"Before you change your mind, how do we start this?" McNab asked.

"Why don't you send the boy wonder here back to Nevada with me in the Lear?" Casey said. "Let him do some preliminary reconnoitering?"

"You mean now?" McNab asked.

"I think I'd like another beer and maybe something to eat first."

"Pack, Charley," General McNab ordered.

Castillo started to stand.

"Shortly," Casey said, motioning with his beer for Charley to stay seated. He looked at McNab. "If you don't mind, General. It's been too long since I last broke bread with my brothers."

[TWO]

303 Concord Circle

Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania

1655 9 June 2005

Charley Castillo's cellular phone tinkled as Betty Schneider turned the car into the drive of a brick colonial house sitting behind half an acre of immaculately manicured lawn.

"Hello?"

There was no reply, but there was the faint hiss of a connection suggesting there was someone on the line.

"Hello?"

There was still no reply.

After a moment, the hiss stopped. Castillo pushed the call end key.

Castillo looked out the window and saw they were close to the three-car garage. There was an apartment over the garage; he had stayed in it when, in his last year at West Point, the Army-Navy game had been played in Philadelphia.

He also saw Major General H. Richard Miller, Sr., USA, Retired, who was walking purposefully across the lawn toward a flagpole. When he reached it, he stopped and looked at the Ford Crown Victoria.

Betty stopped the car and they all got out.

"I could use a little help here," General Miller called. It was clearly an order.

Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., trotted toward his father and the flagpole. Betty looked at Charley and saw that he was sort of standing at attention. When Major Miller reached the flagpole, he, too, came to attention. General Miller began to slowly lower the national colors. Major Miller put his hand over his heart. When Betty looked at Castillo, she saw he had his hand over his heart and put her hand on her breast.

Major Miller caught the end of the flag as it approached the lawn and he and his father then folded it in the prescribed manner, ending up with a tightly folded triangle, which he then tucked under his arm.

"Okay," Castillo said and started to walk toward the Millers.

"Yes, sir," Betty said and followed him.

"Good afternoon, sir," Castillo said.

"The colors have been lowered; it's evening," General Miller corrected him. He looked at Betty Schneider.

"General, this is Sergeant Betty Schneider of the Philadelphia Police Department," Castillo said.

"How do you do, Sergeant? Welcome to our home."

"Thank you, sir," Betty replied.

A trim, gray-haired, light brown-skinned woman ran across the lawn to them, cried "Charley!," grabbed both of Castillo's arms, rose on her toes, kissed him, and said, "Thank you, Charley! God bless you!," and then hugged him tightly.

"Helene," General Miller said, "this young woman is Sergeant Schneider of the Philadelphia Police Department."

"We finally got Dick released into our company, Mrs. M.," Charley said. "But I had to promise you'd keep him chained in the backyard."

Mrs. Miller shook her head, then put out her hand to Betty.

"I'm very pleased to meet you. Welcome!"

"Thank you," Betty said.

Castillo's cellular tinkled again.

"Hello?"

"Hiya, Charley! How are things in Bala Cynwyd, P.A.?"

Charley recognized the voice of Howard Kennedy, Aleksandr Pevsner's former FBI agent personal spook.

"How nice of you to call, Mr. Kennedy," Castillo said.

Major Miller's eyes lit up.

"Aren't you going to ask how I know where you are?"

"You have friends from the old days, right?"

Castillo noticed curiosity on Betty's face and disapproval on General Miller's.

"I don't know about 'friends,' " Kennedy said. "But you've heard, I'm sure, that money talks?"

If he knows I'm here in Bala Cynwyd – nobody knew we were coming here – he's got somebody in the cellular phone business. They can trace a call to the nearest cell antenna. That's what the first no-answer call was all about. He wanted to locate me before he talked to me.

"So I'm told."

"You want to tell me who's answering your phone in the Mayflower?"

What the hell! Don't lie unless you have to.

"One of Secretary Hall's Secret Service guys. His personal detail. My boss thought you might call and he didn't want me to miss it."

"Not somebody from the Fumbling Bureau of Investigation, Charley? Please don't lie to me, Charley."

"No. As a matter of fact, right now Secretary Hall's relationship with the FBI is rather strained."

"I would really hate to think that you were trying to set up some sort of a rendezvous between me and my former colleagues, Charley. That would distress me almost as much as it would distress Alex."

"Neither you nor he have to worry about that, Howard."

"Good. When Alex is distressed, he can get very unpleasant. For the moment, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."

"Thank you."

"I like you, Charley. Respect you. I checked you out. There's more to you than your West Point poster boy image suggests. I think we could become pals."

Does he mean that? Or is he schmoozing me?

"What did you want to tell me when you called the Mayflower?"

"Alex wanted me to tell you that that airplane's no longer where we told you it would be," Kennedy said.

"No longer, or never was?"

"No longer. Since last night."

"How do you know?"

"And something else. In addition to changing the registration numbers, they took all the seats out and put in fuel bladders."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, I know somebody who talked to somebody who talked to the truck drivers who took the bladders to Abeche."

"And how did somebody who talked to somebody know of your interest?"

"Just between us, Charley, a mutual friend of ours in the air cargo business flew them from Mogadishu-you know that's in Somalia, right?"

"I even passed Basic Geography 101 at West Point," Castillo said.

"Do they grade on the alphabetic or numerical scale at West Point? I always wondered."

"Numeric. You were saying these bladders were flown to where?"

"N'Djamena. That's in Chad, I suppose you know."

"Is it really? When did our friend do this?"

"About three weeks ago. And knowing our friend would be a little curious about why anyone would want fuel bladders in Chad, I asked the pilots to snoop around a little. They found out they were to be trucked to Abeche."

"I wonder why our friend's customer didn't want them flown directly to Abeche."

"Putting all the little dots together, are you? I wondered, too."

"And putting your little dots together, what did you conclude?"

"I'll bet I concluded the same thing you have," Kennedy said. "I hope you understand, Charley, that if our friend had any idea about Abeche he would have declined the charter. As I hope we've made clear, our friend really wants to avoid the spotlight of public attention."

"So that's how you know-actually, think-that the airplane was in Abeche?"

"No. I have what the FBI would call 'eye witnesses' to that."

"I don't suppose you know where the airplane is now? Or have the new registration numbers?"

"New registration numbers and a new airline paint job. No, I don't."

"Wonderful!"

"But I'll bet it isn't in Somalia:"

"Why fly the bladders from there if the airplane was going there, right?"

"Great minds travel similar paths."

"Got a guess where it might be?"

"Not a clue. But I'm working on that, and the new identification, even as we speak. If I find out something, you'll be the first to know."