For one thing, I don't know if this is from Charley or Hall. Charley said, "We just got this message." Does "we" mean the Department of Homeland Security, or Matt and Charley, or just Charley using the regal "we"? Or what?

Was Matt standing there when the message arrived and said, "Why don't we ask Naylor?" Or words to that effect?

Or is this message a "What do you think of this, Uncle Allan?"-type message? Expressing idle curiosity? Or wanting to know what I think in case Matt asks him later?

Damn it!

The commanding general of Central Command rapped his water glass with a pencil and gained the attention of all the conferees.

"Gentlemen," he said. "For several reasons, high among them that I think we're all a little groggy after being at this so long, I hereby adjourn this conference until tomorrow morning, place and time to be announced by Sergeant Major Suggins.

"The second reason is that it has just come to my attention that an airliner has allegedly been stolen in Luanda, Angola, and I would like to know what, if anything, anyone here knows about it."

He looked at Mr. Lawrence P. Fremont as he spoke. Mr. Fremont was the liaison officer between Central Command and the Central Intelligence Agency. It was obvious that Mr. Fremont had absolutely no idea what Naylor was talking about.

Neither, to judge from the looks on their faces, did Vice-Admiral Louis J.

Warley, USN, Central Command's J-2 (Intelligence Officer); nor Lieutenant General George H. Potter, USA, the CentCom J-5; nor Mr. Brian Willis, who was the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Resident Special Agent in Charge, known as the SAC.

I didn't expect all of them to be on top of this, but none of them? Jesus H. Christ!

"I'd like Mr. Fremont, Admiral Warley, Mr. Willis, and General Potter to stay behind a moment, please. The rest of you gentlemen may go, with my thanks for your devoted attention during a long and grueling session," General Naylor said.

Everybody but the four people he had named filed out of the conference room.

Naylor looked at the four men standing by the conference table.

"If it would be convenient, gentlemen, I'd like to see you all in my office in twenty minutes, together with what you can find out about:" He dropped his eyes to the laptop, and read, ": CIA Satburst 01, Luanda, 23 May, in that time." He looked up at Potter, and added, "Larry, see if you can find out who the CIA man is in Luanda. I'd like to know who sent this message."

"I think I know, sir," General Potter said.

Naylor looked at him.

General Potter, aware that General Naylor believed that no information is better than wrong information, said, "I'm not sure, sir. I'll check."

"Yeah," General Naylor said.

He looked at the door and saw Sergeant Major Suggins.

"Suggins, would you ask General McFadden if he's free to come to my office in twenty minutes?"

General Albert McFadden, U.S. Air Force, was the CentCom deputy commander.

"Yes, sir."

General Naylor then turned his attention to the IBB, pushed the REPLY key, and typed:

WORKING ON IT. I'LL GET BACK TO YOU. REGARDS, NAYLOR.

When he looked up, he saw that General Potter was standing just inside the door.

Potter was a tall, thin, ascetic-looking man who didn't look much like what comes to mind when "Special Forces" is said. Naylor knew that he had been, in his day, one hell of a Green Beanie, a contemporary of the legendary Scotty McNab. And that he was anything but ascetic. He was a gourmet cook, especially seafood.

"You have something?" Naylor asked.

"Yes, sir. General, I know who the CIA guy is in Angola. He's one of us," Potter said.

"One of us what?"

"He's a special operator, General," Potter said, smiling again. "He took a pretty bad hit in Afghanistan with the 160th, and when he got out of the hospital on limited duty we loaned him to the agency. I thought he was going to help run their basic training program at the Farm, but apparently they sent him to Angola."

The 160th was the Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

"You have his name?"

"Miller. H. Richard Miller, Jr. Major."

"Good man," Naylor said.

"You know him?"

"Him and his father and grandfather," Naylor said. "I didn't get to meet his great-grandfather, or maybe it was his great-great-grandfather. But in the Spanish-American War, he was first sergeant of Baker Troop, 10th Cavalry, when Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders through their lines and up San Juan Hill. I heard he was hit:" Charley told me. ": in Afghanistan. They shot down his helicopter: a Loach, I think."

"Yeah. It was a Loach. A piece of something got his knee."

"Have we got a back channel to him, George?"

"It's up and running, sir. We got a back channel from Miller about this missing airplane before you heard about it."

"And my notification was out of channels," Naylor said, just a little bitterly. "But I suppose, in good time, CentCom will hear about this officially. I'm really sick and tired of Langley taking their goddamned sweet time before they bring me in the loop." He heard what he had said and added: "You didn't hear that."

Potter smiled and made an "I don't know what you're talking about" gesture.

"Let me see whatever he sends," Naylor ordered.

"Yes, sir."

[THREE]

What was at first euphemistically described as "establishing some really first-rate liaison" between the CIA and the FBI and CentCom was a direct result of the events of what had universally become known as "9/11," the crashing of skyjacked airliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon and, short of its target in the capital, into the Pennsylvania countryside.

No one said it out loud but Central Command was the most important headquarters in the Army. According to its mission statement, it was responsible "for those areas of the world not otherwise assigned."

Army forces in the continental United States were assigned to one of the five armies in the United States, except those engaged in training, which were assigned to the Training amp; Doctrine Command with its headquarters within the thick stone walls of Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

Southern Command, which had had its headquarters in Panama for many years, now listed its address as 3511 NW 91st Avenue, Miami, Florida 33172-1217. It was responsible for Central and South America. No one feared immediate war with, say, Uruguay, Chile, or Argentina, or even Venezuela or Colombia, although a close eye was kept on the latter two, and, of course, on Cuba.

The Far East Command had responsibility for the Pacific. There were no longer very many soldiers in the Pacific because no one expected war to break out there tomorrow afternoon. The European Command, as the name implied, had the responsibility for Europe. For nearly half a century, there had been genuine concern that the Red Army would one day crash through the Fulda Gap bent on sweeping all of Europe under the Communist rug. That threat no longer existed.

Some people wondered what sort of a role was now left for the North American Treaty Organization, whose military force was headed by an American general, now that the Soviet threat was minimal to nonexistent, and NATO was taking into its ranks many countries it had once been prepared to fight.

The Alaskan Command had the responsibility for Alaska. There was very little of a threat that the now Russian Army would launch an amphibious attack across the Bering Strait from Siberia with the intention of occupying Fairbanks or Nome.

That left Central Command with the rest of the world, and most of the wars being fought and/or expected to start tonight or tomorrow morning. Iraq is in CentCom's area of responsibility, and CentCom had already fought one war there and was presently fighting another.