1701 Locust Street

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

0725 9 June 2005

Castillo looked up and down Locust Street, his eyes falling on a life-sized statue of a man with an umbrella erected almost directly across the street. Then he heard two beeps of a horn and when he looked for the sound saw Miller's arm waving from the front seat of a dark blue Buick sedan parked fifty feet from the hotel entrance.

He walked quickly toward it, and, as he approached, Miller opened the rear door from the inside.

The driver was a small, wiry, light-skinned man with a precisely manicured mustache.

"Good morning, General," Castillo said, courteously.

Major General H. Richard Miller, Sr., USA, Retired, turned on the seat and pointed a finger at Castillo.

"The first time I saw you, Castillo-you were a plebe at the time-I knew you were going to be trouble."

"Sir, if the general is referring to Dick's: return: from Africa. That situation has been taken care of, sir."

" 'Taken care of? What the hell does that mean? Good God, a Miller relieved for cause!"

"How, Charley?" Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., asked.

"The president is sending you a letter of commendation, via the Defense Intelligence Agency CG," Castillo said. "Secretary Hall called last night to tell me."

"What that will do," General Miller said, not at all mollified, "is cause Dick's records to be flagged 'political influence.' That's almost as bad as the comment 'relieved for cause.' "

General Miller moved his icy glare from Castillo long enough to look for a break in the traffic, found one, and pulled away from the curb.

Major Miller turned on the seat, and with a combination of facial expressions, shrugged shoulders, and other body language managed to convey to Castillo that he was sorry his father had attacked Castillo, but, on the other hand, that Charley knew the general and thus what to expect.

Charley used a combination of gestures to signal that he understood the situation and that he didn't mind.

Castillo thought: Jesus Christ, thank God I didn't go home with Dick last night! If I had, I would have had nonstop General Miller in an outrage. This will be over as soon as we get to Police Headquarters, and, no thank you, Dick, I will not go home with you later to at least say hi to your mother.

Their route to Police Headquarters took them around City Hall and toward the Delaware River. Castillo thought he remembered that Constitution Hall and the Liberty Bell were somewhere in the area but he wasn't sure.

Jesus, here I am, trying to keep a bunch of lunatic terrorists from crashing an airplane into it and I don't even know where it is!

Police Headquarters turned out to be a curved building a couple of blocks off Market Street. The parking lot into which General Miller drove the Buick had a sign reading POLICE VEHICLES ONLY. General Miller pulled the car into a parking slot with a sign reading CHIEF INSPECTORS ONLY, turned off the ignition, and opened the door.

Then he put his head back in the door and announced, "Let's go, Castillo! We don't want to keep the commissioner waiting, do we?"

My God, he's going with us!

"Sir, are you going with us?"

General Miller's response was a shake of the head, indicating his disgust with a stupid question, followed by an impatient hand gesture meaning, "Let's go, let's go!"

There is absolutely nothing I can do about this.

What the hell is he up to?

A policeman walked up to them.

"Sir, you can't park there, that's reserved for chief inspectors."

"I'm General Miller, here to see the commissioner," the general replied. "He advised me to park there. I'm surprised you weren't so notified. If there is a problem, I suggest you call him."

The policeman looked at General Miller carefully and then nodded and walked away.

Inside the building, through a glass door, there were four waist-high columns through which police and civilian employees passed swiping identity cards. To the right of the columns was a desk for visitors manned by a uniformed officer.

"General Miller and two others to see Commissioner Kellogg," General Miller announced.

"Sir, I was led to believe that the commissioner expects us at eight," Castillo said. "It's only seven-forty."

"Then your information is incorrect," General Miller said.

They were obviously expected, for the policeman immediately produced three visitor badges and pushed the button which released the barrier in the visitor turnstile.

They boarded an elevator, which was, like the rest of the building, curved, and rode up.

When the elevator door opened, a detective, or a plainclothes policeman, was waiting for them.

"Good morning, General," he said. "The commissioner expects you."

General Miller's response was a curt nod of the head.

They followed the police officer-Castillo couldn't see any kind of a badge, but there was a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol in a skeleton holster on his belt-down the corridor, to another desk, manned by another plainclothes officer, where they signed the visitors' register and were allowed to pass first through an outer office and then into what was apparently the commissioner's office.

A very large black man in a well-fitting dark blue suit rose from behind his desk and smiled.

"Good morning, Richard," he said, offering his hand and then offering it to Major Miller. "It's good to see you, Dick. It's been a while."

"Good morning, sir."

"And this is?"

"That, Commissioner," General Miller said, "is Major Carlos G. Castillo, and I am here to tell you something about him."

"I was expecting the special assistant to the secretary of homeland security," Commissioner Kellogg said. "But how do you do, Major?"

"How do you do, sir?" Charley said.

"Will what you have to tell me about Major Castillo wait until we have some coffee?" the commissioner asked as he waved them into chairs.

"I'll pass on the coffee, thank you," General Miller said. "I realize your time is valuable and this won't take long."

The commissioner sat in his chair and made a go-ahead signal with both hands.

"I have known Major Castillo since he and Dick were plebes at West Point," General Miller began. "They were then, and are now, like a container of gasoline and a match. One or the other lights the match and the other blows up."

"Really?" the commissioner said with a smile.

"Furthermore, Major Castillo, rather than adhering to the West Point code of Duty, Honor, and Country at all times, has frequently chosen to follow the Jesuit philosophy that the end justifies the means."

"There is a point, right, Richard, to this character assassination?" the commissioner asked. He was smiling, but it was strained.

"On one such occasion," General Miller went on, "three very senior officers reluctantly concluded that the weather, the time of day, and enemy ground-to-air missile and automatic weapons capability absolutely precluded the dispatch of a medical evacuation-"dust off"-helicopter to attempt to rescue the crew of a shot-down helicopter in mountainous terrain in Afghanistan.

"When they presented their recommendation to the general officer in overall command, they told him they had reached their conclusion despite their painful awareness that a no-fly decision would almost certainly result in the death of two of its crew members, who were seriously wounded, and the death or capture of the other personnel on the helicopter, a total of five officers and three enlisted men.

"The bottom line, as they say, was that sending a rescue helicopter, which would almost certainly either be itself shot down or crash because of the weather conditions, could not be justified.