[SIX]

The very large Highway Patrol officer-Castillo saw for the first time he was a sergeant-was leaning against the car when Charley came out of the Warwick with his luggage.

He took the suitcase from Charley, opened the rear door, tossed the suitcase in the trunk, waited for Charley to get in, then closed the door.

The Warwick's doorman was obviously wondering what was going on.

They were five or six blocks down South Broad Street, stopped at a light, when the officer's cellular telephone rang.

"Hold on, Lieutenant," the sergeant said and turned on the seat. "It's for you, but the phone won't go through the barrier."

The car pulled to the curb, the sergeant got out, opened the rear door, and handed the phone to Castillo.

"Hello?"

"This is Tom Schneider."

"I think we've met before," Charley said. "I really appreciate the:"

"Yeah. So what are you, DEA or something?"

"Or something."

"Well, listen good, Mr. DEA hotshot. I saw what you was doing with my sister in her car."

"I don't really know how to respond to that," Charley said. "It was:"

"Don't respond. Just listen. You fuck around with my sister again, I'll break both of your legs. You understand me?"

"I hear you loud and clear, Lieutenant."

"See if you can not come back to Philadelphia," Lieutenant Schneider said and broke the connection.

Charley handed the cellular back to the sergeant, who had apparently been able to hear the conversation because he said, "He means it. You better pay attention."

Then he closed the door, got back in the front seat, and the car moved into the traffic flowing down South Broad Street.

"Which airline?" the Highway Patrol sergeant said as they approached Philadelphia International Airport.

That subject had not previously been considered by Major C. G. Castillo, whose mind had, all the way down South Broad Street, been occupied with the memory of Betty Schneider's eyes-and then her lips-on his, and the multiple ramifications thereunto pertaining.

"Not an airline," he said. "They sent a plane for me."

"Who 'they'?"

"The Department of Homeland Security," Charley said. "It's a Secret Service airplane."

"No shit?"

"Is there a general aviation terminal?" Charley asked. "Or something like that?"

"Beats the shit out of me," the Highway sergeant confessed. "Let me see if I can find one of the airport guys. They got sort of a district out here."

Halfway down the line of departing passenger gates of the various airlines, the Highway officer driving the car spotted a policeman wearing a white-brimmed cap, and blew his horn to attract his attention. When that didn't work, he made the siren growl for a moment, which produced the desired effect. The airport detail officer trotted over to the car, to the fascination of thirty or more departing passengers.

"Your name Castingo?" the officer inquired after having been asked where a Secret Service airplane would be parked.

"Castillo," Charley said.

"Whatever. Close enough. The arm is out for a guy who would probably ask about a Secret Service airplane," the officer said. Then he looked at the sergeant. "They want him over at the unit."

The unit turned out to be a small building at the end of one of the parking lots. The sergeant opened the rear door of the patrol car for Charley, and, after Charley grabbed his gear from the trunk, led him into the building.

It was, Charley saw, a small police station. There was a "desk"-an elevated platform-manned by a sergeant and a corporal, and, on one side of the room, there were two holding cells. The "bars" were made of chain-link fence, but since the cells were in sight of the desk sergeant it was unlikely that a prisoner could get through them unnoticed.

Joel Isaacson, the supervisory Secret Service agent in charge of Secretary Hall's security detail, was leaning against the makeshift desk.

Charley walked toward him with the Highway sergeant on his heels. When Isaacson saw Charley, he smiled, then bent his head slightly toward the voice-activated microphone under his lapel.

"Tom," he said. "Don Juan just walked in here."

Castillo wondered how unlikely it was that the Highway sergeant, when reporting the successful delivery of the passenger to the airport, would fail to mention that he had been met by some kind of a federal agent, probably Secret Service, who referred to him as "Don Juan."

"Hey, Charley," Isaacson said. "Good timing. I don't think I've been here five minutes. Your flying chariot awaits."

"I didn't expect to see you, Joel," Castillo said as they shook hands.

"The FBI came through with that dossier the boss asked for," Isaacson said. "On your new friend?"

Castillo nodded.

"The boss wants you to read it on our way to where we're going. I'm to bring it back."

"Okay."

"And you're in luck. The suitcase you left on the airplane the last time you were on it?"

Charley searched his memory.

Christ! I left my go-right-now bag on the secretary's airplane the day I met the president and he gave me this job. The day Fernando picked me up in his new Lear and flew me to Texas to see Abuela.

Jesus, I'd forgotten all about it. How long ago was that? It seems like last year, but it was really only a couple of weeks ago. Less than two weeks: thirteen days.

"It's still on the plane," Joel said. "I tagged it inspected."

"Thanks."

"It could have been a bomb, Charley," Isaacson said. "You're lucky somebody didn't take it to the end of the runway at Andrews and blow it up."

"I forgot to tell anyone I left it on board," Charley said.

"I'm not sore at you, Don Juan:"

Thanks a lot, Joel. The sergeant here might have missed "Don Juan" the first time.

": egg is on my face. Don't tell the boss."

"Of course not."

"You about ready to go?"

"Anytime," Charley said. He turned to the Highway Patrol sergeant. "Thanks for the ride. I appreciate it."

"No problem," the sergeant said and then looked at Isaacson. "Why do you call him that? 'Don Juan'? Can I ask?"

Isaacson smiled, then made an exaggerated search of the room with his eyes.

"I don't see any members of the gentle sex who might take offense, so why not? Take a look at him, Sergeant. Nice-looking guy. Young. Not married. Lives very well. Meets a lot of interesting women. Would you suspect that he gets laid a lot?"

The Highway Patrol sergeant chuckled.

"I thought it was probably something like that," he said.

[SEVEN]

On board Cessna Citation X NC 601

Flight level 31,000 feet

Near Raleigh, North Carolina

2135 9 June 2005

"Did you read this?" Charley Castillo asked, raising his eyes from the personnel file of Kennedy, Howard C, each page of which was stamped SECRET in red.

Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire were in the rear of the cabin, both lying nearly horizontally in fully reclined seats and both holding a bottle of beer. And both nodded.

"I decided I had the need to know," McGuire said, mock serious.

Isaacson smiled.

"Something's missing," Castillo said. "Or I'm missing something."

Isaacson raised his right eyebrow but again said nothing.

"The FBI's been leaning on me-or the boss-to tell them where he is. And he's really worried that I will."

"Uh-huh," Isaacson agreed.

"There's nothing in here that explains that," Charley said. "And there's nothing in here about a warrant or an indictment, anything like that. What's going on? Why's it classified secret? It's just a personnel record. Confidential, maybe, but secret?"

"There's a story going around that the FBI internal phone book is classified secret," Tom McGuire said. "They're big on keeping things to themselves."