W. E. B. Griffin - Presidential Agent 07 Read Online Free PDF

what am I doing walking around with more money than I know what to do with, and this Mexican—excuse me, Texican —kid who saved my life is pushing up daisies?
    “Inspiration struck. What I could do to assuage my guilt was throw money at his family. I even thought that might be the reason God or fate or whatever had let me make all the money, so I could do something good with it.
    “So I called the guy who does security for my stations—he’s an ex-cop—and told him to get me an address for Mr. Castillo’s family. In ten minutes, I had it, so I told the limo driver to take me there.
    “Great big house behind a twelve-foot-tall cast-iron fence. The Castillos were obviously not living on food stamps. On the lawn, a blond teenage boy and a great big fat Mexican teenage boy were beating the hell out of each other. I later realized that was probably you, Colonel.”
    “And my cousin Fernando, also a Texican,” Castillo said.
    “So I called the security guy back and got the skinny on the Castillo family. They could buy and sell me. So I told the driver to take me to the airport.”
    “You didn’t go in the house?” Sweaty asked.
    “Sweaty . . . is it all right if I call you that?”
    Svetlana considered that for a full ten seconds, then nodded.
    “Sweaty, I’m a coward with an active imagination. I could see myself introducing myself to Mr. Castillo’s father and mother and maybe his kid, telling them their dead son had saved my life in Vietnam, and then them asking, ‘So where the hell have you been for the past thirteen, fourteen years? You had more important things to do?’ ”
    “They wouldn’t have done that,” Castillo said. “My father’s co-pilot—my father kicked him out of his Huey just before he took off and got blown away—is practically a member of the family. He’s a retired two-star.”
    “Like I said, Colonel, I’m a coward,” Radio and TV Stations said. “What I’m hoping is that this trip down memory lane will convince you there were two of us who said ‘over my dead body’ when it was suggested that turning you over to Ambassador Montvale so that he could turn you over to the Russians was the best solution to the Congo-X problem.”
    Castillo looked first at Sweaty, who shrugged, which he interpreted to mean “Maybe, why not?” and then at Delchamps, who did the same thing, and finally at Annapolis, who nodded.
    “Okay,” Castillo said. “Two good guys out of four. Or are there any more of you?”
    “There’s more,” Annapolis said. “The proponents of letting Montvale turn you and Sweaty and Colonel Berezovsky over to the Russians felt their presence here today might be a little awkward.”
    Castillo snorted, and then asked, “How many more?”
    “Well, counting Aloysius and Colonel Hamilton . . .”
    “Don’t count either one of us,” Casey said. “Hamilton’s as pissed with you people as I am. More. He was the one who let me see how you regarded us as employees.”
    “Does that mean you are permanently shutting down our communications?” Annapolis asked.
    “It means I’m with Charley, whatever Charley decides.”
    “How many others?” Castillo pursued.
    “In all, there are nine of us,” Annapolis said.
    “Which means that five of you wanted to throw Charley to the lions?” Mrs. Agnes Forbison asked. It was the first time she’d opened her mouth.
    “Unfortunately,” Investment Banker said, “five of us were considering that option.”
    “But were dissuaded from doing so,” Agnes said. “The question then becomes, how can we be sure they can be dissuaded the next time a situation like that comes up?”
    “The question, Mother Forbison,” Delchamps said, “is whether or not, having indulged the Irishman by coming here in the first place, we decide we’ve heard enough, give these people the finger, and walk out of here.”
    “Is that what you want to do, Edgar?” Castillo asked.
    “It was when I walked in here,” Delchamps replied. “Now