Hunters

XV

[ONE] Conference Room Office of the Chief of Operational Analysis Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 1015 11 August 2005 Castillo saw that there were now names and events and dates written all over the three blackboards, most of them marked with symbols, arrows, and question marks and connected by a maze of arrows. Juliet Knowles and the pale-faced girl whose name he didn't know were sitting with their fingers poised on the keyboards of the laptops.

Inspector John J. Doherty turned from the blackboard on which he was writing to see who had entered the conference room.

"I'm beginning to understand, Colonel," Doherty said, "what I originally thought was your overzealous desire for secrecy."

Castillo ignored the remark and looked at Dick Miller.

"I think we'll know something from NSA about where that two million dollars came from by tomorrow morning, maybe even sooner. But we're going to need Yung to make sense out of what they're going to be able to get for us. How about making sure he comes up here just as soon as he can after the funeral?"

Miller nodded and picked up one of the telephones.

"That's Special Agent Yung of the FBI you're talking about?" Doherty asked.

Castillo nodded. "He's an expert in money moving," he said.

"I know," Doherty said.

Castillo didn't like Doherty's tone of voice.

"I understand he also knows where the FBI hides their skeletons."

"That, too," Doherty said. "What two million dollars are we talking about?"

"The two million dollars somebody gave the Aari-Teg mosque in Philadelphia so they could buy a farm in Bucks County in which they are going to hide in old iron mines when someone sets off a suitcase nuke in the City of Brotherly Love," Castillo rattled off.

Doherty considered that for a long moment and then exclaimed, "Jesus Christ, is that credible?"

"Britton doesn't think so and…"

"Britton, the Secret Service agent?" Doherty interrupted, turning to point at Britton's name on one of the blackboards.

Castillo nodded, then said: "When he was a Philadelphia cop, he was undercover in the mosque for more than three years. He doesn't put much credence in the nuke and neither do others-including Edgar here-who know about things like that. But somebody gave these lunatics two million dollars and I'd like to know who and why. Maybe it's two separate things, terrorism and the oil-for-food scandal. And maybe they're connected. I have a gut feeling they are."

Doherty picked up his yellow felt-tip pen and said, "Spell that mosque for me," and, when Castillo had and he'd written it on the blackboard, asked: "Can you tie these people to terrorism?"

"They were involved with the theft of the 727 that terrorists were going to crash into the Liberty Bell."

"You really think they were going to do that?" Doherty asked, his tone making it clear he didn't think that was credible.

"Yeah, I really think they were going to crash it into the Liberty Bell," Castillo said. "When Jake Torine and I stole it back from them, it was about to take off for Philadelphia. The fuselage was loaded with fuel cells hidden under a layer of fresh flowers."

Doherty accepted that but he didn't apologize, not even to the extent of saying "I didn't know that."

"So you're saying these people are skilled terrorists?" Doherty asked after a moment.

"No, I'm not. I go with Britton and Chief Inspector Kramer of the Philadelphia Police, who refer to them as the AAL, which means African American Lunatics, and which means just that. They have been used by terrorists, and they still may be-probably are-being used. I want to know where they got the money and if there is a reason beyond giving them a place to protect themselves from a nuclear explosion, which we don't think is going to happen."

Doherty considered that a long moment and then went off on a tangent.

"We can get back to that in a minute. You used a helicopter on the estancia raid, right?"

Castillo nodded.

"Where did you get it? Delchamps says he doesn't know and Miller said he doesn't want to tell me until he talks to you."

Castillo looked at the two women, who were watching them in fascination.

This, they shouldn't hear.

"Let's go in there for a moment," Castillo said, pointing toward the door of the larger of two small offices opening off the conference room. Once the door had closed behind him, Miller, Delchamps, and Doherty, Castillo said, evenly, "I borrowed a Bell Ranger from Aleksandr Pevsner."

"The same Aleksandr Pevsner we've talked about before?"

"Uh-huh."

"Jesus Christ, that opens a whole new can of worms," Doherty said. "Did he know what you were going to use it for?"

Castillo had a quick mental image of Doherty writing Pevsner on one of the blackboards, followed by a very large question mark and then an even larger exclamation point.

"Yes, he knew," Castillo said.

"Has it occurred to you that your pal is the one who tipped the unknown parties to what you were up to? Or that he sent them himself?" Doherty asked and then didn't wait for an answer, but instead turned to Delchamps and said: "Ed, this Russian mafioso is up to his ears in everything else criminal on both hemispheres, so is it likely he's involved in either this oil-for-food scam or terrorism?"

Castillo picked up on Doherty's use of Delchamps's first name.

So he likes him at least that much? Good!

"Terrorism, no," Delchamps said. "That's not saying his airplanes haven't flown terrorists or supplies-including money-around for the Muslim fanatics. But I say that primarily because his airplanes go to lots of interesting places. He has almost certainly been used by terrorists-who have paid him extremely well for his services-but he's not one of them.

"And, Jack, from what I know-know-the same thing is true of his association with the oil-for-food maggots. Pevsner's airplanes flew a lot of food and medicine-like Ferraris and blond Belgian hookers for Saddam's sons-and nice little hundred-thousand-dollar bricks of hundred-dollar bills into and out of Iraq. But a lot of the same thing-maybe not the Ferraris, but just about everything else-went into and out of Iraq on Air France and Lufthansa and a lot of other airlines. My information is that Pevsner's airplanes were used when Saddam and company really wanted to be sure the commercial carrier didn't get curious about what was really in the crates marked 'Hospital Supplies.'"

"There wasn't time for Pevsner to tip anybody off about the raid," Castillo said. "And, anyway, he didn't know where we were going. He only knew who we were after."

"Unless he already knew where Lorimer was, Charley," Delchamps argued. "He could have told someone 'You'd better take care of that problem before the American gets to him.'"

"I don't think he knew where Lorimer was, Edgar," Castillo said.

"Why?" Doherty challenged.

"I think if he knew, Lorimer would have been dead when we got there. Alek doesn't like people who know things about him walking around."

"And what do you think Lorimer knew about Pevsner?" Doherty asked.

"Change that to 'Alek doesn't like people who might know anything the disclosure of which might even remotely inconvenience him walking around.'"

"That include you, Ace?" Delchamps asked. "You know where he is and you're still walking around."

"Where is he, Castillo?" Doherty asked.

"The last time I saw him, he was in Argentina," Castillo said.

"Jesus Christ!" Doherty said. "And what about Howard Kennedy? Where was he the last time you saw him?"

"He was at Jorge Newbery airport when we came back from Uruguay."

"Doing what?"

"I think Pevsner sent him, to give him an early heads-up in case something had gone wrong."

"So Kennedy knows where you were and what went down?" Delchamps asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure he does."

"You told him?" Doherty asked, incredulously. "You're operating on a Presidential Finding and you told that turncoat sonofabitch all about it?"

"I didn't tell him anything. That he found out from either Pevsner-or, more likely, from Munz, who had been hit and was on happy pills-is something I couldn't control."

"That doesn't worry you?" Doherty asked.

"No. Kennedy works for Pevsner. He knows what happens to people who talk. What does worry me is Chief Inspector Jose Ordonez of the Uruguayan police, who has figured out-but can't prove-that I used Pevsner's Ranger and that special operators put down the Ninjas."

"What's he going to do with that information?" Delchamps asked.

"He's a good friend of Munz, knows that I'm a good friend of Munz, and would probably prefer that the whole episode would go away. If anything, if I had to bet I'd bet he'd go along with the drug dealer theory advanced by Ambassador McGrory."

"The drug dealer theory?" Doherty asked, incredulously.

"Ambassador McGrory has developed the theory that Lorimer was, in his alter ego as Jean-Paul Bertrand, antiquities dealer, actually a big-time drug dealer and got whacked-and had his money stolen-when a deal fell through."

"I don't understand that," Doherty said. "Presumably, the ambassador in Uruguay knew about this operation. What's this drug deal nonsense? Disinformation?"

"He didn't know-doesn't know-anything about it," Castillo said.

Doherty shook his head in disbelief.

"You said something about money," Doherty said. "What money?"

"Lorimer had about sixteen million dollars in three Uruguayan banks. That's a fact. Whether he skimmed it from the oil-for-food payoffs he was making-which is what I think-or whether it was money he was going to use for more payoffs, I don't know."

"Where's the money now?"

"We have it," Castillo said.

"You stole it?"

"I like to think of it as having converted it to a good cause," Castillo said.

Delchamps and Miller chuckled.

"Does Yung know about this?"

"Yung's the one who told us how to 'convert' it," Miller said.

"I don't think I want to hear any more about this," Doherty said.

"Good, because I can see no purpose in telling you any more than that. And I wish Miller hadn't been so helpful just now."

"You realize, don't you, Castillo, that Yung's FBI career is really down the toilet?"

"I thought it was already-guilt by association with Howard Kennedy-pretty much down the toilet."

"So far as I'm concerned, and most of the senior people in the bureau are concerned, Yung couldn't be faulted for trusting Kennedy-a fellow FBI agent-too much to believe he was even capable of doing what he did. But after this, Jesus Christ!"

"What do I have to do," Castillo said, coldly, "remind you that you're not going to tell 'most of the senior people in the bureau'-for that matter, anybody in the FBI-about any of this?"

"He already knows too much," Miller said, forcing a serious tone. "We're going to have to kill him."

Doherty looked at Miller in shocked disbelief, even after he realized his chain was being pulled, and even after he saw the smiles on Castillo's and Delchamps's faces.

"It's an old company joke, Jack," Delchamps said. "The special operators stole it."

"And you think it's funny?" Doherty said.

"I guess that depends on the company," Castillo said, not very pleasantly. "Okay. I have reminded you before witnesses that you have been made privy to information you are not to disclose to anyone in the FBI. Are we clear on that, Inspector Doherty?"

"We're clear on that, Colonel," Doherty replied, stiffly.

"Now, so far as your blackboards are concerned," Castillo went on, "you will write 'Putin' on them whenever you wish to make reference to Pevsner and 'Schmidt' whenever you wish to make reference to Howard Kennedy. I don't think those young women will make the connection, and maybe it'll even sail over Agnes's head. Clear?"

"The director of the FBI is named Schmidt, as you goddamned well know," Doherty said. "And you use it to describe someone like Howard Kennedy? What is it with you, Colonel? You have some deep psychological need to really piss people off?"

"This is the truth," Castillo said. "We are already using those code names in Argentina. At the time-before I had any suspicion that we would be dealing with a very senior FBI officer-they seemed appropriate. Now I readily admit 'Schmidt' doesn't, but it's too late to change it."

"Let me say something, Jack," Delchamps said. "Nothing disrespectful in this, but I've always felt that the FBI could use a little humor. Castillo wasn't being disrespectful. Irreverent, sure. But what's so wrong with that?"

Doherty looked at Delchamps for a long moment and then, without replying, turned to Castillo.

"Are we through in here, Colonel? Or can I get back to my blackboards?" [TWO] Conference Room Office of the Chief of Operational Analysis Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 1925 11 August 2005 Inspector John J. Doherty, visibly exhausted, suddenly turned from the blackboard on which he was working and announced, "Sorry, but my brain just went on automatic shutdown. We'll have to pick this up again in the morning. Half past seven, something like that?"

Castillo nodded. He's right. You're only fooling yourself thinking you can push yourself when you're wiped out. And I'm wiped out. We're all wiped out.

"Fine with me," Castillo had quickly agreed. Juliet Knowles and the English girl-he finally had learned her name was Heather Maywood-had been wiped out when they quit at half past four, thirty minutes after normal quitting time. Since then, Castillo and Miller had been manning the laptops.

Surprising Castillo, Doherty had not wanted to talk to anyone at the safe house in the Mayerling Country Club. When he saw the look on Castillo's face, he offered a terse explanation.

"We'll start with what I get from you here. Then we'll get what they have and start looking for both confirmation and anomalies."

With no enthusiasm at all, Castillo had decided that he had no choice but to let Doherty do whatever the hell Doherty was doing the way Doherty wanted to do it.

Castillo had given Delchamps the printouts of the material Eric Kocian had given him in Budapest as soon as they had been ready. He had read them with one eye, keeping the other on the blackboards until immediately after lunch-paper cartons of allegedly Chinese food, the remnants of which filled a wastebasket-for Langley to see, as he put it, "First, if Montvale really got me in over there and, second, if he did, to see what I can find in the file-and-forget cabinets that matches this stuff."

At four o'clock, Yung had called saying he was about to get on an airplane in New Orleans and did Castillo want him to come to the office or what?

Castillo had told him there was nothing for him do right now, he didn't "have the data yet"-by which he meant the intercepts from NSA, which at that point he didn't expect until the next day-but to come to the Nebraska Complex at eight the next morning.

Delchamps had called a little after six and reported that "the door was really open, to my surprise," but that he'd had enough and was quitting for the day. He had refused Castillo's offer of supper, saying he was going to his room in the Marriott and get on the horn to some other dinosaurs to see what they remembered, and would see them in the morning.

Doherty had left immediately. Castillo and Miller had stayed until NSA technicians had swept the room and Department of Homeland Security maintenance personnel had cleaned it up. Then they had set up a security officer outside the door to the conference room from the corridor, locked the door to it from Castillo's office, and were driven to the Mayflower in a Secret Service Yukon XL.

In the SUV, they confessed to one another that they had no idea where Doherty was headed with his blackboard, but that he obviously did and maybe they could make sense of them in the morning when their heads were clear.

They went to the suite, ordered club sandwiches and beer from room service, and went to bed before ten, both of them first having fallen asleep watching television in the living room. [THREE] Conference Room Office of the Chief of Operational Analysis Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 0555 12 August 2005 Castillo nearly didn't pick up when the red bulb flashed on the White House telephone on the conference table. For one thing he seriously doubted that the President of the United States wished to speak personally to him-especially at this hour-and he didn't want to talk to anyone else-especially Ambassador Montvale-who was authorized to use the system.

What he wanted to do-and had, in fact, ninety seconds earlier begun to do-was study the half dozen blackboards in the room to see if he could make any sense out of Doherty's symbols, arrows, and question marks.

And he knew that if he didn't pick up the red handset, Miller would.

But he picked it up anyway.

Before he could open his mouth, a male voice said, "Not bad. I understand the protocol requires a pickup in thirty seconds or less. That took you twenty-two."

"Who's this?" Castillo asked, although he had suspicions.

The reply came in a voice which would not win any amateur night contests, softly singing a song from Castillo's past: "We'll bid fare-well to Kay-det Gray, and don the Army Blue…"

"How can you be so cheerful at this hour?" Castillo asked.

"I've been up since three," Colonel Gregory J. Kilgore said. "That's when the fisherman called to tell me he'd hooked a whopper. And by the time I got over here, about four, he was waiting to tell me he'd hooked all kinds of things. And more have been caught in the net since then. I'm separating the shellfish from the trash fish right now."

"And you're going to tell me what?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Kilgore said. "I thought that was understood between us. But a fleet-footed messenger-actually, he's driving a Mini Cooper-is headed your way as we speak bearing some of the initial catch. Watch out for him."

"This is a secure line…" Castillo began but stopped when he realized Kilgore had broken the connection. Twenty-five minutes later, a red-and-black Mini Cooper pulled up in the curved driveway of the building. A trim young man in a gray suit got out and walked toward the door.

There was little question in Castillo's mind that he was Kilgore's "fleet footed messenger," but he resisted the temptation to intercept him.

Let's see what he does with the envelope.

The young man surprised Castillo by walking to him the minute he was inside the building.

"Mr. Castillo?" he asked, politely.

"How'd you know?"

"You were described to me, sir," the young man said. "May I see some identification, please?"

The only thing Castillo had to show him were his Secret Service credentials.

The young man examined them carefully, said, "Thank you, sir," and took a large white manila envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Castillo.

"This is for you, sir."

Castillo saw that the young man was wearing a West Point ring.

"Thank you," Castillo said. "Do you want me to sign for this?"

"That won't be necessary, sir. Good morning, sir."

The young man walked quickly out of the building, got in his little car, and drove off.

Castillo went to the elevator bank, ran his card through the reader, and rode up to his office. Only when he was in the conference room did he open the envelope.

It contained a sheaf of paper and an unmarked compact disc.

When he fed the CD to his laptop he saw that it contained a document in Microsoft Word format. He opened it.

He compared what came onto his monitor with the second page-the first page was blank-of the sheaf of papers. They appeared to be identical. He started to read what was on the screen: SYNOPSIS: IT ALMOST IMMEDIATELY BECAME APPARENT THAT A NUMBER OF ENTITIES HAVE AN INTEREST IN CERTAIN ACTIVITIES OF THE CALEDONIAN BANK amp; TRUST LIMITED. (SEE APPENDIX 3)

SOME OF THE FILTER KEYS USED TO DEVELOP INFORMATION FOR THESE ENTITIES ARE IDENTICAL TO THOSE PROVIDED BY YOU. (SEE APPENDIX 4) INFORMATION DEVELOPED FROM YOUR FILTERS MAY BE FOUND IN APPENDIX 1, AND INFORMATION WHICH YOU MAY FIND OF INTEREST MAY BE FOUND IN APPENDIX 2.

Castillo picked up the sheaf of papers and found Appendix 3. Among the entities listed were the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service.

That was interesting. Maybe-probably-there was something in files somewhere that would be useful.

He turned back to the laptop and scrolled down to Appendix 1.

Appendix 1 was five pages of data, dates, amounts, and account numbers. It made no sense to Castillo at all.

He went into his office. Miller was behind Castillo's desk, studying his laptop computer screen, his stiff leg resting on an open drawer.

"Where's Yung?" Castillo asked.

Miller shrugged. "You told him to come in at eight."

"Where's he staying? I need him now."

Miller shrugged again.

"What have you got?" Miller asked.

Castillo handed him the sheaf of papers. Miller glanced through it, then said, "Yeah, you're right. You do need him." He paused. "He'll be here in an hour, give or take."

"You're a lot of goddamned help!"

"It is not nice to be cruel to a cripple," Miller said, piously.

Inspector Doherty came into the office at seven twenty-five.

"Good morning," he said without much enthusiasm.

"We've heard from NSA," Castillo said and handed him the sheaf of papers.

Doherty examined them.

"It's gibberish to me," he announced. "You need an expert, like Yung. I thought you sent for him." He looked at Castillo for a moment, his face suggesting he didn't like what he saw, then said, "Well, back to work," and went into the conference room.

Castillo motioned for Miller to go with him. Miller nodded, lifted his bad leg off the open drawer with both hands, and got to his feet. Mr. Agnes Forbison came to work at seven-forty. She knew where Yung was staying-"at the Marriott by the Press Club. He and Mr. Delchamps are both there."

"Could you call him and tell him I need him now?"

"Well, if you want me to, I will. But you told him to be here at eight and he's probably already on his way here."

"He might have overslept," Castillo said. "Call him."

Mr. Forbison was still on the telephone when both David W. Yung, Jr., and Edgar Delchamps walked in together.

She gave Castillo a What did I tell you? expression, then exclaimed, "Look at your hand!"

She was making reference to the bloody damage on Yung's hand.

"Ol' Dave," Delchamps volunteered, cheerfully, "ever the gentleman, tried to hold the elevator door for me. It got him. No good deed ever goes unpunished."

"We'll have to get you to a doctor," Agnes said.

"There's no time for that," Castillo said, earning him a dirty look from Mr. Forbison.

"I could use a fresh bandage," Yung said, "but I don't need a doctor. All the damned door did was crack the scab."

"You're sure?" Agnes asked and, when he had nodded, said, "I'll get the first-aid kit." "I didn't know you two knew each other," Castillo said as he watched Agnes tenderly wrap Yung's hand with a sterile bandage.

"We met in the Round Robin," Yung said, referring to the ground-floor bar in the Willard Hotel, which is across the street from the Marriott.

"Whence I had gone separately for a little liquid sustenance," Delchamps said, "the Marriott bar being full of road warriors and ladies offering them solace for a price…"

"I thought you were going to get on the horn to the retired dinosaurs association?" Castillo interrupted.

"…after I had conversed with several gentlemen whose advanced age has fortunately not dimmed their memories," Delchamps went on. "And there was this Asiatic gentleman, with a bandaged wing, extolling the virtues of Argentine beef to a tootsie at the bar. It could have been a coincidence, but I didn't think so. I thought I was looking at Two-Gun Yung, the wounded hero of the Battle of the River Plate, whose exploits so shocked Doherty yesterday. So what I did was borrow a sheet of paper from the bartender and sent him a note."

"You sonofabitch," Yung said. "You really got me!"

"The note read 'Colonel C thought you would probably talk too much. Leave immediately. Go to your hotel and wait for instructions,'" Delchamps went on, pleased with himself. "My reasoning being that if Confucius had never heard of Colonel C. no harm would be done. But if I was right…and I was…"

"You bastard," Yung said, good-naturedly.

"He read the note and became scrute…"

"Became what?" Agnes asked.

"As in 'inscrutable,'" Delchamps explained. "Nervously licking his lips, he looked frantically around the bar, searching for counterintel types, and…"

"He didn't make you?" Castillo said, laughing.

Delchamps shook his head. "I carry with me this often helpful aura of bemused innocence," he said. "So what Dave did was hurriedly pay his bill, say good-bye to the tootsie, and head for the door. At that point, I took pity on him and bought him a drink."

"We had a couple," Yung admitted.

"I hope your mind is clear, Dave. I've got a bunch of stuff from NSA I need you to translate and, after that, you can tell me about the funeral."

Castillo was not unaware that Delchamps's attitude had done a one-eighty from that of the previous morning.

Maybe because he's working?

Or maybe because he's working and he senses that he's not going to be ignored now after breaking his ass trying to do a good job. "Good morning, Inspector Doherty," Yung said politely as he walked into the conference room.

"How are you, Yung?" Doherty replied.

And ice filled the room, Castillo thought. So far as Doherty's concerned, Yung has betrayed his beloved FBI, and there's not much of a difference between him and Howard Kennedy.

And Yung not only knows this, but probably-almost certainly-has to feel uncomfortable about that, maybe even a little ashamed of himself.

Is that going to fuck things up? Is Dave going to backslide and become a good little FBI agent again?

The answer came immediately.

"Well, aside from this," Yung said, raising his bandaged hand, "I'm fine, Inspector. How about you?"

"I heard about that," Doherty said.

"Colonel Castillo told you?"

Doherty nodded.

"I thought he would probably have to have told you-Edgar Delchamps told me what you're doing here. So I guess he also told you that you can't go back to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and tell them, 'Guess what? We were right all along about Yung. He can't be trusted any more than Howard Kennedy can. Wait till I tell you what he's been up to.'"

"Colonel Castillo has made it clear that your activities, Yung, are protected by the security classification of the Presidential Finding."

"I'm almost sorry they are. I wish I could tell the bastards in Professional Ethics that I'm not ashamed of anything I've done since I got involved in this and that I like being trusted by Castillo and the people around him. That's more than I can say for the bureau. They found me guilty by association-'We can't trust him anymore; send him to Uruguay or someplace'-with no more justification than a determination to cover their own asses."

Doherty paled and looked as if he was about to say something.

"Well," Delchamps said, breaking the silence, "now that the air is cleared and we're all pals united in a common cause, can we get back to work? I've got a lot of paleontological data for your blackboards, Jack."

"What kind of data?" Doherty asked.

"From dinosaurs," Delchamps said.

"And I have fifteen pages of mysterious numbers for you to decipher for us, Dave," Castillo said and gestured for him to sit down at the conference table. "What NSA has come up with, Charley," Yung said fifteen minutes later, "is pretty good. It's a goddamned pity we can't use it to put some of these bastards in jail."

"For what?"

"Income tax evasion, most of them. A lot of other charges. But none of this would be admissible in court."

"Careful, you're starting to sound like an FBI agent again," Castillo said without thinking, then heard what he had said and looked to see if Doherty had heard him. His face showed that he had.

Oh, fuck you! Yung was screwed by the FBI-probably by you personally, Doherty-and you know it!

"I don't give a damn about the IRS," Castillo went on. "What use is it to us?"

"Well, we know from which account the people in Philadelphia or Easton-wherever the hell it was-got their two million."

"Didn't we already know that?"

"What we didn't know-this is in Appendix 2-was that there was a deposit, the same exact amount, $1,950,000, into the same account at the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited from which the $1,950,000 was wired to the Merchants National Bank of Easton. I think we can reasonably surmise this was done in anticipation of sending the money to Pennsylvania."

"Who put that money in that account?" Castillo asked.

"It came from another numbered account in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited. And what's very interesting about that is-this is also in Appendix 2-is that that's a very substantial account, with just over forty-six million dollars in it."

"In cash?" Castillo asked, incredulously.

"Five million in cash, the rest in instruments something like the ones Lorimer used in Uruguay-not the same thing, exactly, but something like it. You want me to explain that?"

"First tell me what's 'very interesting' about this second account."

"There have been no deposits made to it since March 23, 2003. The invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003."

"We know that date," Miller said. "When Castillo and I were simple, honest soldiers, we were there."

"Which suggests to you what?"

"The oil-for-food scam ended with the invasion," Yung said. "That final deposit, nine-point-five million, was probably in the pipeline, so to speak, for that three-day difference."

"Who owns the account with the forty-six million in it?"

"We don't know. NSA can't get data like that," Yung replied. "But Appendix 3 says that a lot of people are snooping around the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited, including the FBI. One of them should know."

"You hear that, Inspector?" Castillo asked.

"I heard it," Doherty said. "Would you be surprised if my first reaction was to say fuck you?"

"No," Castillo said. "But?"

"And not just because I don't like you and this operation of yours, but because if NSA says the bureau is interested in this Caledonian Bank that means there is a legitimate, ongoing investigation which may very well be screwed up by you nosing around."

"But?" Castillo asked again.

"If I don't do this for you, you'll go back to Montvale, he'll go back to Director Schmidt and he'll either order me to get the information or tell somebody else to do it."

"Please give Inspector Doherty the numbers of the accounts we're interested in, Dave." Doherty hung up the phone fifteen minutes later and handed Castillo a sheet of notepaper on which was written: "Kenyon Oil Refining and Brokerage Company, Midland, Texas."

Castillo was momentarily surprised at hearing Midland, Texas, but then realized that it was because Munz's family was on the Double-Bar-C ranch there, not because the oil company was in Midland.

There's probably three or four hundred oil companies in Midland. And it's not surprising that I never heard of this one. Many of them are nothing more than a phone number and a post office box.

"That's the account with the forty-six million in it," Doherty reported. "The information the bureau has is that they're a small independent outfit, primarily involved in the business of buying and selling crude oil. They have a small refinery in Houston, but that's usually involved in refining other people's oil. There is an ongoing investigation that has so far not turned up anything they're looking for."

"What is the FBI looking for?" Castillo asked.

"They didn't tell me and I didn't ask."

"Get back on the horn, please, Inspector, and ask. And while you've got them on the phone, find out what the FBI have-anything, everything, they have-on the other numbers Yung gave you."

Doherty glowered at him and didn't move.

"Do it, Inspector," Castillo said, unpleasantly.

Doherty grabbed the telephone. Making no effort to hide it, Castillo listened and watched him carefully while he made the call.

"It'll take some time to get that information," Doherty reported when he had finished. "They'll call."

"And while we're waiting, we'll all going to take a quick course in how the scans worked," Castillo said.

"From who?" Doherty asked.

"From my Budapest source, who is now in Argentina."

"I told you, Castillo, I didn't want any data from those people until we sort out what we already have."

"Do you speak Hungarian, Inspector?"

"No, I don't speak Hungarian," Doherty responded in exasperation.

"Then you'll just have to guess what I'm saying to my source," Castillo said and picked up the Delta Force radio handset.

"Sergeant Neidermeyer," a voice came over the handset.

"Are we up?" Castillo asked.

"All green, sir."

"Data link, too?"

"All up, Colonel."

"Wake them up, Neidermeyer," Castillo ordered, then switched the radio to SPEAKERPHONE and hung up the handset. "Davidson," a voice came over the speaker ten seconds later.

"Got you working the radio, do they, Jack?" Castillo asked, in a strange tongue Inspector Davidson had never heard before. He had no idea what it was but it wasn't Hungarian.

"That's not Hungarian!" Doherty accused.

Castillo looked at him and softly said, in English, "Actually, Inspector, it's Pashto, one of the two major languages spoken in Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian."

Delchamps and Miller smiled and shook their heads.

Castillo turned to the radio and, switching back to Pashto, said, "Do you know if the old man's up yet, Jack?"

The reply came in Pashto: "That's why I'm working the radios, Colonel. Kocian and Kensington are kicking the soccer ball for Max. I was, but that big sonofabitch knocked me on my ass and I quit."

"I need to talk to the old man right now."

"Hold one, Colonel."

"Tell him to speak Hungarian," Castillo ordered, looking at Doherty and smiling.

"Will do. Hold one." "I wondered if I was ever going to hear from you, Karlchen," Eric Kocian said, in Hungarian. "And I am not surprised that you called ninety seconds before Max and I are to have our breakfast."

"Uncle Billy, did you ever see one of those books, Windows for Dummies, Microsoft Word for Dummies?"

"You called me on your science fiction radio and are making me late for breakfast to ask a stupid question like that?"

Delchamps laughed and said, "I think I like this guy," which caused Inspector Doherty to realize that Delchamps spoke Hungarian and caused him further discomfiture.

"It's important or I wouldn't have interfered with Max's breakfast," Castillo said. "What I need is a lecture: 'How the Oil-for-Food Scam Worked for Dummies.'" He switched to English. "And give it to me in English and slow, because we have a man here who's going to write it down-make a chart of it-on a blackboard."

"I have the strangest feeling this odd request of yours is important to you," Kocian said, in English.

"One can sense an enormous feeling of relief on the part of our FBI coconspirator," Delchamps said, in Hungarian.

Castillo chuckled.

Doherty picked up on the "FBI" and glared at Delchamps, which caused Castillo to chuckle again.

"It's very important to us, Uncle Billy," Castillo said, in Hungarian. "I think we're getting close."

"I thought we were going to speak English," Kocian said, also in Hungarian. "Make up your mind, Karlchen!"

"I really like this guy!" Delchamps said. "Make up your mind, Ace!"

"English, please, Uncle Billy," Castillo said, in English. "We believe that an American company in Midland, Texas, a small broker, is involved. I need to know how likely that would be, who he had to pay off, and how that was done."

There was a perceptible pause as Kocian gathered his thoughts.

"Remember the first time we did this, Karl, in the bath at the Gellert? Let's try that again. It worked for the dummies the first time."

"Unsheath your Magic Marker, please, Inspector," Castillo said.

"I'm supposed to put what this guy says on my blackboards?"

"Yes, you are," Castillo said. "Go ahead, Uncle Billy."

"Draw a rough map of Iraq on the blackboard," Kocian ordered. "Down off the lower right corner, draw in the Persian Gulf. Put a dot on the Iraqi coast and label that Mahashar. That's the major Iraqi oil terminal. I'll spell that for you."

Doherty drew the map as ordered.

"Done, Uncle Billy," Castillo said.

"Very well. Now, understand that Iraq was a virtually unlimited pool of crude oil. Outside of Iraq, that oil was worth at least fifty U.S. dollars a barrel-say, a dollar a gallon. The problem Saddam had was, the UN had forbidden him to export this oil so it was worthless to him.

"I should mention that under his benevolent administration of Iraq, the oil all belonged to the government, which is to say him. He had absolute control of it and nobody could ask him any questions.

"The way he got around his problem was to have the UN authorize him to sell some of his oil, the proceeds from which could be used only to purchase food and medicine for the Iraqi people.

"Aside from saying that resulted in a good many aspirin pills being sold to Iraq at five dollars per pill-and similar outrages-do you want me to get into that?"

"Stick with the crude oil, please, for now," Castillo said.

"Very well. I presumed you knew at least a little about the price scams and payoffs," Kocian said. "About the crude oil. Do you know how much crude oil a tanker carries?"

"No," Castillo confessed.

"I seem to recall that when the Exxon Valdez went down, she dumped 1.48 million barrels of crude oil into your pristine Alaskan waters," Kocian said. "But to keep it simple for the dummies to whom you refer, let's say just one million barrels. Doesn't that space-age laptop of yours have a calculator? Can it handle multiplying fifty dollars a barrel times a million?"

Castillo could do that simple arithmetic in his head but he had his laptop open in front of him so he punched the keys anyway and reported: "Fifty million dollars, give or take."

"Very good! Now we go back to Mahashar. The UN has authorized Saddam to sell, say, twenty-five million dollars' worth of his oil to buy food and medicine for his people. It has also dispatched UN inspectors to Mahashar to make sure that's all that leaves the country.

"A tanker then arrives in Mahashar to take on the oil, which has already been sold to some fine fellow at a good price-the fellow being expected to make a small gift to Saddam, but that's yet another story.

"Twenty-five million dollars' worth of oil is about half a million barrels and that's about half of the capacity of the tanker which shows up in Mahashar to haul it away under the watchful eyes of the UN. So the tanker pumps out half of the seawater ballast it has arrived with, replaces that with crude oil, and sails away half loaded with crude and half with seawater.

"Now, no one has ever accused Saddam of being a rocket scientist, but it didn't take him long to figure out that if he could only devise some way to have future tankers pump out all of their ballast and sail away with the tanks full of crude there would be money in it for him.

"He thinks: Eureka! All I have to do is slip the UN inspectors a little gift, they look away, and off goes the tanker with an extra twenty-five million dollars' worth of crude.

"This poses some administrative problems. He can't just hand the UN inspector, say, fifty thousand dollars for looking the other way. That's a lot of money, even in one-hundred-dollar bills, and there's a chance, however slight, that an honest UN inspector exists and might blow the whistle on a dishonest one.

"Further, what happens to the half million barrels of oil that nobody knows about, once it's sailing down the Persian Gulf toward the oil-hungry world? Until it's sold, it's worthless.

"So they find some other government controlled by gangsters and thieves-the Russians come immediately to mind, but others were involved-who are oil producers and can legally export oil within the restrictions imposed by that other fine international body, OPEC.

"If they buy the half million barrels of oil-since it's otherwise worthless to him, Saddam can sell it for, say, ten dollars a barrel under the table-they can turn right around and sell it as their own. And not have to deplete their natural resources."

Castillo looked at Doherty, who had just about filled half of one blackboard with cryptic symbols.

"But who to sell it to? ExxonMobil and its peers, believe it or not, are fairly honest. They won't touch it unless they know it's clean. Your Congress would love nothing better than to send them all to jail. So what they had to do was find small oil refiners-there are thousands of them-and offer them a real deal-say, thirty dollars a barrel.

"But-you said a small refiner in Houston?"

"I said a small broker in Midland," Castillo said. "The one we have in mind does have a small refinery in Houston."

They heard Kocian grunt knowingly before he went on: "A small broker in Midland with a small refinery in Houston would be aware that your Internal Revenue Service would be looking at his books and might smell the Limburger when they saw he had been buying thirty-dollar-a-barrel oil.

"So what does he do? He writes a check-actually, has his bank wire-the full, fair price of the oil to, say, the Cayman Islands Oil Brokers Ltd. Now he either owns this business or has a very cozy relationship with it. They acknowledge receipt of the money, take a cut, and put the difference between what he actually paid for the oil and what he's telling IRS he paid for it into another numbered account. Getting the picture, Karl?"

"Yeah," Castillo said, although he was still trying to absorb it all.

"And here's where your friends Lorimer and Pevsner enter the picture," Kocian said. "The UN inspector has to be paid for closing his eyes, the captain of the tanker has to be paid for taking on more crude in Mahashar than he reports to ship's owner-and who is better able to do this than Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, a diplomat of the United Nations who's always flitting around the world doing good?"

"Where did Lorimer actually get the cash-I presume we're talking cash-to make the payoffs?" Castillo asked.

"Offshore banks simply will not take cash deposits," Kocian said. "They virtuously want to know where the money comes from."

"Okay."

"But there are virtually no restrictions on the withdrawal of funds committed to their care. They will happily wire your money to anyplace you designate and there are no export restrictions on cash from a Cayman Islands bank being hauled away on an airplane.

"I would suspect that Lorimer had one or more accounts in the Cayman Islands-you understand, Karl, I'm just using the Caymans as an example; banks in twenty other places offer exactly the same services-into which money was deposited by wire from some reputable bank and from which he made withdrawals either by wire or in cash.

"A lot of the cash went to Iraq. In one of the palaces of one of Saddam's sons, they found a billion-a billion-dollars in brand-new American one-hundred dollar bills, still in the plastic wrappers in which they had come from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

"I suspect most of the money-the cash-was carried into Iraq on one of Pevsner's airplanes, although others were probably involved. But Pevsner has the reputation for being reliable in the quiet hauling of large amounts of cash."

"Is there a Russian or a Cuban connection?" Castillo asked.

"Karlchen, I already told you Putin is involved in this up to his skinny little buttocks," Kocian said. "I just don't have enough proof to print it."

"Which Putin is he talking about, Castillo?" Doherty asked. "Your mafiosipal or the president of the Russian Federation?"

Castillo hesitated just perceptibly before replying, "He's not talking about Pevsner."

"Jesus Christ!" Doherty said.

"They're no longer useful," Edgar Delchamps said, softly and thoughtfully. "But the hook's been set so why not reel them in as necessary?"

"Excuse me?" Castillo said.

Delchamps raised his voice.

"Thank you, Ur Kocian," he said, in Hungarian. "We'll get back to you. I really want to hear more of this."

"Who is that?" Kocian demanded.

"My name is Delchamps, Ur Kocian. I'm a friend of Karlchen's."

"Well, that makes two," Kocian said. "May I presume I may now take my breakfast?"

"Bon appetit," Delchamps said, then turned to Castillo and, switching to English, said, "I really want to talk to your friend, Karlchen."

"Break it down, Neidermeyer," Castillo ordered and then turned to Delchamps. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Edgar."

Delchamps smiled. "I've been trying to make sense of Doherty's mystic symbols for two days and getting nowhere, and then, the moment I hear about the generous small-time Texas oilman, eureka!"

Everybody waited for him to go on.

"Why the hell would a small-time Texas oilman-presumably, a patriotic Texas oilman-suddenly donate two million dollars to a bunch of lunatic wannabe Muslims in Philadelphia? Answer: He's been converted. Unlikely. Answer: He did not do so willingly. So why would he? Because he's been turned, the hook is already set in him."

"What do you mean turned?" Miller asked.

Delchamps didn't reply directly.

"I also asked myself, What's with the suitcase nukes?" he went on. "Where did that come from?"

"I have no goddamned idea where you're going with this, Edgar," Doherty said.

Delchamps ignored him.

"According to Karlchen here…"

"Uncle Billy can call me that, Edgar, but you can't," Castillo said, evenly.

"My most profound apologies, Ace," Delchamps said, insincerely, "according to Ace here, the Ninjas he took down at the Never-Never Land hacienda-"

"Estancia Shangri-La," Castillo corrected him without thinking.

"Whatever," Delchamps went on, "in far-off Uruguay were professionals. And we have since learned that one of them was a heavy hitter Cuban spook. And Ace tells us the people who tried to snatch Uncle Billy on the Franz Josef Bridge in romantic Budapest also were pros. As were the two you took down in the Gellert, right, Ace?"

Castillo nodded. "And they all had garrotes."

"They all had what?" Doherty asked.

"It's a device-these were stainless steel-not unlike the plastic handcuffs the cops are now using. They put it around your neck and choke you to death," Castillo said.

"And what was that about you taking someone down in the Gellert? What's the Gellert?"

"It's a hotel, Jack, on the banks of the Danube," Delchamps said. "You should take the little woman there sometime. Very romantic."

"The man I lost in the Uruguayan operation was killed with a garrote," Castillo said, softly. "The men who attempted to snatch Eric Kocian on the bridge in Budapest had both garrotes and a hypodermic needle full of a tranquilizer. The two men who went to Kocian's hotel room in Budapest had garrotes. When Mr. Masterson was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, she was knocked out with a shot in her buttocks…"

"You had to kill two people in Budapest?" Doherty persisted.

Castillo nodded and went on: "The garrote was used routinely by only the East German Stasi and the Hungarian Allamvedelmi Osztaly and Allamvedelmi Hatosag…"

"Which are?" Doherty asked.

"They were the Hungarian version of the Stasi. Sandor Tor, Kocian's bodyguard, told his people to find out if the two in the hotel were ex-AVO or ex-AVH. They were to call Dick here if that connection could be made. They haven't called, which strongly suggests they were not AVO or AVH, leaving only Stasi. It fits, Edgar."

"What fits?" Doherty asked.

"Off the top of your head, Jack," Delchamps asked, sarcastically, "who-besides the Israelis and Ace here's intrepid band of special operators-could mount, at just about the same time, professional snatch operations in Argentina, Uruguay, and Hungary?"

"You're saying you think the KGB is involved in this?" Doherty asked, incredulously.

"No, Jack, not the KGB," Delchamps said. "If we are to believe Mr. Putin, the bad old KGB, which he once led, is dead. It was replaced by the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, commonly called the FSB. And, yes, that thought has been running through my head."

"It fits, Edgar," Castillo repeated.

"Let's see if great minds really run down the same path, Ace," Delchamps said. "What's your scenario?"

"Putin's afraid his role in this is going to come out," Castillo began. "So get rid of the witnesses. Starting with Lorimer."

"Starting with Lorimer's number two, the guy who got whacked in Vienna," Delchamps said.

"Right," Castillo agreed. "And Lorimer, who suspected he was about to be whacked, put his Plan A into effect the moment he learned his pal was gone."

"'Plan A'?" Miller parroted.

"Get the hell out of Dodge," Castillo said. "He already had his alter ego set up in Uruguay. And his nest egg. Plan A was to stay out of sight until they stopped looking for him."

"Okay," Miller said, agreeing.

"So when he disappeared, how to find him?" Castillo said. "Through his sister."

"You don't really think the FSB keeps dossiers on UN diplomats, do you?" Delchamps said. "Listing next of kin, things like that?"

Castillo nodded. "Why wouldn't they?"

When Delchamps didn't respond, he went on: "So they snatched his sister and told her they would kill her children if she didn't locate her brother for them and then murdered her husband to show how serious they were."

"So who is they?" Delchamps said. "The KSB? I don't think so. But just for the sake of argument, let's say that Putin, out of the goodness of his heart, found some sort of employment for a group of deserving Stasi types who had lost their jobs when the Berlin Wall came down. You never know when you're going to need a good assassin."

"And if something went wrong, no connection with these guys to the KSB," Miller said. "Clever."

"And they were probably very useful when the oil-for-food scam was running," Delchamps said. "Both in moving money around and removing witnesses to any connection with Putin and Company."

"And no paper trail," Miller said. "Whatever money they were spending was oil-for-food money."

"That, too," Delchamps agreed. "Okay, Ace, then what?"

"I got lucky," Castillo said. "Otto Gorner heard that some West Germans were moving oil-for-food money to Argentina and Uruguay and told me about it. He also warned me that people who had been curious about this had died and to butt out."

"Which of course you were congenitally unable to do," Miller said, "and you went to Eric Kocian. He pointed you toward South America and then you got lucky with Confucius. He had a file on…what's the alter ego?"

"Bertrand," Castillo furnished, as he glanced at Yung. "Dave, you haven't said a word. Does that mean you think we're just pissing into the wind and you're too polite to say so?"

"Just before he changed sides, Kennedy was working on something with a Houston connection," Yung said. "I've been trying to remember what It was."

"Wouldn't there be a record of some sort? An interim report of some kind?" Delchamps asked.

"Kennedy took everything he had with him," Doherty said, bitterly. "I'm sure your friend Pevsner read it before it was destroyed. Why don't you ask him?"

"What were you looking for, Dave?" Castillo pursued. "Was there an oil-for-food scam connection?"

"Not as such," Yung said. "We were looking for unusual transfers-wire transfers-of large amounts of money. Money laundering, in other words. There's two facets of that-more than two, actually. One is income tax evasion. When we came across something suspicious-something, for example, that looked like someone was concealing income or assets-we turned it over to the IRS and let them deal with it. When the source of the money was suspicious-as if it might be drug money, for example, or in the case of politicians, purchasing agents, etcetera that looked like it might be bribes-we worked on that ourselves. The way we were working, I looked for anomalies, and when I found something suspicious Howard looked into it."

"And you remember something about Houston?" Castillo asked.

"Only just that," Yung said. "I've been trying hard to remember the specifics."

"Keep trying, Dave," Castillo said and turned to the others. "Where were we?"

"At the point where you decided to repatriate Lorimer," Miller said.

"Right," Delchamps said. "Meanwhile, the bad guys found out where Lorimer slash Bertrand was. How?"

"Well, at first they didn't know where he was," Castillo said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't have taken the risk of kidnaping Mr. Masterson to find out. That was an act of desperation."

"So somebody had to tell them," Delchamps said. "Who knew?"

"Castillo's pal, the Russian mafioso, Pevsner," Doherty said.

"I don't think so," Castillo said.

"Why do you keep defending that slimeball, Castillo?" Doherty snapped.

"If he knew where Lorimer was and had told the Ninjas," Castillo said, "he wouldn't have let me use his helicopter. He didn't want me whacked."

"Because he likes you, right?" Doherty asked.

"Because that would kill the deal he has about keeping the FBI and the CIA off his case."

"Another possibility is that it was just a coincidence that everybody descended on Never-Never Land at the same time," Delchamps said. "How the Ninjas found out where he was doesn't really matter. They did and staged that operation to take him out."

"That's one hell of a coincidence, wouldn't you say?" Doherty challenged.

"However it happened," Delchamps said, "the Ninjas went to the hacienda and were more than a little surprised to find Ace and Company already there."

"Why do you think they were surprised?" Doherty asked.

"Otherwise, the score of that ball game would not have been six to one," Delchamps said. "They probably thought they'd come on a bunch of local bandits knocking off a hacienda. Not in their league. Not a problem. Just whack everybody, leave the bodies where they fell, and take off. Surprise, surprise, it's the U.S. Cavalry."

"Yeah," Castillo said, thoughtfully.

"So what happened when there was no phone call to the embassy of the Russian Federation saying, 'Mission accomplished'?" Delchamps said. "'What happened? Who whacked our guys? Does it matter? Lorimer's dead. Next step, take out Kocian.'"

"After first finding out just how much he knows," Castillo said.

"Which would also apply to Special Agent Yung," Doherty said.

"Yeah, it would," Delchamps agreed. "Which means, as soon as they can find him, they're going to have another try at Kocian. I really want to talk to him, Ace, before that happens. We might not be so lucky again."

"Pevsner is probably on their hit list," Castillo said.

"Pevsner probably wrote their hit list," Doherty said.

"What do you want to do, Ace?" Delchamps asked.

"You never got around to telling us where you think the Kenyon Oil Refining and Brokerage Company fits into this, Edgar."

"Oh, yeah. Well, this may really be off the wall, but it's also possible. The Russians know about Kenyon's involvement with the oil-for-food scam. Maybe they were in it with him, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. The oil-for-food scam is over. So nobody needs Kenyon anymore."

He paused, visibly organizing his thoughts.

"You have to think of Putin as being KGB and with a sense of humor,"

Delchamps then went on, "or maybe he just has evil intentions. Anyway, he's got Kenyon on a hook. 'Do what I say or the FBI will find out what a naughty boy you have been.' Kenyon has all this money in the Caymans. 'How do I find out how deeply the hook is in him?' What is laughingly known as the intelligence community knows all about these lunatics in Philadelphia. They're being watched. 'The Americans swallowed the hidden nuclear suitcase bombs nonsense hook, line, and sinker once. Let's see if we can get them to swallow it again. So what I will do is tell the dummy in Midland to send the lunatics two million dollars to buy some tunnels to protect themselves from the nuclear blast in Philadelphia. Since they are being watched, this will come to the attention of the intelligence community. Net result: the American intelligence community runs around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for nuclear suitcases which have never left the warehouse in Siberia. Ha-ha!'"

He paused, let that sink in, then went on. "Probable benefit two: Putin knows about the forty-six million Kenyon has in the Cayman bank. Putin's pal, the famous Colonel Pyotr Sunev, now back at work after a teaching sabbatical at Grinnell University, can find many uses for forty-six mil. Or maybe Putin and Sunev will just split it between them.

"Kenyon probably would not be very anxious to hand it over. But that reluctance was before he sent the two million to the lunatics. Now Putin has him for not only illegally profiting from the oil-for-food scandal-and hiding the money-but also for sending two million to lunatics in Philadelphia known to have terrorist ties. Getting the picture, Ace?"

"I'm thinking about it," Castillo said. "It sounds off the wall, but…"

"Kenyon either gives them the money or goes to jail," Miller said. "To whom could he complain he was robbed?"

"Right," Delchamps said. "So what do you think, Ace?"

"I think we should go have a talk with Kenyon in Midland. Maybe we can get him to tell us who got him to send the money to Philadelphia."

"Maybe?" Miller said.

"What makes you think he'll tell you anything at all?" Doherty asked. "All you've got is a wild theory."

"Jesus, I just remembered Jake went home," Castillo said.

Miller immediately took his meaning.

"Charley, you steer and I'll work the radios," he said.

Castillo looked at him for a long moment before replying.

"You're sure?"

Miller nodded.

"Okay, get on the horn and have them roll the Gulfstream out of the hangar," Castillo said.

"You're going to Texas right now?" Doherty asked.

"We're going to Texas and then Buenos Aires," Castillo said. "Why don't you get on the horn to your wife and have her pack a bag and your passport?"

"Nothing was said about me going out of the country on a lunatic mission like this," Doherty said.

"I hope that was an observation rather than an indication you're going to be difficult," Castillo said.

"I'd like to go," Yung said.

"I wouldn't think of leaving home without you, David," Castillo said. He looked at Doherty. "I can make you go, Inspector, and you know it. But I don't want you along if you're going to be a pain in the ass. Your call."

Doherty met Castillo's eyes for a long moment before replying.

"How long are we going to be gone?" he asked, finally.

"Probably less than a week," Castillo said. "Thank you."

"What are we going to do about the blackboards?" Doherty asked.

"I was just thinking about that," Castillo said. "I'd like to have that data at the safe house in Buenos Aires. Is there some way we can photograph them and replicate them down there?"

"Not a problem," Doherty said.

"Okay, then. You start on that. I've got a couple of phone calls to make."