The shooters

IV

[ONE]

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 0845 2 September 2005 "Madame Secretary, Mr. Director," the uniformed Secret Service man at the door to the north side drive apologized, "it'll be just a moment for your vehicles."

They had come down from the presidential apartment before the Secret Service agent on duty there passed word to the uniformed Secret Service agent in charge of the motor pool "downstairs" that they were coming.

"Not a problem," Natalie Cohen said. "Thank you."

Castillo had learned the cars would be brought to the door following protocol. The secretary of State was senior to the director of National Intelligence. Her armored Cadillac limousine would arrive before Montvale's black Yukon XL Denali.

And since I am at the bottom of the protocol totem pole, mine will arrive last.

If at all.

The secretary of State put her hand on Castillo's arm and led him outside, out of hearing of the Secret Service uniformed officer and, of course, DNI Montvale, who hurried to catch up.

"Charley," she said, "I'm going to do my best to talk him out of this. But I'm not sure I'll be able to."

Castillo nodded.

"Do I have to ask you to try hard not to make waves?"

"No, ma'am."

"Let me know what I can do to help."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

Her limousine rolled up. A burly man-obviously an agent of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which protects the secretary of State-got quickly out of the front seat and glanced around carefully as he opened the rear for Cohen. He saw Castillo and eyed him suspiciously.

Castillo winked at him, which obviously displeased him.

Oh, for Christ's sake! What are the odds that somebody wanting to do her harm is going to walk out of the White House with her and the director of National Intelligence?

Montvale's Denali rolled up. Castillo saw his coming up the drive.

"I'll call the Eighty-ninth," Montvale said, "and tell them that you'll be using my Gulfstream."

The 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base provided the White House with its fleet of airplanes, including the two VC-25A Boeings that had the call sign of Air Force One when flying the President.

"I thought you were kidding," Castillo said.

"Not at all."

"Thanks just the same. I think it would be smarter if I used my own."

"My God, aren't you tired?"

"Exhausted. But not a problem. I'll just set the autopilot and the alarm on my wristwatch. Then I can sleep all the way to Chicago."

It took a moment for Montvale to realize his chain was being pulled. When that showed on his face, Castillo said, "I'd rather not have people asking, 'Who's the guy in the presidential G-IV?' But thanks anyway."

"My God, Castillo!" Montvale said, and got in the rear seat of his vehicle.

His Yukon rolled off, Castillo's rolled up, and Castillo got in the backseat.

"Where to, sir?" the driver asked.

"Why don't you move this thing so it's not blocking the door while I find out?" Castillo said, and reached for the telephone.

"White House."

"If you can guess who this is, can you ring my office?"

"Oh, you heard about the voice recognition, did you, Colonel?"

"God, ain't we clever?"

There was a chuckle, then Agnes's voice.

"Colonel Castillo's line."

"Good morning," Castillo said.

"How'd it go with the President?"

"Disastrously. Guess who's supposed to get that DEA agent back from the bad guys?"

"Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes. Is Tom there?"

"He's at your house. Or at the Alexandria Police Department on the way to your house. He wanted to keep them from getting curious about all the sudden activity at the house."

"Can you get him on the horn and ask him to meet me at the house?"

"Done."

"Thank you. I'll bring you up to speed later, Agnes."

"That would probably be a very good idea, boss."

The connection was broken.

"Home, James," Castillo regally ordered the driver, who smiled and shook his head as he put the Yukon into motion.

"We have a Secret Service radio in here, Colonel," he said. "I can probably get McGuire for you, if you want."

"Thank you, but no. McGuire's likely to cause me trouble, but he's too smart to argue with Agnes."

"Are you through, Colonel?" the White House operator asked.

"Can you get my house, please?"

A moment later, a male voice announced, "Colonel Castillo's line."

There was something about the less than vibrant timbre of the voice that gave Castillo pause. And then he understood.

Jesus, it didn't take them long to put Lester to work, did it?

"Colonel Castillo, Lester."

"Yes, sir, I know. There's a voice recognition system on this. Just as soon as you said, 'Colonel Castillo,' your name popped up."

"What do you think it would have done if I had said, 'Clint Eastwood'?"

"Sir, as efficient as this system seems to be, I think it would have reported, 'Colonel Castillo.'"

"Yeah, it probably would have. Is Major Miller around there?"

"Yes, sir. One moment, sir. I'll get him for you, sir."

A few seconds later, Miller came on the connection.

"Yes, sir, Colonel, sir?"

"Dick, two things. First, keep everybody there."

"Too late. Mrs. Doherty drove off with him right after you left."

"Damn."

"He lives near here. I have a number. Want me to get him back?"

"No. If I need him, we can call. Anybody else gone?"

"No, but the troops are getting a little restless."

"Well, keep everybody there. I'm on my way."

"Done. And?"

"And?"

"You said two things."

"Oh, yeah. See if Lorimer has a uniform. If he does, put him in it. And I'm presuming you brought mine from the hotel?"

"Freshly run one last time through their very expensive dry-cleaning operation. If I were to infer that the trumpets have sounded and that you and Pegleg are about to rush to the sound of musketry, would I be close?"

"A lot worse than that. I'll explain when I get there."

As the Yukon turned onto West Boulevard Drive, a red light-emitting diode (LED) on the telephone began to flash. Castillo looked at it, wondered what it was, and had just decided it meant he'd better pick up the phone when the driver said, "I think you'd better pick up, Colonel. That's the White House calling."

Oh, boy, another friendly offer of help from Montvale!

"Castillo."

"I just talked to that man in Chicago," the President of the United States said. "Timmons's family will be expecting you."

"Mr. President, I'm on my way to pack my bag."

"Reassure the family, Charley, that's the important thing. Make them understand the situation is under control. Get the mayor off my back."

In other words, lie through my teeth.

The situation is anything but under control.

"I'll do my best, sir."

"I've got a number for you to call. Got a pencil?"

"Just a moment, please, sir."

He furiously patted his pockets until he felt a ballpoint pen, dug it out, and knocked the cap off.

"Ready, sir."

Charley wrote the number the President gave him on the heel of his left hand.

"Got it, sir."

The President made him read it back.

"Right," the President said. "Let me know how it goes, Charley."

"Yes, sir."

"Good man!"

The line went dead.

"I don't suppose you've got a piece of paper, do you?" Charley asked the driver.

"There's a clipboard with a pad and a couple of ballpoints on a chain on the back of the other seat, Colonel."

Castillo looked. There was.

"Shit," he muttered.

He took the clipboard, wrote the number on the pad, tore the sheet off, and put it in his pocket. He then tried to erase the number from the heel of his hand with his handkerchief. He couldn't even smear it.

"Shit," he said again.

[TWO] 7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia 1005 2 September 2005 "You're dangerous, Charley," Colonel Jake Torine said after Castillo had related what had happened in the presidential apartment. "If I could figure out how, I'd get and stay as far away from you as possible."

Castillo raised an eyebrow. "It's damn sure not intentional. And whatever you do, don't call me Magnet Ass."

"Why not?"

"That one's been taken a long time, by one of you Air Force types. Fred Platt flew forward air controller covert ops over Laos as a Raven. He earned the name Magnet Ass drawing fire in supposedly unarmed Cessnas-0-1 Bird Dogs-and damn near anything else with wings."

"Platt? Didn't we just call him for-?"

"Yeah," Castillo interrupted before he could say anything more, "yeah, we did."

"I ask this because I don't know anything about the drug trade," Edgar Delchamps said, "and also because I am much too old to play John Wayne, but wouldn't I be of more use here working on the oil-for-food maggots?"

"No question about it," Castillo said. "It never entered my mind to bring you or Doherty in on this."

"Next question," Delchamps said. "Do I get to live here?"

"For as long as you want. The only thing I'd like you to do is keep an eye on Eric Kocian and Sandor."

Delchamps gave him a thumbs-up gesture.

"A good spook always takes good care of his sources. You might want to write that down, Ace." He stood up and said, "It's been fun, fellas. We'll have to do it again sometime. Let's keep in touch."

And then he walked out of the living room.

"What about me, Karl?" Alfredo Munz asked.

"I brought you along so you could be with your family and take them home," Castillo said. "But having heard all this, how would you feel about coming to work for us? We could really use you."

Munz didn't reply, and seemed uneasy.

"What is it, Alfredo?"

"I need a job," Munz said. "As much as I would like to do whatever I can to help you, I just can't support my family on my SIDE pension."

"I told you a long time ago we'd take care of you," Castillo said. "So that's not a problem. You've been on the payroll of the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Trust as a senior consultant ever since we took that chopper ride to Shangri-La."

"Why do I suspect you are lying, my friend?"

"Because I am," Castillo said. "But the only reason you haven't been on the payroll is because I'm stupid. You may have noticed."

"No," Munz said, emotionally. "The one thing you are not is stupid."

"Well, I have noticed, Colonel," Miller said. "I've known him a long time. And with that in mind, I brought the question up to Mrs. Forbison-you met her last night?"

Munz nodded.

"And Agnes decided that since you are, or at least were, a colonel, we should bring you on board as a Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Trust LB-15, which is the equivalent of a GS-15 in the Federal Service. And, according to Army Regulation 210-50, a GS-15 is regarded as the equivalent of a colonel. The pay is $89,625 a year to start. Would that be satisfactory to you?"

"You are fooling with me, right?"

"Not at all."

"That much? My God, that's two hundred and seventy thousand pesos!"

Castillo thought, surprised: Miller isn't just making all that up. He and Agnes have given this thought, done the research, and come up with the answer.

"The Internal Revenue Service will take their cut, of course," Miller said. "But that's the best we can do."

"I don't know what to say," Munz said.

"'Yes' would work," Castillo said.

"If I retire, Charley," Torine said, "will you hire me?"

"If you're serious, Jake, sure," Castillo said.

"Let me give that some thought," Torine said seriously.

"I myself go on the payroll the first of October," Miller said, "as an LB-12, at $64,478 per annum."

Oh, God, that means they're physically retiring him. Involuntarily.

"Sorry you took a hit. So long, and don't let the doorknob hit you on the ass on your way out."

"What's that 'LB' business?" Castillo asked.

"Lorimer Bureaucrat," Miller said. "An LB-12 is equivalent to a major and a GS-12." He looked at Castillo. "After I gnashed my teeth in agony while rolling around on the floor at Walter Reed begging for compassion, the Medical Review Board gave me a seventy-percent disability pension. Permanent."

"You all right with that?" Castillo asked softly.

"I'd rather have my knee back," Miller said. "But with my pension and my salary as an LB-12, I'll be taking home more than you do. Yeah, I'm all right with it. And somebody has to cover your back, Colonel, sir."

"I hate to tell you this, but I already have a fine young Marine NCO covering my back."

"Don't laugh, Charley," Torine said, chuckling.

"I'm not laughing at all; I owe him," Castillo said. He paused, then said, "Well, before we went off on this tangent, Jake was saying something about me being dangerous."

"And I wasn't joking, either. Only you could get us into something like this. You are dangerous."

"I thank you for that heartfelt vote of confidence," Castillo replied. "And moving right along, what shape is the airplane in?"

"If you had read the log, First Officer, you would know that we're pretty close to a hundred-hour."

"Jesus!"

"Not a major problem," Torine said. "We can get it done when we're in Vegas."

"'When we're in Vegas'?" Castillo parroted, incredulously. "You want to tell me about Vegas?"

"I guess I didn't get around to mentioning that," Miller said.

Castillo looked at him.

Miller explained: "Aloysius is going to replace the avionics in the G-Three. The communications and global positioning portions thereof. Plus, of course, a secure phone and data link."

"You told him about the Gulfstream?"

"Hey, he's one of us."

He's right. He just told Casey we have the Gulfstream, not how we use it.

And Casey really is one of us, and knows we're not using it to fly to the Bahamas for a little time on the beach.

"Point taken," Castillo said.

"Signature Flight Support's got an operation at McCarran," Torine said. "I called them-in Baltimore-this morning, and got them to agree to tell the people in Vegas to do the hundred-hour in the AFC hangar. Somehow I suspected we were going to need the airplane sooner than anyone thought. Wrong move?"

"No. Just something else that comes as a surprise," Castillo said. "Okay, how about this? We go to Chicago and 'assure the family,' and then we go to Midland and either leave Alfredo there or-why not?-pick up Munz's wife and daughters and take everybody to Las Vegas. We get the avionics installed and the hundred-hour done. How long is that service going to take?"

"Twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight. It depends on (a) what they turn up in the hundred-hour and (b) how long it takes Casey's people to install the avionics."

"Not long, I would think," Miller said, "as I suspect we can count on Aloysius either putting it in himself or standing over whoever else does."

"If it takes more than forty-eight hours, I'll just go to New Orleans commercial to try to talk the ambassador out of going to Shangri-La."

"Where the hell have you been, Charley?" Torine asked. "Louis Armstrong is closed to all but emergency traffic-they're picking people off the roofs of their houses with choppers, using Louis Armstrong as the base. And Lakefront is under fifteen feet of water."

"Keesler?" Castillo asked.

"Wiped out."

"Okay. Moving right along, if they can't do the airplane in forty-eight hours, I'll go to Atlanta commercial and then Fort Rucker and borrow something with revolving wings and fly that to Masterson's plantation."

"That may not work, either," Miller said.

"Hey, I'm drunk with the power I've been given. You were awake, weren't you, when I said the President said he was going to tell the secretary of Defense to give me whatever I think I need."

"That presupposes Rucker has a chopper to loan you," Miller said. "I suspect that their birds are among those picking people off rooftops in New Orleans."

"Then I'll rent one in Atlanta."

"Same reply," Miller said.

"I think they'd loan you a helicopter at Rucker, Charley," Torine said, "even if they had to bring it back from picking people off roofs in New Orleans." He paused. "You sure you want to do that?"

"No, of course I don't. Okay. So scaling down my grandiose ambitions to conform with reality, I'll fly to Atlanta, take a taxi to Fulton County, and rent a twin Cessna or something. That's probably a better solution anyway."

"It probably is," Torine agreed. "I just had another unpleasant thought. Even if Masterson's airstrip is not under water and long enough for us to get the Gulfstream in there, it's probably being used by a lot of other airplanes."

"Yeah," Castillo agreed. "Okay. Correct me where I'm wrong. The priority is to get to Chicago and, quote, assure the mayor, unquote. I suppose I could do that commercial. But we are going to need the Gulfstream, and with the hundred-hour out of the way."

"And, better yet, with the new avionics," Miller said.

"Right. We have enough time left to go to Chicago, then, with a stop in Midland, to Las Vegas, right?"

"Probably with a couple of hours left over," Torine said.

"So that's what we'll do. And wing it from there, so to speak," Castillo said. "Where's Lorimer? Does he have a uniform?"

"Upstairs and yes," Miller said.

"Okay. Everybody but Jake and Miller go play with the dogs or something while we deal with Lieutenant Lorimer," Castillo said.

Miller started to get up.

"Keep your seat, Dick," Special Agent David W. Yung said. "I'll get him."

"This is where I'm supposed to say, 'I'm perfectly able to climb a flight of stairs,'" Miller said. "But what I am going to say is 'You will be rewarded in heaven, David, for your charity to this poor cripple.'"

Tom McGuire came into the living room first.

"Agnes told me," he said. "Jesus!"

"I only took the job because I knew how you hungered to see the natural beauty and other wonders of Paraguay," Castillo said. "You okay to leave right away for three, four days?"

McGuire nodded and asked, "Where we going? Paraguay?"

"First to Chicago, then to Las Vegas. It's kind of iffy after Vegas."

"I am always ready to go to Las Vegas on a moment's notice, but what's going on in Chicago?"

Castillo told him of the President's call.

"…And," Castillo finished, "I think a distinguished Supervisory Secret Service agent such as yourself can help reassure this guy's family, who are all cops."

McGuire nodded his understanding but said, "I think I should fess up right away, Charley. I have been successfully avoiding the drug business since I joined the service, and the only thing I know about it is what I read in the papers."

"I think, then, that this is what they call the blind leading the blind," Castillo said.

The door opened and a uniformed First Lieutenant Edmund Lorimer, Intelligence, U.S. Army, stepped in the room, came almost to attention, and waited.

Castillo thought he looked like a Special Forces recruiting poster, and remembered what the President had said about the First Lady saying that about him.

He's even wearing jump boots, Castillo thought, which triggered a mental image of a highly polished, laced-up Corcoran boot from the top of which extended a titanium pole topped by a fully articulated titanium knee.

"Good morning, Lorimer," Castillo said. "Come on in and sit down. We don't do much standing at attention or saluting around here."

"Good morning, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Colonel Torine you know, and Major Miller. This is Supervisory Special Agent Tom McGuire of the Secret Service."

McGuire wordlessly offered Lorimer his hand.

"Before these witnesses, Lorimer," Castillo said formally, "I am going to tell you-again-that anything you see, hear, or surmise here, or at any place at any time about what we're doing or have done, or plan to do, is classified Top Secret Presidential. Is that clear in your mind?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any questions about that?"

"No, sir."

"The President of the United States has tasked the Office of Organizational Analysis, under the authority of an existing Presidential Finding, with freeing Special Agent Timmons from his kidnappers," Castillo said.

"Jesus H. Christ!" Lorimer exclaimed. "Wonderful! Colonel, I don't know how to thank you!"

Castillo looked at him coldly until Lorimer's face showed that he understood that his response had not been welcomed.

"If you have your emotions under control, Lieutenant, I will continue with the admonition that any further emotional outbreaks will not be tolerated."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won't happen again."

"Lorimer, to clear the air, have you ever been given an order that you were sure you were not equipped to carry out?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you do when you were given an order you knew you were not equipped to carry out?"

"Sir, I told him I didn't know how to do what he was ordering me to do."

"And then?"

"And then I tried to do it."

"Were you successful in carrying out the order?"

"No, sir. I wasn't. But I tried."

"That's the situation here, Lorimer. We have been given an order that is in our judgment beyond our ability to carry out. But we are going to try very hard to obey that order. You have absolutely no reason, therefore, to thank me. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"So long as you remain useful-and, more important, cause me and OOA no trouble of any kind-I am going to permit you to participate in this operation."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"To say this is probationary would be an understatement. There will be no second chances. Phrased another way, Lieutenant, you fuck up once and you're dead meat. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"We are going to Chicago just as soon as I can change into uniform. Our mission, at the personal order of the President, is to assure Timmons's family that everything possible is being done to get him back. Since I don't have a clue about how to get him back, that's probably going to be difficult. One thing we can do, however, is produce you."

"Sir?"

"With a little bit of luck, they'll know who you are, that you were Timmons's buddy."

"Timmons's family knows who I am, sir."

"Then they'll probably believe you when you tell them what happened down there."

"I think they will, sir."

"On the other hand, they may suspect we're blowing smoke. 'What's this guy doing up here when he should be in Asuncion looking for…'"

"Byron, sir," Lorimer furnished. "His name is Byron Timmons, same as his father."

"In any event, while you are delivering the after-action report, you will look at me every two seconds. If I shake my head slightly, or if you think I'm shaking my head, you will stop in midsentence and change subjects. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Timmons's family will certainly have questions. Before you answer any question, you will look at me to see if I shake my head or nod. If I shake my head, your answer to that question will be something intended to assure them. It doesn't have to be true. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you cannot carry out this instruction satisfactorily, Lorimer, I will conclude that you will not be of any value to this operation and we'll drop you off at Fort Bragg on our way back here. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you packed?"

"No, sir. I sort of thought I'd be staying here."

"Go pack. You may well not be coming back here. When you're packed, put your bag in my Denali and wait there."

"Yes, sir," Lorimer said. He stood up and walked-with a just-noticeable limp-out of the living room, closing the door after himself.

As soon as it had closed, Miller said, "I'd forgotten what a starchy prick you can be, Charley."

"My sentiments exactly," Torine said. "What were you trying to do, Charley, make that kid hate you? Couldn't you have cut him some slack?"

"I was actually paying him a compliment, Jake," Castillo said. "And thank you for that vote of confidence."

"Compliment?"

"Pegleg is obviously as bright as they come; at least as smart as I am. Before I called him in here, I gave a lot of thought to how I should treat someone I admire, and who is probably as dangerous as you say I am. If that offended you two…"

"Okay," Torine said. "You're right. He reminds me of a lot of fighter pilots I've known."

"I would agree with that, Jake, except I'm pretty sure Lorimer can read and write."

Torine gave Castillo the finger.

Castillo took a small sheet of notebook paper from his pocket.

"Call that number, please, Jake, and tell them when we're going to be in Chicago, and how we can get from which airport to where we're going."

"They used to have a nice little airport downtown, right beside the lake," Torine said. "Meigs Field. Supposed to be one of the busiest private aviation fields in the world. But the mayor wanted a park there, so one night he sent in bulldozers and they cut big Xs on the runways."

"Really?" Miller asked.

"Yeah. There were a dozen, maybe more, light planes stranded there. They were finally allowed to take off from the taxiways. And the mayor got his park. He's…"

"Formidable?" Miller suggested.

"In spades," Torine said.

[THREE]

Atlantic Aviation Services Operations

Midway International Airport

Chicago, Illinois 1425 2 September 2005 "There's a guy walking toward us, Tom," Castillo said, as he tripped the stair-door lever in the Gulfstream III.

"I saw him."

"Looks like an Irish cop. You want to deal with him?"

McGuire gave Castillo the finger, then pushed himself off the couch on which he'd ridden-slept-from Baltimore, and walked to the door.

The man, a stocky six-footer with a full head of red hair, came up the stair as soon as it was in place.

"I'm Captain O'Day," he announced, as if supremely confident that no one could possibly mistake him for, say, an airline captain or anything but what he was, a Chicago cop. "I'm looking for a Colonel Costello."

Castillo came back into the cabin from the cockpit, and was putting on his green beret.

"Well, you weren't hard to find," O'Day said. "God, you've got more medals than Patton!"

Castillo shook his hand.

"It's Castillo, Captain."

"Sorry. You don't look like a Castillo."

"I'm in disguise. Say hello to another Texican, Tom McGuire of the Secret Service."

"If you're…whatever he said…McGuire, then I'm a…"

"Irish cop?" Castillo said, innocently.

"He's a real wiseass, isn't he?" O'Day asked, smiling.

"And he's barely warmed up," McGuire said.

"People are waiting for you. How many are going?"

"Five," McGuire said.

"I knew that. That's why I called for another car," O'Day said.

He gestured for everyone to get off the Gulfstream.

There were two cars, both solid black and brand-new, and looking like any other new Ford Crown Victoria except for little badges on the trunk reading POLICE INTERCEPTOR and, just visible behind the grille, blue and red lights.

"You can ride in front with me, Colonel," O'Day said. "I guess you're senior."

"Actually, Captain, the skinny guy's a full colonel," Castillo said. "But only in the Air Force, so that doesn't count."

"Go to hell, Costello," Torine said.

O'Day took a cellular telephone from his shirt pocket, pushed an autodial key, then after a moment said, "On the way. There's five of them. Maybe twenty minutes." He pressed the END key and put the phone back in his shirt pocket.

"How far is police headquarters?" Castillo asked, several minutes later.

"Why?"

"Isn't that where we're going?"

"No, it isn't," O'Day said, and changed the subject. "I'll forget what you tell me in thirty seconds. But what's the real chances of getting young Byron Timmons back from those bastards? And not hooked on something?"

"You heard about that, huh?"

"His father and I go back a long way," O'Day said. "He showed me Junior's letters. A good kid. I shouldn't have said that. Young Byron's a good man."

"All I can tell you is that we're going to try like hell," Castillo said. "With a little luck…"

"Yeah. I get the picture," O'Day said. "I was afraid of that. Thanks."

A few minutes later, Castillo realized they were not headed downtown. Instead, they were moving through a residential area, and he guessed from that that they were going to the Timmons home. Proof seemed to come several minutes after that, when they turned one more corner and then stopped before a simple brick house on a side street.

There was a police patrol car parked half up on the sidewalk, and three more cars-unmarked but rather obviously police cars-parked in the driveway beside the house.

"Here we are," he said. "I don't envy you, Colonel."

Castillo got out of the car and waited for the second car, which was carrying McGuire, Munz, and Lorimer. He wordlessly indicated that he and Lorimer would follow Captain O'Day up to the door and the others were to follow.

Before the door chimes finished playing "Home Sweet Home," the door was opened by a gray-haired, plump, middle-aged woman wearing a cotton dress and a pink sweater.

She looked at Castillo and then at Lorimer.

"You're Eddie," she said. "I've seen your pictures."

"Yes, ma'am," Lorimer said.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

She hugged and kissed him.

"Honey," she called. "Junior's buddy Eddie is here."

A large man in the uniform of a police captain walked up to them and put out his hand.

"I'm Junior's-Byron's-dad."

"Yes, sir, I know," Lorimer said. "I've seen your pictures, too."

Captain Byron Timmons, Sr., looked at Castillo.

"Sir," Lorimer said, "this is Colonel Castillo."

Timmons crushed Castillo's hand in his massive hand.

"Colonel, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you," he said. "The President told the mayor that if anybody can get my son back from those bastards, you're him."

"I'm going to try very hard, sir," Castillo said.

"Well, just don't stand there in the door," Mrs. Timmons said. "Come in and meet the others. There's coffee and cake."

Captain Timmons took Castillo's arm in a firm grasp and led him through a short corridor to a living room. There were two women there, who looked like Mrs. Timmons, and half a dozen men, two in police uniform and four in casual clothes, who, Castillo decided, might as well have had POLICEMAN painted on their foreheads.

"This is Colonel Castillo," Captain Timmons announced. "The man the President says can get Junior back. The lieutenant is Eddie Lorimer, Junior's pal down there in Paraguay. I don't know who the others are. Colonel, what about identifying the others, and then I'll introduce everybody?"

"Yes, sir," Castillo said. "This is Colonel Jake Torine, U.S. Air Force, that's Tom McGui-"

"They've got their own Gulfstream airplane," Captain O'Day furnished.

"I wondered how they got here so quick," one of the cops said.

"…Tom McGuire," Castillo went on, "who's a Supervisory Special Agent of the Secret Service, and this gentleman is Colonel Alfredo Munz, who before his retirement was Chief of SIDE in Argentina. SIDE is sort of our CIA and FBI rolled into one. Munz now works with us."

"I thought Junior was in Paraguay," one of the cops said.

"Paraguay and Argentina share a border, sir," Castillo said.

"Okay, now it's my turn," Captain Timmons said, motioning for Castillo to follow him to the people sitting on a couch, two matching armchairs, and two chairs obviously borrowed from the dining room.

"This is Captain, retired, Frank Timmons, Junior's grandfather, known as Big Frank."

"And I'm the goddamned fool, Colonel, God forgive me, who told Junior to go federal."

Castillo shook Big Frank's hand, then Lorimer and McGuire and Munz followed suit.

"And this is Sergeant Charley Mullroney, Junior's sister Ellen's husband-that's her over there. Charley works Narcotics on the job."

Castillo shook Mullroney's hand, then smiled and nodded at Mrs. Mullroney across the room.

"And this is Stan Wyskowski, of the DEA, Charley's pal."

"And I'm the guy who got Junior in the DEA, Colonel."

Castillo shook Wyskowski's hand.

Wyskowski, I admire your balls for being here. That has to be tough.

"And this is the mayor," Captain Timmons said.

Jesus H. Christ! I thought he was another cop-relative.

"The President speaks very highly of you, Colonel," the mayor said as he shook Castillo's hand. "I'm happy to meet you, and that you are here."

"An honor, sir," Castillo said. "I'm sorry I have to be here under these circumstances."

"Well, Colonel, I've always found the way to deal with a problem is get it out in the open and then start working on it."

"Yes, sir," Castillo said.

"And this," Captain Timmons said, moving to the third man on the couch. "is…"

Castillo shook that man's hand, but his name-or those of the others-failed to register in his memory.

His mind was busy thinking of something else…

The mayor, who the President has made perfectly clear is to get whatever he wants from me, is not just doing a friend of the family a favor.

He's part of this family.

"And that's about it, I guess," Lorimer said when he had finished telling everybody what he knew of the situation.

He did that about as well as it could be done, Castillo thought.

"Would it be all right if I called you 'Eddie'?" Captain Timmons asked.

"Yes, sir, of course."

"That was a good job, Eddie," Captain Timmons said. "I don't have any questions. Anybody else?"

"I got a couple," Big Frank said.

"Sir?" Lorimer asked politely.

"That Irish Argentine cop, Duffy, Junior was on his way to see when these slimeballs grabbed him. Are there a lot of Irish cops down there? And is this one of the good ones? And what's the Gendarmeria Nacional?"

Lorimer glanced at Castillo, who nodded just perceptibly.

"I know Byron trusted Comandante Duffy, sir," Lorimer said. "But maybe Colonel Munz can speak to that?"

"I know Comandante Duffy," Munz said. "Not well, but well enough to know that he's a good man. I haven't spoken to him since this happened, but he's about the first man I'm going to talk to when we get down there. I'm sure he's almost as upset about Agent Timmons as you are."

Big Frank nodded.

Munz went on: "So far as Irish people in Argentina, the ethnic mix in Argentina-and Uruguay and Chile, but not Paraguay-is much like that in the States. My family came from Germany, for example. There are more people from Italy than from Spain. And many Irish. There are many Irish police, especially in the Gendarmeria Nacional."

"Which is what?" Big Frank said.

"A police force with authority all over Argentina," Munz said. "They are a paramilitary force, more heavily armed than the Federal Police. They wear brown rather than blue uniforms, and enjoy the trust of the Argentine people."

"What does that mean?" Big Frank asked. "The other cops aren't trusted?"

"Can we agree, Captain, that dishonest police are an international problem?" Munz asked reasonably. "And that the problem is made worse by all the cash available to drug people? Or, for that matter, the criminal community generally?"

"I'd have to agree with that," the mayor said.

"Let me put it this way," Munz said. "When the Jewish Community Center was blown up in Buenos Aires several years ago-"

"Blown up?" Captain Timmons asked. "By who?"

"Most of us believe the Iranians had something to do with it," Munz said. "But the point I was trying to make was, when it became obvious that protection of synagogues, etcetera, was going to be necessary, the Jewish community-there are more Jews in Argentina than any place but New York-demanded, and got, the Gendarmeria Nacional as their protectors."

"Meaning they didn't trust the other cops?" Captain Timmons asked.

"Meaning they trusted the Gendarmeria more," Munz said.

"You're slick, Colonel," Big Frank said. "Take that as a compliment."

"Thank you."

"What was it you said you did for Colonel Castillo?"

"Whatever he asks me to do, Captain."

"Slick, Colonel," Big Frank said, smiling.

"Well, these bastards were waiting for Junior when he went to the airport, which means somebody told them he was going to the airport," Captain O'Day said.

"Or they set up their roadblock in the reasonable belief that some American agent was probably going to be on the Buenos Aires flight," Munz said. "It may have had nothing to do with Agent Timmons going to see Comandante Duffy."

"And your gut feeling?" Big Frank asked softly.

"That Agent Timmons was specifically targeted."

Big Frank nodded in agreement. Special Agent Timmons's mother inhaled audibly.

"Well, these bastards don't seem to mind whacking people," Wyskowski said. "They didn't have to kill Junior's driver, for Christ's sake."

This is going to drag on for a long time, Castillo thought, and probably turn into a disaster.

"They were sending a goddamn message, Stan-" one of the others, whose name Castillo had forgotten, began but was interrupted by His Honor the Mayor, who apparently was thinking the same thing Castillo was.

"Well, I think we've learned everything that's known," the mayor said. "My question is what happens next, Colonel Castillo? You're going right down there?"

"There are some things we have to do here first," Castillo said. "Ambassador Montvale, the DNI-"

"The what?" Sergeant Mullroney asked.

"The director of National Intelligence," Castillo replied. "He's going to have all the experts in this area-from the various intelligence agencies-waiting for us when we get back to Washington."

"Well, that should be helpful," the mayor said. "And with help in mind, Colonel, I thought Sergeant Mullroney, with his experience in Narcotics, might be useful to you, and I asked the commissioner to put him on temporary duty with you."

Oh, Jesus!

What's he going to be useful doing is keeping the family aware of how we're stumbling around in the dark!

His Honor apparently saw something in Castillo's face.

"I thought of that immediately after I last spoke with the President," the mayor said. "Do you have the authority to take him with you, or would it be better for you if I suggested this to the President?"

Talk about slick! No wonder he's the mayor for life.

"Welcome aboard, Sergeant Mullroney," Castillo said. "Glad to have you."

"I sort of thought that you'd have the authority," the mayor said. "The President told me that he places his absolute trust in you. So I told Charley to pack a bag-and his passport-before coming over here. So you're going right back to Washington?"

"No, sir. We've got to make a couple of stops first."

The mayor stood up, obviously to leave.

"Really?" he asked.

The translation of that is "And where are you going to waste time instead of getting to work on this immediately, as I expect you to?"

Oh, what the hell. When in doubt, tell the truth.

"Las Vegas, Mr. Mayor. The airplane needs some maintenance, and we're having radios installed that will permit us to communicate-securely-with the White House no matter where we are."

The mayor examined him carefully, then smiled.

"Just like Air Force One, huh?"

"Almost, Mr. Mayor."

"When my plane is in for work, it takes them forever and a day," the mayor said. "I suppose for you things go a little quicker, don't they?"

The translation of that is "And how long is that going to take?"

"They expect us, sir. They'll work through the night to get us out as quickly as they can."

The mayor nodded, then went through the room, shaking all the men's hands and kissing the women on the cheek. Then he walked out of the living room with Captain O'Day following closely.

Mrs. Timmons kissed Lorimer, then grabbed Castillo by both arms.

"I'll pray for you, Colonel, to get my son back soon. Before…before anything happens to him."

"Thank you. We'll do our best."

Then everybody shook hands with everybody else.

The mayor was standing on the sidewalk-surprising Castillo-when he and the others came down the stairs.

Castillo then thought he understood why when a black Lincoln limousine turned the corner.

"Oh, there it is," the mayor said, and turned to Castillo. "If there's anything you need, Colonel, give me a call. Sometimes-I'm not without influence-I can be helpful."

"Thank you very much, sir."

Captain O'Day opened the door of the limousine.

"You'll have to use the jump seats," the mayor said. "And someone will have to ride up front, but there'll be room for all of you." He nodded at the others. "It's been a real pleasure to meet all of you."

Then the mayor of Chicago got in the front seat of one of the black Crown Victoria Police Interceptors, and Captain O'Day drove him away.

[FOUR]

Pilots' Lounge

Atlantic Aviation Services Operations

Midway International Airport

Chicago, Illinois 1635 2 September 2005 Castillo motioned to Munz to come with him. They walked out of earshot of the others.

"I've just had more proof that I'm stupid, Alfredo," Castillo said.

Munz looked curiously at him but didn't reply.

"Would you really rather be with your family at the Double-Bar-C, or with us standing around a hangar in Las Vegas?"

"Wherever I would be most useful, Karl," Munz said in German.

"That's not what I asked."

"With my family."

"And not in Vegas?"

Munz nodded.

"That's what I thought. And I should have thought of it right away. That's what I meant by proof of stupidity."

"You have nothing else on your mind, of course," Munz said.

"So what we'll do is just drop you at the ranch and worry about getting together later. I wish you had one of our cellulars."

Munz reached into his jacket pocket and held up a cellular telephone.

"Miller gave me this," he said, "and this." He held up a thin sheaf of one-hundred-dollar bills held together with a Riggs National Bank band. "He said he's working on the credit cards."

"Make sure you get receipts for everything you spend," Castillo said. "Agnes flips her lid if you don't." He reached for the cellular. "Let me put your number in mine."

After he had done that, he started to push an autodial button on his cellular. He stopped and looked at Munz.

"And now for proof that I am an unprincipled sonofabitch, watch as I lie to my grandmother."

He pushed the autodial button.

"This is Carlos, Juanita," he said in Spanish a moment later. "Is Dona Alicia available?"

He turned to Munz. "She is, damn it."

"Abuela," he said a moment later. "You remember that story you told me about George Washington and the cherry tree?

"Well, neither can I.

"We're in Chicago. Alfredo Munz is with us.

"Yesterday.

"We're going to drop him off at the Double-Bar-C. And I can't do anything more than just that. I really can't. That's the George Washington So Help Me God Boy Scout's Honor Truth. I have to be somewhere else as soon as I can get there.

"I was afraid you'd ask. Las Vegas. But it's business. Believe me.

"Of course I'll have time to give you a kiss. We should be there in a little over two hours.

"I love you, Abuela," he said, and turned to Munz.

"Great lady," Castillo said. "She believed me. Didn't give me any static at all."

"So my wife says," Munz said. "I'm looking forward to meeting her."

Castillo pushed another autodial button, then the LOUDSPEAKER key.

"I want you to listen to this one. You should know about Aloysius Francis Casey."

"What?" a thin, somewhat belligerent voice demanded over the phone's loudspeaker a moment later.

"This is Charley Castillo, Dr. Casey."

"Ah, the boy colonel. How many goddamn times do I have to tell you to call me Frank?"

"Another couple hundred times might do it."

"I hear you're headed out here. When?"

"We're leaving in a couple of minutes-we're in Chicago-and we have to make a stop in Midland, Texas. Say two hours to Midland, and another hour and forty-five minutes to get from Midland to Vegas. We should be on the ground about twenty-thirty or thereabouts."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Jake, of course, and a young Green Beanie who took a pretty bad hit in Afghanistan. And Tom McGuire-"

"He gets a pass because he's a Boston Irishman. Who else?"

"How about a pass for a Chicago cop named Mullroney? He's Irish, too."

"Who the hell is he?"

"I'll tell you when I'm there. Could you get us rooms near McCarren?"

"You'll stay with me."

"There's five of us!"

"There's room. Tell me about the Green Beanie who took the hit."

"Rocket-propelled grenade. One of his legs is titanium from the knee down."

"He need anything special?"

"No."

"He's working with you?"

"Yes."

"I've been working on stuff to set off those goddamn IEDs before they can cause anybody any harm, but those goddamn RPGs…"

"Yeah, I know."

"Okay, I'll see you when you get here."

[FIVE]

Double-Bar-C Ranch

Near Midland, Texas 1845 2 September 2005 As the Gulfstream taxied back toward the hangar, Castillo saw four women standing by a silver Jaguar XJ8. Fifty yards away, near an enormous, slowly bobbing horse-head oil pump, several horses and maybe a dozen Santa Gertrudis steers stood watching.

There had been horses and Santa Gertrudis cattle grazing on the Double-Bar-C long before the first automobile had bounced over the West Texas prairie, and long before the first well had tapped the Permian Oil Basin beneath it.

The first time Castillo had been shown the ranch-he was twelve at the time-his newly discovered grandfather, Don Fernando Castillo, had told him, "We were comfortable, Carlos, before they put the first hole down. I often think we were happier-life was certainly simpler-before they found the oil."

And seeing the pump now, he had the same reaction to it he'd had to the first pump he'd ever seen:

Every time that thing goes up and down, it's fifty cents in his pocket.

And there're a lot of those pumps.

The only difference between then and now is that today West Texas sweet crude brings fifty bucks a barrel.

That, and Abuela left the Double-Bar-C to me.

The women waiting for the Gulfstream were Castillo's grandmother-his abuela-and Colonel Alfredo Munz's wife and two daughters.

The warmth of his memory of Don Fernando turned to cold anger with the sight of the Munzes…and the reason they were at the ranch.

Goddamn the miserable bastards who go after a man's family.

Munz's family had come to the Double-Bar-C because of a very real threat to their lives in Argentina.

"Wake up, First Officer," Jake Torine said. "We are, no thanks to you, safely on the ground."

Castillo unfastened his shoulder harness and went into the cabin.

Alfredo Munz was already out of his seat, waiting for the stair door to be opened. Castillo worked it, and then waved Munz off the plane first.

Castillo saw that Munz had not taken his suitcase with him. He picked it up and went down the stairs with it. He saw the younger girl running toward her father, followed by the older girl, and then, moving more slowly, Senora Munz. In a moment, Munz had his arms around all of them.

Castillo looked at Dona Alicia and saw that she had a handkerchief to her eyes.

And mine aren't exactly dry, either.

He went to his grandmother. She put her arms around him.

"Hey, Abuela, how's my favorite girl?"

"Very annoyed with you, as usual," she said, and kissed him.

She looked at the Munzes.

"How long is he going to stay?" she asked.

"Until I need him, and that will probably be soon. A couple days."

"And when will it be safe for his family to go back to Argentina?"

"Not for a while yet."

"And when are you going to come and stay longer than ten minutes?"

Divulgence of any detail of any operation conducted under the authority of a Presidential Finding to persons not holding the specific Top Secret Presidential security clearance is a felonious violation of the United States Code, punishable by fine and imprisonment.

"A drug enforcement agent in Paraguay has been kidnapped by drug dealers," Castillo said. "The President wants us to try to get him back, and I have no idea how to do that."

She looked at him but did not reply.

"I don't have to tell you to keep that to yourself, do I?"

She shook her head to show the admonition was entirely unnecessary.

"I don't know whether I'm very proud of you, my darling, or very sad for you," she said. "I guess both."

Five minutes later, the Gulfstream III broke ground.

[SIX]

McCarren International Airport

Las Vegas, Nevada 2055 2 September 2005 A tug stood waiting outside the AFC hangar, and as a ground handler signaled for Castillo's Gulfstream III to shut down its engines, the doors of the hangar began to slide open.

Inside the hangar, Castillo saw that a glistening new Gulfstream V, three older Lears, a Beechcraft King Air and an old but nicely refurbished Cessna 150 had been moved to one side to make room for his G-III.

And then he saw there was a Cadillac Escalade in the hangar. Dr. Aloysius Francis Casey, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of AFC, Inc., was sitting sideward in the driver's seat, the driver's door open. He was wearing his usual baggy black suit.

The tug hooked up to the nose gear of the G-III and dragged the aircraft into the hangar. Two men in white coveralls with the AFC logotype on the chest hooked up an auxiliary power cable.

Castillo opened the stair door and went down it, with Torine following.

Casey pushed himself off the seat of the Escalade and walked to them.

"How are you, Charley?" he asked, shaking his hand, then Torine's.

"Always good to see you, Colonel," Casey said.

"Always good to see you, too, Dr. Casey," Torine said. "And we really appreci-"

"Goddamn it! I keep telling you and the Boy Colonel here that it's Frank," Casey said. "I'm starting to get pissed off about that!"

"Sorry, Frank," Torine said.

Casey looked toward the men in coveralls and raised his voice: "Get the luggage off of that, and put it in my truck."

The men hurried to do his bidding.

Tom McGuire, Ed Lorimer, and, bringing up the rear, Charley Mullroney came down the stairs and somewhat hesitantly walked to them.

Casey put out his hand to Lorimer and said, "Any Special Forces guy is always welcome. My name is Frank Casey. Call me Frank. I did some time as a commo sergeant on an A-Team in 'Nam. Mostly over the fence in Laos and Cambodia."

"Yes, sir," Lorimer said.

"You call me sir one more time, and you can sleep on your airplane. Clear?"

"Yes, s-Frank."

"You're learning," Casey said, then pointed his right index finger at Castillo and Torine. "Which is more than I can say for these two."

He turned to McGuire and Mullroney and said, "Usually I have as little as possible to do with cops, but since you two are Irish and with these guys you get a pass."

He shook their hands, then said: "Come on and get in the truck. We'll go out to the house and hoist a couple and burn some meat."

They had turned off U. S. Highway 93 a few minutes before, and were driving down a macadam two-lane road toward the mountains. Castillo, sitting beside Casey in the front seat of the Escalade, was wondering what electronics were behind the dashboard to power the two telephone handsets and a large liquid crystal display screen-now displaying the AFC logo and STANDBY-mounted on the dash.

Casey suddenly said, "Before we get to the house, I think I should tell you the wife passed…"

"I hadn't heard that, Frank," Castillo said. "I'm very sorry."

"Yeah, well, we all have to go sometime, and, thank God, Mary Alice went good. She took a little nap by the pool and never woke up."

"I'm sorry, Frank," Castillo repeated.

"Me, too, Frank," Jake Torine said.

"Anyway, I got a couple taking care of me at the house. Good people, but you probably want to be careful what you say when they're around."

"Thanks," Castillo said, and then, as much to change the subject as anything else, asked, "What's this stuff?"

Casey looked and saw where Castillo was pointing.

"Oh, that stuff," he said, as if he welcomed the chance to change the subject. "The left handset is an encrypted tie to my communications. The right one, and the display, is pretty much what they're putting in your airplane."

"Is it working?" Castillo said.

"It damned well better be."

"I could get my office on that? The White House switchboard?"

"You can get anybody on your net but the White House," Casey said. "I didn't think I'd better put a link in there. When the new stuff is in the airplane, you'd be linked to the White House, just like your truck. But your office can patch you through to the White House."

I don't want to talk to the White House.

I want to talk to Nuestra Pequena Casa. I really have to start things moving down there.

But is the radio still up? Or did Sergeant Kensington shut down when we left?

There's only one way to find out.

"Can I try it?"

"Help yourself."

"How does it work?"

"Pick it up, say your name, give it a couple of seconds for the voice identification to work, and then say who you want to talk to."

"There's an operator?"

"There's a little black box."

"And it's encrypted?"

"Not even NSA will know what you're saying."

Castillo picked up the handset. The AFC logo on the display screen disappeared, and then STANDBY went away. ACTIVATING appeared, and then ENCRYPTION ACTIVE, and then VOICE IDENTIFICATION ACTIVE and finally ALL FUNCTIONS OPERATIONAL.

"No more little green and red LEDs," Casey said.

"Clever," Castillo said.

"No recognition," a metallic voice came over the handset speaker.

"Jesus!"

"No recognition," the metallic voice repeated.

"Castillo."

"Go ahead, Colonel Castillo."

"Nuestra Pequena Casa."

"No recognition."

"Argentina."

"No recognition."

"Safe House."

There was a moment's delay, then Sergeant Robert Kensington's voice came cheerfully over the speaker in the handset: "How's things in Vegas, Dr. Casey?"

"Colonel Castillo, Bob. How's things where you are? And where are you?"

"In the quincho, sir."

"I was afraid that all might be shut down."

"Mr. Darby decided it would make more waves if everybody suddenly vanished, so we're still here."

"Who's we?"

"The Sienos, Ricardo Solez, and me."

"Darby's at the embassy?"

"No, sir. He went to Asuncion. He said if you called to tell you he and Tony Santini were going to make sure the cork was back in the bottle."

"We don't have a secure link to Asuncion, do we?"

"No, sir. And Mr. Santini said not to send any messages unless we had to."

"What about Ricardo. Is he there?"

"He went grocery shopping in Pilar. I can get him on his cellular, if you want."

"No. Here's what I want you to do. Get through to Darby or Santini, and tell them the situation has changed. They are to stay there until Solez can get there to explain, and then to act accordingly. And then get Solez back from the supermarket, tell him we have been tasked to get back that DEA agent who got himself kidnapped, and to get on the next plane to Asuncion to tell Darby and Santini. Nobody in the embassy there-nobody-is to be told about this."

"Yes, sir. Well, that's good news, Colonel. That DEA guy is a pretty good guy, according to Solez."

"It is the opposite of good news, Bob. I haven't a clue about how to get him back."

"You'll think of something, Colonel," Kensington said. "You always do."

Well, there's a vote of confidence.

The trouble is it's completely unjustified.

"And tell Solez to ask Darby and Santini, both, to get on a secure line to me as soon as they can."

"You're with Dr. Casey?"

"Right."

"Can I ask what you're doing, sir?"

"Drinking, gambling, and chasing naked women," Castillo said. "What else does one do in Las Vegas? Get right on this, please, Bob."

"I already have Solez on his cellular."

"Okay. Breaking down," Castillo said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned to Casey. "How do I do that?"

"Say 'Finished' or 'Break it down.'"

"Break it down," Castillo said.

"Disconnecting," the metallic voice said in his ear.

V

[ONE]

Valley View Ranch

North Las Vegas, Nevada 2345 2 September 2005 "Yeah, I know it's almost two in the morning back there," Sergeant Charley Mullroney said into his cellular phone. "I got a watch. This is the first chance I had to call."

He was standing on a small patio carved out of the mountain about fifty feet below and fifty yards from his room in the house. Small dim lights lined the path leading to the house and were mounted on a low stone wall at the edge of the patio.

He had peered over the edge of the wall. The lights didn't illuminate much, but there was enough light to see it was almost a sheer drop from the patio wall for at least fifty feet, and probably more.

"Not in Vegas, Byron. Maybe twenty-five miles outside of Vegas. On the side of a mountain- "You want to keep interrupting me, or do you want me to tell you what happened?

"Okay. First we landed in the middle of nowhere where that German or Argentine or whateverthefuck he is colonel got off.

"No. There was no sign anywhere. This was a private field. I think Castillo's got something to do with it. He got off the airplane and kissed some old lady.

"Then we come to Vegas. They parked the airplane in a hangar and some little guy named Casey drove us out here in a Cadillac Suburban or whateverthefuck they call them.

"Did I learn anything on the airplane? No. McGuire, the Secret Service guy, did a pretty good job of pumping me to find out what I do on the job. But when I asked him, like, 'Where are we going?', or when we landed in the middle of nowhere, 'Where was that? What was that?', he turned into a clam. And when I asked him what he did for Castillo, he said, 'This and that.' "Okay, so we got here and this Casey character brings us out here in his white Escalade-that's what they call those Cadillac Suburbans, Escalades- "Great big fucking house on the side of a mountain. Great big fucking swimming pool. The room they gave me is about as big as my whole downstairs. Jacuzzi and a shower that's so big it don't even need a door. But the cellular says 'no signal,' so I couldn't call, so I figured I'd wait until later.

"So this guy Casey's got a barbecue set up. With a cook, and great big steaks. And enough booze to take a bath in. So Castillo cooks the steaks and they start in on the booze and I figure maybe now I'll learn something.

"Didn't happen. All they did was talk about the Army. The Special Forces. I don't know how much is bullshit, but this Casey guy, to hear him tell it, practically won the Vietnam War by himself.

"I don't know if they believed it or not, Byron. I think so, but nobody's going to call a guy a bullshitter in his own house. Especially since he's putting free radios in your airplane.

"Because Castillo told him he's got a bunch of money in something called the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Fund and can pay for them. Casey said, 'You know your money's no good here, Charley.' "I don't know what Casey's angle is, and if there's any connection with this Lorimer Charitable Whatever and Junior's buddy Lorimer, I don't know what it is.

"Okay, so finally I said I had a long day and was going to turn in. So I went to my room and then out onto a little patio, whatever, outside it. You can see just about all there is to see in Vegas from there. And, for the hell of it, I tried the cellular again. I got maybe a bar and a half, so I see another patio down the mountain, about fifty yards from the house, walked to it, and the fucker works here. So I called you.

"Yeah, Byron, I know it ain't much, but you just got all I have.

"I have no fucking idea what's going to happen tomorrow. They don't pass out a schedule, for Christ's sake.

"Yeah, I'll call you whenever I have something."

Mullroney took the cell phone from his ear and looked at it.

"You sonofabitch," he said, "you hung up me!"

"Perhaps he didn't hang up on you, Sergeant Mullroney," Castillo said.

Mullroney jumped.

"Perhaps you just lost the connection," Castillo went on, evenly. "Cellulars are not very reliable out here."

"You scared me, Colonel," Mullroney said after a moment. "I didn't hear you come up."

I didn't scare you, I don't think.

But I think I embarrassed you.

"Was there something wrong with the telephone in your room, Sergeant Mullroney? Couldn't get a dial tone?"

Mullroney didn't reply.

"Or was it because you didn't want us to know you were making your report to Captain Timmons? Is that why you sneaked out here to use your cellular?"

Mullroney looked at him almost defiantly.

Not really "fuck you" defiant. He's worried.

Now let's see how far I can push him.

Castillo held out his hand and wiggled the fingers in a Give it to me gesture.

Mullroney looked at Castillo's hand and then his face and back at the hand.

"Give me the phone," Castillo ordered.

Mullroney looked again at Castillo's face, as if trying to understand.

So what do I do now? Try to take it away from him?

"Give me the phone," Castillo repeated.

Mullroney didn't move or respond.

"Give the colonel the fucking phone, asshole, or I'll throw you and it off the mountain."

The voice in the dark startled Castillo. He hadn't heard anyone walking up on them. He now saw that Lorimer was standing beside him.

"I'm not going to tell you again," Lorimer said.

Mullroney put the cellular in Castillo's hand.

Castillo threw it down the mountain.

"What the fuck?" Mullroney protested, incredulously.

"You are not permitted to have a cellular telephone," Castillo said calmly.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Mullroney demanded.

There wasn't much conviction in that indignation.

"The next time you say something like that to the colonel, I'm going to break your arm before I throw you down the mountain."

"Fuck you, soldier boy," Mullroney said.

Five seconds later, Sergeant Mullroney found himself on his stomach.

His arm was twisted painfully behind him, his cheek was pressed into the rough ground, and Lieutenant Lorimer's knee-the titanium one, Castillo saw-was pressed painfully into the small of his back.

He howled in pain.

"Permission to dislocate his shoulder, sir?" Lorimer asked.

Castillo waited five seconds-long enough, he judged, for Mullroney to have time to consider that he might actually be about to have his shoulder dislocated-before replying: "Put him on his back, Lieutenant. If he even looks like he's considering trying to get up, kick some teeth out."

"Yes, sir."

Ten seconds later, Sergeant Mullroney was lying absolutely motionless on his back. Lieutenant Lorimer was squatting at his head, pulling Mullroney's chin back with one hand, and holding the eight-inch blade of a knife against his throat with the other.

"Permission to speak, sir?" Lieutenant Lorimer said.

"Granted."

"Let me toss him down the mountain, sir."

"I don't want to kill him unless I have to," Castillo said.

"Just let him get busted up a little, sir," Lorimer argued. "Break an ankle, a leg, an arm."

"How would we explain his accident?" Castillo asked reasonably.

"Well, everybody knows he's a boozer. I'll call Captain Timmons and tell him he got drunk, was wandering around the mountain and fell off."

"Is that a credible scenario?"

"Yes, sir, I think so. Who are they going believe? The family drunk, or you and me?"

"The problem with that is they would just send somebody else to snoop on us," Castillo said.

"That's true, sir," Lorimer acknowledged. "But we could deal with that situation as it came up. And we could probably be long gone before they could send someone else."

"True. Okay. Sergeant Mullroney, you have ten seconds to tell me why I should not permit Lieutenant Lorimer to throw you down the mountain."

"You people are out of your fucking minds!" Sergeant Mullroney said.

"Possibly," Castillo said. "But I don't see that as a reason not to send you down the mountain. Five seconds."

"I'm a cop, for Christ sake! You can't get away with this!"

"Time's up," Castillo said. "Carry on, Lieutenant."

"What we're going to do now," Lieutenant Lorimer said, touching the tip of the knife blade to the throat to discourage any sudden movement, "is very slowly get to our feet…"

"Jesus, what the fuck do you want from me? You don't want me to call Chicago? All right, I won't call Chicago. I swear to God! I swear on my mother's grave I'll never call Chicago! Jesus Christ! Please! I've got a wife-Junior's sister-and kids…"

"He doesn't get the picture, does he, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir. It would appear he doesn't have a clue."

"Explain it to him, please."

"Yes, sir. Asshole, we don't care if you call Chicago every hour on the hour. But what we can't have is you running at the mouth to somebody else who'll run at the mouth and blow this operation and get people-including my pal Byron-killed."

"I wouldn't do that," Sergeant Mullroney said, more than a little righteously. "Junior's my brother-in-law, for Christ's sake. My wife's brother."

"I've always wondered what a brother-in-law was," Castillo said. "Thank you for clearing that up for me."

"What?" Mullroney asked, visibly confused.

"Have you anything else you want to say to us?" Castillo asked.

"What the fuck do I have to say to make you understand I'd never do anything to hurt Junior?"

"Byron told me he told you not to call him 'Junior' and you wouldn't stop until he knocked you on your ass," Lorimer said. "And we have a similar situation here, wouldn't you say, Colonel?"

"I'm afraid it looks that way to me," Castillo said.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"

"Exactly as it was necessary for Byron to knock you on your ass to get you not to say the wrong thing, it looks to me that I'm going to have to put you down the mountain now to keep you from saying the wrong thing. We're talking about people getting killed because of your runaway mouth."

"I'd never say…" Sergeant Mullroney began, then he had a sudden inspiration. "What if I told you what I was going to say to Jun…Byron's father before I said it. I mean, before I called. And you could tell me if there was something I shouldn't say. And I wouldn't. And you could listen to me making the call…"

When there was no reaction from either Castillo or Lorimer, Mullroney added, somewhat plaintively, "Jesus, guys, we're on the same side here."

"You don't call the colonel 'guy,' Asshole," Lorimer said.

"Sorry, Colonel, sir."

"That might work, sir," Lorimer said. "Operative word might. On the other hand, I don't want to have to kill him unless it's really necessary."

"Give me a chance, and I promise you'll never regret it," Mullroney said.

"What do you want to do, sir, flip a coin?" Lorimer asked, his tone serious.

"As he points out, Lieutenant, he is Special Agent Timmons's brother-in-law. If it could be avoided, I would prefer not to get Special Agent Timmons back only to tell him that we had to terminate his brother-in-law in order to guarantee the security of the operation…"

"For your consideration, sir, Special Agent Timmons is not all that fond of the asshole."

"Nevertheless, I think that we should take the chance."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Lorimer said, his voice showing his deep disappointment.

"Let him up, Lieutenant," Castillo ordered. "Get him on his feet."

"You heard the colonel, Asshole. Stand up."

"Sergeant," Castillo then said, "I want you to understand that I am authorizing your immediate termination should you ever get close to a telephone without Lieutenant Lorimer or myself being present. Understood?"

"Yeah."

Lorimer barked, "Say 'yes, sir' when you're talking to the colonel!"

"Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed, Sergeant. Please stay in your room until you are called for breakfast."

"Yes, sir."

Castillo made a motion as if brushing away a fly, and Sergeant Mullroney started quickly walking up the path to the house.

Fifteen seconds later, Colonel Castillo whispered, "If you are about to have the giggles, Lorimer, and Asshole hears you, I'll throw you down the mountain."

Lieutenant Lorimer acknowledged the order by bobbing his head.

He didn't trust himself to open his mouth, the bottom lip of which he was biting as hard as he could.

[TWO] Lieutenant Colonel Castillo leaned over Lieutenant Lorimer, who was sprawled on a chaise lounge by the side of the swimming pool, and very carefully topped off Lorimer's glass of Famous Grouse with more of the same.

"Lieutenant Lorimer," Castillo said, "I am a lieutenant colonel."

"Yes, sir."

"And, you may have noticed, I wear a green beret."

"Yes, sir, I did notice that."

"And, as I am sure you know, while some lieutenant colonels sometimes make mistakes, and some Special Forces officers sometimes make mistakes, when a Special Forces lieutenant colonel makes a mistake, it is truly a cold day in hell."

"So I have been led to believe, sir."

"That being understood between us, there is sometimes an exception to the rule just cited."

"I find that difficult to accept, sir."

"Nevertheless, I think perhaps-as difficult as this may be for you to accept-I made a mistake about you."

"Yes, sir?"

"Frankly, Lieutenant, when you approached Mullroney and me with stealth worthy of the finest Comanche, I really had no idea how to deal with the sonofabitch."

"With respect, Colonel, sir, I believe his name is Asshole. And I think the asshole is now under control, sir."

"The knife at his throat when you rolled him over, Lieutenant-don't let this go to your head-was masterful. I would not be surprised to learn that Sergeant Mullroney soiled his undies."

"I would be disappointed to learn that he didn't, Colonel."

"The problem of a police officer being embedded with us having been solved-I devoutly hope-let us now turn our attention to the big picture. How do we get your friend back?"

"Yeah," Lorimer said, and exhaled audibly. "How the hell do we do that?"

"To get him back, we have to know a lot of things, starting with who has him. And where. Your thoughts, please?"

"May I infer from the colonel's question that I am now regarded as part of the team, so to speak?"

"From this moment on, you may regard yourself as the psychological warfare officer of the team. You seem to have some skill in that area."

"I am humbled by that responsibility, sir, and will try very hard to justify your confidence in me."

"Where do these bastards have him, Eddie?"

"Well, he could be in Asuncion, but I don't think so. If I had to bet, they've got him in the boonies somewhere. Either in Paraguay or across the river in Argentina."

"Bearing in mind that you're betting with a man's life, why?"

"That's boonieland up there, Argentina and Paraguay. You can raid a house in a city a lot easier than you can in the boonies."

"Meaning that if you're holding somebody in a remote farmhouse, you can see the good guys coming?"

"If there's only one road going someplace, they know you're coming long before you get there. You've got somebody in the bag, you just march him off into the woods, and look innocent when somebody shows up at the door."

"So what we have to do is not only find where he is-I'll get back to that in a minute-but come up with some way to get enough people in there with the element of surprise."

"Yeah," Lorimer said. "And that won't be easy."

"I'm going off at a tangent here, Eddie."

"Yes, sir?"

"Something was said about Timmons's driver being taken out by these people. I want to make sure I heard it right. Tell me about that."

"They found the embassy car parked against the fence of the airport. It's called the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport-you want all the details like that?"

Castillo nodded.

"Anything that comes into your mind, Eddie. My data bank is pretty empty."

"Typical Third World airport," Lorimer went on. "It used to be called the Presidente General Stroessner Airport, and you can still see signs with his name on them. He was the president, read dictator, for thirty-five years. Apparently a world-class sonofabitch-"

"Presidente General Alfredo Stroessner," Castillo interrupted, "was exiled to Brazil in 1989 after a coup by General Andres Rodriguez. I don't know where the hell I got that, but the data bank apparently isn't completely empty. And, I just remembered, he was cozy with the Nazis, the ones who fled to South America after World War Two. Interesting."

"Why? Is that important?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. And the next time we have a little chat like this, I'll have to remember to bring the laptop so I can write all this down. I tend to forget things I hear when I'm drinking. Go on, please, Eddie."

"The embassy car was parked against the fence across the field from the terminal. The driver was on the floor of the backseat choked to death."

"Strangled, you mean?"

"I don't know if that's the word. He had a gizmo around his neck, like those plastic handcuffs the cops use, but metal."

"With a handle?" Castillo asked, quietly, and mimed how the handle would be used.

Lorimer nodded.

"It's called a garrote," Castillo said. "One of them was used to take out a friend of mine, Sergeant First Class Sy Kranz, who was a damned good special operator, when the Ninjas jumped us at Estancia Shangri-La."

"I never heard that you lost anybody."

"We lost Sy Kranz," Castillo said. "And taking him out wasn't easy, which told us right off that the Ninjas we took out were pros."

"How much about that operation are you going to tell me, Colonel?"

"We later found out that one of the people we took out was Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia. We think the others were probably either ex-Stasi or ex-AVO or ex-AVH, probably being run by the FSB."

"Colonel, except for the FSB, I don't know what you're talking about. Who was the FSB running? Jesus, what was going on at that farm?"

"Estancia," Castillo corrected him without thinking. "Estancia Shangri-La. This much we know: Jean-Paul Lorimer, an American who worked for the UN, was a-probably the-bagman in that Iraqi Oil for Food cesspool. We know he set himself up with a phony identification and name on the estancia. We know he had sixteen million dollars. Whether he earned that as the bagman or stole it, we don't know. We know that a team of pros was sent to the estancia. We think their basic mission was to whack him to shut his mouth. They may have been after the money, too. And we're pretty sure the others were ex-Stasi…"

He stopped when he remembered Lorimer didn't know what he was talking about.

"Stasi, Eddie, was the East German Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit-Ministry for State Security. AVO-Allamvedelmi Osztaly-and later AVH-Allamvedelmi Hatosag-did about the same thing when Hungary was still under the communists."

"And they were involved in that oil-for-food business?"

"They were hired guns, we think, for people who were involved in it," Castillo said.

"Like who?"

Castillo ignored the question.

"The one thing the Stasi and the Hungarians had in common, Eddie-aside from being some very unpleasant people very good at what they did-was using the garrote as the silent whacking weapon of choice."

"You're saying you think these people are involved with what happened to Timmons?"

"I'm saying it's very interesting that Timmons's driver was garroted with the same kind of garrote they used on Sergeant Kranz, and tried to use on Eric Kocian."

Lorimer considered what he'd heard, then said, "I don't think anyone in Asuncion thinks we're dealing with anything but drug dealers."

"And maybe we're not," Castillo said. "But to finish filling you in on what happened at Shangri-La, the official version-the Uruguayan government version-is that it was a drug deal gone wrong. They know better, but apparently have decided it's best for them to sweep what really happened under the rug. This is made somewhat easier for them by our ambassador, who can't believe that a special operation could happen without his knowing about it. He decided that Lorimer was shipping cocaine in antique vases and a deal went wrong. The Uruguayans decided to let it go at that."

"So you came out clean?"

"For a while, I thought we had."

"But?"

"We were at the safe house in Pilar, just about to wind up putting things together-Inspector Doherty called it 'an investigation to determine what has to be investigated'-when Max caught you sneaking through the bushes."

"Oh."

"Opening the possibility that others may have put together what you did. So we quickly folded the tent and came home. And I again thought we'd come out clean. And then the President said, 'Go get Special Agent Timmons.' So now we're going to have to go back down there, and the whole thing is back at risk of being compromised."

"You don't have to go back to Uruguay, do you?"

"I wouldn't be surprised that as we try to do this, we'll have to go to Uruguay. And there's something else."

"What?"

"Lorimer's father is a retired ambassador. Apparently a very good guy. He lost his house in New Orleans to the hurricane. And he's decided that until things settle down, he wants to take his wife and go to Estancia Shangri-La, which he now owns."

"Uh-oh."

"Yeah. And-since he has a serious heart condition-the secretary of State thought it would be best if he didn't learn what a miserable sonofabitch his son was. He thinks the bastard was killed by roving bandits. Among the other impossible things I have to do, one is talk him out of going to Uruguay. Not only would it be dangerous for him and his wife-"

"Why?"

"The money, for one thing."

"What money?"

"The sixteen million. We have it, but they don't know that."

"You have it?" Lorimer asked, surprised.

Castillo nodded. "It's now the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Fund."

Which also now has forty-six million of illegal oil-for-food profits that Philip J. Kenyon of Midland, Texas, thought he had safely hidden from the IRS and the Justice Department-and everybody else-in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited in the Cayman Islands.

I don't think Lorimer has to know about that. I've already given him enough to think about.

Which means I've already told him too much.

"That's how we pay for everything," Castillo went on.

"I wondered about that," Lorimer said. "So what happens now?"

"Now we go to bed," Castillo said. "Not only is my tail dragging, but I've learned-painfully-that the brilliant thoughts I have at one o'clock in the morning with half a bag on turn out to be stupid in the morning."

[THREE]

Valley View Ranch

North Las Vegas, Nevada 0835 3 September 2005 When Castillo, wearing a polo shirt and khaki slacks, walked out of the house to the pool, he found Tom McGuire, Jake Torine, and Lorimer, all in sports shirts and slacks, sitting at a table drinking coffee. He saw Casey's cook standing by an enormous stainless steel gas grill that apparently also functioned as an ordinary stove, and decided they were politely waiting for their host to show up before eating.

Jake nodded at Castillo but didn't speak.

"Eddie," Castillo ordered, "why don't you ask Sergeant Mullroney to join us for breakfast?"

Lorimer wordlessly got out of his chair and went into the house.

"Is he-the cop-going to be a problem, Charley?" Torine asked.

"I think that's been taken care of. I'll tell you later. Here comes Frank."

Aloysius Francis Casey came out of the house.

"Jesus, you didn't have to wait for me," Casey said. "Just tell Walter what you want."

He motioned for the cook to come to the table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Feed my friends, Walter," he ordered. "You name it, Walter can make it."

"Pheasant under glass," Torine said. "With beluga caviar on toast corners on the side."

Casey chuckled. "The fish eggs aren't a problem, but catching the bird and plucking it may take Walter a little time."

"Bacon and eggs would satisfy this old man's hunger," Torine said.

"Walter makes his own corned beef hash," Casey said.

"Even better," Torine said.

"Me, too, please," Castillo said.

"Make it three, please," McGuire said.

"Where's that nice kid and the cop?" Casey asked.

"The former went to get the latter," Castillo said.

"You never told me about the cop," Casey said.

"He's been embedded with us," Castillo said.

"You don't seem to be very happy about that."

"I'm not. But Lorimer has him under control."

Sergeant Mullroney, wearing a coat and tie, came out of the house, followed by Lorimer. Lorimer pointed to one of the chairs at the table. Mullroney followed the orders and sat down.

"Good morning, Sergeant Mullroney," Castillo said. "We're about to have corned beef hash and eggs. Sound all right to you?"

Mullroney smiled wanly and nodded.

"I see what you mean," McGuire said.

Casey smiled at him, then announced: "I just talked to the guys in the hangar. The new gear is up and running in your airplane. And Signature Flight Support has finished doing whatever they had to do to the G-Three."

"Great!" Torine said. "Thanks, Frank."

"I suppose that means you're not going to hang around for a day, a couple of days? Take in a couple of the shows?"

"We'll have to take a rain check, Frank," Castillo said.

"Yeah, I figured. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Now that you mention it…"

Casey made a Give it to me gesture.

"To get this guy back, we're going to need a team," Castillo said. "Maybe more than one. But at least one. And choppers to move them around. Choppers equipped with both a good GPS and one of your wonderful radios."

"Well, now that they've started giving the 160th what they need," Casey said, "they've got pretty good GPS equipment-"

"What's the 160th?" Mullroney interrupted.

"I'll tell you when you can ask questions, Charley," Lorimer said.

"The 160th is the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Mullroney," Castillo said, and turned to Casey. "But the problem there is I can't use their helicopters."

"Why not?" Lorimer asked.

"I'll tell you when you can ask questions, Lieutenant," Castillo said seriously, waited for that to register on Lorimer's face, then smiled. "Hold the questions, Eddie, until your leader is finished."

"Yes, sir."

"The 160th has all the latest equipment," Castillo said. "Which we would have trouble getting into Paraguay and/or Argentina-just physically getting them down there-and even if we could do that, they would stick out like sore thumbs. We're going to have to do this black."

Castillo saw that Mullroney had opened his mouth as if to ask a question and then after a quick glance at Lorimer had changed his mind.

"Black means secretly, covertly, Mullroney. Nobody knows about it," Castillo explained. "Which means we're going to have to use Hueys."

"Where are you going to get Hueys?" Torine asked. "And how are you going to get them down there black?"

"Moving right along," Castillo said. "While I am figuring out where to get Hueys, and how to get them down there black, I thought I would send Munz, Lorimer, and Mullroney down there right away-"

"I guess I don't get to go?" McGuire interrupted.

"Tom, you'll be more useful in Washington," Castillo said.

"I guess," McGuire said, sounding disappointed.

"But keep your bag packed," Castillo said. He went on: "And on the airplane, if I can keep abusing Frank's generosity, there will be two-preferably three-ground versions of the radios. There's two-old models-down there already, and we're going to need at least two more in Paraguay. Plus, I just thought, operators for same. You'll probably have to stop by Bragg to pick them up, Jake."

"Not a problem," Torine said.

"The ones you have in South America still working?" Casey asked.

"You heard me talk to Argentina yesterday," Castillo said.

Casey nodded, then offered, "I think there's a half-dozen new models waiting to be shipped to Delta, to General McNab, at Bragg-"

"Think about that, Frank," Castillo said, stopping him. "Maybe there's only three waiting to be shipped to General McNab. The other three have mysteriously disappeared. If that was the case, I won't have to get on my knees and beg him for any."

"If he finds out, he's not going to be happy."

"I devoutly hope he never finds out," Castillo said. "But a bird in hand is worth two in the bush." He looked at Lorimer. "You may want to write that down, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Lorimer said, and took a notebook from his pocket and started writing in it.

Torine and McGuire shook their heads. Mullroney appeared to be confused.

Casey chuckled and said, "It'll take me a couple of days to come up with-what did you say, four?-sets of GPS and that many aviation radios, maybe a little longer for them."

"All contributions gratefully-"

"Yeah, yeah," Casey interrupted impatiently.

He took a cellular from his pocket and pushed a speed-dial key.

"Casey," he announced into it. "There's a half-dozen Model 3405s waiting to be shipped to Bragg. Put three of them in the Gulfstream in the hangar."

Then he hung up.

"What are you going to do about the ambassador?" McGuire asked.

"Try to hide from the one in Washington," Castillo replied, "and put the one in Mississippi on hold. What I have to do now is get to Washington."

Mullroney's face showed that he was trying hard to make sense of what had been said and not having much success.

[FOUR]

Double-Bar-C Ranch

Near Midland, Texas 1225 3 September 2005 As Torine lined up with the runway, Castillo saw there was a Bombardier/Learjet 45XR parked beside the horse-head oil pump.

"Look who's here," Castillo said.

"Put the wheels down, First Officer," Torine said. "We can chat later."

Dona Alicia Castillo was again waiting for them, this time beside a Chevrolet Suburban, and this time a heavyset, almost massive dark-skinned man was with her.

Castillo came down the stair door first. He went to his grandmother and kissed her.

"Nice landing, gringo," the large man said. "Jake must have been flying."

Castillo gave him the finger.

Fernando Manuel Lopez and Carlos Guillermo Castillo thought of themselves as brothers-they had been raised together since puberty-but they were in fact first cousins.

"Are you on parole, or are Maria and the rug rats here, too?" Castillo asked.

Dona Alicia shook her head at both of them.

"Now stop it, the both of you, right now," she ordered.

Lopez answered the question anyway.

"They're in Cancun," he said. "Taking a pre-going-back-to-school vacation."

"You are going to have lunch," Dona Alicia said. "That's in the nature of a statement, not an invitation."

"Nevertheless, I gratefully accept, Abuela," Castillo said.

"Eddie," Castillo ordered, "why don't you take Sergeant Mullroney for a walk?"

Lorimer made a Get up, let's go gesture to Mullroney, who stood up and followed Lorimer off the verandah where lunch had been served.

"Presumably, you think you have a good excuse for that discourtesy," Dona Alicia said when they were out of earshot.

"There are some things we have to discuss that are none of his business," Castillo said.

"Then why is he here with you?" she demanded. Before Castillo could reply, she said, "I just saw on Colonel Torine's face that he thinks I'm wrong. Sorry, Carlos."

"I'm the one who should be…is…sorry for involving you in the first place," Castillo said. "If I could have thought of someplace else to take Munz's family, believe me, I would have."

She looked at him for a moment. "Thank you, Carlos."

"For what?"

"For bringing them here. And for not reminding me you tried very hard to keep me from coming here."

He didn't reply.

"What do we have to discuss?" she asked after a moment.

"We're all…Colonel Munz, Tom McGuire, and me…agreed that there's no longer a threat here to Senora Munz and the girls."

"Well, that's good news! Thank God for that."

"So Tom's going to call off the Secret Service," Castillo said. "Which then raises the question what to do with them for the next two, three weeks, however long it takes to be sure they can safely return to Argentina."

"Why, they'll stay here, of course," she said. "Where else would they go?"

"I hate to ask you to stay with them," Castillo said.

"Don't be silly, Carlos," she said. "I enjoy being with them." She paused. "But…Mr. McGuire?"

"Ma'am, could I get you to call me 'Tom'?"

"Tom, if they would be safe here, would they be safe in San Antonio?"

McGuire considered the question before replying.

"At your home there, you mean?"

She nodded.

"No," Castillo said.

"Actually, Charley, that might be a better solution than leaving them here," McGuire said. "Ma'am, would having a driver for your car raise any eyebrows?"

"Abuela usually has a driver when she goes out at night," Fernando Lopez said. "What are you thinking, Tom?"

"That, to err on the side of caution, instead of just canceling the protection detail, I have it cut from what we have here now…twelve, probably?"

"So Mr. Alvarez told me," Dona Alicia said.

"If it's been a twelve-man detail," McGuire said, "that means there were at any given moment three agents on the job, which means that nine agents were lying around the swimming pool at the local motel, or drinking coffee in the snack bar, with people starting to wonder aloud who were all these guys in suits with guns and Yukons."

McGuire looked at Castillo.

"And we're agreed, Charley, that the threat is almost certainly gone, right?"

Castillo nodded reluctantly.

"So we call off the detail here completely, and we set up a three-man detail in San Antonio. Which means one will be available at all times to do the job when necessary-whenever they leave the house, in other words, they have an agent with them. If we call off the detail here, that means no agents, period. And Alvarez can have a word with the San Antonio cops to keep their eyes open. What's wrong with that, Charley?"

Dona Alicia did not give him a chance to answer.

"That's what we'll do," she said. "And I'll have a little party or two for the girls, so they can meet people their own age. They're already bored being here, and I can't say that I blame them."

"I think we should leave it up to Munz," Castillo said.

"I think we should, too, Chief," McGuire said. "Want to know why?"

"Why?"

"Alfredo has a lot of protection experience. Like I do. Who do you think he's going to agree with, you or me?"

"I guess we'll have to see," Castillo said, a little lamely.

"Carlos, I suppose it's important that Colonel Munz go to South America right away?" Dona Alicia asked.

"I'm afraid so, Abuela. And that means right now. I'm sitting here wondering if I can work up the courage to tell him it's time to go."

"I'll go get him," Dona Alicia said, and stood up and walked into the house.

Castillo looked at Lopez.

"All right, gringo," Fernando said, "I'll ride the right seat down there and back. But that's it. And that presumes I can be back before Maria comes back from Cancun."

"I didn't ask, Fernando," Castillo said.

"You knew if you asked, I'd tell you to go to hell," Fernando said. "I told you I'm getting too old to play James Bond with you guys."

"Fernando going would solve the problem of having to find another pilot," Jake Torine said. "All we're going to do is drop off Munz and the others with the radios, and come right back. So thanks, Fernando."

"He should be thanking us for the privilege of flying our airplane," Castillo said.

Fernando gave Castillo the finger.

"How do I get back here to pick up the Lear?" Fernando asked.

"Charley," McGuire asked, "what if I stay here, take your grandmother and the Munzes to San Antonio, say, tomorrow, and get things set up there? That'd probably reassure Munz. By the time I have things set up, Jake and Fernando will be back from Buenos Aires. So you send a plane to pick me up, it brings Fernando here, and then picks me up in San Antonio? That'd work."

Castillo considered the suggestion and nodded. "Okay. Then that's what we do."

"God, I feel sorry for them," Castillo said, nodding discreetly at the wife and young daughters of Alfredo Munz, who had just watched Munz get into the Gulfstream III.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this," Dona Alicia said, "but you're the one I feel sorry for."

"Why?"

"Everybody has somebody but you."

"Hey, Abuela. I have you."

"I'm your grandmother. You share me with Fernando and his family."

"You're all I need," Castillo said.

She would not give up.

"Colonel Munz has his family. Mr. McGuire has his family. Colonel Torine has his family. You don't even have a dog."

"If it will make you happy, I'll get a dog."

Now why the hell did I say that?

What the hell would I do with a dog?

The right engine of the Gulfstream began to whine.

Castillo placed his hands gently on Dona Alicia's arms, kissed her on both cheeks, and went up the stair door.

[FIVE] 7200 West Boulevard Drive

Alexandria, Virginia 2340 3 September 2005 "We're home, Colonel," the Secret Service driver of the Yukon said, gently pushing Castillo's shoulder.

Castillo's head jerked up. For a moment he was confused, and then he knew where he was.

In the front seat of the Yukon, in the basement of the house.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"You dozed off before we were out of the airport."

"You ever hear that only people with nothing on their conscience can go to sleep with no difficulty?"

The Secret Service agent chuckled.

"So what happens now?" Castillo asked.

"There's my relief," the Secret Service agent said, pointing to a man walking up to the Yukon. "I go off at midnight, in twenty minutes."

Max was walking to one side of the man, and looking at the truck.

"In that case, can I offer you a nightcap?" Castillo offered. "I'm about to have one. Which I richly deserve. This has been one hell of a day."

He sensed reluctance on the part of the Secret Service agent.

"If you have moral scruples against Demon Rum, then okay. Otherwise, consider that an order. I always feel depraved when I drink alone."

"I could use a little nip."

"Then come along."

Castillo's door opened as he reached for the handle.

"Good evening, sir," the Secret Service agent who had walked up to the Denali said.

Max effortlessly stood on his rear paws and put his forepaws on Castillo's legs.

"How are you, pal?" he asked, and scratched Max's ears.

Max sat down on his haunches.

"I see you've made a pal of Max," Castillo said to the Secret Service agent.

"He's been meeting every car that's come in here," the Secret Service agent said. "Obviously waiting for you. Until now, he's just taken a look and gone back upstairs."

"I probably smell like hamburger," Castillo said, and then asked: "You're going to be here all night? What did you do wrong?"

The Secret Service agent chuckled.

"Not to go any farther?"

Castillo nodded.

"We bid for the duty. This looked like a much better deal than spending all night sitting in the truck in the White House parking lot. Seniority counts, and I won."

"Well, the only person who can get me out of here tonight is the President, and I heard on the radio that he's on the Gulf Coast looking at hurricane damage, so why don't you find an empty bedroom and catch some sleep?"

"Maybe later, Colonel. Thank you."

"I have to be at the Nebraska Avenue Complex at eight. Is that going to screw up your getting relieved?"

"No, sir. If you're sure about that, I'll have my relief meet me there."

"Why don't you do that?"

He nodded.

The stairway from the garage led into the kitchen, and there was a door from the kitchen to the living room. When Castillo got close to it, Max brushed past him and pushed it open. Castillo motioned for the Denali driver to follow him. When he got inside, he was surprised to see Edgar Delchamps and a somewhat frumpy man Delchamps's age whom he didn't recognize. They were sitting in the leather chairs and couch around the battered coffee table, working on a bottle of Famous Grouse.

"Oh, Edgar, I'm touched," Castillo said. "You waited up for me!"

Neither man seemed amused.

"We need to talk, Ace," Delchamps said.

"Will it wait until we get a drink?"

"Yeah, but he'll have to drink his someplace else," Delchamps said, then looked at the Secret Service agent and added, "Nothing personal."

"Not a problem, sir. And I can pass on the drink."

"Have the drink," Castillo ordered.

Not another word was said until Castillo had poured two drinks, given one to the Secret Service agent, who downed it, then said, "Ah. Thank you, sir. And good evening, gentlemen."

He left the living room, closing the door behind him.

"Say hello to Milton Weiss, Ace," Delchamps said. "He and I go back a long way."

When they shook hands, Weiss's eyes were cold and penetrating. Castillo was reminded of the first time he'd met Aleksandr Pevsner. He wondered now-as he had then-whether the look in the eyes was natural, or whether it had been cultivated.

When you get that look, you know damned well you're really being examined.

Max walked up to Castillo and rubbed his head against Castillo's leg. Castillo scratched Max's ears and looked at Delchamps.

"And where is the master of this beast?"

"In the Monica Lewinsky Motel," Delchamps said.

"What?"

"Okay, Ace," Delchamps said, tolerating him. "Kocian consulted a canine gynecologist who confirmed that Madchen is in the family way. Which came as no surprise to those of us who watched the happy couple couple happily in the garden of the safe house for hours at a time.

"Said canine gynecologist offered his professional opinion that the lovers should now be separated, as Max cannot seem to grasp that his role in the procreation of his species is no longer required, and that Madchen is very likely going to take large pieces out of him if he continues to try to force his now unwanted attentions on her. How to do that?

"Kocian-having been advised by Miller that your suite in the Monica Lewinsky is empty but paid for through the end of the month-decided that he had enough of bucolic suburban life and had Miller take him and Madchen to the Mayflower, leaving Max here, his fate to be decided later."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo said.

"To answer your unspoken question: Yes, Herr Kocian is being sat upon. Miller will stay with him until we get the Secret Service in place. Have you any further questions, Colonel, or can we get on with this?"

"Get on with what?"

"Please tell Milton what steps you have taken vis-a-vis your little problem in Paraguay."

"I don't know who the hell Milton is."

"Trust me, Ace," Delchamps said sarcastically. "Milton Weiss is not a member of the drug mafia."

Castillo almost said, So what? but stopped. Instead, he asked, "Why?"

"Before you begin to apply damage control, Ace, it is convenient to know the extent of the damage."

Castillo looked at Delchamps but didn't say anything.

"Trust me, Charley," Delchamps said, this time very seriously.

If I don't go along with him now, he's entirely capable of telling me to go fuck myself, get up, and walk out of here and the OOA.

And I can't afford to lose him.

"Lorimer says," Castillo began, "and I think he's right, that they have Timmons in the sticks-on an estancia of some kind-in either Paraguay or across the river in Argentina. Not far from Asuncion, in other words. Someplace we can't easily-if at all-get to on the ground without being spotted.

"So the problem is, one, to find out where he is, and, two, to stage an operation to get him back.

"One, I hope, isn't going to be much of a problem. A very competent agency guy is already in Asuncion-"

"You mean the station chief?" Weiss interrupted.

"No, I mean a guy who works for me. The station chief in Asuncion is apparently…intellectually challenged. The guy I'm talking about knows his business."

Weiss nodded.

Castillo went on, "My guy is there-the phrase he used was 'To make sure the cork is back in the bottle'-because a very bright young DIA guy in Asuncion pretty much figured out another operation we ran down there, and my guy went to Asuncion on his own, to make sure nobody else in the embassy talks too much. My guy-"

"Milton and Alex Darby are old pals, Charley," Delchamps said.

Weiss nodded, and there was the hint of a smile on his lips.

Is he laughing at me?

"Darby will learn in about nine hours, maybe ten, about this new mission."

"How?" Weiss asked softly.

"From a…"

Oh, to hell with it!

"From a man named Munz, who used to run SIDE and who now works for me-"

"Good man, Milt," Delchamps said softly.

"-and is now on his way to Asuncion on our airplane. The airplane is also carrying radios-ours, with some incredible capabilities-"

"The ones you get from AFC?" Weiss asked.

Did this guy already know about the radios?

Or did Delchamps tell him?

Castillo nodded. "Which, with a little bit of luck, they'll be able to get into Paraguay. And with a little more luck, Munz and Darby will be able to get up and running.

"The fallback plan there is that if they can't smuggle the radios into Paraguay, Munz will arrange to see that we can get them into Argentina, and from there into Paraguay. And one of my sergeants-who can get the radio, radios, up and running-will be on the first plane to Asuncion tomorrow morning. That's if he couldn't get on the last plane today. And two Delta Force communicators were supposed to be on the 1130 Aerolineas flight from Miami to Buenos Aires tonight. They're going as tourists, with orders to report to a certain lady at our embassy…"

"Susanna isn't what comes to mind when one hears the phrase 'clandestine service,' is she?" Weiss said, smiling.

I don't think Delchamps told him about Susanna Sieno. And if I'm right, that means he knows a hell of a lot about what's going on down there.

Who is this guy?

"Cutting this short, if Alex Darby and Munz are half as good as I think they are, finding out where these bastards have Timmons won't take nearly as long as setting up the operation to get him back will take."

"Tell Milton how you plan to do that," Delchamps said.

"The only way to do that is with helicopters," Castillo said. "And the problem there is that we're going to have to use Hueys. Nobody in Argentina or Paraguay has Apaches or Black Hawks or Little Birds. The problem there is where to get the Hueys, and crews for them. I don't want to use active-duty Army pilots if I don't have to; same thing with the technical people.

"There used to be a long list of unemployed Huey drivers hanging around China Post…"

Castillo stopped and looked at Weiss to make sure he understood what he was talking about. Weiss nodded, just perceptibly, signaling he knew that China Post No. 1 (In Exile) of the American Legion, in addition to providing the camaraderie and other benefits of any Legion Post, also served as sort of an employment agency for retired special operators of the various branches of service.

"…but when I called there, a friend of mine said most of them are now either back in the service, or working for Blackwater or people like that, or the agency. He's trying to find me some chopper drivers, etcetera, but that may take some time, if it works at all.

"And then, presuming I can pull that rabbit magically from the hat, that leaves the problem of getting the aircraft and the people into Argentina black.

"Taking first things first, I'm going to Fort Rucker right after the briefing tomorrow-"

"What briefing?" Weiss asked.

"Montvale is gathering all the experts in his empire to give me everything they have on what's going on down there."

Weiss nodded. "And you're going to do what at Fort Rucker?"

"They have some Hueys. Montvale is going to have somebody from the secretary of Defense's office call down there and tell them to give me whatever I ask for, and not to ask questions. I'm going to see what's available and what shape it's in. And then I'm going to borrow an airplane and go see Ambassador Lorimer, who lost his house to Hurricane Katrina and wants to move to Estancia Shangri-La until he can get a new house in New Orleans. I've got to talk him out of that."

"I hadn't heard about that," Delchamps said.

"What are you going to do about shooters?" Weiss asked.

Castillo was surprised at first at Weiss's use of the term. Few people outside the special operations community used the politically incorrect term to describe special operators whose mission was likely to require the use of deadly force.

What the hell, he seems to know about everything else.

"My friend at China Post told me I just about wiped out the list of available shooters when I hired them to protect the Mastersons," Castillo said. "That assignment's just about over, but those guys are all getting a little long in the tooth, so I'm probably going to have to get my shooters from Delta at Fort Bragg. I already gave General McNab a heads-up."

"That's about it?" Weiss said.

"I probably could have gotten more done if I hadn't spent all that time playing the slots in Vegas," Castillo said.

Weiss smiled.

"You're right, Ed," he said. "He is a wiseass, but he's also good. Very good."

"Am I supposed to blush at the compliment?" Castillo challenged.

"The station chief in Asuncion is not intellectually challenged, Colonel," Weiss said.

"That's not my information," Castillo said. "If he's a friend of yours, I'm sorry."

"Jonathon Crawford's a very good friend of mine, actually," Weiss said. "And for that reason I was delighted to hear your unflattering opinion of him."

Castillo looked at him in confusion, then threw both hands up to signal he didn't understand.

Weiss explained: "If you-and more important, Alex Darby-didn't see through the image Jonathon has painted of himself as a mediocrity sent to an unimportant backwater post to keep him from causing trouble working beyond his limited ability somewhere important, then perhaps that very important deception is working."

Castillo looked at Delchamps.

"This is where you tell me what's going on here, Ed."

"We've got your attention now, do we, Ace?" He looked at Weiss. "Okay. Where do I start? You want to do this?"

"You do it. I don't think the colonel trusts me."

Delchamps nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment, then said: "When I was bringing you up to speed on the Cold War dinosaurs, Ace, I may have led you to believe that we all came out of Europe. Not so. There is a subspecies, Latin American, which is held with just about the same degree of suspicion and contempt by many people in Langley as are those of us who worked Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and points east. Milton here is one of these. Fair, Milton?"

"Actually, I think of myself more as a chasmatosaurus, rather than a dinosaur, but close enough."

"As a what?" Castillo asked.

"The chasmatosaurus was a crocodilelike meateater from the Triassic period," Weiss said. "Generally acknowledged to be far more lethal than the dinosaur, the proof being that their descendants are still eating dogs and the occasional child in Florida, Australia, and other places, whereas the dinosaurs are no longer with us."

"Whatever the paleontological distinction," Delchamps said, smiling at the look on Castillo's face, "these people recognize each other as noble persons facing extinction at the hands of the politically correct members of what is laughingly known as the 'Intelligence Community.' "Such was the case when Milton saw me rooting about in the South American files in Langley. He suggested that we have a drink for auld lang syne. And on the fourth drink, he idly inquired what I was looking for. Knowing him as well as I do, I asked him why he wanted to know.

"He said it had come to his attention that I had been in the Southern Cone, and he wanted to know what I could tell him to confirm or deny a credible rumor that Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia-dressed up as a Ninja at an estancia in Uruguay called Shangri-La-had been whacked by a bunch of special operators operating under a Presidential Finding."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo exclaimed softly.

"I asked him where he had heard this rumor, and he told me from his pal Crawford, and one thing led to another, and he told me why he was interested, and I told him what we have been up to in Gaucho Land."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo said again.

"I suppose you are aware, Colonel," Weiss said, "that you would not win any popularity contests held in Langley?"

Castillo nodded. "So I have been led to believe."

"If I were to tell you that you are a burr under the saddle blankets of two distinct groups of people over there, would that come as a shock to you?"

"Two distinct groups?"

"Group One, as I suspect you know, is composed of those annoyed because you (a) found that stolen 727 they couldn't, thereby splattering a good deal of egg on the agency's face, and (b) you-the Office of Organizational Analysis-is operating under the authority of that Presidential Finding, which among other things has seen Ambassador Montvale give this dinosaur"-he pointed at Delchamps-"blanket access to anything he wants at Langley.

"Group Two-which, as hard as you may find this to believe, I don't think you know about-is a bunch of good guys who are running an important operation they feel you are about to fuck up by the numbers while trying to get this DEA agent back."

"What kind of an important operation? And why hasn't Montvale told me about it?"

"Montvale doesn't know about it," Weiss said. "He's almost as unpopular over there as you are. For a number of reasons, the most obvious being that he's now over the agency. The DCI isn't even number two; just one more subordinate chief of agency, like the heads of DIA and DEA."

"What's this important operation?"

"How much do you know about the drug trade?" Weiss asked.

"Virtually nothing," Castillo admitted.

"Okay. Basic Drugs 101. The agency estimates-and this sort of thing is what the agency is really good at-Afghanistan will have half a million acres devoted to the growing of Papaver somniferum L., or the poppy. Opium is obtained from the unripe poppy seed pods, and then converted to heroin. Afghanistan grows more than ninety percent of poppies used in the heroin drug trade.

"Most of the other eight or nine percent is grown-and converted to heroin-in Colombia and Bolivia. This is sold, primarily, in the East Coast cities here. Most of the stuff consumed in Hollywood and other temples of culture on the West Coast is grown and processed in Mexico, and is not nearly as pure as what's sold on the East Coast.

"Quality, as well as supply and demand, determines price. Will you take my word for it, Colonel, that there's a hell of a lot of money being spent on heroin on the East Coast?"

Castillo nodded.

"One-I guess several-of the good guys I mentioned before took a close look at the business and came up with several questions. Some were pretty obvious. Why are the heroin people in Bolivia sending their product south, into Paraguay and then Argentina, when the market's in New York City, in the other direction?

"The Colombians send most of their product into Mexico. The Mexicans don't seem to be able to stop much-if any-of that traffic. It has been suggested that the authorities have been bought. But whatever the reason, getting their product into Mexico and then across the border into the United States doesn't seem to pose much of a problem. Possibly because our overworked Customs and Border Protection people working the border-crossing points just can't inspect more than a tiny fraction of the thousands of eighteen-wheelers coming into the country every day.

"Or an even smaller fraction of the cars of the tourists returning home from a happy holiday south of the border. You have that picture, Colonel?"

"Ed calls me Charley, Mr. Weiss."

"I thought he called you Ace? You don't like being called colonel, Colonel?"

"Not the way you pronounce it."

"That's probably because I'm having trouble thinking of you as a colonel; you don't look old enough to be a colonel. When Ed and I were running around together, the colonels we dealt with had gray hair-if they had hair at all-and paunches. No offense was intended."

"You won't mind, right, Milton, if I don't believe that?"

"You are a feisty youngster, aren't you? Aren't you, Charley?"

"Better, Milton. Better."

"Getting back to the subject at hand, Charley. On the other hand, Argentina does have a working drug-interdiction program. They even have a remarkably honest-honest by South American standards-police organization called the Gendarmeria Nacional.

"So why run the greater risk?

"Looking into it further, the good guys learned a little more about the flow of drugs through Argentina and into the U.S., and the manner of doing business. Normally-you've seen the movies-it's a cash business. The farmers sell the raw material-that stuff that oozes out of the poppy seed pods-to the refiners. They don't get much for it, but they get paid in cash. Next step, normally, is for the refiners to either sell what is now heroin to someone who shows up at the refinery and carries it off. That is also a cash transaction. Or they take it someplace away from the refinery and sell it there. That's where you see those briefcases full of money in the movies.

"Every time the product changes hands, in other words, so does cash. Usually.

"This didn't seem to be happening with the drugs coming out of Paraguay into Argentina, either when it arrived from the refiners, or when the movers got it into Argentina, or when it left Argentina. The first time money changed hands was when the movers had it in the States and turned it over to the wholesalers. Then we had the briefcases full of hundred-dollar bills.

"So what could be inferred from this? That it was being operated in what the Harvard School of Business Administration would call a vertically integrated manner. The whole process-from initial receipt of the product from the refiner, through the movement to Uruguay, to Argentina, to the United States and the sale there-was under one roof.

"The refiners, the movers, the smugglers, and the transporters, rather than being independent businessmen, were all employees."

"What's the purpose of that? What difference does it make?" Castillo asked.

Weiss held up his hand, signaling he didn't want to be interrupted.

"Another problem businessmen involved in this trade have is what to do with the money once they have sold the product. It cannot be dropped into an ATM machine, for obvious reasons. And, to get it into one of those offshore banks we hear so much about, it has to be transferred through a bank; no cash deposits allowed.

"Unless, of course, the bank is also in the vertically integrated system."

"You mean they own the bank?"

Weiss nodded.

"And that raised the question, among many others, in the good guys' minds, 'Where did all this come from?' Drug dealers are smart, ruthless, and enterprising, but very few of them have passed through Cambridge and learned to sing 'On, Fair Harvard!' "That suggested something very interesting," Weiss went on, "that it was not a group of Colombian thugs with gold chains around their necks who were running this operation, but some very clever people who may indeed have gone to Harvard and were employed by their government. Two governments came immediately to mind."

"Which?"

"The Democratic People's Republic of Cuba and the Russian Federation."

"Jesus H. Christ!"

"Another thing needed to run this operation smoothly, Charley," Delchamps said, "is discipline. The employees-especially the local hires-had to completely understand that any hanky-panky would get them, and their families, whacked."

"Lorimer told me that Timmons's driver-"

"Timmons?" Weiss interrupted.

Just as Weiss had a moment before, Castillo held up his hand imperiously, signaling he didn't want to be interrupted.

Delchamps chuckled, and Weiss, smiling, shook his head.

"-was garroted," Castillo finished, "with a metal garrote."

"Interesting!" Weiss said. "Stasi?"

"And that might explain what Major Vincenzo and the others were doing at Shangri-La," Castillo said. "Maybe he didn't come from Cuba for that. Maybe he-and the others-were already in Paraguay."

"And," Delchamps added, "since Lorimer wasn't involved with drugs-they wanted to shut his mouth about what he knew of the oil-for-food scam-and Vincenzo was, that suggests there's a connection. Somebody who wanted Lorimer dead was able to order Vincenzo and company to do it."

"And we have the two dead FSB lieutenant colonels," Castillo said.

"Ed somehow neglected to mention two dead FSB officers," Weiss said.

"I didn't think you needed to know," Delchamps said.

Weiss rolled his eyes.

"Who were they?"

"One of the colonel's crack pistol marksmen, a chap named Bradley," Delchamps said with a straight face, "took down Yevgeny Komogorov-"

"Of the FSB's Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight Against Terrorism?" Weiss asked drily.

Delchamps nodded as he went on: "-in the Sheraton Hotel garage in Pilar, outside Buenos Aires. Colonel Komogorov was at the time apparently bent on whacking a fellow Russian by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner-"

"Pevsner?" Weiss asked, incredulously.

With an even more imperious gesture than Castillo had given, Delchamps held up his hand to signal he didn't want to be interrupted.

Castillo laughed.

Delchamps went on: "-when Bradley put a.45 round in his cheek"-he pointed to a spot immediately below his left eye-"and then Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov was found beaten to death in the Conrad Casino and Resort in Punta del Este."

Weiss's face showed surprise, and perhaps revulsion.

"Not by us, Milton," Delchamps said. "Do I have to tell you that?"

"By who?"

"He was found in the company of a man named Howard Kennedy, who also had been beaten to death. There's a rumor going around that Kennedy was foolish enough to have tried to arrange the whacking of his employer, Mr. Pevsner."

"Either one of them could have been running Vincenzo," Castillo said thoughtfully.

Weiss considered that, then nodded.

"All of this seems to fit very nicely together," Weiss said. "But the bottom line is that nothing is going to be done about it. The Cubans-if they said anything at all-would say that Vincenzo hasn't been in the Direccion General de Inteligencia for years. The Russians will say they never heard of either Zhdankov or Komogorov."

"What's your point?" Castillo asked.

"The name of the game is to make the other guys hurt," Weiss said.

"Okay. But so what?" Castillo said.

"Let me return to Basic Drugs 101," Weiss said, "since bringing these bad guys before the bar of justice just isn't going to happen. Neither of you has any idea what happens to the heroin once it gets to Argentina, do you?"

Delchamps and Castillo shook their heads.

"The intellectually challenged station chief in Asuncion has figured that out," Weiss said. "Has either of you ever wondered how many filet mignon steaks are in the coolers of a cruise ship like, for example, the Holiday Spirit of the Southern Cruise Line? I'll give you a little clue. She carries 2,680 passengers, and a crew of some twelve hundred."

"A lot, Milton?" Delchamps asked innocently.

"Since she makes twelve-day cruises out of Miami about the sunny Caribbean, each of which features two steak nights, and filet mignon is an ever-present option on her luncheon and dinner menus, yeah, Edgar, 'a lot.' "And has either of you ever wondered where they get all this meat-or the grapefruits and oranges from which is squeezed the fresh juice for the 2,680 breakfasts served each day, etcetera, etcetera?"

"Argentina?" Castillo asked innocently.

"You win the cement bicycle, Charley," Weiss said. "And have either of you ever wondered how all those filet mignons make their way from the Argentine pampas to the coolers of the Holiday Spirit and her many sister ships?"

Castillo and Delchamps waited for him to go on.

"I left out the succulent oysters, lobsters, and other fruits of the sea sent from the chilly Chilean South Pacific seas to the coolers of the Holiday Spirit and her sister ships," Weiss said.

"You're forgiven," Delchamps said. "Get on with it."

"Air freight!" Weiss said. "Large aircraft-some of them owned by Aleksandr Pevsner, by the way-make frequent, sometimes daily flights from Buenos Aires to Jamaica loaded with chilled but not frozen meat and other victuals for the cruise ship trade."

"Jesus!" Castillo said, sensing where Weiss was headed.

"We all know how wonderful Argentine beef is, and how cheap. And most cruise ships-just about all of the Southern Cruise Line ships, and there are four of these, the smallest capable of carrying eleven hundred passengers-call at Montego Bay or Kingston, or both, on each and every voyage. Kingston is served by Norman Manley International Airfield, and Montego Bay by Sangster International.

"While the happy tourists-is there a word for the people who ride these floating hotels? Cruisers, maybe?-are wandering through the picturesque streets of Kingston and Montego Bay, soaking up culture and taking pictures for the folks back home, the hardworking Jamaican gnomes are moving loins of Argentine beef from refrigerator plants, and occasionally-if yesterday's flight from Buenos Aires was delayed for some reason-directly from the airplane to the coolers on the cruise ships."

"And under the ice is that day's shipment of heroin," Delchamps said.

"Edgar, you've always been just terrible about thinking such awful things are going on," Weiss said, mock innocently.

"And how do they get it off the ship in the States?" Castillo asked.

"There are several ways to do that," Weiss said. "One is with the ship's garbage and sewage, which now has to be brought ashore, rather than as before, when it was tossed overboard, thereby polluting the pristine waters of the Atlantic. Or, in the wee hours of the morn, as the vessel approaches Miami, it is dumped over the side, to be retrieved later by sportfishermen. Global Positioning System satellites are very helpful to the retrievers."

"And where is the DEA, or the Coast Guard, or whoever is supposed to be dealing with this sort of thing while all this is going on?" Castillo asked.

"So far they don't know about it," Weiss said, and Castillo sensed that suddenly Weiss had become dead serious, that his joking attitude had just been shut off as if a switch had been thrown.

And he made some remark before about Montvale-who was supposed to be on top of everything going on in the intelligence community-not knowing about an "important operation."

What the hell is going on?

Weiss met Castillo's eyes for a moment, and Castillo was again reminded of Aleksandr Pevsner.

"And we don't want them to know about it," Weiss went on.

"Are you going to tell me about that?" Castillo asked carefully.

"That's why I'm here, Castillo. I told you, you're in a position to fuck up an important operation. But before I get into that, I want you to understand this conversation never took place."

"I can't go along with that."

"You don't have any choice," Weiss said. "I'll deny it. And so will Delchamps."

"That leaves out the Secret Service guy you ran off," Castillo said. "He saw you here."

"He saw Delchamps and me taking a walk down memory lane. That's all. Paraguay and Timmons never came up."

Castillo looked at Delchamps.

"I gave him my word, Ace. Not for auld lang syne, but because it was the only way I could get him to come."

"I'm not giving you my word about anything," Castillo said. "And that specifically includes me not going to Montvale and telling him you're withholding intelligence I should have."

"Before this gets unpleasant, let me tell you about the important operation," Weiss said. "The bottom line, Castillo, is that it'll be your call."

"Tell me about the operation," Castillo said.

"There's a hell of a lot of money involved here," Weiss said. "A goodly share of the proceeds go to support the Direccion General de Inteligencia, which means the FSB doesn't have to support it as much as it has been. And that's important, because the FSB's ability to fund clandestine operations, Islamic extremists, etcetera, has been greatly reduced since we went into Iraq and cut off their oil-for-food income.

"And the DGI is supporting its sister service in the Republic of Venezuela, which I presume you know is about to become the People's Democratic Republic of Venezuela under Colonel Chavez, whose heroes are Fidel Castro, Josef Stalin, and Vladimir Putin.

"And the profits left over after the DGI gets what it needs go to the FSB's secret kitty, which supports, among other things, all those ex-Stasi and ex-AVO people who are causing trouble all over.

"Another way to put this is that if it wasn't for all this drug income they're getting, the FSB would have its operations seriously curtailed."

"Then my question is, why don't you confide in the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, whoever, what you know about this operation and have them stop it?" Castillo said.

Then he saw Delchamps shake his head, and then the look on Delchamps's face. It said, Not smart, Ace!

"Because," Weiss said, his face and tone suggesting he was being very patient with a backward student, "even if they did find a cooler full of coke on the Holiday Spirit-and their record of finding anything isn't very good-all that would happen is that we would add a dozen or so people to our prison population."

"So what's the alternative?"

"International Maritime Law provides for the seizure of vessels-including aircraft-involved in the international illicit drug trade."

"You want to grab Pevsner's airplanes?"

"That, too, but what we want to grab is the Holiday Spirit and her sister ships. Do you have any idea how much one of those floating palaces costs?"

Castillo shook his head to admit he didn't, then asked, "How are you going to do that?"

"Prove their owners were aware of the purpose to which they had put their ships."

"How are you going to that? They're not registered to Vladimir Putin."

"They're registered to a holding company in Panama," Weiss said. "And proving that Putin controlled that would be difficult, but that doesn't matter. All we have to prove is that the owners knew what was going on; that it was illegal. The owners lose the ship. The Holiday Spirit cost a little over three hundred and fifty million."

"And how are you going to prove the owners knew?"

"The operation could not be carried on without the captain being aware of what was going on."

"But the captains don't own their ships, do they?"

"No. But they don't get command of a ship except from the owners."

"Okay."

"The FSB was not about to entrust a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar ship to some stranger. They wanted their own man running things, and they didn't want him to come from the Saint Petersburg Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union because people might start wondering what the Russians were doing running a cruise ship operation out of Miami.

"So they provided reliable, qualified masters with phony documents saying they were Latvians, or Estonians, or Poles."

"That sounds pretty far-fetched."

"You're a pilot, right? You just flew a Gulfstream Three to Argentina and back, right?"

Castillo nodded.

"Anybody ask to see your pilot's license?"

Castillo shook his head.

"Anybody ever ask to see your pilot's license?"

Castillo shook his head again.

"You're flying an eight-, ten-million-dollar airplane, you're given the benefit of the doubt, right?"

"Okay."

"You bring a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar ship into port, everybody's going to say he must be an 'any tonnage, any ocean' master mariner, right? And proved this to the owners-otherwise, they would not have given him their ship, right?"

Castillo nodded once again.

"We have proof that the master of the Holiday Spirit and four of his officers gained their nautical experience in the submarine service of the Navy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and are not Latvians, Estonians, or Poles, or using the names they were born with.

"Now, all we have to do is prove that the owners knew this, and that said officers were actively involved in the smuggling of controlled substances into the United States…"

"How are you going to do that?"

"By having people on the Holiday Spirit. Filipino seamen come cheap. Getting them onto the Holiday Spirit took some doing, but they're in place. And they have been compiling intel-including pictures of the ship's officers checking the incoming drugs, and putting them over the side-for some time. When we're absolutely sure we have enough to go to the Maritime Court in The Hague, we're going to blow the whistle.

"Unless, of course, you go down there and start making waves causing the system to go on hold. Which would mean we would have to start all over again from scratch."

"And you don't want me to make waves, is that it?"

"It's a question of priority."

"The President wants Timmons freed."

"So I understand."

"The only person who can call off my operation is the President," Castillo said simply. "And I don't think he will. And talking about waves, if I go to him with this, and he hears the company is withholding intel like this from Montvale, you'll have a tsunami."

"You were listening, I trust, when I told you we never had this conversation?"

Castillo nodded.

Weiss went on: "Montvale will be pissed on two accounts-first, that he's been kept in the dark, and second, that you let the President know he didn't know what was going on under his nose. When the company denies any knowledge of this, where does that leave you with Montvale? Or the President?"

"You're suggesting I go down there and go through the motions, but don't really try to get Timmons back?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, Colonel," Weiss said. "But it's pretty clear to me that if you go down there and pull a professional operation to get this DEA guy back, it's going to tell these people that they have attracted attention they don't want. They'll go in a caution mode, and we don't want that."

He stood up and looked at Castillo.

"See you at the briefing tomorrow," he said. "I've been selected to brief you."

"What you're suggesting, Weiss, is that I just leave Timmons swinging in the breeze."

"People get left swinging in the breeze all the time," Weiss said. "You know that as well as I do. I told you before, this is your call. One guy sometimes gets fucked for the common good."

Weiss looked at Delchamps.

"Always good to see you, Ed. We'll have to do lunch or something real soon."

And then he walked out of the room.

Castillo looked at Delchamps.

"Thanks a lot, Ed."

"If you want me to, Ace, I'll go with you to Montvale. Or the President. Or both."

Castillo looked at him with a raised eyebrow but didn't say anything.

"I said I went back a long way with Weiss. That's not the same thing as saying I liked him then, or like him now. And I don't like the smell of his operation."

He paused to let that sink in.

"That being said, I don't think that Montvale will believe you, or me, and his first reaction will be to cover his ass."

"What if there were three witnesses to that fascinating conversation?" Dick Miller asked, coming into the living room from the den. "I'm a wounded hero. Would that give me credence?"

"How long have you been in there?" Castillo asked.

"I got back here just as the Secret Service guy got booted out," Miller said. "And curiosity overwhelmed me."

"I still don't think that Montvale would believe you, me, or the wounded hero," Delchamps said, "and that his first reaction would be to cover his ass."

"So what do I do?"

"You're asking for my advice, Ace?"

"Humbly seeking same."

Delchamps nodded and said, "Aside from calling off Jake Torine and Munz, nothing. Give yourself some time to think it over. Hear what Weiss says at the briefing tomorrow."

"You better call off Munz and Torine," Miller agreed. "I don't think Darby and Solez are a problem. They don't know you've been ordered to get Timmons back. They went to Asuncion to shut mouths; that's to be expected."

"Let's hope Aloysius's radio works," Castillo said. "I told Torine to go right to Asuncion. They're probably already over the Caribbean."

He pushed himself out of his chair, picked up his mostly untouched drink, and walked to the den.

Max followed him.