The Outlaws_ A Presidential Agent Novel Part 8

"So what do we know about these two disgruntled employee whistleblowers?" Waldron asked.

"The younger one, Wilson, was an agricultural a.n.a.lyst at Langley before she got married to Wilson, who's a career bureaucrat over there. The gossip, which I haven't had time to check out, is that he's light on his feet. He needed to be married, and she needed somebody to push her career. Anyway, she managed to get herself sent through The Farm and into the Clandestine Service. They sent her to Angola, and then she got herself sent back to Langley. A combination of her husband's influence and her vast experience-eleven months in Angola-got her a job as regional director for Southwest Africa, everything from Nigeria to the South African border. She was where she wanted to be, back in Was.h.i.+ngton, with her foot on the ladder to greater things. She was not very popular with her peers."

"What got her fired?"

"According to her, this Colonel Castillo said terrible things about her behind her back about her handling of that 727 that was stolen. Remember that?"

Waldron nodded. "What sort of things?"

"She didn't tell me, not that she would have told me the truth. But anyway, that got her relieved from the Southwest Africa desk, and a.s.signed to the Southern Cone desk-"

"The what?"

"Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile-otherwise known as the Southern Cone."

"From which she got fired?" Waldron asked, and when Danton nodded, asked, "Why?"

"I got this from a friend of mine who's close to the DCI and doesn't like her. Somebody sent the DCI a tape on which our pal C. Harry Whelan, Jr., proudly referred to her as his 'personal mole' in Langley."

C. Harry Whelan, Jr., was a prominent and powerful Was.h.i.+ngton-based columnist.

"That would do it, I guess. You check with Harry?"

Danton nodded.

"And did he admit knowing this lady?"

"More or less. When I called him, I said, 'Harry, I've been talking with Patricia Davies Wilson about you.' To which he replied, 'Don't believe a thing that lying b.i.t.c.h says.' Then I asked, 'Is it true somebody told the DCI she was your personal mole over there?' And Harry replied, 'Go f.u.c.k yourself, Roscoe,' and hung up."

"I can see where losing one's personal mole in the CIA might be a trifle annoying," Waldron said. "But-judging from what you've told me about this lady-might one suspect she is what our brothers in the legal profession call 'an unreliable witness'?"

"Oh, yeah," Roscoe agreed. "But the other one, Dillworth, is different."

"How different?"

"Well, for one thing, everybody I talked to liked her, said she was really good at what she did, and was sorry she got screwed."

"How did she, figuratively speaking of course, 'get screwed'?"

"She was the CIA station chief in Vienna. She had been working on getting a couple of heavy-hitter Russians to defect. Really heavy hitters, the SVR rezident rezident in Berlin and the SVR in Berlin and the SVR rezident rezident in Copenhagen, who happen to be brother and sister. Dillworth was so close to this coming off that she had had Langley send an airplane to Vienna, and had them prepare a safe house for them in Maryland." in Copenhagen, who happen to be brother and sister. Dillworth was so close to this coming off that she had had Langley send an airplane to Vienna, and had them prepare a safe house for them in Maryland."

"And it didn't come off?"

"Colonel Castillo showed up in Vienna, loaded them on his plane, and flew them to South America."

"She told you this?"

"No. What actually happened was that Dillworth said she wasn't going to tell me what had happened, because I wouldn't believe it. She said she would point me in the right direction, and let me find out myself; that way I would believe it."

"Is this Russian defectors story true?"

"There's an Interpol warrant out for"-Roscoe stopped and consulted his organizer, and then went on-"Dmitri Berezovsky and Svetlana Alekseeva, who the Russians say stole several million euros from their emba.s.sies in Germany and Denmark."

"And you know know that Castillo took these Russians to South America? How do you know?" that Castillo took these Russians to South America? How do you know?"

"My friend who is close to the DCI and doesn't like Amba.s.sador Montvale told me that Montvale told the DCI that he was going to South America to get the Russians. And that when he got down there, Castillo told him the Russians had changed their minds about defecting."

"And you believe this?"

"I believe my friend."

"So what happened is that when Castillo stole the Russians from Dillworth, blew her operation, the agency canned her?"

"That got Dillworth in a little hot water, I mean when the Russians didn't come in after she said they were, but what got her recalled was really interesting. Right after this, they found the SVR rezident rezident in Vienna sitting in the backseat of a taxi outside our emba.s.sy. He had been strangled to death-they'd used a garrote-and on his chest was the calling card of Miss Eleanor Dillworth, counselor for consular affairs of the U.S. emba.s.sy." in Vienna sitting in the backseat of a taxi outside our emba.s.sy. He had been strangled to death-they'd used a garrote-and on his chest was the calling card of Miss Eleanor Dillworth, counselor for consular affairs of the U.S. emba.s.sy."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Waldron said. "The agency thought she did it?"

"No. They don't know who did it. But that was enough to get her recalled from Vienna. She She thinks Castillo did it. Or, really, had it done." thinks Castillo did it. Or, really, had it done."

"Why? And for that matter, why did he take the Russians? To Argentina, you said? He was turned? We have another Aldrich Ames? This one a killer?"

Aldrich Hazen Ames was the Central Intelligence Agency counterintelligence officer convicted of selling out to the Soviet Union and later Russia.

"I just don't know, Chris. From what I've been able to find out about him, Castillo doesn't seem to be the traitor type, but I suppose the same thing was said about Ames until the FBI put him in handcuffs."

"And what have you been able to find out about him?"

"That he was retired at Fort Rucker, Alabama-and given a Distinguished Service Medal, his second, for unspecified distinguished service of a cla.s.sified nature-on January thirty-first. He was medically retired, with a twenty-five percent disability as the result of a medical board at Walter Reed Army Hospital. That's what I got from the Pentagon. When I went to Walter Reed to get an address, phone number, and next of kin from the post locator, he wasn't in it.

"A diligent search by another friend of mine revealed that he had never been a patient at Walter Reed. Never ever. Not once. Not even for a physical examination or to have his teeth cleaned."

"And being the suspicious paranoid person you are, you have decided that something's not kosher?"

"I suppose you could say that, yes."

"What do these women want?"

"Revenge."

"Is Dillworth willing to be quoted?"

"She a.s.sures me that she will speak freely from the witness box, if and when Castillo is hauled before Congress or some other body to be grilled, and until that happens, speak to no other member of the press but me. Ditto for Mrs. Patricia Davies Wilson."

"She has visions, in other words, of Senator Johns in some committee hearing room, with the TV cameras rolling, glaring at this Castillo character, and demanding to know, 'Colonel, did you strangle a Russian intelligence officer and leave him in a taxicab outside the U.S. emba.s.sy in Vienna in order to embarra.s.s this fine civil servant, Miss Eleanor Dillworth? Answer yes or no.'"

Senator Homer Johns, Jr. (Democrat, New Hamps.h.i.+re), was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and loved to be on TV.

Roscoe laughed, and added, "'Would you repeat the question, Senator?'"

Waldron laughed, then offered his own answer: "'Senator, I don't have much of a memory. I've been retired from the Army because I am psychologically unfit for service. I just don't recall.'"

"'Well, then, Colonel, did you or did you not steal two Russians from under Miss Dillworth's nose and fly them to Argentina?'"

Roscoe picked it up: "'Two Russians? Senator, I don't have much of a memory,' et cetera."

Waldron, still laughing, reached into another drawer of his desk and came out with two somewhat grimy gla.s.ses and a bottle of The Macallan twelve-year-old single malt Scotch whisky.

He poured.

"Nectar of the G.o.ds," he said. "Only for good little boys and naughty little girls."

They tapped gla.s.ses and took a sip.

"That's not going to happen, Roscoe," Waldron said, "unless we make it happen. And I'm not sure if we could, or even if we should."

"In other words, let it drop? I wondered why you brought out the good whisky."

"I didn't say that," Waldron said. "You open for some advice?"

Roscoe nodded.

"Don't tell anybody what you're doing, anybody anybody. If there's anything to this, and I have a gut feeling there is, there are going to be ten people-ten powerful people-trying to keep it from coming out for every one who'd give you anything useful."

Roscoe nodded again.

"I can see egg on a lot of faces," Waldron said. "Including on the face of the new inhabitant of the Oval Office. He's in a lose-lose situation. If something like this was going on under his predecessor, and he didn't know about it, it'll look like he wasn't trusted. And if he indeed did know there was this James Bond outfit operating out of the Oval Office, stealing Russian defectors from the CIA, not to mention strangling Russians in Vienna, and doing all sorts of other interesting, if grossly illegal, things, why didn't he stop it?"

"So what do you want me to do?"

"One thought would be for you to go to beautiful Argentina and do a piece for the Sunday magazine. You could call it, 'Tacos and Tangos in the Southern Cone.'"

Roscoe nodded thoughtfully, then said, "Thank you."

"Watch your back, Roscoe. The kind of people who play these games kill nosy people."

[THREE].

U.S. Army Medical Research Inst.i.tute Fort Detrick, Maryland 0815 4 February 2007

There were three packages marked BIOLOGICAL HAZARD in the morning FedEx delivery. It was a rare morning when there wasn't at least one, and sometimes there were eight, ten, even a dozen.

This didn't mean that they were so routine that not much attention was paid to them.

Each package was taken separately into a small room in the rear of the guard post. There, the package-more accurately, the container, an oblong insulated metal box which easily could have contained cold beer were it not for the decalcomania plastered all over it-was laid on an examination table.

On the top was a black-edged yellow triangle, inside of which was the biological hazard indicator, three half-moons-not unlike those to be found on the tops of minarets of Muslim houses of wors.h.i.+p-joined together at their closed ends over a circle. Below this, black letters on a yellow background spelled out DANGER! BIOLOGICAL HAZARD!

Beside this-in a red circle, not unlike a No Parking symbol-the silhouette of a walking man was bisected by a crossing red line. The message below this in white letters on a red background was AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!

This was apparently intended to keep curious people from opening the container to have a look at the biological hazard. This would have been difficult, as the container was closed with four lengths of four-inch-wide plastic tape, two around the long end and two around the short. The tape application device had closed the tapes by melting the ends together. The only way to get into the container was by cutting the tape with a large knife. It would thus be just about impossible for anyone to have a look inside without anyone noticing.

Once the biological hazard package was laid on the table, it was examined by two score or more specially trained technicians. It was X-rayed, sniffed for leakage and the presence of chemicals which might explode, and tested for several other things, some of them cla.s.sified.

Only after it had pa.s.sed this inspection was the FedEx receipt signed. The package was then turned over to two armed security officers. Most of these at Fort Detrick were retired Army sergeants. One of them got behind the wheel of a battery-powered golf cart, and the other, after putting the container on the floor of the golf cart, got in and-there being no other place to put them-put his feet on the container.

At this point the driver checked the doc.u.mentation to the final destination.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," he said. "It's for Hamilton personally."

J. Porter Hamilton was the senior scientific officer of the U.S. Army Medical Research Inst.i.tute. It was said that he spoke only to G.o.d and the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research Inst.i.tute, but only rarely deigned to do so to the latter.

Although he was triply ent.i.tled to be addressed as "Doctor"-he was a medical doctor, and also held a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford and a Ph.D. in molecular physics from MIT-he preferred to be addressed as "Colonel." He had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with the cla.s.s of 1984 and thought of himself primarily as a soldier.

Colonel Hamilton had the reputation among the security force of being one really hard-nosed sonofab.i.t.c.h. This reputation was not pejorative, just a statement of the facts.

[image]

Colonel Hamilton-a very slim, very tall, ascetic-looking officer whose skin was deep flat black in color-showed the security guards where he wanted the biological hazard container placed on a table in his private laboratory.

After they'd left, he eyed the container curiously. It had been sent from the Daryl Laboratory in Miami, Florida. Just who they were didn't come to mind. They had paid a small fortune for overnight s.h.i.+pment, which also was unusual.

He went to a closet, took off his uniform tunic, and replaced it with a white laboratory coat. He then pulled on a pair of very expensive gloves which looked like normal latex gloves, but were not.

"Sergeant Dennis!" he called.

Dennis was a U.S. Army master sergeant, a burly red-faced Irishman from Baltimore who functioned as sort of a secretary to Colonel Hamilton. Hamilton had recruited him from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Hamilton, doing what he thought of as his soldier's duty, often served on medical boards at Walter Reed dealing with wounded soldiers who wanted-or who did not want-medical retirement. Dennis had been one of the latter. He did not wish to be retired although he had lost his left leg below the knee and his right arm at the shoulder.

There was no way, Hamilton had decided, that Dennis could return to the infantry. On the other hand, there was no reason he could not make himself useful around Building 103 at Fort Detrick, if that was the option to being retired. He made the offer and when Dennis accepted, he'd asked, "Can you arrange that, Colonel?"

"I can arrange it, Sergeant Dennis. The chief of staff has directed the Army to provide whatever I think I need for my laboratory. Just think of yourself as a human Erlenmeyer flask."