we go to West Virginia, to the Greenbrier Hotel, and reopen Greek Island? For one thing, how could we get in? If they haven’t bricked up the opening, then they have gutted it.”
“No, ma’am,” McNab said. “When there was no longer a need for a place for Congress to go in case of a nuclear attack, the government stripped the place and turned it back over to its owner.”
“So?”
“The owner is one of Those People in Las Vegas.”
“And?”
“Frank, who was then working in Covert Operations at the Company, and had already started a relationship with Those People, went to them and told Hotelier he could put the place to good use, but it had to be kept quiet.”
“I think I know where you’re going,” Secretary Cohen said.
“It’s an ideal place to conduct interrogations of people we don’t want anybody to know we’re talking to. And to store things the Agency needs.”
“The Agency and Special Operations Command, you mean?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And by people you don’t want anyone to know you’re talking to, you mean people who didn’t want to talk to you in the first place, right? People who didn’t volunteer to come to the United States?”
McNab didn’t answer.
“Sometimes, Bruce, I think that you and Frank Lammelle are as dangerous as President Clendennen.”
“Well, just forget… please… that I even mentioned the hotel.”
“Is that what you call it, ‘the hotel’? Well, that sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it?”
Again McNab didn’t reply.
“The Lindbergh Act doesn’t give either you or Frank an exemption from anti-kidnapping laws. I presume both of you loose cannons know that.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re aware of that.”
“Well, let’s hear your plan, Bruce.”