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“Somebody like Roscoe J. Danton?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Somebody like Mr. Danton.”
“Good thinking, Madam Secretary. The less anybody knows about this the better, and if Danton, that sonofabitch, got wind of it…”
“That was my thinking, Mr. President.”
“. . . it would be all over Wolf News and in every goddamned newspaper in the country,” the President finished.
“Yes, sir,” the secretary of State said.
“It says on here No Duplication, but it also says Make Available to Lammelle, Ellsworth, and Whatsisname, the secretary of Defense. God, the Military Mind! How are you going to do that?”
“After I spoke with the First Lady, Mr. President, I showed the message to Secretary Beiderman and DCI Lammelle. And when I leave here, I will send a State Department security officer to Tampa to show it to General Naylor. And with your permission, sir, I will get in contact with Mr. Ellsworth, telling him to return. You will recall you sent him to Budapest. When he comes back, I’ll show the message to him.”
“And what we do now is wait until we see how this face-to-face meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Castillo comes off, right?”
“Yes, Mr. President. As I read the message, that may take place late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. We should know the results within an hour or two after that.”
“And you’ll bring me the results as quickly as you brought this message, right?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Well, that’s it, then. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Mulligan, show the secretary to her car.”
Ten seconds after the door closed on Mulligan and Cohen, the President asked, “Robin, how the hell did that stupid woman ever get to be secretary of State?”
“I don’t know, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken confessed.
“All she had to do was get on the goddamn telephone to General Naylor and read the goddamn message to him. What she’s going to do is send one of her security people down to Tampa with the message. She may even fly him down there in an Air Force jet, just so he can say, ‘Take a quick look at this, General Naylor.’ How much is that going to cost the poor taxpayer?”
Robin Hoboken confessed, “I don’t know exactly, Mr. President. But you can bet a pretty penny.”
“I am surrounded by idiots and cretins, Robin.”
“‘Cretins,’ sir?”
“A cretin is a high-level moron. You didn’t know that?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. But I will from here on.”
“On the other hand, there’s always a silver lining, as Belinda-Sue is always saying.”
“Silver lining, sir?”
“I’ve been thinking out of the box again, Robin.”
“You have, sir?”
“The more I think of this idea of mine of having Castillo look into the piracy and drug problems, the more I like it. Even if Castillo doesn’t come up with something useful—and he even might; strange things happen—if the word gets out that what I’ve done is tell a brilliant intelligence officer to look into the problem and make recommendations, I don’t think that would adversely affect my reelection campaign, do you?”
“You’re going to go on TV, sir? Or hold a press conference and make an announcement?”
“If I held a press conference, not only would it make me look immodest but some bastard would ask me questions I don’t want to answer. Christ, you should know that, you’re the presidential spokesman and nobody believes anything you say either.
“What I’m doing is going to have to reach the American people via the press who are going to discover what I’m doing.”
“How are you going to arrange that?”
