"The Russians know this. If they hear we know how to kill Congo-X, they're liable to use it on us-whether or not the President gives them Castillo and the Russians-before we can make enough helium to protect ourselves."

"We don't know how much Congo-X they have," Hamilton said.

"We have to find out, Colonel, and I'd rather have Castillo try to find out than the CIA."

"But is that decision ours to make, Kevin?"

"Well, it's not mine, Colonel, and I'm glad I'm not in your shoes."

Colonel Hamilton tapped his silver-gloved fingertips together for perhaps thirty seconds.

"Kevin, there is a military axiom that the worst action to take is none at all. If you don't try to control a situation, your enemy certainly will."

"That's a little over my head, Colonel."

"Switch your commo to the Casey network," Colonel Hamilton ordered.

[FOUR].

"So what's new by you, Jack?" Aloysius Francis Casey (Ph.D., MIT) asked ten seconds later of Colonel J. Porter Hamilton (Ph.D., MIT), addressing him by his very rarely used intimate nickname.

The Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology had brought together Casey and Hamilton, although they had not known each other at the school, or even been there at the same time. They had met at a seminar for geopolitical interdependence conducted by that inst.i.tution, for distinguished alumni, by invitation only.

Both had accepted the invitation because it had sounded interesting. And both had fled after the second hour, and met in a Harvard Square bar, by chance selecting adjacent bar stools.

Dr. Casey had begun the conversation-and their friendship-by asking two questions: "You were in there, right?" and then, after Dr. Hamilton (in mufti) nodded: "You think that moron actually believed that bulls.h.i.t he was spouting?"

Dr. Hamilton had been wondering the same thing, and said so: "I have been wondering just that."

"Aloysius Casey," Casey had said, putting out his hand.

"My name is Hamilton," Dr. Hamilton replied, and then, having made the split-second decision that if Casey were one of the distinguished alumni, he would have said, "I'm Dr. Casey" and not wanting to hurt the feelings of the maintenance worker/ticket taker/security officer or whatever he was by referring to himself with that honorific, finished, "Jack Hamilton."

He hadn't used "Jack" in many years. He still had many painful memories of his plebe year at West Point during which he had been dubbed "Jack Hammer" by uppercla.s.smen. If he was a bona fide Jack Hammer, the uppercla.s.smen had told him, he would do fifty push-ups in half the time this fifty had taken him. This was usually followed by, "Try it again, Jack Hammer."

"Hey," Casey had said, grabbing the bartender's arm, "give my pal Jack another of what he's having and I'll have another boilermaker."

When the drinks were served, Casey touched gla.s.ses and offered a toast, "May the winds of fortune sail you. May you sail a gentle sea. May it always be the other guy who says, 'This drink's on me.'"

"In that case, I insist," Hamilton had said.

"You can get the next one, Jack," Casey had replied.

Three drinks later, Jack asked Aloysius what his role in the seminar for geopolitical interdependence had been.

"Well, I went there, of course. And every once in a while, I slip them a few bucks-you know, payback for what I got-and that gets me on the invitation list, and every once in a while I'm dumb enough to accept. What about you, Jack, what do you do?"

"I'm a soldier."

"No s.h.i.t? Me, too. Or I was. I was a commo sergeant on a Special Forces A-team. What branch?"

"Originally infantry. Now medical corps."

"No s.h.i.t? I'm impressed. What do you do?"

"I'm involved in biological research. What about you?"

"I try to move data around. I make stuff that does."

At that point, Colonel Hamilton experienced an epiphany.

"The AFC Corporation. You're that that Aloysius Francis Casey." Aloysius Francis Casey."

"Guilty."

"My lab is full of your equipment."

"How's it doing?"

"I couldn't function without it," Colonel Hamilton said. "I can't tell you how pleased I am we've met."

A week later, Colonel Hamilton had visited the AFC Laboratories in Las Vegas. In the course of explaining how he used AFC data equipment in his Fort Detrick laboratory, and what kind of capabilities in that area he would like to have if that was possible, he of course had to get into some of the specifics of the work of his laboratory.

Three weeks after that, while in Las Vegas to view the prototypes of the equipment Casey was developing for him, Hamilton was introduced to some of Casey's Las Vegas friends. He quickly came to think of them as "those people in Las Vegas." And then, gradually, he came to understand that he had become one of them.

"Aloysius, I don't want those people to hear this conversation."

"Ouch! You know the rules, Jack. What one knows, everybody knows. That's the way it works."

"Then I can't talk to you. Goodbye, Aloysius. And tell those people goodbye, too. Hamilton out."

Colonel Hamilton then signaled to Sergeant Dennis that they were leaving the sealed laboratory. The process took ten minutes, and included both chemical and purified water showers and then fresh clothing.

When they came through the final airtight door, four people were waiting for them-two women and two men, all cleared for Top Secret BioLab.

Hamilton knew that at least one of them, possibly two, were reporting to the CIA. And he strongly suspected that one of them was reporting to the Russians, either through an intermediary or directly to the Russian rezident rezident. And he thought it entirely likely that one or more of them was on the payroll of those people in Las Vegas.

He was greatly frustrated that neither he nor Kevin Dennis-although they had set many traps-had been able to positively identify even one of them.

So they lived with the problem, following the adage that a devil one knows is better than a devil one does not.

"There have been some indications that we are making some progress," Colonel Hamilton announced to them. "And some disturbing signs that we are yet again on a path leading nowhere. We won't know more until tomorrow morning. Make sure everything is secure, and then you may leave. Please be on time in the morning; we have a busy schedule tomorrow."

When they had gone, Kevin Dennis asked, "What is Aloysius going to do, Colonel?"

"I really don't know, Kevin, but I can't take the risk that what I want to say to him will go any further than him."

"You think he will call back?"

Hamilton shrugged.

"I don't know," Hamilton said. "I'm taking some small solace from the motto of those two brilliant young men who started Yahoo: 'You Always Have Other Options.' But between you and me, I have no idea what other options there might be."

Thirty seconds later, both Hamilton's and Dennis's CaseyBerrys vibrated.

It was Casey.

"I see that you're both on," his voice announced as it returned from a twenty-four-thousand-mile trip into s.p.a.ce.

"Well, Aloysius," Hamilton said, "how nice to hear from you. Say h.e.l.lo to Aloysius, Kevin."

"h.e.l.lo, Aloysius," Dennis said.

"Jack," Casey said, "do I have to say I wouldn't do this for anybody but you?"

"How about Castillo? Would you cut some of those people out of the loop if it would keep him from being thrown to the Russians?"

"I called back, didn't I?"

"And not only are those people not going to hear this conversation, but I have your word that you won't tell them anything about it?"

"You have my word, Jack, but I'm d.a.m.ned uncomfortable with this. I don't like lying to those people." He paused, then added, "And in my book not telling somebody something is the same thing as lying."

"What I'm afraid of is that one-or more-of them has either concluded, or will conclude, that if Castillo and the Russians are the price for the Russian stock of Congo-X, the President was right to agree to pay it."

"In other words, you don't trust them. Jesus Christ, Jack, you know who they are!"

"Their most endearing quality to me is their ruthlessness," Hamilton said. "I daresay they wouldn't be as rich as they are without that characteristic. But I have noticed a tendency on the part of wealthy ruthless people to regard people on their payroll as expendable."

"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

"I think Colonel Castillo made a mistake in taking that money from those people when he began this project. What was it, two hundred thousand dollars?"

"That's all he asked for. They'd have given him whatever he asked for. A couple of million, if that's what he wanted."

"If he took only two dollars, people like those people would still have felt, 'He took the money, he's ours. We can do with him what we decide is in the best interests of the country.'"

After a moment's hesitation, Casey said, "I'm one of those people, Jack. And so are you."

"You and I are functionaries, Aloysius. Useful, but not, so to speak, anointed, as they are, by the Almighty. Have those people asked you what you think of the President's willingness to sell Castillo and the Russian spooks-without whom that laboratory in the Congo would still be manufacturing this obscene substance-to the Russians?"

"They didn't have to ask me. They know how I would feel about that."

"They haven't asked me either, Aloysius, what I think about it. Nor have they solicited my suggestions vis-a-vis what should be done about it by 'we people.' Which is what triggered my line of thought in this area. Have you considered the possibility that those people simply don't care what we think, Aloysius?"

There was a thirty-second silence which seemed much longer.

"Jesus Christ, Jack," Casey said finally, "you're right. I'm ashamed to admit that I never questioned anything those people did, or asked me to do. Well, f.u.c.k them!"

"It's not black-and-white, Aloysius. Those people do more good than harm. But when the harm they're capable of might be directed at people like Castillo and the Russians, I can't go along."

"Didn't you hear me say 'f.u.c.k them'?"

"Don't say that to those people. Let them think they are still on Mount Olympus graciously protecting people like you and me-and of course the United States-from our ignorance."

"Okay."

"Do those people know where Castillo is?"

"Yeah. Of course. They have his position indicator on their laptops. So do you. He's at his grandmother's place in Mexico." Casey paused, then added, "s.h.i.t! You think maybe somebody already told the CIA?!"

"I have to think that's possible. Can you devise a spurious position indicator for him?"

"Where do you want him to start moving to in twenty seconds, Jack?"

"Doesn't he have family in Germany? Do you know where?"

"Yeah. Outside Frankfurt. But what about Budapest?"

"What's in Budapest?"

"A guy on Charley's net. He's sort of like an uncle to him. Billy Kocian?"

"I don't know the name."

"Good guy. Trust me."

"Budapest sounds fine."

"I can call Billy and tell him what's happening. And ... what I could do, Jack, is put Charley's position indicator on one of those boats that sails up and down the Danube between Vienna and Budapest. That would drive those people bonkers wondering what the h.e.l.l he's up to."

"A splendid idea!"

"Anything else I can do for you?"

"Aloysius, do you-or your people-ever work with extremely low temperatures, using gases in the minus two-hundred-degrees Celsius area?"

"All the time. The colder you get something, the faster everything electrical moves. Twice a week, I say, 'Eureka! This will work!' and then everything that cold turns brittle and shatters when somebody in Los Angeles or Chicago burps, and we're back to Step f.u.c.king One."