"Helium?"

"Of course. It's a little pricey, but you can go down to about minus two-seventy Celsius with helium."

"You've got a pretty good source of supply for helium?"

"Yeah. Several of them. Where are you going with this, Jack?"

"You could order, say, a thousand liters, two thousand, even more, of helium without attracting much attention?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because we may need at least that much to kill Congo-X."

"Helium kills Congo-X?"

"Fifteen minutes in a helium bath at minus two-seventy Celsius kills it."

"So it can be killed! I was really getting worried about that."

"You were not alone," Hamilton said. "We don't know how much the Russians have. I suspect that if the President doesn't give them Castillo and the Russians very soon, they will deliver more of it to encourage him to do so. My concern is that there will be an accident when they do so. I-"

"I get the picture," Casey interrupted. "I'll load what helium I have here . . . maybe three hundred liters, maybe a little more ... on my Gulfstream. As soon as we know where the Russians have sent the new Congo-X, the helium will be there in no more than three hours. And I'll lay my hands on as much more as I can get as soon as I can."

"Aloysius, we can't let those people learn any of this."

"I'm not as dumb as I look and sometimes act, Jack. I already figured that out."

"Good man!"

"As soon as we hang up here, I'll get through to Charley, and tell him both what's going on and to get the h.e.l.l off Grandma's place as soon as he can."

"Splendid!"

[FIVE].

Apartment 606 The Watergate Apartments 2639 I Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

0755 10 February 2007

When Roscoe J. Danton finally found the ringing house telephone in the living room and picked it up, he was not in a very gracious mood.

Mr. Danton had returned to Washington four hours before after a fifteen-hour flight from Ushuaia, Patagonia, Argentina, whence he had traveled-on what, he had concluded, was a wild-goose chase that belonged in The Guinness Book of World Records The Guinness Book of World Records-with Amba.s.sador Charles M. Montvale and Montvale's executive a.s.sistant-The Honorable Truman Ellsworth-and four CIA spooks to locate Alexander Darby, who allegedly could point him to Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo.

The Gulfstream III twin-engine jet aircraft had been noisy and crowded. What food there had been was d.a.m.ned near inedible. The toilet had stopped up. And because there had been no functioning socket into which to plug his laptop, once its battery had gone dead, he couldn't do any work.

Mentally, he had composed a blistering piece that would subject Montvale and Ellsworth to the scorn of the world. But even as he'd done that, he knew he would never write it. He not only felt sorry for them, but had come to like them.

He also had spent a good deal of time trying to come up with a version of what had happened to tell Christopher J. Waldron, the managing editor of the Times-Post Times-Post, something that would not result in Waldron concluding that Roscoe J. Danton had either been drunk or was a moron or both.

He had gotten to bed a few minutes before four.

And now the f.u.c.king house phone goes off!

In the five years I've lived in the Watergate, I haven't talked on the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing five times!

"What?" he snarled into the instrument.

"Mr. Danton, this is Gerry in the garage."

"And how may I be of a.s.sistance, Gerry?"

"There's something wrong with your car, Mr. Danton. The alarm keeps going off."

"That happens, Gerry"-As you should know, you f.u.c.king cretin. You work in the garage-"when someone b.u.mps into it. It'll stop blowing the horn and flashing the headlights in three minutes."

"Yeah, I know, but yours keeps going off. This is the fifth time it's gone off. You're going to have to do something."

"What would you suggest?"

"Well, you could disconnect the battery. That'd shut the alarm system off."

"Gerry, if you could do that for me, I'd be happy to make it worth your while. How does ten dollars sound?"

"Sounds fine to me, Mr. Danton, but your car is locked and I have to get under the hood to disconnect the battery. You can't open the hood from outside."

In the background Danton could then hear the sound of a horn going bleep-bleep-bleep bleep-bleep-bleep.

"There it goes again," Gerry said unnecessarily.

Roscoe Danton sighed audibly.

"I'll be right down," he said.

Which means I'll have to get dressed. I can't go down there in my underwear.

There were three men watching the blinking headlights on Roscoe's car. One of them had sort of a uniform on, and was presumably Gerry. The other two were wearing suits.

Which means they probably live here, which means I will shortly get one of those f.u.c.king letters from the tenants' a.s.sociation demanding to know how I dare disturb the peace and tranquillity of the Watergate Apartments, blowing my horn in this outrageous way.

As he approached his car, the lights stopped blinking and the horn stopped bleating.

"Why h.e.l.lo, Roscoe," one of the men in suits said. "Nice to see you again. But we are going to have to stop meeting this way. People will talk."

I am actually losing my mind. I'm hallucinating.

How could Alexander Darby possibly be standing next to my car in the Watergate garage?

"My name is Yung, Mr. Danton," the other man in a suit said, putting out his hand. "I'm glad to meet you. Alex has told me a good deal about you."

Alex Darby said, "Gerry, we can take it from here. Thanks very much for your help."

"Anytime," Gerry said, and took the extended twenty-dollar bill and walked toward his booth near the entrance.

"Got your pa.s.sport with you, Roscoe?" Darby asked.

In a Pavlovian reflex, Danton patted his suit jacket pocket, and immediately regretted it.

"Good," Yung said. "If you want to talk to Colonel Castillo, you're going to need it."

"Who are you?"

"My name is David W. Yung. I'm Colonel Castillo's attorney."

"Did you find Ushuaia interesting, Roscoe?" Darby asked.

"How do you know about that?"

"Well, as the saying goes, 'You can take the man out of the agency, but you can't take the agency out of the man.'"

Yung put in: "What we're going to do, Roscoe-you don't mind if I call you Roscoe, do you?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"If you're going to be difficult, Roscoe, not a problem," Yung said. "We'll just leave and go find C. Harry Whelan, Jr. We know he also wants to meet Colonel Castillo. We'd rather have you, but only if you want to go along. We're not going to drug you, or anything like that, and take you against your will."

"Take me where?"

"I'll tell you what we have in mind if you let me call you Roscoe. If you do, in turn you may call me Two-Gun."

I'm smiling. I have every right to be royally p.i.s.sed.

And maybe I should even be frightened-was there an implied threat in that "We're not going to drug you"?

But what I'm doing is smiling.

"Two-Gun"? They call him "Two-Gun"?

"You may call me Roscoe, Two-Gun."

"Thank you. Now, Roscoe, presuming you are willing, you are going to drive you and me to BWI. You have a first-cla.s.s ticket on the Aero-Mexico ten-forty-five flight to Mexico City. Once I see your plane take off, I will drive your car back here and turn it over to Gerry's capable hands. You will be met at the airport in Mexico City and taken to meet Colonel Castillo."

"And the Russians?"

"Actually, one of the Russians has expressed an interest in meeting you, Roscoe."

"Where is Castillo, Two-Gun?"

"You will learn that later."

"And if I say no?"

"Then we shall regretfully have to stuff you in the trunk of your car. And by the time Gerry hears your piteous cries for help-and finally figures out where they're coming from-Alex and I will have folded our tent and disappeared."

G.o.dd.a.m.n it! I'm smiling again.

"Okay. Give me ten minutes to throw some things in a bag and grab my laptop."

"No. If we're going, it has to be right now."

"Why?"

"There's about one chance in ten that Alex and I were not as successful as we believe we were in eluding the Secret Service guys surveilling our house, which raises the possibility that there may be some of them outside."

"What makes you think they won't see, follow, stop, whatever, us when you and I leave?"

"Because just before we leave, Alex is going to leave the garage as if Satan himself is in hot pursuit. If there are no Secret Service agents waiting for him outside, fine. If there are, Alex will lead them on a tour of the scenic spots of our nation's capital while you and I make our leisurely way to BaltimoreWashington International."

"And Harry Whelan won't be involved, right?"

"I was afraid you would ask that."

"Meaning he will be?"

"Meaning he will be offered the same opportunity."

"Can I cut his throat?"

"When you come back, you can do anything you want to."

"I haven't a clue why I'm going along with this," Roscoe J. Danton said as he put the key in the car door.

[ONE].

Office of the Director The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 0930 10 February 2007