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“If he takes out anybody, Ferris will die,” Castillo said.
“Stefan’s right,” Sweaty said. “Aleksandr will be genuinely sorry about that, but he’ll think of your friend’s passing as unavoidable collateral damage.”
“Well, I’ll just have to talk him out of thinking that way,” Castillo said. “Sweetheart, your call. We either leave right now, or very early in the morning.”
“Why can’t we have dinner first, and then leave?” she asked.
“Because I suspect Juan Carlos is going to have the radar operators at Bahías de Huatulco International Airport report to him when any airplanes take off from here. If we take off after dark, he’ll know the runway is lighted. And I don’t want him to know that.”
“Then dinner here, looking down at the ocean,” Sweaty said without hesitation. “Afterward, we can walk on the beach, holding hands.”
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“Are you going to take Stefan and his ‘citrus experts’ with you?” Don Armando asked.
Castillo nodded. “Stefan, yes. But if you don’t think the ‘citrus experts’ pose a danger to Hacienda Santa Maria, I’d like to leave them here. I may need them later on.”
[THREE]
The President’s Study
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
0830 17 April 2007
FBI Director Mark Schmidt, presidential press secretary Clemens McCarthy, and Supervisory Secret Service Agent Robert J. Mulligan were already in the room when Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman walked in.
Beiderman nodded at them, and said, “Good morning, Mr. President.”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” President Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen said as he rose from his small “working desk.” He walked to a library table on one side of the room. “Take a look at what we have to show you.”
Clendennen gestured to Mulligan, who handed McCarthy a large manila envelope. McCarthy walked to the table, opened the envelope, and took from it a sheaf of eight-by-ten-inch color photographs. As if laying out a hand of solitaire, he laid them one at a time, side by side, in four rows on the table. When he was finished, the table was nearly covered.
Clendennen gestured for Beiderman to examine the pictures. He did so, then raised his head and asked, “Exactly what am I looking at, Mr. President?”
“These photographs were taken yesterday afternoon outside suite 1002 in the Mayflower Hotel,” McCarthy said.
“They were taken by FBI photographers, so they will stand up as evidence in court, if it ever comes to that,” Clendennen amplified.
“Yes, sir. Who are these people, Mr. President?”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t pick anyone you know from them?”
“Well, sir, I of course recognize Roscoe Danton and Colonel Castillo—”
“Retired Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, you mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what about my former press secretary, Porky Parker. Did you recognize him?”
“Yes, sir, of course. But I don’t recognize any of the others.”
“You didn’t see any of them at Arlington the day before yesterday? Maybe as they got into their limousines and drove off just as I was beginning my remarks?”
