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“I think so.”
“He’ll be expecting to hear from you.”
“You will get your reward in heaven, Frank.”
“Will that be before or after we both go to Leavenworth? Leavenworth, hell, Florence ADMAX.” He chuckled. “This is not the sort of excitement I thought I’d get when I joined the CIA.”
Then he hung up.
[NINE]
The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1730 18 April 2007
“You sure took your own sweet time to get here,” President Clendennen said to Attorney General Crenshaw and FBI Director Schmidt when Secret Service Agent Douglas had passed them into the President’s study.
“I didn’t think it would be wise to come here with sirens screaming, Mr. President,” Crenshaw said. “I thought it would make people wonder what’s going on.”
The President glared at him but didn’t reply directly.
“Let’s start with you, Director Schmidt. What’s going on in El Paso?”
“SAC Johnson is standing by at the La Tuna prison, Mr. President, waiting for the Marshals to deliver Abrego. Once he arrives and is taken into the prison—in other words, comes under the authority of the Bureau of Prisons again—he will be outfitted in civilian clothing and taken to the Magoffin Home—”
“What the hell is that?” the President interrupted.
“It’s the former home of the Magoffin family, Mr. President. Now a museum. It’s a large adobe structure—”
“A well-known El Paso landmark, in other words?” President Clendennen interrupted again.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why didn’t you just say that? I don’t need the Chamber of Commerce bullshit.”
“Yes, sir. Photographs of Abrego shaking hands with SAC Johnson will be taken—”
“What the hell is that all about?”
“SAC Johnson will be identified—under another name—as an officer of the Magoffin Home Foundation, and Abrego—also under another name—as a contributor to the Magoffin Home Foundation. SAC Johnson has arranged for the photo to be published in tomorrow morning’s El Diario de El Paso. This, SAC Johnson—and I—feel will satisfy the cartel’s requirement, quote, to publish a photograph of him taken in an easily recognizable location near El Paso, close quote. The next move will be up to them.”
“Okay,” the President said, “so who told that sonofabitch Roscoe J. Danton that we’re moving Abrego to Texas?”
“Mr. President, I have no idea.”
“Neither does the attorney general,” President Clendennen said, looking at Crenshaw. “So I have the director of the FBI and the attorney general telling me that they have absolutely no idea of the identity of the treasonous sonofabitch whose meddling is interfering with the foreign policy of the President of the United States. Would either of you find it hard to understand why I find that unacceptable?”
Crenshaw cleared his throat, then said, “Mr. President, I have begun an investigation—”
“Somehow that doesn’t reassure me,” the President snapped. “So tell me what you have on this sonofabitch Danton.”
“Excuse me?”
