Washington, D.C.

1715 5 February 2007

It had proven impossible to gather together all the people the President had wanted for the meeting. The secretary of Defense was in Europe at a NATO meeting, and the commanding general of the Defense Intelligence Agency had gone with him. The secretary of Homeland Security was in Chicago.

When Charles M. Montvale, the director of National Intelligence, and Colonel J. Porter Hamilton, MC, USA, walked into the Oval Office, the secretary of State, Natalie Cohen; John Powell, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Mark Schmidt, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were sitting in chairs forming a rough semicircle facing the President's desk.

So were a.s.sistant Secretary of Homeland Security Mason Andrews, standing in for the secretary, and General Allan B. Naylor, USA, commanding general of United States Central Command, who was representing both the secretary of Defense and the commanding general of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Presidential spokesman Jack "Porky" Parker sat at a small table-just large enough to hold his laptop computer-to one side of the President.

"I'm sorry to be late, Mr. President," Montvale said.

"It's my fault, Mr. President," Hamilton said. "I was engaged in some laboratory processes I couldn't interrupt."

"Not even for the commander in chief?" Clendennen asked unpleasantly.

"If I had stopped doing what I was doing when Mr. Montvale asked me to, it would have caused a two- or three-hour loss of time," Hamilton said. "I considered a fifteen- or twenty-minute delay in coming here the lesser of two evils."

"Until just now, Colonel, I wasn't aware that colonels were permitted to make decisions like that," Clendennen said sarcastically.

Hamilton didn't reply.

"What were you doing that you considered important enough to keep us all waiting for you to finish?" Clendennen asked.

"Actually, I had several processes working, Mr. President," Hamilton, un-cowed, said. "The most important of them being the determination that Congo-X and Congo-Y were chemically-perhaps I should say 'biologically'-identical-"

"What's Congo-Y?" the President interrupted.

"I have so labeled the material from the Mexican border."

"And are they? Identical?"

"That is my preliminary determination, Mr. President."

"Colonel, two questions," General Naylor announced.

"Sir?"

Clendennen didn't like having his questioning of Hamilton interrupted by anyone, and had his mouth open to announce Excuse me, General, but I'm asking the questions Excuse me, General, but I'm asking the questions when he changed his mind. when he changed his mind.

Clendennen liked General Naylor, and had been pleased when he had shown up to stand in for the secretary of the Defense and Defense Intelligence Agency general. He knew he could always believe what Naylor told him. This was not true of the people he was standing in for: The secretary of Defense had a.s.sured President Clendennen that the infernal laboratory in the Congo had first been completely reduced to pebbles and then incinerated. Clendennen had never heard the DIA general mouth an unqualified statement.

"They're related, obviously," Naylor began. "First, do you know with reasonable certainty who developed this terrible substance? And, second, how would you say they intend to use it against us?"

"Sir, I have nothing to support this legally or scientifically, but something tells me the origins of this substance go back at least to World War Two and perhaps earlier than that."

"Go down that road," Clendennen ordered.

"During the Second World War, sir, both the Germans and the j.a.panese experimented with materials somewhat similar to Congo-X. That is to say, biological material that could be used as a weapon. The j.a.panese tested it in China on the civilian population and the Germans on concentration camp inmates."

"And did it work?" the President asked.

"All we have is anecdotal, Mr. President," Hamilton said. "There is a great deal of that, and all of it suggests that it was effective. There is strong reason to believe material similar to this was tested on American prisoners of war by the j.a.panese ..."

"Do we know that, or don't we?" the President asked impatiently.

"A number of POWs were executed by the j.a.panese immediately after Hiroshima. Their bodies were cremated and the ashes disposed of at sea," Naylor said.

"Nice people," the President said.

"And there is further evidence, Mr. President, that the Chinese sent several hundred American POWs captured in the early days of the Korean war to Czechoslovakia, where they were subjected to biological material apparently similar to something like this. Again, no proof. We know the prisoners were sent to Czechoslovakia. But no bodies, not one, were ever recovered. We still have Graves Registration people looking."

"Why don't we know more about the chemicals, about whatever was used on the prisoners?"

"At the time, Mr. President," Naylor said, "the greatest threat was perceived to be the possibility the Russians would get their hands on German science vis-a-vis a nuclear weapon and rocketry. We were quite successful in doing so, but the effort necessary was at the expense of looking more deeply into what the Germans had been doing with biological weapons.

"In the Pacific, actually, we acquired what anecdotal information we have about the executed and cremated POWs primarily because MacArthur was pa.s.sionately determined to locate, try, and hang as quickly as possible those j.a.panese officers responsible for the atrocities committed against our prisoners. They were, so to speak, just one more atrocity."

The President considered that for a moment.

"So, then what is your theory about this, Colonel Hamilton?" he asked.

Hamilton began: "It's pure conjecture, Mr. President-"

"I thought it might be," the President interrupted sarcastically, and gestured for Hamilton to continue.

Hamilton ignored the interruption and went on: "It is possible that, at the end of World War Two, the Russians came into possession of a substance much like Congo-X. They might even have acquired it from the j.a.panese; there was an interchange of technical information.

"They very likely acquired at the same time the German scientists working with this material, much as we took over Wernher von Braun, his rocket scientists, and the rockets themselves.

"If this is true-and even if it is not, and Russian scientists alone worked with it-it had to have become immediately apparent to them how incredibly dangerous it is."

"Why is it so 'incredibly dangerous'?" the President interrupted yet again.

Hamilton looked at Clendennen a long moment, then carefully said: "With respect, Mr. President, I believe I'm repeating myself, but: The Congo-X in my laboratory, when placed under certain conditions of temperature and humidity, gives off microscopic particles-airborne-which when inhaled into the lung of a warm-blooded mammal will, in a matter of days, begin to consume the flesh of the lung. Meanwhile, the infected body will also be giving off-breathing back into the air-these contaminated, infectious particles before the host has any indication that he's been infected.

"When I was in the Congo and saw the cadavers of animals and humans who had died of this infestation, I told the President-our late President-that the Fish Farm, should there be an accident, had the potential of becoming a greater risk to mankind than the nuclear meltdown at Chern.o.byl had posed."

"That's pretty strong, isn't it, Colonel?" the President asked.

"Now that I have some idea of the danger, Mr. President," Hamilton said, "that was a ma.s.sive understatement."

"Is there a way to kill this material?" Naylor asked.

"I've had some success with incineration at temperatures over one thousand degrees centigrade," Hamilton said, looked at the President, and added: "That's about two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, Mr. President."

"I seem to recall the secretary of Defense telling me that the attack produced that kind of heat," the President said.

"Then where did the two separate packages of Congo-X come from?" Secretary of State Natalie Cohen asked.

"There're only two possibilities," Amba.s.sador Montvale said. "The attack was not successful; everything was not incinerated and someone-I suspect the Russians-went in there and picked up what was missed. Or, the Russians all along had a stock of this stuff in Russia and that's what they're sending us."

"Why? What do they want?" Cohen asked.

"We're not even sure it's the Russians, are we?" Mark Schmidt, the director of the FBI, asked.

"Are we, Mr. Director of National Intelligence?" the President asked. "Are we sure who's been sending us the Congo-X?"

"Not at this time, Mr. President," Montvale replied.

"Have we the capability of sending someone into the Congo?" a.s.sistant Secretary of Homeland Security Mason Andrew asked. "To do, in the greatest secrecy-what do they call it?-'damage a.s.sessment'?"

"Not anymore," Natalie Cohen said.

There was a long silence.

"Madam Secretary," the President asked finally, icily, "would I be wrong to think that you had a certain Colonel Costello in mind when you said that?"

She met his eyes.

"I had Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Castillo Castillo in mind, yes, sir," she said. "I was thinking that since he managed to successfully infiltrate Colonel Hamilton into the Congo and, more importantly, exfiltrate him-" in mind, yes, sir," she said. "I was thinking that since he managed to successfully infiltrate Colonel Hamilton into the Congo and, more importantly, exfiltrate him-"

"Weren't you listening, Madam Secretary, when I said that in this administration there will be no private bands of special operators? I thought I had made that perfectly clear. Castillo and his men have been dispersed. He was ordered by my predecessor to-the phrase he used was 'fall off the face of the earth, never to be seen again.' I never want to hear his name mentioned again, much less to see him. Is everybody clear on that, absolutely clear?"

"Yes, Mr. President," Secretary Cohen said.

There was a murmur as everyone responded at once: "Yes, sir." "Yes, Mr. President." "Absolutely clear, Mr. President."

"Mr. President, there may be a problem in that area," Porky Parker said.

The President looked at him in surprise, perhaps even shock. The President thought he had made it absolutely clear to Parker that the spokesman's role in meetings like this was to listen, period.

"What did you say, Jack?" the President asked softly.

"Mr. President, Roscoe Danton of The Washington Times-Post The Washington Times-Post is looking for Colonel Castillo." is looking for Colonel Castillo."

"How do you know that?"

"He came to me, sir."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him I had no idea where he was," Parker said.

"Charles?"

"Sir?" Montvale replied.

"Where is Castillo?"

"I don't know, Mr. President."

"I told you the next time I asked that question, I would expect an answer."

"I'm working on it, Mr. President, but so far without any results."

"Wonderful! It's so nice to know that whenever I want to know something, all I have to do is ask my director of National Intelligence!"

There was another thirty-second silence, and then the President went on: "Far be it from me to try to tell the director of National Intelligence how to do his job, but I have just had this probably useless thought: If Roscoe Danton is looking for Colonel Castillo, perhaps he has an idea where he is. Has anyone thought of that? Where's Danton?"

There was no reply.

"Find out for me, Charles, will you, please?"

"I'll get right on it, Mr. President," Montvale said.

[FOUR].

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence Eisenhower Executive Office Building 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

1805 5 February 2007

"I can't think of anything else to do, can you?" Amba.s.sador Montvale asked Truman C. Ellsworth, his executive a.s.sistant.

When Ellsworth had called The Washington Times-Post The Washington Times-Post for Roscoe J. Danton, they refused to tell him where he was. They said they would contact Danton and tell him Amba.s.sador Montvale wanted to speak with him. Ellsworth finally called the publisher, Bradley Benjamin III, and told him what had happened, and asked for his help. Mr. Benjamin told him that what he had already been offered was all he was going to get, and please give Amba.s.sador Montvale his best regards. for Roscoe J. Danton, they refused to tell him where he was. They said they would contact Danton and tell him Amba.s.sador Montvale wanted to speak with him. Ellsworth finally called the publisher, Bradley Benjamin III, and told him what had happened, and asked for his help. Mr. Benjamin told him that what he had already been offered was all he was going to get, and please give Amba.s.sador Montvale his best regards.

Since both Truman C. Ellsworth and Charles M. Montvale would swear-because they believed it-that they were incapable of letting anger, or a bruised ego, interfere in the slightest with their judgment, or the execution of their offices, what happened next was attributed to the fervor with which they chose to meet the President's request to locate Mr. Roscoe J. Danton.

The National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, was directed as the highest priority to acquire and relay to the amba.s.sador's office any traffic by telephone, or over the Internet, containing Mr. Danton's name.

The Department of Homeland Security was directed to search the flight manifests of every pa.s.senger airliner taking off from either Reagan International Airport or Dulles International Airport during the past forty-eight hours for the name of Roscoe J. Danton, and if found to immediately report his destination and time of arrival thereat.

The Secret Service was ordered to obtain the residential address of Mr. Roscoe J. Danton and to place such premises under around-the-clock surveillance and to immediately report any sighting of Mr. Danton. They were further ordered to send agents to the National Press Club to see if any clue to his whereabouts could be obtained.

The cooperation of the FBI was sought and obtained to put out an immediate "locate but do not detain" bulletin on Mr. Danton.

"I just had an idea," Mr. Ellsworth said when asked if he could think of anything else that could be done.