I
[ONE]
Danubius Hotel Gellért
Szent Gellért tér 1 Budapest, Hungary
0035 1 August 2005
When he heard the ping of the bell announcing the arrival of an elevator in the lobby of the Gellért, Sándor Tor, who was the director of security for the Budapester Neue Tages Zeitung, raised his eyes from a copy of the newspaper—so fresh from the presses that his fingers were stained with ink—to see who would be getting off.
He was not at all surprised to see that it was Eric Kocian, managing director and editor in chief of the newspaper. The first stop of the first Tages Zeitung delivery truck to leave the plant was the Gellért.
The old man must have been looking out his window again, Tor thought, waiting to see the truck arrive.
Tor was a burly fifty-two-year-old with a full head of curly black hair and a full mustache. He wore a dark blue single-breasted suit carefully tailored to conceal the Swiss SIGARMS P228 9mm semiautomatic pistol he carried in a high-ride hip holster.
He looked like a successful businessman with a very good tailor, but he paled beside Eric Kocian, who stepped off the elevator into the Gellért lobby wearing an off-white linen suit with a white shirt, a white tie held to the collar with a discreet gold pin, soft white leather slip-on shoes, a white panama hat—the wide brim rakishly up on the right and down on the left—and carrying a sturdy knurled cane with a brass handle in the shape of a well-bosomed female.
Kocian was accompanied by a large dog. The dog was shaped like a boxer, but he was at least a time and a half—perhaps twice—as large as a big boxer, and his coat was grayish black and tightly curled.
Kocian walked to a table in the center of the lobby where a stack of the Tages Zeitung had been placed, picked up a copy carefully—so as not to soil his well-manicured fingers—and examined the front page.
Then he folded the newspaper and extended it to the dog.
“You hold it awhile, Max,” he said. “Your tongue is already black.”
Then he turned and, resting both hands on the cane, carefully surveyed the lobby.
He found what he was looking for—Sándor Tor—sitting in an armchair in a dark corner of the lobby. Kocian pointed his cane at arm’s length at Tor, not unlike a cavalry officer leading a charge, and walked quickly toward him. The dog, newspaper in his mouth, never left Kocian’s side.
Six feet from Tor, Kocian stopped and, without lowering the cane, said, “Sándor, I distinctly remember telling you that I would not require your services anymore today and to go home.”
A lesser man would have been cowed. Sándor Tor did not. As a young man, he had done a hitch in the French Foreign Legion and subsequently had never been cowed by anyone or anything.
He pushed himself far enough out of the armchair to reach the dog’s head, scratched his ears, and said, “How goes it, Max?” Then he looked up at Kocian and said, “You have been known to change your mind, Úr Kocian.”
“This is not one of those rare occasions,” Kocian said. He let that sink in and then added: “But since you are already here, you might as well take us—on your way home—to the Franz Joséf Bridge.”
With that, Kocian turned on his heel and walked quickly to the entrance. Max trotted to keep up with him.
Tor got out of his chair as quickly as he could and started after him.
My God, he’s eighty-two!
As he walked, Tor took a cellular telephone from his shirt pocket, pushed an autodial button, and held the telephone to his ear.
“He’s on the way to the car,” he said without preliminary greeting. “He wants me to drop him at the Szabadság híd. Pick him up on the other side.”
The Szabadság híd, the Freedom Bridge, across the Danube River was are-creation of the original 1899 bridge that had been destroyed—as had all the other bridges over the Danube—in the bitter fighting of World War II. It had been named after Franz Joséf, then king and emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was the first to be rebuilt, as close to the original as possible, and, when completed in 1946, had been renamed the Freedom Bridge.
Eric Kocian simply refused to accept the name change.
“If the communists were happy with that Freedom name, there’s obviously something wrong with it,” he had said more than once. “Franz Joséf may have been a sonofabitch, but, compared to the communists, he was a saint.”
There was a silver Mercedes-Benz S500 sitting just outside the door of the Gellért.
For a moment, Sándor Tor was afraid that the old man had grown impatient and decided to walk. Then there came a long blast on the horn.
Tor quickly trotted around the front of the car and got behind the wheel. Kocian was in the front passenger’s seat. Max, still with the newspaper in his mouth, was sitting up in the backseat.
“Where the hell have you been?” Kocian demanded.
“I had to take a leak.”
“You should have taken care of that earlier,” Kocian said.
It wasn’t far at all from the door of the Gellért to the bridge, but if Kocian had elected to walk he would have had to cross the road paralleling the Danube, down which traffic often flew.
The old man wasn’t concerned for himself, Tor knew, but for the dog. One of Max’s predecessors—there had been several, all the same breed, Bouvier des Flandres, all named Max—had been run over and killed on that highway.
It was a standard joke around the Gellért and the Budapester Tages Zeitung that the only thing the old man loved was his goddamned dog and that the only living thing that could possibly love the old man was his goddamned dog.
Sándor Tor knew better. Once, Tor had heard a pressman parrot the joke and had grabbed him by the neck, forced his head close to the gears of the running press, and promised the next time he heard him running his mouth he’d feed him to the press.
“Turn on the flashers when you stop,” Kocian ordered as the Mercedes approached the bridge, “and I’ll open the doors for Max and myself, thank you very much.”
“Yes, Úr Kocian.”
“And don’t hang around to see if Max and I can make it across the bridge without your assistance. Go home.”
“Yes, Úr Kocian.”
“And in the morning, be on time for once.”
“I will try, Úr Kocian.”
“Good night, Sándor. Sleep well.”
“Thank you, Úr Kocian.”
Tor watched in the right side rearview mirror as Kocian and the dog started across the bridge. Tor already had his cellular in his hand. He pressed the autodial button again.
Across the river, Ervin Rákosi’s cellular vibrated in his pocket, causing the wireless speaker bud in his ear to ring. He pushed one of the phone’s buttons—it did not matter which since he had programmed the device to answer calls whenever any part of the keypad was depressed—and heard Tor’s voice come through the earbud:
“They’re on the bridge.”
“Got him, Sándor.”
“He’ll be watching me, so I’ll have to go up the Vámház körút as far as Pipa before I can turn.”
“I told you I have him, Sándor.”
“Just do what I tell you to do. I’ll pick him up when he passes Sóház.”
“Any idea where he’s going?”
“Absolutely none.”
It was Eric Kocian’s custom to take Max for a walk before retiring, which usually meant they left the Gellért around half past eleven. Almost always, they walked across the bridge, and, almost always, they stopped in a café, bar, or restaurant for a little sustenance. Lately, they’d been going to the Képíró, a narrow restaurant/bar which offered good jazz, Jack Daniel’s Black Label bourbon, and a menu pleasing to Max, who was fond of hard sausage.
But that was no guarantee they’d be going there tonight, and if Sándor Tor had asked the old man where he was going the old man would either have told him it was none of his goddamned business or lied.
In fact, it was Sándor Tor’s business to know where the old man was and where he was going, and to keep him from harm. His orders to protect Eric Kocian—“Cost be damned, and, for God’s sake, don’t let the old man know he’s being protected”—had come from Generaldirektor Otto Görner of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., the German holding company that owned, among a good deal else, half a dozen newspapers, including the Budapester Neue Tages Zeitung.
When he came off the bridge, Tor saw Ervin Rákosi’s dark green Chrysler Grand Caravan at the first intersection in a position from which Rákosi could see just about all of the bridge. He continued up the Vámház körút for two blocks and then made a right turn onto Pipa. He circled the block, on toward Sóház U, pulled to the curb behind a panel truck half a block from Vámház körút, and turned off the headlights.
Tor’s cellular buzzed.
“He’s almost at Sóház U,” Rákosi reported.
“I’m fifty meters from the intersection,” Tor’s voice said in Rákosi’s earbud.
Thirty seconds later, Eric Kocian and Max appeared, walking briskly up the steep incline.
One of these days, Tor thought, he’s going to do that and have a heart attack.
Tor reported: “He just went past. Follow him and see where he goes.”
Thirty seconds after that, the Chrysler came slowly up Vámház körút.
Sixty seconds after that, Rákosi reported, “He’s turned onto Királyi Pál. It looks as if he is going to the Képíró.”
“Don’t follow him. Drive around the block and then down Képíró U.”
Tor backed away from the panel truck and then drove onto Vámház körút and turned right. When he drove past Királyi Pál, he saw Eric Kocian turning onto Képíró.
A moment later, Rákosi reported: “He went in.”
“Okay,” Tor ordered, “you find someplace to park where you can catch him when he comes out. I’ll park, and see if I can look into the restaurant.”
“Got it,” Rákosi said.
Tor found the darkened doorway—he had used it before—from which he could see into the Képíró restaurant.
Kocian was sitting at a small table between the bar and the door. A jazz quartet was set up between his table and the bar. There was a bottle of whiskey on the table and a bottle of soda water, and, as Tor watched, a waiter delivered a plate of food.
Sausage for the both of them, Tor knew. Kielbasa for the old man and some kind of hard sausage for Max. Kocian cut a slice of the kielbasa for himself and put it in his mouth. Max laid a paw on the old man’s leg. Kocian sawed at the hard sausage until there was a thumb-sized piece on his fork. He extended the fork to Max, who delicately pulled off the treat. Kocian patted the dog’s head.
A procession of people—including three hookers, one at a time—entering and leaving the restaurant paused by Kocian’s chair and shook his hand or allowed him to kiss theirs. The more courageous of them patted Max’s head. Kocian always rose to his feet to accept the greetings of the hookers, but as long as Tor had been guarding him he had never taken one back to the Gellért with him.
In Vienna, he had an “old friend” who was sometimes in his apartment—most often, coming out of it—when Tor went to get him in the mornings. She was a buxom redhead in her late fifties. Kocian never talked about her and Tor never asked.
The band took a break and the bandleader came over to Kocian’s table, patted Max, and had a drink of Kocian’s Jack Daniel’s. When the break was over, the bandleader returned to his piano and Kocian resumed cutting the sausages—a piece for him and a piece for Max—as he listened to the music, often tapping his fingers on the table.
Tor knew that the old man usually stayed just over an hour and had gone into the restaurant a few minutes before one o’clock. So, glancing at his watch and seeing that it was ten minutes to two, he had just decided it was about time for the old man to leave when he saw him gesturing for the check.
Tor took out his cellular, pressed the autodial key, and said, “He’s just called for the check.”
“Let’s hope he goes home,” Rákosi replied.
“Amen,” Tor said. “You get in a position to watch him on the bridge. I’ll stay here and let you know which way he’s headed.”
“Done,” Rákosi said.
Eric Kocian and Max came out of the Képíró five minutes later and headed down the street toward Királyi Pál, strongly suggesting he was headed for home.
Tor watched him until he turned onto Királyi Pál, called Rákosi to report Kocian’s location, and then trotted to where he had parked the silver Mercedes.
He had just gotten into the car when Rákosi reported that the old man was about to get on the bridge.
He had driven no more than four minutes toward Vámház körút when his phone vibrated.
“Trouble,” Rákosi reported.
“On the way.”
Tor accelerated rapidly down the Vámház körút and was almost at the bridge when he saw that something was going on just about in the center of the bridge.
Max and the old man had a man down on the sidewalk and the man was beating at the animal’s head with a pistol.
Rákosi’s Chrysler Grand Caravan was almost on them.
And then a car—a black or dark blue Mercedes that had been coming toward Sándor Tor—stopped and a man jumped out and, holding a pistol with two hands, fired at the old man and the dog.
Rákosi made a screaming U-turn, jumped out, and started firing at the Mercedes as it began to speed away.
“I’ll get the old man,” Sándor Tor said into his cellular. “You get the bastards in the Mercedes. Ram them if you have to.”
Rákosi didn’t reply, but Tor saw him jump back into the Chrysler.
Tor pulled his Mercedes to the curb.
The old man was sitting down as if he had been knocked backward. Tor saw blood staining the shoulder of his white suit.
The man on the ground was still fighting Max, whose massive jaws were locked on his arm.
Tor jumped out of the Mercedes, taking his pistol from its holster as he moved.
He took aim at the man Max had down, then changed his mind. He went to the man and swung the pistol hard against the back of his head.
The man went limp.
Tor looked down the bridge and saw that both the attackers’ Mercedes and Rákosi’s Chrysler had disappeared.
He punched another autodial button on his cellular, a number he wasn’t supposed to have.
“Inspector Lázár,” he announced. “Supervisor needs assistance. Shots fired on the Szabadság híd. One citizen down. Require ambulance.”
So far as Tor knew, there was no Inspector Lázár on the Budapest police force. But that would get an immediate response, he knew. Before he had gone to work for the Tages Zeitung, he had been Inspector Sándor Tor.
He went to the old man. The dog was whimpering. There was a bloody wound on his skull.
Christ, I only hit that bastard once and he was out. I saw him beating on Max’s head and Max never let loose.
That dog’s not whimpering because he’s in pain. He’s whimpering because he knows something is wrong with the old man.
“An ambulance is on the way, Úr Kocian,” Tor said.
“Sándor, I need a great favor.”
“Anything, Úr Kocian. I should not have let this happen.”
“What you should have done is gone home when I told you.”
“Do you want to lie down until the ambulance gets here?”
“Of course not. The first thing I want you to do is call Dr. Kincs, Max’s veterinarian, and tell him you’re bringing Max in for emergency treatment.”
“Of course. Just as soon as I get you to the hospital—”
“The Telki Private Hospital. Don’t let them take me to the goddamned Szent János Kórház. They’d never let Max stay with me there.”
“All gunshot victims are taken to Szent János Kórház,” Tor said.
“And you can’t fix that?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Jesus Christ, what are we paying you for?” the old man demanded and then ordered: “Help me to my feet.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Úr Kocian.”
“I didn’t ask for an opinion, goddamn you, Sándor! Do what you’re told! Get me the hell out of here before the police show up.”
The old man winced with pain as he tried to get to his feet.
A police car—a Volkswagen Jetta—came onto the bridge. It pulled up beside the silver Mercedes and a sergeant and the driver got out.
“What’s happened?” the sergeant demanded.
“That man and two others tried to rob Úr Kocian,” Tor said.
“Who are you?”
“Sándor Tor, director of security of the Tages Zeitung,” Sándor said as he reached down and pulled Eric Kocian erect.
“What are you doing?” the sergeant said.
“I’m taking Úr Kocian to the hospital.”
“An ambulance is on the way.”
“I can’t wait. Take that slime to the station and I’ll come there,” Tor said.
He half carried the old man to the Mercedes, hoping the sergeant was not going to give him trouble.
“I’ll meet you at the Szent János Kórház,” the sergeant said.
“Fine,” Tor said.
I’ll worry about that later.
The old man crawled into the backseat. Max got in and jumped on the seat and started to lick his face.
Sándor closed the door and then got behind the wheel.
“Take Max to Dr. Kincs first,” the old man ordered.
“You’re going to the hospital first. I’ll take care of Max.”
“Not one goddamned word of this is to get to Otto Görner, you understand?”
At that moment, Tor had just finished deciding that he would call Görner the moment the doctors started to work on the old man at the Telki Private Hospital.
“I’m not sure I can do that, Úr Kocian. He’ll have to know sometime.”
“I’ll call him as I soon as I can. I’ll tell him I fell down the stairs. Fell over Max and then down the stairs. He’ll believe that.”
“Why can’t I tell him?”
“Because he would immediately get in the way of me getting the bastards who did this to me.”
“You know who they are?”
“I’ve got a pretty good goddamned idea. They know I’ve been nosing around. They want to know how much I know about the oil-for-food outrage. Why do you think they tried to kidnap me?”
“Kidnap you?”
“The sonofabitch who came after me on the bridge had a hypodermic needle.”
“A hypodermic needle?” Tor parroted.
“It’s in my jacket pocket,” the old man said. “When we get to the hospital, take it and find out what it is.”
“They were going to drug you?”
“They only started shooting after Max and I grabbed the bastard on the bridge. Jesus Christ, Sándor, do you need a map? They were going to take me someplace to see what I know and where my evidence is. When they had that, then they were going to put me in the Danube.”
“Where is your evidence?”
“In my apartment.”
“Where in your apartment?”
“If I told you, then you’d know,” the old man said. “Someplace safe.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
“No. Can’t you drive any faster? I’m getting a little woozy.”
A moment later, Sándor looked in the backseat.
The old man was unconscious. Max was standing over him, gently licking his face as if trying to wake him.
Sándor turned and looked forward again, and thought, Please, God, don’t let him die!
He pushed another autodial button on the cellular, praying it was the right one.
“Telki Private Hospital.”
“I’m bringing an injured man to the emergency room. Be waiting for me,” Tor ordered.
Five minutes later, he pulled the Mercedes up at the emergency entrance of the Telki Private Hospital. A gurney, a doctor, and a nurse were outside the door.
Tor helped the doctor get the old man on the gurney.
“He’s been shot,” the doctor announced.
“I know,” Tor said.
The doctor gave him a strange look, then started to push the gurney into the hospital.
Tor put his arm around the dog.
“You can’t go, Max,” he said.
Max strained to follow the gurney but allowed Tor to restrain him.
Tor looked at his watch. It was two twenty-five.
[TWO]
Estancia Shangri-La
Tacuarembó Province
República Oriental del Uruguay
2225 31 July 2005
At almost precisely that moment in real time—by the clock, it is four hours later in Budapest than it is in Uruguay—a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, Sergeant Robert Kensington, who had been kneeling over a stocky blond man in his forties and examining his wound, stood up and announced: “You’re going to be all right, Colonel. There’s some muscle damage that’s going to take some time to heal, and you’re going to hurt like hell for a long time every time you move—for that matter, breathe. I can take the bullet out now, if you’d like.”
“I think I’ll wait until I get to a hospital,” Colonel Alfredo Munz said.
Until very recently, Munz had been the director of SIDE, the Argentine organization that combines the functions of the American FBI and CIA.
There were three other men in the room, the study of the sprawling “big house” of Estancia Shangri-La. One of them—a some what squat, completely bald very black man of forty-six—was lying in a pool of his own blood near Colonel Munz, dead of 9mm bullet wounds to the mouth and forehead. He had been Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, an American who had been a United Nations diplomat stationed in Paris and who had taken some pains to establish a second identity for himself in Uruguay as Jean-Paul Bertrand, a Lebanese national and dealer in antiquities.
Eighteen days earlier, on July thirteenth, Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer had gone missing in Paris. A week later, his sister, who was married to J. Winslow Masterson, the chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, had been kidnapped from the parking lot of a restaurant in San Isidro, an upscale Buenos Aires suburb.
The President of the United States, suspecting the kidnapping had something to do with international terrorism and wanting to know what was going on without that information having to be slowly filtered through State Department and intelligence channels, had sent to Buenos Aires a personal agent—an Army officer serving as executive assistant to the secretary of Homeland Security.
Major C. G. Castillo had arrived in Buenos Aires on July twenty-second. The next morning, El Coronel Alfredo Munz of SIDE informed the American ambassador that Mr. Masterson had been found in a taxi on the riverfront, drugged and sitting beside the body of her husband, who had been shot before her eyes.
The President had been enraged. He telephoned Ambassador Juan Manuel Silvio to personally tell him that he was placing Major Castillo in charge of both the investigation of the kidnapping and murder and of the protection of Mr. Masterson and her children until they were safely returned to the United States.
When the Air Force Globemaster III carrying Masterson’s family and remains—and the remains of a Marine Guard sergeant, who had been murdered when driving a female Secret Service agent away from the Masterson residence—touched down at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi on July twenty-fifth, Air Force One and the President of the United States were waiting for it.
The President sent for Major Castillo. Just before he got off the Globemaster to go aboard Air Force One, Mr. Masterson told Major Castillo that her kidnappers wanted to know where her brother was hiding and that they would kill her children if she didn’t tell them. They had murdered her husband to make the point the threat was serious. Mr. Masterson told Castillo that she had absolutely no idea where Jean-Paul Lorimer was or why the kidnappers were after him.
When Castillo reported to the President aboard Air Force One, the President showed him the document he and Secretary of State Natalie Cohen had just made law:
TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
COPY 2 OF 3 (SECRETARY COHEN)
JULY 25, 2005.
PRESIDENTIAL FINDING.
IT HAS BEEN FOUND THAT THE ASSASSINATION OF J. WINSLOW MASTERSON, CHIEF OF MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY IN BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA; THE ABDUCTION OF Mr. MASTERSON’S WIFE, Mr. ELIZABETH LORIMER MASTERSON; THE ASSASSINATION OF SERGEANT ROGER MARKHAM, USMC; AND THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT ELIZABETH T. SCHNEIDER INDICATES BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT THE EXISTENCE OF A CONTINUING PLOT OR PLOTS BY TERRORISTS, OR TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, TO CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO THE INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES, ITS DIPLOMATIC OFFICERS, AND ITS CITIZENS, AND THAT THIS SITUATION CANNOT BE TOLERATED.
IT IS FURTHER FOUND THAT THE EFFORTS AND ACTIONS TAKEN AND TO BE TAKEN BY THE SEVERAL BRANCHES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO DETECT AND APPREHEND THOSE INDIVIDUALS WHO COMMITTED THE TERRORIST ACTS PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED, AND TO PREVENT SIMILAR SUCH ACTS IN THE FUTURE, ARE BEING AND WILL BE HAMPERED AND RENDERED LESS EFFECTIVE BY STRICT ADHERENCE TO APPLICABLE LAWS AND REGULATIONS.
IT IS THEREFORE FOUND THAT CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ACTION UNDER THE SOLE SUPERVISION OF THE PRESIDENT IS NECESSARY.
IT IS DIRECTED AND ORDERED THAT THERE IMMEDIATELY BE ESTABLISHED A CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WITH THE MISSION OF DETERMINING THE IDENTITY OF THE TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN THE ASSASSINATIONS, ABDUCTION, AND ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED AND TO RENDER THEM HARMLESS. AND TO PERFORM SUCH OTHER COVERT AND CLANDESTINE ACTIVITIES AS THE PRESIDENT MAY ELECT TO ASSIGN.
FOR PURPOSES OF CONCEALMENT, THE AFOREMENTIONED CLANDESTINE AND COVERT ORGANIZATION WILL BE KNOWN AS THE OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. FUNDING WILL INITIALLY BE FROM DISCRETIONAL FUNDS OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT. THE MANNING OF THE ORGANIZATION WILL BE DECIDED BY THE PRESIDENT, ACTING ON THE ADVICE OF THE CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS.
MAJOR CARLOS G. CASTILLO, SPECIAL FORCES, U.S. ARMY, IS HEREWITH APPOINTED CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.
SIGNED:
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WITNESS:
Natalie G. Cohen
SECRETARY OF STATE
TOP SECRET—PRESIDENTIAL
No one anywhere had any idea why anyone was so determined to find Jean-Paul Lorimer and was perfectly willing to commit murder to do so. But it was obvious to Major Castillo that the best—indeed, the only—course of action was to find Jean-Paul Lorimer and the place to do that was in Paris.
A CIA agent in Paris seemed to have some answers. He told Castillo he suspected that Lorimer was involved in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, which had just come to light. The CIA agent said he thought Lorimer had been the man who distributed the money involved. He also said he thought he knew where Jean-Paul Lorimer was: cut in small pieces in the river Seine.
Castillo had gone next to Otto Görner, the managing director of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., in Fulda, Germany. He had a close relationship with both the holding company—which owned, among a good deal else, all the Tages Zeitung newspapers—and with Görner himself.
Görner told him that he agreed with the CIA agent, that Lorimer had some connection with the oil-for-food scandal, which he had also been looking into. He also pointed him to Budapest, where the editor in chief of the Budapester Tages Zeitung, Eric Kocian, had a list of names of people he strongly suspected were involved.
Kocian had never heard of Lorimer, but said there obviously had to be a “bag man,” and it could easily be a UN diplomat who could travel around Europe and the Near East without drawing attention to himself. If Lorimer was that man, those deeply involved in the scandal would want him dead and would be willing to kill to see him eliminated.
Kocian also said his information suggested that much of the oil-for-food money was going to South America. On condition that Castillo would not reveal either his name or the names on his list to any U.S. government agency, Kocian gave him a list of names of people who he thought—or knew—were involved and who were in South America, mainly in Argentina and Uruguay.
Castillo had gone back to South America, where he found that Lorimer’s name had not come up to any of the U.S. intelligence agencies operating there or to SIDE. But he had also learned that Uruguay was known as the “money-laundering capital of the Southern Cone.” So he went there.
The FBI agents in Montevideo, euphemistically called “legal attachés” of the embassy, had never heard of Lorimer either, but one of them, Special Agent David W. Yung, Jr., did say that he recognized a squat, bald, very black man in one of Castillo’s photos as being the Lebanese antiquities dealer Jean-Paul Bertrand, who owned an estancia called Shangri-La and was known to be there.
Yung was quickly informed that that in fact was a picture of Jean-Paul Lorimer.
The thing to do with Lorimer, Castillo then had decided, was to repatriate the missing diplomat—by force, if necessary—and he set up an operation to do that. He had just identified himself to Lorimer in Lorimer’s office at the estancia when the barrel of a Madsen submachine gun smashed the office window and sprayed the room, killing Lorimer and wounding El Coronel Munz. They had been attacked by six men, who were all killed in the next few minutes. None of them carried identification of any kind.
The third man in Jean-Paul Lorimer’s office was dressed—as Sergeant Kensington was—in the black coveralls and other accoutrements worn by Delta Force operators when engaged in clandestine and covert operations. He was cradling in his arms a black bolt-action 7.62×55 sniper’s rifle, modified from a Remington Model 700. Had he not pushed his balaclava mask off his face, Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, who was nineteen, would have looked far more like what comes to mind when the phrase Delta Force operator is heard.
With the mask off, it had just occurred to the fourth man in the room, he looks like a kid who has borrowed his big brother’s uniform to wear to the high school Halloween party.
He was immediately sorry for the thought.
The little sonofabitch can really shoot, as he just proved by saving my life.
The fourth man was Major (Promotable) Carlos G. Castillo, Special Forces, U.S. Army. He was thirty-six, a shade over six feet tall, and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. He had blue eyes and light brown hair. He was in a well-tailored dark blue suit.
He turned to Munz, who was looking a little pale from his wound.
“Your call, Alfredo,” Castillo said. “If Kensington says he can get the bullet out, he can. How are you going to explain the wound?”
“No offense,” Munz replied, “but that looks to me like a job for a surgeon.”
“Kensington has removed more bullets and other projectiles than most surgeons,” Castillo said. “Before he decided he’d rather shoot people than treat them for social disease, he was an A-Team medic. Which meant…what’s that line, Kensington?”
“That I was ‘Qualified to perform any medical procedure other than opening the cranial cavity, ’” Kensington quoted. “I can numb that, give you a happy pill, clean it up, and get the bullet out. It would be better for you than waiting—the sooner you clean up a wound like that, the better—and that’d keep you from answering questions at a hospital. But what are you going to tell your wife?”
“Lie, Alfredo,” Castillo said. “Tell her you were shot by a jealous husband.”
“What she’s going to think is, I was cleaning my pistol and it went off, and I’m embarrassed,” Munz said. “But I’d rather deal with that than answer official questions. How long will I be out?”
“You won’t be out long, but you’ll be in la-la land for a couple of hours.”
Munz considered that for a moment, then said: “Okay, do it.”
“Well, let’s get you to your feet and onto something flat where there’s some light,” Kensington said. He looked at Castillo and the two of them got Munz to his feet.
“There’s a big table in the dining room that ought to work,” Kensington said. “It looks like everybody got here just in time for dinner. There’s a plate of good-looking roast beef on it. And a bottle of wine.”
“Okay on the beef,” Castillo said. “Nix on the wine. We have to figure out what to do next and get out of here.”
“Major, who the fuck are these bad guys?” Kensington asked.
“I really don’t know. Yung is searching the bodies to see what he can find out. I don’t even know what happened.”
“Well, they’re pros, whoever they are. Maybe Russians? Kranz was no amateur and they got him. With a fucking garrote. That means they had to (a) spot him and (b) sneak up on him. A lot of people have tried that on Seymour and never got away with it.”
“Spetsnaz?” Castillo said. “If this was anywhere in Europe, I’d say maybe, even probably. But here? I just don’t know. We’ll take the garrote and whatever else Yung comes up with and see if we can learn something.”
When they got to the dining room, Kensington held up Munz while Castillo moved to a sideboard the Chateaubriand, a sauce pitcher, a bread tray, and a bottle of Uruguayan Merlot. Then he sat him down on the table.
“You going to need me—or Bradley—here?” Castillo asked.
“No, sir.”
“Come on, Bradley. We’ll find something to wrap Sergeant Kranz in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz, a Delta Force communicator, who at five feet four and one hundred thirty pounds hadn’t been much over the height and weight minimums for the Army, was lying facedown where he had died.
A light-skinned African American wearing black Delta Force coveralls sat beside him, holding a Car-4 version of the M-16 rifle between his knees. Despite the uniform, Jack Britton was not a soldier but a special agent of the United States Secret Service.
“Anything, Jack?” Castillo asked.
Britton shook his head.
“It’s like a tomb out there,” he said. And then, “Is that what they call an unfortunate choice of words?”
He scrambled to his feet.
“Let’s get Seymour on the chopper,” Castillo said, as he squatted beside the corpse.
The garrote which had taken Sergeant Kranz’s life was still around his neck. Castillo tried to loosen it. It took some effort, but finally he got it off and then examined it carefully.
It was very much like the nylon, self-locking wire-and-cable binding devices enthusiastically adopted by the police as “plastic handcuffs.” But this device was blued stainless steel and it had handles. Once it was looped over a victim’s head and then tightened around the neck, there was no way the victim could get it off.
Castillo put the garrote in his suit jacket pocket.
“Okay, spread the sheets on the ground,” Castillo ordered. “You have the tape, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Corporal Bradley responded.
He laid the sheets, stripped from Jean-Paul Lorimer’s bed, on the ground. Castillo and Britton rolled Sergeant Kranz onto them. One of his eyes was open. Castillo gently closed it.
“Sorry, Seymour,” he said.
They rolled Kranz in the sheets and then trussed the package with black duct tape.
Then he squatted beside the body.
“Help me get him on my shoulder,” Castillo ordered.
“I’ll help you carry him,” Britton said.
“You and Bradley get him on my shoulder,” Castillo repeated. “I’ll carry him. He was my friend.”
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo grunted with the exertion of rising to his feet with Kranz on his shoulder, and, for a moment, he was afraid he was losing his balance and bitterly said, “Oh, shit!”
Bradley put his hands on Castillo’s hips and steadied him.
Castillo nodded his thanks and then started walking heavily toward where the helicopter was hidden, carrying the body of SFC Seymour Kranz over his shoulder.
[THREE]
Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Newbery
Buenos Aires, Argentina
2345 31 July 2005
When the Bell Ranger helicopter called Jorge Newbery Ground Control, announced that he was at twenty-five hundred feet over the Unicenter Shopping Mall on the Route Panamericana on a VFR local flight from Pilar and wanted permission to land as near as possible to the JetAire hangar, Ground Control immediately cleared the pilot to make a direct approach.
“You’re number one to land. There is no traffic in the area. Report when you are at five hundred feet over the threshold. Visibility unlimited. Winds are negligible.”
There is not much commercial late-night activity at Jorge Newbery, which is commonly thought of as Buenos Aires’s downtown airport. The airport is separated by only a highway from the river Plate and is no more than—traffic permitting—a ten-minute drive from downtown Buenos Aires. Very late at night, the tarmac in front of the terminal is crowded with the Boeing 737s of Aerolineas Argentina, Austral, Pluna, and the other airlines which will, starting very early in the morning, take off for cities in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
The informality of the radio exchange between the Bell Ranger and Newbery Ground Control would have driven an American FAA examiner to distraction, but in practical terms there was nothing wrong with it.
Ground Control had not bothered to identify the runway by number. There is only one, about seven thousand feet long. And since he had given the helicopter pilot permission to make a direct approach, and the winds were negligible, there wasn’t much chance the pilot would misunderstand where he was supposed to go.
“Newbery, Ranger Zero-Seven at five hundred over the threshold.”
“Zero-Seven, you are cleared to make a low-level transit of the field to the right, repeat right of the runway for landing at the JetAire hangar.”
“Mucho gracias.”
“Report when you land.”
“Will do.”
As the Bell Ranger came down the field, over the grass to the right of the runway, the doors of the JetAire hangar began to slide open.
A sleek, small, glistening white jet airplane—a Bombardier/Learjet 45XR with American markings—sat, nose out, behind one of the doors. It was connected to ground power and there were lights visible in both the cockpit and cabin.
Four men pushing a trundle bed, which would attach to the skids of the helicopter—the Ranger does not have wheels—and permit it to be rolled into the hangar, came out and waited for the helicopter to land.
“Newbery, Ranger Zero-Seven on the ground. Mucho gracias.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice time.”
“I’ll try.”
The Ground Control operator had assumed—not without reason—that the Bell Ranger was owned by a wealthy estanciero who had flown into the city for a night on the town. That happened three or more times every night. Sometimes the tarmac in front of JetAire was as crowded with private airplanes and helicopters as the terminal tarmac was with airliners.
As soon as the Ranger had been trundled into the hangar, the doors began to slide closed again.
Three men came down the Lear’s stair door and approached the helicopter as the pilot pushed the cockpit door open.
The larger of them was Fernando Lopez, Castillo’s cousin. He was a dark-skinned man in his midthirties, six feet two inches tall and weighing well over two hundred pounds.
Lopez saw something he didn’t like on Castillo’s face. “You okay, Gringo?”
Castillo nodded.
“Solez?” Fernando Lopez asked.
Ricardo Solez was a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration assigned to the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires. He had been drafted from the DEA by Castillo for the Estancia Shangri-La operation.
“He’s driving the Yukon back here,” Castillo said. “He’s all right.”
“I thought the kid was going to do that,” Lopez said.
“Bradley’s in there,” Castillo said, indicating the helicopter.
“How did it go, Charley?” Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF, a tall, slim redhead in a sports coat, asked.
“Not well,” Castillo replied. “Lorimer is dead. And Kranz bought the farm.”
“Oh, shit! What happened?”
“And Munz took a hit,” Castillo went on. He looked at the third man, who was slim, in his early forties, with shortly cropped thinning hair and wearing a light brown single-breasted suit.
“Well, hello, Howard,” he said, not kindly. “Your boss send you to see how badly I bent his chopper?”
Howard Kennedy had spent most of his adult life as an FBI agent. Two years before, he had abruptly abandoned his prestigious duties in the FBI’s Ethical Standards—read Internal Affairs—Division to go to work for Aleksandr Pevsner, a Russian national, who, it was alleged in warrants issued for his arrest by nearly a dozen countries, had committed an array of crimes ranging from being an international dealer in arms and drugs all the way down to murder.
“I came because he thought I might be useful,” Howard Kennedy said.
“What happened, Charley?” Colonel Torine asked again.
“There were some other people at the estancia. Six of them…”
“Who?” Kennedy said.
“…all dressed in black and armed with Madsens,” Castillo finished.
“Who were they?” Kennedy pursued.
“I wish to hell I knew,” Castillo said, and turned to Torine. “How soon can we go wheels-up?”
“All I have to do is file the flight plan. It shouldn’t take long this time of night.”
“Howard, can you take care of Colonel Munz?” Castillo asked.
“Does he need a hospital?”
“The bullet’s out, and he’s been given antibiotics. Unless he develops an infection, no.”
“Who took the bullet out?” Kennedy asked.
Castillo ignored the question.
“Take him home, Howard. Right now, he’s still in la-la land, but that should wear off in no more than an hour. Then he’ll start to hurt.”
“Can he walk?”
Castillo nodded.
“I don’t like this,” Kennedy said.
“Howard, didn’t your mother ever tell you when you go somewhere uninvited, you’re likely to find something at the party you won’t like?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And if I wasn’t here, what would you have done with Munz?”
“He gave me a number to call if something went wrong,” Castillo said. “I just want you to remember I didn’t have any idea you would be here.”
“Okay. So what?”
“Special Agent David W. Yung, Jr., of the FBI is in the chopper.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ!”
“I’m going to tell him that who was here when we got here is classified ‘Top Secret Presidential.’ I have no reason to believe that he will breach security regulations.”
“Then you are naïve.”
“Well, what do you want to do?” Castillo asked.
Kennedy looked at him for a moment, then walked quickly to the fuselage door and opened it.
“Well, how are you, David?” he said. “Long time no see.”
He put out his hand.
“I thought that was you, Howard,” Yung said.
“Glad to see me?”
“‘Surprised’ is the word that comes to mind.”
“I’m on the pariah list, but I don’t have leprosy,” Kennedy said, nodding at his still-extended hand. “We go way back, David.”
Yung looked at Kennedy’s extended hand.
“Yeah, we do,” he said and took it. “And I just realized I’m glad to see you.”
“That you saw him, Yung, is classified Top Secret Presidential,” Castillo said.
“That’s good,” Yung said. “That saves me from having to decide what to do now that I have seen him.”
“Do you mind if I interpret that to mean you wouldn’t have reported me even without Charley’s invoking the criminal code vis-à-vis unauthorized disclosure of classified information?”
“To tell you the truth, Howard, I don’t know what I would have done,” Yung said.
“Okay, Howard, get Colonel Munz out of here,” Castillo said.
“He’s unconscious,” Yung said.
“Probably asleep,” Castillo said. “Shake him and find out.”
El Coronel Alfredo Munz woke instantly when Yung touched his shoulder.
“Aha!” he said, cheerfully. “We have arrived. I must have dozed off.” He spotted Kennedy. “¡Hola, Howard!” he cried. “I didn’t know that you were going to be here.”
“Alfredo, can you walk?” Castillo asked.
“Certainly I can walk,” Munz said and tried to get out of his seat.
“That’ll be easier if you take the seat belt off,” Castillo said, then added: “Unfasten it for him, Yung.”
Yung did so. Munz got out of his seat and went through the door. He started to walk across the hangar floor, then felt a little woozy and staggered. He put his good arm out like the wing of an airplane, cried, “Wheee,” and started trotting in curves around the hangar.
Kennedy went quickly to him and steadied him.
“What we are going to tell my wife is that I shot myself when I was cleaning my pistol,” Munz confided to Kennedy. “And you are my witness. My wife says you have an honest face.”
Kennedy maneuvered Munz over to Castillo.
“Howard’ll take care of you now, Alfredo,” Castillo said. “Thanks for everything.”
“It was my great pleasure,” Munz said and bowed.
“I suppose we’ll be in touch, won’t we, Charley?” Kennedy asked.
Castillo nodded. “Tell your boss thanks, Howard.”
“I’ll do that,” Kennedy said and then started guiding Munz toward the rear of the hangar.
Castillo walked around the Ranger and opened the copilot’s door.
“Bradley, load the stuff—everything in the chopper that belongs to us—into the Lear and make sure there’s a seat where we can put Sergeant Kranz.”
“Yes, sir,” Corporal Lester Bradley said.
“I’ll give you a hand with the body,” Yung said.
“Just put him over my shoulder,” Castillo said. “I’ll carry him.”
Five minutes later, Jorge Newbery Ground Control cleared Lear Five-Oh-Seven-Five to the threshold of runway thirty-one.
[FOUR]
Office of the Commander in Chief
United States Central Command
MacDill Air Force Base
Tampa, Florida
1235 1 August 2005
There were several reasons that Command Sergeant Major Wesley Suggins was rarely in the commander in chief’s conference room when the twelve chairs around the long table were occupied by what he privately thought of as “the heavy brass.”
Or even when only three or four of them were occupied by what he privately thought of as “the light brass.”
He defined the heavy brass as general or flag officers whose personal flags carried three or more stars. It also included a few heavy civilians. The liaison officer between the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and CentCom was one of these. He was a member of what was known as the Executive Civil Service and held the grade therein of GS-18, which carried with it the assimilated grade within the military establishment of lieutenant general. The State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and Federal Bureau of Investigation liaison officers each carried the Executive Civil Service grade of GS-16, which carried with it the assimilated grade of major general.
The light brass was brigadier generals, rear admirals (lower half), and GS-15 civilians and below.
The primary reason Command Sergeant Major Suggins almost never took a seat at the conference table was not, as most of the light and heavy brass believed, because he was an enlisted man and would be out of place in their exalted senior company.
The primary reason was that General Allan Naylor, the CentCom commander in chief, had decided that Command Sergeant Major Suggins had more important things to do than sit at the table for long periods with his mouth shut.
This was not to say General Naylor did not want Command Sergeant Major Suggins to know what transpired at the frequent conferences; quite the contrary. It was General Naylor’s habit after most conferences—there were at least four every day, including the twice-daily intelligence briefings—to motion Suggins into his office and solicit both his opinions of what had been discussed and his recommendations as to how an action decided upon could best be implemented.
That Command Sergeant Major Suggins was not physically present in the conference room did not mean he hadn’t heard what was being discussed. The room was equipped with a wide array of electronic devices, including a battery of microphones placed around it so that even the sound of a dropped pencil would be detected.
Sometimes the conferences were recorded. At all times, what the microphones heard was relayed to a single-earphone headset Suggins put on the moment the door to the conference room closed, the red light above the door began to flash, and the CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS DO NOT ENTER sign lit up.
It was commonly believed by those seeing Suggins wearing his headset that he was taking the opportunity, while a conference was in progress, to listen to the Dixieland recordings of Bob French’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, to which he was known to be quite addicted. Suggins did nothing to correct this erroneous belief.
About the most important thing Suggins did while not sitting at the conference table with his mouth shut was field General Naylor’s telephone calls. There were usually many, and almost all of them from people really important—or who believed they were really important—and who all believed they had the right to speak with General Naylor immediately.
Some of them Suggins deftly diverted with white lies: The general was jogging or indisposed, or speaking with the president or the secretary of Homeland Security or the secretary of defense, and he would have the general return the call the moment he was free.
There were some callers, of course, that Suggins did not try to divert. These included, for example, the president of the United States; the secretaries of defense, state, and Homeland Security; the director of National Intelligence; and Mr. Elaine Naylor.
When one of these luminaries called, Suggins would turn to a laptop computer on the credenza behind his desk and quickly type, for example, if the caller were the secretary of Homeland Security, the Honorable Matthew Hall:
HALL?
The message would instantly appear on the screen of what was nearly universally—and not very fondly—known as the general’s IBB, meaning “Infernal Black Box.”
The IBB was in fact a laptop computer identical to Suggins’s. General Naylor always had it on the conference in front of him, situated so that the screen would be visible to no one else.
The system was effective. Whoever had the floor in the conference room would not have to stop in midsentence as Naylor’s telephone rang or Command Sergeant Major Suggins came through the door.
Naylor could read the message and quickly type his reply:
CAN I CALL IN FIVE MINS?
Or:
PUT HIM THROUGH
Or:
CAN YOU TAKE A MESSAGE?
Etcetera.
The regularly scheduled afternoon intelligence briefing had been in session for about five minutes when one of the telephones on Command Sergeant Major Suggins’s desk rang.
“Office of the Sink. Suggins.”
C in c was often pronounced “sink.” And “Command Sergeant Major Suggins speaking, sir” wasted time.
“Jack Iverson, Wes,” the caller announced. “I’ve got an interesting in flight advisory for your boss.”
Chief Master Sergeant Jack Iverson, USAF, was the senior noncommissioned officer of what was informally known as “the Air Force side of MacDill.” MacDill was an Air Force base. The United States Central Command was a “tenant” of MacDill Air Force Base.
“Shoot,” Suggins replied as he spun in his chair to the laptop on the credenza. His fingers flew on the keys as Iverson relayed the in flight advisory message:
FOR CINC CENTCOM
CHARLEY URGENTLY REPEAT URGENTLY REQUESTS CINC CENTCOM PERSONALLY REPEAT PERSONALLY MEET LEAR FIVE-OH-SEVEN-FIVE ON ARRIVAL MACDILL. ETA 1255. TORINE COL USAF.
“Got it, Jack. Hang on a minute.”
“You’re not going to tell me what the hell it’s all about, Wes?”
“If I knew, I would. I don’t,” Suggins replied.
He pushed the key that would cause the message to appear on the screen of General Naylor’s IBB.
The reply came in a second:
????????????????????????????
The translation of that was, “What the hell?”
A moment later, there was another reply:
OK
“Jack, reply that the CINC will do,” Suggins said. “And the CINC authorizes the landing of the civilian airplane, if that’s necessary. And for Christ’s sake, keep this quiet.”
“Why do I think you’re not telling me everything you know?”
“Because I’m not,” Suggins said. “Thanks, Jack.”
Then Suggins picked up the telephone and ordered that the CINC’s car be at the front door in five minutes.
[FIVE]
As the sleek white Bombardier/Learjet 45XR taxied up to the tarmac in front of Base Operations, General Allan Naylor could see the pilot. He knew him well. He was Major Carlos G. Castillo, U.S. Army. Naylor could also see who was sitting in the copilot’s seat. He knew him well, too. He was Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF.
That figures, General Naylor thought. A full goddamned Air Force colonel is flying copilot, and Charley—a lousy major—is in the pilot’s seat.
Naylor saw Castillo rise from the pilot’s seat and leave the cockpit. A moment later, the fuselage door began to unfold and in a moment Castillo appeared in the opening. He was in civilian clothing.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Castillo called, politely. “Would you come aboard, please, sir? Alone?”
Now he’s giving orders to a four-star general? Goddamn it!
“Wait here, please, Jack,” Naylor said to the lieutenant colonel, his aide-de-camp, standing beside him, and then walked to the Lear and climbed up the stairs.
“Thank you, sir,” Castillo said as Naylor entered the cabin.
“This had better be important, Charley.”
“I thought it was, sir.”
Naylor looked around the cabin. There were four men in it. One, Fernando M. Lopez, he knew well. The Lear belonged to one of the companies his family controlled.
The other three he did not know. One was an Asiatic, another a light-skinned African American, and the third looked like a high school kid.
“Who are these gentlemen, Charley?” Naylor asked.
“Special Agent Yung of the FBI, sir,” Castillo answered, “Special Agent Britton of the Secret Service and Corporal Lester Bradley. Bradley’s a Marine.”
“Good afternoon, sir,” Colonel Torine said from behind him.
“Hello, Jake,” Naylor said and shook his hand.
None of them look smug, as if they’ve just pulled off something clever. They all look uncomfortable. As if whatever crazy operation they launched went the wrong way?
“I’m waiting, Charley,” Naylor said.
Castillo pointed to the aisle at the rear of the cabin.
There was something there wrapped in what looked like sheets. And then Naylor knew what It was.
“Another body?” he asked, icily.
“Sir, those are the remains of Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz,” Castillo said. “He was KIA last night.”
“What?”
“Garroted, sir,” Castillo said.
“Garroted?”
“Yes, sir.”
Castillo took the blue steel garrote from his pocket and extended it to Naylor.
“By who? Where?” Naylor blurted and then hurriedly added, as he pointed to Yung and Bradley: “Are these gentlemen privy to what happened? Or anything else?”
“They are aware of the Presidential Finding, sir. And they participated in the operation in which Kranz lost his life.”
“And what was the operation?”
“We located Mr. Lorimer, sir. We staged an operation to repatriate him. We were in the middle of it when we were bushwhacked.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Lorimer was killed during the attack as well as Sergeant Kranz.”
“And the bushwhackers?”
“They were killed, sir.”
“Where did this happen?”
“In Uruguay, sir.”
“Uruguay?” Naylor asked, incredulously, and then verbalized what he was thinking. “The last thing I heard, you were in Europe. Hungary.”
“We were, sir. But we tracked down Lorimer in Uruguay.”
“And are the Uruguayan authorities already looking for you? Or will that come a little later?”
“So far as that aspect of the operation is concerned, sir, we came out clean.”
“You came out with two bodies? And you call that clean?”
“We left Mr. Lorimer’s body in Uruguay, sir,” Castillo said. “What I meant to say is that I don’t think we left anything behind that could tie the operation to us.”
“And why did you come here? Why did you bring the sergeant’s body here?”
“It was either here or Fort Bragg, sir—Washington was obviously out of the question—and we didn’t have enough fuel to make Pope Air Force Base. And you were here, sir.”
Naylor looked at him and thought, Good ol’ Uncle Allan will fix things, right?
“Sir,” Castillo added, “you are personally aware of my orders from the President. General McNab is not.”
What’s he doing, reading my mind?
And, dammit, he’s right. Bringing the sergeant’s body here was the right thing to do.
“When do you plan to go to Washington?”
“Just as soon as possible, sir. I’d be grateful if you would call Secretary Hall and tell him we’re en route.”
General Naylor looked for a long moment into Major Castillo’s eyes. Then he walked to the door.
“Colonel,” he called, “will you come in here, please?”
His aide-de-camp came quickly into the airplane.
“Colonel, you are advised that, from this moment, what you may see or hear is classified Top Secret Presidential.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Under that black plastic is the body of a sergeant…”
“Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz,” Castillo interrupted.
“…who was killed,” Naylor went on, “during the execution of a covert and clandestine operation authorized by a Presidential Finding. The officer in charge of this covert and clandestine operation has brought the sergeant’s remains here for us to deal with. I confess I have no idea how to proceed with that.”
“Sir, what is the sergeant’s parent unit?” the lieutenant colonel asked Castillo.
Just in time, General Naylor stopped himself from saying the lieutenant colonel did not have to call Major Castillo “sir.”
“Kranz was Gray Fox, out of Delta Force,” Castillo answered.
“Sir, what about calling General McNab at Bragg? I suspect he has experience with a situation like this.”
Oh, I bet Scotty McNab has! I’ll bet this sort of thing is almost routine for good ol’ Scotty!
“The first thing to do is cordon off this area,” General Naylor said. “Then get an ambulance over here. Have the sergeant’s remains taken to the hospital. Get a flag…No, have the ambulance crew bring a flag with them. Cover the remains with the national colors before they are moved. Arrange for the sergeant’s remains to have a suitable escort from this moment. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that satisfactory to you, Major Castillo?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you very much.”
“Is there anything else you require?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I will attempt to get General McNab on a secure line,” Naylor said.
He walked to the door, then turned.
“If this needs to be said, I am sure that all of you did your duty as you understood it. And I don’t think I have to tell you how pleased I am that there was only the one casualty.”
He was out the door before anyone could reply.