"How may I be of service, Mr. Amba.s.sador?" Reynolds inquired. His voice sounded considerably more interested than it had been when he answered the telephone.

"I want you to prepare a memorandum of this call for the secretary of state. If she is available, get it to her now. I want her to have it, in any event, first thing in the morning. Is that going to pose any problems for you?"

"None at all, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

"We have strong reason to believe that Mrs. Elizabeth Masterson, the wife of my chief of mission, J. Winslow Masterson, was kidnapped at approximately eight P.M., Buenos Aires time. Beyond that, little is known."

"My recorder is on, Mr. Amba.s.sador," Reynolds interrupted. "I should have told you. Would you like me to turn it off and erase what it has?"

"No. A recording should help you prepare the memorandum."

"Yes, sir, it will. Thank you, sir."

"The federal police are aware of the situation," Silvio went on. "So it must be presumed that the minister of the interior and the foreign minister have been told. However, when-just now-I attempted to telephone the foreign minister to inform him officially, he was not available. His office told me they will have him call me as soon as he is available, but that I should not expect this to happen until tomorrow morning.

"I interpret this to mean that he does not feel he should discuss the situation with me until he learns more about it and/or discusses it with the President.

"All of my staff concerned with intelligence and legal matters are aware of the situation. Their consensus, with which I am in agreement, is that there is not presently enough intelligence to form a reasonable opinion as to motive. In other words, we do not know enough at this time to think that this is, or is not, a terrorist act, or that it is, or is not, an ordinary kidnapping, or may have some political implications.

"Mr. Kenneth Lowery, my security chief, has been directed to compile a report of what we know to this point, and that will be sent to Washington by satburst almost certainly within the hour.

"I will furnish the department either by telephone or by satburst with whatever information is developed as soon as it comes to me.

"I have spoken with Amba.s.sador McGrory in Montevideo. He is presently determining if any of the FBI agents attached to his emba.s.sy have experience with kidnappings, etcetera, and if any of them do, he will immediately send them here."

He paused, then said, "I think that covers everything. Unless you can think of anything, Mr. Reynolds?"

"No, sir, Mr. Amba.s.sador. I think you have everything in there. I'll get this to the secretary as soon as possible."

"In that connection, Mr. Reynolds, while I have no objection to an appropriate dissemination of what I'm reporting, I want your memorandum of this call to go directly to the secretary. You understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes, sir. Directly to the secretary. Not through channels."

"Thank you, Mr. Reynolds."

Amba.s.sador Silvio hung up the secure telephone and picked up the one connected to the emba.s.sy switchboard. He punched one of the b.u.t.tons.

"Silvio here. Will you have a car for me at the residence immediately, please? And inform Mr. Lowery that I will be going to Mr. Masterson's home?"

[SEVEN].

The Breakfast Room The Presidential Apartment The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 0815 21 July 2005

"Let me have that business about the diplomat's wife again, please," the President of the United States said to the deputy director of Central Intelligence, who had just finished delivering the Daily Intelligence Summary.

The DDCI read again the paragraph of the DIS reporting the kidnapping of Mrs. Masterson. It was essentially a condensation of the memorandum prepared by the Southern Cone desk officer for the secretary of state.

When he had finished, the President asked, "That's all we have?"

"We have just a little more, Mr. President, not 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 emba.s.sy had been on the first flight."

"What's that about?"

"Apparently there are no FBI agents in the B.A. emba.s.sy, Mr. President. There's half a dozen in Montevideo."

"What the h.e.l.l 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 pa.s.s, 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 h.e.l.l, 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 amba.s.sador 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate the amba.s.sador, or this woman's husband, but . . ."

"The amba.s.sador 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 emba.s.sy in Uruguay had sent a couple of FBI agents from the emba.s.sy there. How come we don't have FBI agents in Buenos Aires? That emba.s.sy 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 amba.s.sador told me that, too. It's embarra.s.sing 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 cetera, have t.i.tles like "executive a.s.sistant."

The Honorable Matthew Hall, secretary of Homeland Security, had three executive a.s.sistants.

The first of these was Mrs. Mary-Ellen Kensington, who was fifty, gray-haired, and slim. She was a GS-15, the highest grade in the career Civil Service. She maintained Hall's small and unpretentious suite of offices in the Old Executive Office Building, near the White House. Secretary Hall and the President were close friends, which meant that the President liked to have him around more than he did some other members of his cabinet. When Hall was in Washington he could usually be found in his OEOB office, so that he was readily available to the President.

The second was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, who was forty-nine, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby. She was also a GS-15. She reigned over the secretary's office staff in his formal office, a suite of well-furnished rooms in the Nebraska Avenue Complex, which is just off Ward Circle in the northwest of the District of Columbia. The complex had once belonged to the Navy, but it had been turned over in 2004 by an act of Congress to the Department of Homeland Security when that agency had been formed after 9/11.

When the red telephone on the coffee table in the secretary's private office in the complex buzzed, and a red light on it flashed-signaling an incoming call from either the President himself, but more than likely from one of the other members of the President's cabinet; or the directors of either the FBI or the CIA; or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; or the commander-in-chief of Central Command-Mrs. Forbison was in the process of pouring a cup of coffee for the secretary's third executive a.s.sistant, C. G. Castillo.

Castillo, who was thirty-six, a shade over six feet tall, and weighed 190 pounds, was lying on the secretary's not-quite-long-enough-for-him red leather couch with his stockinged feet hanging over the end of it.

Castillo looked at the red telephone, saw that Agnes was holding the coffeepot, and reached for the telephone.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"Charley," the caller said, "I was hoping to speak to your boss."

Castillo sat up abruptly, spilling a stack of papers onto the floor.

"Mr. President, the secretary's en route from Chicago. He should be landing at Andrews in about an hour."

"Aha! The infallible White House switchboard apparently is not so infallible. I can't wait to tell them. Nice to talk to you, Charley."

"Thank you, sir."

The line went dead. Charley, as he put the phone back in its cradle, exchanged I wonder what that was all about? I wonder what that was all about? looks with Agnes. looks with Agnes.

The phone buzzed again.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"What I was going to ask your boss, Charley, is if there is some good reason you can't go to Buenos Aires right now."

Buenos Aires? What the h.e.l.l is going on in Argentina?