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“Not if we sneak down there, Mr. President,” Hoboken replied. “Use a little-bitty airplane, a Gulfstream Five, instead of that great big 747.”
“That’d work,” the President said, after a moment’s thought.
“And it wouldn’t really be a secret that we’re going there, Mr. President. What you’d be doing there would be the secret. C. Harry Whelan would know you’re going down there, have been there, et cetera, but he wouldn’t know why—”
“Until Clendennen’s Commandos have seized Drug Cartel International?”
“Yes, Mr. President. That’s the idea.”
“How would C. Harry Whelan know I’m going to Fort Bragg?”
“We’d leak it to him. We leak things all the time.”
“Just one more itsy-bitsy problem, Robin. What if Castillo gets his ass kicked when he tries to seize Drug Cartel International?”
“Then we deny knowing anything about him or any of this.”
“Can we get away with that?”
“Not a problem, Mr. President. I lie successfully to the press on a daily basis.”
“Set it up, Robin. I want to leave first thing in the morning.”
“Mr. President,” Mulligan said, “if you’d like, we could stop in Biloxi and see about getting the First Mother-in-Law out of jail.”
“Screw her,” the President said. “I can’t let the old bag keep me from carrying out my duties as President.”
[THREE]
The Old Ebbitt Grill
675 Fifteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1155 14 June 2007
C. Harry Whelan, who had not seen Roscoe J. Danton around town for several days and thus wondered what the miserable sonofabitch was now up to in his perpetual quest to upstage him on Wolf News, telephoned Danton’s unlisted number.
Danton had an automated telephone system. Ordinarily it worked like most of them. In other words, Roscoe J. Danton’s recorded voice would announce that he was sorry he couldn’t take the call right now, but if the caller would kindly leave his name and number after hearing the beep, he would get back to them as soon as he possibly could.
But that was before Mr. Edgar Delchamps reasoned that Roscoe’s callers would be curious if, after leaving their names and numbers, Roscoe didn’t get back to them at all. And he didn’t want to change the message to “I’ll be out of town for a few days and will get back to you just as soon as I return,” as that would make people even more curious. So he explained the problem to Dr. Aloysius Casey, and they came up with a solution.
The result of this was that when C. Harry dialed Roscoe’s number, he got a recorded voice that said with a heavy Slavic accent, “Embassy of the Bulgarian People’s Republic. Press one for Bulgarian, two for Russian, or three…”
C. Harry, concluding he had misdialed, broke the connection and carefully punched in Roscoe’s number again.
And got the same Bulgarian message. This time he listened to the message all the way through. When he’d heard it all, he pressed five, which the Bulgarian said was for English.
This time he got a crisp American voice: “FBI Embassy surveillance, Agent Jasper speaking. Be advised this call will be recorded under the Provisions of the Patriot Act as amended. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.”
C. Harry broke the connection with such force that he knocked his BlackBerry out of his hand.
Jesus Christ, he thought, if they trace that call, I’ll be on the FBI’s list of known Bulgarian sympathizers!
Determined to find Roscoe J. Danton and learn what the sonofabitch was up t
o, C. Harry entered the Old Ebbitt, where he knew Roscoe habitually went for a pre-luncheon Bloody Mary.
