"No kidding?"

Castillo nodded.

"So what's the excursion all about? Can you say?"

"The guy I'm talking about wants to know, and I quote, 'who knew what, and when they knew it,' end quote, about this missing 727."

"I think they call that 'internal review,' " Miller said.

"I was about to send my boss an email. I'll tell him I ran into you and ordered you to keep your mouth shut."

"You e-mail the president directly?"

"No. I work for Matt Hall. The secretary of homeland security?"

Miller's face showed he knew who Hall was, and was surprised that Charley had asked.

": who is a good guy," Castillo went on. "He was a sergeant in Vietnam. He and the president are great buddies. You're covered, Dick."

Miller made a gesture meaning he took Castillo at his word.

"So what have you learned about the airplane that went missing?" Miller asked.

"Some-maybe most-people think it's close to here, being cannibalized for parts. Only a few-very few-people think it will be flown into a skyscraper somewhere. There's also a theory that the pilot put it on autopilot and went out the back door so the owners can collect the insurance."

"And how many people, just for the hell of it, agree with my theory about what happened to it?"

"I don't understand, Dick."

"That Vasily Respin got it."

"Vasily who?"

"The Russian arms dealer. You don't know about him?"

Castillo shook his head.

"And I didn't see his name-or anything about a Russian arms dealer-on either the CIA, DIA, or State intel files, either," Castillo said. "You filed your theory?"

Miller nodded. "You're sure you saw all the files?" he asked.

"I saw everything Hall got, and I saw Cohen's memo that Hall was to get everything," Castillo said. "Which offers all sorts of interesting possibilities."

Castillo thought, but did not say: Hey, maybe that's really what all this is about. So far as many people close to the Oval Office were concerned, there were three things wrong with Dr. Natalie Cohen, the president's national security advisor. In ascending order of importance, they were that she was a woman, brilliant, and a close personal friend of the president.

If someone was trying to stick a knife in her back, she would (a) either sense it, or find out about it, whereupon (b) she would go to the president. The president would then logically decide that Hall was one of the guys at that level who should look into it. For a couple of reasons. Hall was also an absolutely loyal personal friend of the president, and, unlike the other cabinet officers, the secretary of homeland security did not have his own intelligence service.

Asking any of the heavy agencies to look into what was bothering Dr. Cohen would have the CIA pointing a finger at the DIA or the DIA pointing a finger at the State Department -und so viete- anywhere but at someone in their own agency.

Maybe that's what this is all about? Maybe not what it's all about, but it's an element of it certainly.

If the president – and maybe, probably, Hall too – thinks someone is screwing with Cohen, they want to know who it is and the facts about how the various agencies had handled the gone-missing 727 would point them in the right direction.

"Such as?" Miller asked.

"Dick, this may be more important than you know," Castillo said. "Let me make sure I have it right. You have a theory that some Russian arms dealer:"

"Vasily Respin," Miller furnished.

": either stole, or was responsible for the theft of, the 727?"

"I don't think he was in the cockpit, Charley, but I have a gut feeling he's at least involved in this. And I saw some of his people here."

"Tell me about him? Why do you think that?"

"You never heard of him? I'm surprised. There should be a hell of a file on him."

"Who is he? What does he do?"

"Cutting a long story short, Charley, in 1992-when Vasily was twenty-five-he bought three Antonov cargo planes from Russian military surplus. Paid 150 grand for all three, is what I heard. Anyway, the Russian black market had just begun to kick into high gear. The Russians had gold, and the Danes had things-basic things, but luxuries in Moscow-to sell and liked getting paid in gold.

"Respin made a lot of money, and quickly, and within a year he had set up an airline in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai has a duty-free port. Respin-who by then had already expanded his fleet-flew everything from ballpoint pens to automobiles home to Mother Russia. He made a fortune.

"And then he got chummy with Mobutu in the Congo and that brought him to the attention of Langley, who put out the word to watch him, and, shortly afterward, the CIA in Kinshasa was sending photographs of Respin standing by an Ilyushin at a Congolese field in the middle of nowhere while Mobutu's soldiers off-loaded crates of AK-47s and more sophisticated weaponry."

"Okay," Castillo interrupted. "I know who you're talking about. But I thought his name was Aleksandr Pevsner."

"That's one name he uses," Miller said, then looked at Castillo and dead-panned: "It's really astonishing how many people you meet these days who have several names."

"From what I've heard, Pevsner-or whatever his name is-has lots of airplanes. What would he want this one for?"

"Starting with the obvious, he has-or so the story goes-several, maybe half a dozen 727s. They need parts. Okay? It's entirely possible that this one went directly to Sharjah:"

"It would have to refuel," Castillo interrupted.

"Probably twice," Miller quickly agreed. "No problem, with a little planning. The friendly skies over Mother Africa are pretty open, Charley. And there are probably thirty deserted airstrips in the Congo and Sudan where a 727 can sit down unseen and get itself refueled. For that matter, Respin wouldn't even have to preposition fuel on deserted fields-although my bet is that he did. Whoever was flying this 727 could land and take on fuel at Kisangani in the Congo and Kartoum in the Sudan-with no questions asked in either place-and then take off to Sharjah."

"The satellites didn't spot it-or any unidentified 727-on any airfield anywhere," Castillo argued.

"What's an 'unidentified' 727?" Miller asked. "All they had to do was land the stolen 727 somewhere close to here and do a quick paint-over of the numbers on it, using the numbers of one of Pevsner's 727s conveniently out of sight in a hangar in Sharjah. They would have had plenty of time to do that before Langley could turn the satellite cameras on."

He paused, put his hand on his hip, and, mimicking a light-on-his-feet photo analyst examining satellite downloads, lisped, "Well, that's a 727 all right, Bruce, but it's not the one we're looking for. That 727 belongs to Rag-Head Airways. I have that tail number right here."

"I take your point," Castillo said, chuckling.

"Maybe Pevsner'd use the airplane himself, but, more likely, if he didn't use it for parts he'd sell it to somebody: the Chinese, or any one of the Holy Warrior organizations:"

"How much of this fascinating scenario did you put in your file, Dick?" Castillo interrupted.

"I sent a satburst to Langley-the third one, I think-giving the nut of the scenario. I was in the commo room when we got the acknowledgment, so it should have been on the desk of the regional director for Southwest Africa when she went to work at Langley the next morning. Then I went to work writing what I would send when I got the 'without diverting substantial assets, attempt to develop further' response. It's SOP; I expected that would come in as soon as she read the satburst."

"Let me get this straight. You prepared more than a satburst?"

"A six-page filing," Miller said. "I even read it over very carefully to make sure I had all the big words spelled right."