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“Jesus Christ, Charley!” Miller said.
“I want to make the point that I don’t want you confiding in your boyfriend, either,” Castillo said.
“I’ll tell him I can’t talk about this,” she said. “He’ll be pi . . . He won’t like it but he’ll understand. He’s a cop.”
“Good.”
“He’s a lieutenant in Highway Patrol. And he’s not my boyfriend, he’s my brother,” Betty said.
“He was a very convincing jealous boyfriend last night,” Castillo said.
“I hope the international Mafia thought so,” Betty said, and then asked, “Are you now going to tell me what this is all about?”
“You’ll pick up more than you have to know from listening to me on the phone,” Castillo said.
“You’re going to call him on your cell?” Miller asked.
“Unless you happen to know where we can find a convenient secure phone,” Castillo said as he put his phone to his ear.
A moment later, he said, “I need to talk to him right now, Mrs. Kellenhamp—
“Where is he?—
“What’s he doing at Camp David?—
“How do I call Camp David? Maybe it would be better if you called him there and asked him to call me on my cellular —
“You’re right. It’d be better to go through the White House—
“If he calls, please ask him if he’s talked to me, and, if he hasn’t, to please call me right away. This is important.”
He took the cellular phone from his ear and punched another autodial number.
“My name is Castillo. I’m Secretary Hall’s executive assistant. You can verify my identity by calling Mrs. Kellenhamp at Secretary Hall’s office. You have the number. He’s at Camp David. Patch me through to him, please.”
He took the cellular from his ear.
“They’ll check,” he announced. “I wonder what’s going on at Camp David?”
He put the phone back to his ear and mumbled, “Guess they didn’t check,” then said louder, “Yes, sir. Sir, I wouldn’t normally call you there but another problem has come up—
“Sir, the commissioner is being more than helpful, but at four-fifteen tomorrow afternoon he’s going to tell the mayor what we think may happen to the Liberty Bell—
“Sir, he doesn’t want to cause panic and he doesn’t want to cry wolf. He’s afraid if the mayor—the mayor’s staff— hears anything at all about this, it will get leaked to the press. But he can’t stall indefinitely—
“Yes, sir. I should have thought about this. I don’t know why the hell I didn’t—
“Yes, sir. Four-fifteen tomorrow afternoon—
“We’re on our way to talk to the people who own Lease-Aire, sir. They gave us a sergeant and a car. And Chief Inspector Kramer, who runs their Counterterrorism Bureau, is trying to make contact with somebody—maybe more than one person—he has inside the black groups who may have heard something relative to what Pevsner was talking about—
“I don’t know how long that will take, sir—
“Yes, sir, the minute I hear anything—
“Yes, sir. Sir, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news—
“Thank you, sir. When are we going to have word about Abéché?—
