President. He didn’t want to do that; he was trying to spread oil on the troubled waters, not onto the smoldering fire.
One possible solution—which Agnes thought the most likely—was to bring into the office two Secret Service agents-in-training now going through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, just as soon as they were, as Joel put it, “credentialed.”
Both were experienced police officers, recruited at the suggestion of Secretary Hall from the Philadelphia Police Department as a result of his and Castillo’s experience with them looking for the 727. One had been a sergeant in the intelligence unit, and the other a detective in the counterterrorism division, who had worked for years undercover infiltrating Muslim communities considered potentially dangerous. Both would be able to sort through the stacks of intel reports knowing what to look for, and what was garbage.
But this would mean they would be working directly for the secretary, instead of just—Hall’s original idea— becoming Secret Service agents with far more experience and knowledge than the usual rookies, and being assigned to a field office somewhere.
Agnes knew that Hall was reluctant to have his own in-house intelligence unit, but she thought sooner or later—probably sooner, since while Charley was sifting through the garbage he was not available to him; he had not gone with Hall to Chicago last night because he had to read the overnight files—he was going to have to face the facts.
The secretary of Homeland Security picked up the red handset and punched one of the buttons on the base.
“Natalie Cohen.”
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Secretary,” Hall said.
“Goddammit, Matt, you know I don’t think that’s funny,” the secretary of state said.
“It makes more sense than a female lawyer calling herself ‘Esquire,’” Hall went on, undaunted. “I learned in school that ‘madam’ is a married lady and an unmarried one a ‘mademoiselle’—”
“Is there something on your sophomoric mind, Matt? Or are you just seeing what happens when you push the buttons on your red phone?”
“The President, Mizz Secretary . . .”
She chuckled. “Better. Not good. But better.”
“. . . is sending Charley to Buenos Aires. I guess you can figure out why.”
There was a perceptible pause before the secretary of state replied.
“To find out who knew what, and when they knew it,” she said, just a little bitterly. Those had been the President’s instructions to Castillo when the President had sent him off to learn what he could about the missing airliner. “I should have seen this coming, I suppose.”
“I tried to talk him out of it. You want to try?”
“(A) I don’t think he wants me to know that he’s sending Charley down there, and (b) I think the reason he didn’t tell me was because he knew I would argue against it, and (c) if I happened to mention this to him, he’d know I heard it from you, and we both would be on the bad-guy list.”
“It wasn’t my idea, Nat.”
“I know,” she said. “Actually, now that I’ve had thirty whole seconds to think about it, I’m not nearly as livid as I was. Maybe Charley will come up with something the ambassador down there would rather that I didn’t hear. You will . . .”
“Give you what he gets? Absolutely.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Matt.”
“Do you know something about the ambassador that Charley should?”
“I never met him. I talked to him last night on the telephone, and I was favorably impressed. And everything I hear about him is that he’s first-rate. He’s a Cuban. You might tell Charley that, so he’ll expect a Cuban temper if the ambassador finds out he’s snooping around down there.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Tell Charley to be careful. We don’t need a war with Argentina,” the secretary of state said, and hung up before Hall could reply.
[TWO]
Room 404 The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 1120 21 July 2005
Room 404—which was actually what the hotel called an “executive suite” and consisted of a living room, a large bedroom, a small dining room, and a second bedroom, which held a desk and could be used as an office—was registered to Karl W. Gossinger on a long-term basis.
The bill for the suite was sent once every two weeks by fax to the Tages Zeitung in Fulda, Germany, and payment was made, usually the next day, by wire transfer to the hotel’s account in the Riggs National Bank.
When he took the room, Herr Gossinger told the hotel he would need two outside telephone lines. One of these would be listed under