in the DIS.”
The President gestured, somewhat impatiently, with the fingers of his left hand, that he wanted to hear it.
“When I was at Langley earlier, Mr. President, our station chief in B.A. called. Five-thirty our time, six-thirty in B.A. I talked to him myself. He said that the Argentine cops were really active—the phrase he used was they ‘had rounded up all the usual suspects’—and that there had been no word from the kidnappers, and that two FBI agents from the Montevideo embassy had been on the first flight.”
“What’s that about?”
“Apparently there are no FBI agents in the B.A. embassy, Mr. President. There’s half a dozen in Montevideo.”
“What the hell is this all about, Ted?” the President asked.
“I just don’t know, Mr. President. But I’m sure there will be more details very soon.”
“My curiosity is in high gear,” the President said.
“Mine, too, Mr. President. It sounds wacko, frankly. If you’d like, I can call you whenever I hear something else.”
“Do that, Ted, please.”
“Yes, sir. Will that be all, Mr. President?”
“Unless you’d like another cup of coffee.”
“I’ll pass, thank you just the same, Mr. President.”
“Thanks, Ted,” the President said.
The President watched as the DDCI left the room, and then—almost visibly making a decision as he did so—topped off his coffee cup.
“What the hell, why not?” he asked aloud, and picked up the telephone.
“Will you get me the secretary of state, please?”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Dr. Natalie Cohen answered her phone.
“Natalie, you want to give me your take on that diplomat’s wife who got kidnapped in Argentina?”
“That made the DIS, did it?”
“Uh-huh. What’s going on?”
“I talked to the ambassador late last night, Mr. President. He—I guess I should say ‘they’—don’t know very much. He said kidnapping down there is a cottage industry, and he hopes that’s all it is. I told him to call me with any developments, but so far he hasn’t.”
“At the risk of sounding insensitive, I could understand some lunatic trying to assassinate the ambassador, or this woman’s husband, but . . .”
“The ambassador said just about the same thing, Mr. President. He can’t understand it, either.”
“Ted Sawyer said the CIA guy down there called this morning and said the embassy in Uruguay had sent a couple of FBI agents from the embassy there. How come we don’t have FBI agents in Buenos Aires? That embassy is bigger than the one in Uruguay, right?”
“The money laundering takes place in Uruguay; that’s where they need the FBI.”
“He also said the Argentines had really mobilized their police.”
“The ambassador told me that, too. It’s embarrassing for them, Mr. President.”
“I had an unpleasant thought just before I called you. We don’t pay ransom, do we?”
“No, sir, we don’t. That’s a Presidential Order. Goes back to Nixon, I think.”
“So the best we can hope for—presuming that this is just a kidnapping, and not a political slash terrorist act— is that once these people realize they’ve kidnapped a diplomat’s wife and the heat is really going to be on, that they’ll let her go?”
“That’s one possibility, Mr. President, that they’ll let her go.”
He took her meaning.
“Jesus Christ, Natalie, you think they’d . . .”
“I’m afraid that’s also a possibility, Mr. President,” she said.
“What odds are you giving?”
“Fifty-fifty. That’s for their turning her loose unharmed. I would give seventy-thirty that the cops will catch them.”
“I told Sawyer I want to be in the loop. Will you keep me advised?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Among other things we don’t need is terrorists deciding that kidnapping our diplomats’ wives is a good— and probably easy—thing to be doing.”
“That thought ran through my head, too, Mr. President. But I don’t think we can do anything beyond waiting to see what happens. I just don’t see what else anyone can do right now.”
“Keep me in the loop, please, Natalie. Thank you.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
The President broke the connection with his finger.
“I just thought what else I can do,” he said aloud, and took his finger off the telephone switch.
“Get me the secretary of Homeland Security,” he said into the receiver to a White House operator.
II
[ONE]
Office of the Secretary Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 0840 21 July 2005
In the federal government, the secretary is not that person who answers the telephone, takes dictation, makes appointments, and brings the boss coffee. In Washington, the secretary is someone as high in the bureaucracy as one can rise without being elected President, and is therefore the boss.
In Washington, therefore, those individuals who answer the secretary’s telephone, bring the coffee, make appointments, et