"So I've heard," Castillo said.

"One of our guys was coming here from Rio in a 747," Witherington said. "He was supposed to make a stop in Caracas but didn't-there was weather, and we had another flight going in there an hour later-so he just headed for Miami. And forgot to change his flight plan. Twenty minutes after he was supposed to have landed at Caracas, he got a call from an excited controller asking him where he was and what he was doing, and he told him, and ten minutes after that-before he got to Santo Domingo-he looked out the window and saw a Navy fighter looking at him."

"So what do you think happened to the 727?" Castillo asked.

"I think they probably flew it a couple of hundred miles-maybe less-and then started to cannibalize it. There's a market for any part-engines on up-in what we call 'the developing nations'-and no questions asked."

"I hadn't thought about that," Castillo said. "That makes sense."

"Let me tell them where I'm going," Witherington said, "and get a golf cart-the one 727 we have here, as a backup for this part of the country, is too far down the line to walk."

"You're really being helpful," Castillo said. "I appreciate it."

"My pleasure. Be right back."

When Witherington was out of earshot, Castillo said, "After we get the tour-which shouldn't take long-we'll get some breakfast, and then you can head home."

"I was hoping you would say, 'Fernando, since you're staying over why don't you stay with me? We can have dinner or something.' "

"You're staying over?"

"I have to confer with our Washington attorneys."

"What about?"

"So I can truthfully tell the IRS the reason I brought the Lear to Washington was to confer with our Washington attorneys. And not using the corporate aircraft for personal business."

"What about you picking me up at Savannah?"

"That was a routine cross-country proficiency flight."

"You're a devious man, Fernando."

"Not in the same league as you, Gringo."

Castillo was about to ask him what the hell that was supposed to mean when Witherington appeared around the corner of the concrete-block building at the wheel of a white golf cart and there wasn't time.

[FOUR]

Old Executive Office Building

17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

1155 31 May 2005

Major C. G. Castillo, wearing a dark suit and tie not unlike that of the countless civilian staffers moving in a purposeful fashion up and down the hallways of the OEOB, stopped before an unmarked heavy wooden door and put a key in its lock.

Inside there was a small antechamber with nothing in it but a somewhat ragged carpet and, mounted more or less unobtrusively high above a second door, a small television camera.

Castillo rapped at one of the panels in the door and, a moment later, there was the buzz of a solenoid and when Castillo put his hand on the door it opened.

This was the private entrance to the office that Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall maintained in the old building across from the White House, which had once housed the State, War, and Navy departments-all three-of the federal government.

The secretary had seen who it was and pushed a button under his desk to unlock the door.

"I said twelve o'clock and here you are at eleven fifty-five," Hall said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Punctuality is a virtue, sir," Castillo said. "I thought I told you that. Since its my only one, I work hard at it."

Hall chuckled. "I've heard that chastity and temperance aren't among your virtues," he said. "What's up, Charley?"

"I went to Baltimore and got UPS to show me one of their 727s. Their guy doesn't think it will be used as a flying bomb against us here."

"I hope he's right," Hall said.

"And then I came here-about forty-five minutes ago-and have worked my way maybe one-third down the stack of stuff Dr. Cohen's memo got us."

"And?"

"After page two, and considering the urgency of our conversation with the president, I thought what I should do is go over there, and the sooner the better."

Hall considered that momentarily. After the secretary's discussions in the Oval Office with the president and Natalie Cohen, then further discussions privately between Hall and Dr. Cohen, there was no question that the president was pissed and therefore no question that Castillo now had a blank check to carry out his mission.

"Okay," he said. "Have them make the arrangements."

"I've already done that, sir. I'm on a Lufthansa flight to Rhine-Main tonight."

"You have to go through Frankfurt?"

"I want to give my boss at the Tages Zeitung a heads-up that he's sending me to Luanda," Charley said. "Then London to Angola on British Airways."

"You think that's necessary? Going as: what's your name?"

"Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger," Castillo said.

"That's a mouthful. No wonder I can't remember it."

"Sir, I had the feeling that you really wanted me to be the fly on the wall on this job. That's the best way to do it, sir, I submit, as a German journalist."

"The less anyone knows what you're doing, Charley, the better. There's no sense in having it get out the president ordered this unless it has to come out."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"Anything I can do for you before you go?" Hall asked, and then had a thought. "How are you going to get a visa for Angola on such short notice?"

"That's my next stop, sir, the Angolan embassy."

Hall stood up and put out his hand.

"If you were going as my assistant, I know the Angolan ambassador and could give him a call. But he would ask questions if asked a favor for Wilhelm Whatsisname, a German journalist."

"I don't have to go as Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, sir," Castillo said. "But I think it makes more sense."

"So do I," Hall said. "Have a nice flight, Charley. You know how to reach me; keep me in the loop-quietly. And good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

[FIVE]

Embassy of the Republic of Angola

2100-2108 16th Street NW

Washington, D.C.

1520 31 May 2005

"It was very good of you to see me, sir, on such short notice," Castillo said to the very tall, very black man in the consular section.

He was speaking in what he hoped was good enough Portuguese to be understood. His Tex-Mex and Castilian Spanish-actually, a combination thereof-had worked for him well enough in Sao Paulo, Brazil, but this man was from a Portuguese-speaking African country and that was something different.

The black man smiled at him and asked, in English, "How can the Angolan embassy be of service to a Spanish-speaking German journalist?"

"I was afraid my limited experience with your language would be all too transparent, sir," Castillo said.

"How may I help you?"

"My newspaper wants me to go to Luanda and write a story about the airplane no one seems to be able to find," Castillo said. "And I need a visa. I have all the documents I understand I need."

He began to lay documents on the man's desk.

They included his German passport, and three photocopies thereof; two application forms, properly filled out; a printout of an e-mail he had sent himself from Texas, ostensibly from the Tages Zeitung, ordering him to get to Luanda, Angola, as quickly as he could in order to write about the missing 727, as Herr Schneider is ill and cannot go; his curriculum vitae, stating he had earned a doctorate at Phillip's University, Marburg an der Lahn, and had been employed by the Tages Zeitung as a writer and lately foreign correspondent for the past nine years; and his White House press credentials.

And a one-hundred-dollar bill, almost hidden by all of the above.

As soon as he had spread the documents out, he found it necessary to blow his nose and politely turned away from the consular official to do so.