"Oh, my, the FBI!" Castillo said, more loudly than was necessary.

He got a smile from Isaacson before Isaacson stopped at a nearby door, and appeared to be slipping a plastic card into its lock.

"Come in, please," Castillo said. "The secretary expects you."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary," the man from the FBI said. "I'm Inspector Doherty from Director Schmidt's office."

Hall smiled at him and put out his hand.

"Mr. Secretary, we have a dossier for you," Inspector Doherty said, "but it's from the director's personal files and he'd like it back-if possible, he'd like us to take it back now, after you've had a chance to read it."

He handed Hall an expanding cardboard folder. Hall looked at the folder and then at Doherty. The look on his face showed he didn't like at all hearing that Schmidt wanted his dossier back right away.

"Director Schmidt will have everything xeroxed for you, sir," Doherty offered.

"In that case, Charley," Hall said, handing the folder to Castillo, "I think you and Miller had better have a quick look at the dossier before you go."

The look on Doherty's face showed he didn't like that announcement at all.

"With all respect, sir, do these gentlemen have the proper security clearances?"

Hall didn't reply. The look on his face was answer enough.

"You understand, sir, I had to ask."

Inside the expanding folder was the dossier, a thick stack of paper held together with a large aluminum clip.

"There's coffee, Mr. Doherty," the secretary said.

"Thank you but no thank you, sir."

Castillo walked to the couch, laid the dossier on the coffee table, and started flipping through it. After a minute, Miller sat down beside him.

"I hope you, Mr. Secretary-and these gentlemen-understand that some of the material in these files has not been confirmed," Doherty said.

Castillo closed his dossier.

"Sir, I'll need more time than Miller and I have," he said.

"Okay," Hall said. "Then you better leave. You and Miller can read the Xeroxes when you get back."

Castillo took the dossier and started to put it back in the expanding file.

"Just leave it there, please," Hall said. "I'll read as much as I can before I have to go to the White House."

"Yes, sir," Castillo said.

He and Miller went into the bedroom. In five minutes-Castillo now wearing a necktie and suit jacket-they came out carrying suitcases.

Hall looked up from the dossier on the coffee table.

"Keep in touch," he ordered.

[THREE]

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

1725 8 June 2005

Secretary Hall had heard-and it had not displeased him-that the passengers of only three vehicles were ever exempted from careful scrutiny before being passed onto the White House grounds: the presidential limousine, the vice-presidential limousine, and the blue GMC Yukon XL that he ordinarily rode in.

He thought of that as his Yukon approached the gates and was pleased to realize he enjoyed that little perk and John Powell and Mark Schmidt did not. Right now, he was not very fond of the DCI or the director of the FBI.

And he was therefore surprised, and a little disappointed, when the uniformed Secret Service officer waved the Yukon to stop.

Joel Isaacson rolled down the driver's window.

"Good evening, Mr. Secretary," the guard said. "Sir, the president requests you to go to the quarters before you go to the situation room."

Natalie Cohen was sitting with her legs tucked under her skirt on a couch in the sitting room of the president's apartment. She raised her hand in a casual greeting when Hall walked in.

The president was sitting slumped in an armchair, holding a crystal tumbler of what was almost certainly his usual bourbon, Maker's Mark, on the rocks.

"You want one of these, Matt?" he asked, raising the glass. "To give you courage to grovel before Powell?"

"I'm not going to grovel before Powell," Hall blurted, then remembered to add, "Mr. President, am I?"

"Let me tell you where our little fishing expedition has crashed on the rocks," the president said.

He pointed at an array of bottles on a sideboard. Hall walked to it, told himself he was in trouble, would need all his wits not a drink, and then poured two inches of the bourbon into a glass and took a sip.

Then he leaned against the sideboard and looked at the president.

"The FBI has learned that Lease-Aire, Inc., has filed a claim for the loss of its airplane, which is now with a seventy percent probability at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."

"Sir, isn't that to be expected?"

The president held up his hand as a signal for him not to interrupt.

"The DCI has reported that he found it necessary to relieve the station chief in Luanda for, one, turning over to your major the linguist-classified material that had already been evaluated and found useless by Langley because your major told him he was working for me-this was to be a secret operation, remember?-and, two, incidentally getting shit-faced at dinner-sorry, Nat-"

Dr. Cohen raised her hand in exactly the same way she had raised it when Hall had walked into the room.

": and making a pass at his boss."

The president took a sip of his drink and then looked at Hall, waiting for his reaction.

The secretary of homeland security, after three seconds of thought, made a profound philosophical decision that he learned in Vietnam, when lives also were at stake: Pick men you trust, and trust the men you pick.

"In my judgment, Mr. President," Hall said, "there is an almost one hundred percent probability that the missing airplane is not at the bottom of the Atlantic."

" That's interesting," Dr. Cohen said.

"You don't happen to know where it is, do you, Matt?" the president asked very softly.

"Mr. President, there is an almost eighty percent possibility that as of five o'clock yesterday afternoon it was at a remote airfield in Chad, a place called Abeche. I have so informed the DCI."

"And the source of your information, Matt?" Dr. Cohen asked, very softly.

"A Russian arms dealer by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner."

"And what did the DCI say when you told him you had learned from Mr. Pevsner that the airplane was in Chad?" the president asked, and then, without giving Hall time to reply, asked, "And did Mr. Pevsner happen to tell you what the 727 is doing in Chad?"

"In a short answer, sir, the airplane is being prepared to be flown into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia by a Somalian group which calls itself the Holy Legion of Muhammad."

"You told this to Powell?" the president asked.

"No, sir. Only that I had reliable information that the aircraft was at Abeche."

"He didn't ask for your source?"

"Yes, sir, he did. But I told him I was on a non-secure telephone."

"This guy Pevsner has come up before," the president said. "According to Powell, he's a Russian gangster, the head of the Russian Mafia. Are you aware of that?"

"Did the DCI also tell you, sir, that the agency uses Pevsner's fleet of airplanes to move things covertly for them? And as a source for weapons of all kinds?"

"No," the president said, thoughtfully. "He didn't happen to mention that."

"What was your contact with Pevsner?" Dr. Cohen asked. "How did that happen?"

"My contact was through Major Castillo," Hall said. "You want all the details?"

"Every one of them, Mr. Secretary," the president said. "Every goddamned last-minute detail!"

It took about ten minutes.

"Okay, Dr. Cohen," the president said. "You've heard this fascinating yarn; you're my security advisor-advise me."