a typical bureaucrat, Hall thought, and then changed that assessment. No. Like a successful Capitol Hill lobbyist or lawyer.
Castillo said he’d found a hotel not far from the White House and the OEOB.
“One you can afford?” Hall asked, with a smile.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, if you’re ready to go to work, I’ll have Mrs. Kensington show you how we throw away the taxpayers’ money.”
Three days later, when Hall was dictating to Mary-Ellen, Castillo appeared at the door and said he had a little problem.
“What’s that?”
“I need some kind of a title, sir. I got the feeling you didn’t want the military connection, so I don’t say ‘Major. ’ When somebody asks me what I do here, I’ve been saying, ‘I work in Secretary Hall’s office.’ ”
“That makes you sound like a clerk,” Mary-Ellen said. “Nobody will pay any attention to you.”
Hall smiled at her. He had noticed that Mary-Ellen had liked Charley from the first day.
“Okay, Mary-Ellen, what do you suggest?”
“Executive assistant,” Executive Assistant Kensington replied immediately. “That has a certain je ne sais quoi in the upper echelons of the Washington bureaucracy.”
“But he’s not an executive assistant,” Hall had protested.
“He is if you say so, boss. And who’s to know?”
“By the power invested in me by myself,” Hall said, “you are decreed to be my executive assistant. Go forth and do good work.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Castillo replied to Hall. He turned to Mary-Ellen and added, “Et merci mille fois, madame.”
Hall had picked up on that.
“You speak French, do you, Charley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any other languages?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hall made a come-on gesture.
Charley hesitated, and Hall added, “Modesty does not befit an executive assistant. Which ones?”
“Russian, sir. And Hungarian. German. Some Arabic. Several others.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Languages come easy to me, sir.”
“They don’t to me,” Hall confessed. “You have plans for the evening, Charley?”
“No, sir.”
“You have a dinner jacket?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your bluff is called. We are going to a reception at the Hungarian embassy. Whenever I ask the ambassador a question he doesn’t want to answer, he forgets how to speak English. Getting the picture?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’d you learn to speak Hungarian?”
“When I was a kid, sir, my mother’s aunt, who was Hungarian, lived with us. She taught me.”
“Nice for you. Okay, Charley, I’ll have Joel pick you up on his way here to get me. Where are you living?”
“I can meet you here, sir.”
“Joel will pick you up. Where did you find a hotel?”
“I’m in the Mayflower, sir.”
“The Mayflower?” Hall asked. “Isn’t that kind of expensive on a major’s pay, including per diem?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Joel will pick you up just before seven,” Hall said, deciding it best not now to pursue the question of affordable housing with Castillo. “Wait for him on the street.”
“Yes, sir.”
The moment Castillo had closed the door, Hall reached for the red phone on his desk and pressed the button that would connect him over a secure line with the commander-in-chief, Central Command.
“Hey, Matt,” Naylor said, answering almost immediately. “What’s up?”
“I just found out my newly appointed executive assistant, Major Castillo, has taken a room in the Mayflower. How’s he going to pay for that?”
“Would you be satisfied with ‘no problem’?”
“No.”
“Well, Charley told me that he’d taken a small apartment in the Mayflower,” Naylor said. “The bill will probably be paid by Castillo Enterprises of San Antonio. Or maybe by the Tages Zeitung.”
“The what?”
“It’s a newspaper—actually a chain of newspapers— Charley owns in Germany.”
“You didn’t tell me much about this guy, did you, Allan?”
“You didn’t ask. All you wanted was somebody who would carry your suitcase and who spoke Spanish. That’s what I gave you.”
“What’s your connection with Charley, Allan? Other than the usual relationship between a four-star general and one of his five thousand majors?”
“Elaine thinks of him—and I do, too, truth to tell—as the third son. We’ve known him since he was a twelve-year-old orphan.”
“You didn’t mention that, either.”
“You didn’t ask, Matt,” Naylor said. “What do you want to do with him? Send him back?”
“No,” Hall had said. “Presuming there is no further deep dark secret you’re leaving for me to discover, I think he’s going to be pretty useful around here.”
Major/Executive Assistant Castillo did, in fact, and quickly, prove himself useful to the secretary of Homeland Security. And he fit in. Both Mary-Ellen Kensington and Agnes Forbison were clearly taken with him. Hall kindly ascribed this to maternal instincts, but he confided to his wife that he suspected both had amorous fantasies about Castillo.
“He’s one of those guys women are drawn to like moths to a candle.”
“I hate