Free The President's Henchman by Joseph Flynn Page A

6
     
    Lieutenant Welborn Yates had never been to the Pentagon before the morning he showed up to interview Colonel Carina Linberg, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if a body-cavity search were required to gain entrance. Not after the terrorist attack on the building. After all, he might be an Air Force officer with a legitimate reason to be on the premises, or he might be an SOB with a great disguise and a credible cover story.
    If protecting the building were his job, he’d check out everyone down to their corn pads.
    So when he arrived at the security checkpoint and an Air Force major on the far side of the metal detector nodded to the chief of the detail, who then waved Welborn through, he was sure somebody must have made a mistake. He started to open his briefcase for inspection.
    But the major, whose name tag read SEYMOUR, told him curtly, “Don’t bother with that, Yates. General Altman is waiting to see you.”
    “Sir?”
    “General Warren Altman. The Air Force chief of staff. You’ve heard of him, Lieutenant?”
    Welborn had. Four stars on each shoulder. That General Altman.
    “Yes, sir. But he’s not who I came here to see.”
    Major Seymour smiled, his teeth a brilliant white against his dark skin. “But that’s who you’re going to see, Lieutenant. If for no other reason than the general sent me to fetch you.”
    “Yes, sir,” Welborn said.
     
    The first thing Welborn noticed was that the general’s office was bigger than the Oval Office. The second was that Major Seymour was literally breathing down his neck. Nothing he could do about that. He was standing at attention, holding his salute.
    General Altman was seated behind his desk, speaking on the phone. Seeing the man up close, Welborn thought he looked too young to have all those stars. His hair was still dark, his jaw was still firm, and the lines around his eyes only made him look like someone you didn’t want to rile. Someone Hollywood would put in a movie.
    The general looked at Welborn now as he continued to speak. He had his right hand cupped around the receiver’s mouthpiece, and his voice was too low to hear, but Welborn had the uneasy feeling he was the topic of conversation.
    The general put the phone down and returned Welborn’s salute. But he did not put him at ease. And Major Seymour’s breath, hotter if anything, continued to take the starch out of his collar.
    “Good morning, Lieutenant.”
    “Good morning, sir.”
    “I hope you don’t mind if I take a few minutes of your time.”
    “No, sir. I’ll apologize to Colonel Linberg for my tardiness.”
    The general smiled, but it only confirmed Welborn’s earlier impression: Here was a man you didn’t want to cross. “Don’t worry about the colonel,” he said. “She’ll keep.”
    The general picked up a pen and began to make a note on a pad of paper. With his pilot’s eyesight, Welborn could see the precision of the general’s handwriting. And even a name, written upside down from Welborn’s point of view: Merriman.
    He decided it was better not to snoop on the general and looked away.
    “How do you like your office at the White House, Lieutenant?” the general asked.
    When Welborn looked back, he saw General Altman was staring directly at him, and he immediately felt there was no good answer the question. But he said, “It’s more than I ever expected, sir.”
    The general smiled again, giving Welborn the feeling that he had already crossed this man.
    “More than any of us expected. A nice temporary billet for you but a problem for me.”
    “Sir?”
    “Having you outside your normal post at Andrews adds one more step to the process. Reporting the progress you make on your investigation becomes more time-consuming, if nothing else. And if someone, say the president’s chief of staff, tries to manage the outcome of your investigation for political reasons, it could conceivably hurt the Air Force. Possibly even your career, should the politicians decide