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"You'll have to use the one on my desk for that," Mrs. Forbison said. "I ordered one for you this morning, but it won't be in until later today."
"You ordered one for me?" Castillo asked, surprised.
"You're now on the White House circuit, didn't you know?"
"No, ma'am, I didn't."
"Well, you are. Anything else?"
"We'll need someplace to stay in Paris. The Crillon, if we can get in."
"Fancy," Mrs. Forbison said.
"And right next door to the embassy. Have them bill it to Gossinger. Four rooms."
"Let's talk about that," Mrs. Forbison said. "You, I can put on orders. The colonel, presumably, is already on orders?"
"Yes, ma'am," Colonel Torine said.
"But what about the other operator and Fernando?"
"I'll pick up the bill for the operator," Castillo said. "Then he can pocket the per diem check he gets from Fort Bragg. And I'll pick up Fernando's bill, too."
"If we hire him as a temporary contract employee… maybe as an aircraft pilot… I can cut orders on him, too."
"Mrs. Forbison, at the risk of repeating myself, you're wonderful," Castillo said.
"At the risk of repeating myself, Chief, I know. But you're going to have to start calling me Agnes."
He looked at her but didn't immediately reply.
"Please don't tell me-I already know-that I'm nearly old enough to be your mother. But you have just become a bureaucratic heavy, Chief, and bureaucratic heavies call their executive assistants by their first names."
"Whatever you say… Agnes," Castillo said, and then asked, "What do I do about Secretary Hall?"
"He said that he'd like you, if possible, to come by the OEOB before you leave."
"I'll do it." Thirty minutes later, after having spoken with both Ambassador Silvio and Alex Darby; after being informed that the Hotel Crillon would be expecting all of them; after having received his new American passport and his German passport now bearing a departure stamp from the Republic of Argentina; and after having talked to Tom McGuire long enough to be convinced that McGuire really wanted to become a member of the Office of Organizational Analysis and was going to have no problems working under a man ten years his junior, Castillo shook hands with Dick Miller and then went to Mrs. Forbison's office to say goodbye to her.
She gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek and told him to be careful. He and Torine and Fernando were waiting for the elevator when Mrs. Forbison put her head in the corridor.
"Call for you, Chief."
"If you keep calling me chief, we're back to Mrs. Forbison. Who is it?"
"Somebody who wants to talk about Jean-Paul."
"Jean-Paul Lorimer?"
"All he said was Jean-Paul, Charley."
Castillo went into Mrs. Forbison's office and picked up the telephone.
"Castillo."
"You'll have to remember to turn your cellular on," Howard Kennedy said.
"Jesus, it's in my briefcase."
