quarters to come here.”
“It’s addressed to LTC McNab.”
“I noticed. It may be a typo, or it could be on purpose. My gut feeling is that it’s on purpose.”
“To attract less attention?” Naylor asked.
McNab nodded.
“I’ve been wondering if another . . .”
“Was sent to me?” Naylor finished for him.
McNab nodded again.
“Captain,” Naylor said politely, “would you ask Colonel Brewer to come up here, please?”
Colonel J. D. Brewer was Naylor’s senior aide-de-camp.
“We have been cleared for takeoff,” the public-address system announced. “Please fasten your seat belts.”
“No FedEx Overnight envelope or other communication relative to this at MacDill, General,” Colonel Brewer reported five minutes later, as the Gulfstream reached cruising altitude.
Naylor looked at McNab.
“What’s the plan at Andrews?” McNab asked.
“A Black Hawk will take us to Langley; we meet the others there.”
“Including Natalie?”
“I have been led to believe the secretary of State will be there.”
His tone made it clear that he thought General McNab should not refer to the secretary of State by her first name.
“I call her Natalie because I like her, General,” McNab said. “She’s my kind of gal.” And then he quoted the secretary of State: “ ‘You miserable goddamn shameless hypocritical sonofabitch!’ ”
It was what Secretary of State Natalie Cohen had said to President Clendennen in the Situation Room of the White House on February 12, immediately after the President had announced that “for the good of the country, for the good of the office of the President, I am inclined to accept Ambassador Montvale’s offer to become my Vice President.”
It was the first time anyone in the room had ever heard her say anything stronger than “darn.”
“My God!” Naylor said.
“She calls a spade a spade,” McNab said. “There aren’t many other people in Foggy Bottom—offhand, I can’t think of one—who do that.”
Naylor looked at McNab as if he were forming his words. When finally he said nothing, McNab went on:
“We can ask her at the agency if she’s been contacted, and I’m sure that among Lammelle’s gnomes is someone who can lift any fingerprints there might be on the envelope.”
Franklin Lammelle was DCI, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“All right,” Naylor said. “And the CIA would be the most logical choice to deal with this situation, right?”
McNab didn’t reply.
“McNab, you’re not thinking of going down there to rescue Colonel Ferris, are you?”
“General, I would say that none of us has enough information to make any decisions on how to deal with this,” McNab said. “But we can think about it while we’re at Langley doing our bit to help the President get reelected.”
“Is that how you think of it?”
McNab didn’t reply directly, instead saying, “Having complied with Action One of the SOP by notifying my superior headquarters of the situation, with your permission, General, I will now take Action Two.”
General Naylor nodded his permission.
“Al,” McNab said to Captain Walsh, “would you please bring the Brick up here?”
Sixty seconds later, Walsh laid the Brick on the table. It had been provided to General McNab by the AFC Corporation free of charge. The chairman of the board of the AFC Corporation, Dr. Aloysius Francis Casey, had, during the Vietnam war, been the communications sergeant on a Special Forces A Team.
He credited that service for giving him the confidence to do such things as apply for admission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology without having a high school diploma, and then shortly after being awarded his Ph.D. by that institution, starting the AFC Corporation, which quickly became the world leader in data processing and encryption.
“Like the jarheads say, General,” he had told then–newly promoted Brigadier General McNab when he flew, uninvited, in one of
“It’s addressed to LTC McNab.”
“I noticed. It may be a typo, or it could be on purpose. My gut feeling is that it’s on purpose.”
“To attract less attention?” Naylor asked.
McNab nodded.
“I’ve been wondering if another . . .”
“Was sent to me?” Naylor finished for him.
McNab nodded again.
“Captain,” Naylor said politely, “would you ask Colonel Brewer to come up here, please?”
Colonel J. D. Brewer was Naylor’s senior aide-de-camp.
“We have been cleared for takeoff,” the public-address system announced. “Please fasten your seat belts.”
“No FedEx Overnight envelope or other communication relative to this at MacDill, General,” Colonel Brewer reported five minutes later, as the Gulfstream reached cruising altitude.
Naylor looked at McNab.
“What’s the plan at Andrews?” McNab asked.
“A Black Hawk will take us to Langley; we meet the others there.”
“Including Natalie?”
“I have been led to believe the secretary of State will be there.”
His tone made it clear that he thought General McNab should not refer to the secretary of State by her first name.
“I call her Natalie because I like her, General,” McNab said. “She’s my kind of gal.” And then he quoted the secretary of State: “ ‘You miserable goddamn shameless hypocritical sonofabitch!’ ”
It was what Secretary of State Natalie Cohen had said to President Clendennen in the Situation Room of the White House on February 12, immediately after the President had announced that “for the good of the country, for the good of the office of the President, I am inclined to accept Ambassador Montvale’s offer to become my Vice President.”
It was the first time anyone in the room had ever heard her say anything stronger than “darn.”
“My God!” Naylor said.
“She calls a spade a spade,” McNab said. “There aren’t many other people in Foggy Bottom—offhand, I can’t think of one—who do that.”
Naylor looked at McNab as if he were forming his words. When finally he said nothing, McNab went on:
“We can ask her at the agency if she’s been contacted, and I’m sure that among Lammelle’s gnomes is someone who can lift any fingerprints there might be on the envelope.”
Franklin Lammelle was DCI, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“All right,” Naylor said. “And the CIA would be the most logical choice to deal with this situation, right?”
McNab didn’t reply.
“McNab, you’re not thinking of going down there to rescue Colonel Ferris, are you?”
“General, I would say that none of us has enough information to make any decisions on how to deal with this,” McNab said. “But we can think about it while we’re at Langley doing our bit to help the President get reelected.”
“Is that how you think of it?”
McNab didn’t reply directly, instead saying, “Having complied with Action One of the SOP by notifying my superior headquarters of the situation, with your permission, General, I will now take Action Two.”
General Naylor nodded his permission.
“Al,” McNab said to Captain Walsh, “would you please bring the Brick up here?”
Sixty seconds later, Walsh laid the Brick on the table. It had been provided to General McNab by the AFC Corporation free of charge. The chairman of the board of the AFC Corporation, Dr. Aloysius Francis Casey, had, during the Vietnam war, been the communications sergeant on a Special Forces A Team.
He credited that service for giving him the confidence to do such things as apply for admission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology without having a high school diploma, and then shortly after being awarded his Ph.D. by that institution, starting the AFC Corporation, which quickly became the world leader in data processing and encryption.
“Like the jarheads say, General,” he had told then–newly promoted Brigadier General McNab when he flew, uninvited, in one of
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