“You have anything more than we got from your buddy Whelan on Wolf News?” he asked.
“I talked to your old boss; he said Vic is on his way down there,” Danton replied, “and about twenty minutes ago, there was an e-mail from Porky saying Clendennen will have an announcement to make tomorrow at eleven.”
“Keep me in the loop, Roscoe,” Castillo said.
“What about Those People?”
“Annapolis and Radio Stations are good to go,” Castillo said. “I’m still making up my mind about the banker and the hotelier.”
He thought: And I’m glad Investment Banker and Hotelier heard me say that. Let that sink in a while, and then I will let them back in the tent.
“You met with them?”
“Yeah. Just now.”
“Casey told me that was going to happen. I thought maybe there’d be an AP flash: ‘Mass Murder in Sin City.’ ”
“I was thinking of feeding them to the sharks in the aquarium in the Mandalay Bay. But my merciful nature took over. Thanks, Roscoe.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Danton said.
Castillo put his CaseyBerry away.
“Well, if McNab has sent Vic D’Alessandro down there,” he said, “then until we hear from him, I can’t think of anything else that can be done to get Ferris back from the goddamn drug cartels.”
“Carlos,” Berezovsky said, “what makes you think the drug people have your friend?”
“Jesus, I never even thought about that,” Castillo asked.
“Am I permitted to ask, ‘Thought about what?’ ” Investment Banker said. “Or are you still making up your mind if my word is any good?”
“Why don’t you and Hotelier think of yourselves as being in a halfway house?” Castillo said. “Where one slip from the straight and narrow will turn you into shark food?”
“What Ace didn’t think about is that Dmitri’s pal Vladimir doesn’t like being humiliated,” Delchamps said.
“And that Vladimir Vladimirovich might think a good way to get his hands on Carlos,” Berezovsky picked up, “would be to grab him when he gets on his white horse and gallops into Mexico to rescue his friend from the drug people.”
“Who’s Vladimir?” Hotelier asked.
“His last name is Putin,” Annapolis furnished.
“Carlito would have thought about Vladimir,” Sweaty said loyally.
Sure I would, Castillo thought, probably by a week from next Thursday. Jesus!
“And now that this has come up,” Sweaty went on, “we have time to think about it. Carlito is right; until we hear from Vic D’Alessandro, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Except remember what you and Dmitri are always telling me,” Castillo said. “Putin always has a Plan B.”
“I don’t follow you, Ace,” Delchamps said.
“Dmitri,” Castillo asked, “One, how many ex-Spetsnaz does Aleksandr have raking the sun-swept beaches at the Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort? Two, how many of same would he be willing to loan me right now?”
“To do what, Ace?” Delchamps asked.
“To provide a little extra security for the people at the Lopez Fruit and Vegetables Mexico. I think Putin knows about that, too, and I don’t want them getting into the cross fire.”
“At least twenty,” Berezovsky said. “I think Aleksandr would give you, say, ten-all that could fit into the Gulfstream-right now. More men, as soon as they could be flown up from Argentina.”
“You sound pretty sure,” Castillo said.
“Carlito,” Sweaty said, “not only does Cousin Aleksandr love you, but he knows the best way to deal with Vladimir Vladimirovich is to-what is it Edgar says? — cut him off at the balls.”
“For the record, Sweaty,” Delchamps corrected her, “what I said is, ‘Cut him off at the knees.’ ”
Berezovsky took out his CaseyBerry and punched a key.
“Aleksandr, I’m with Charley in Las Vegas,” he said in Russian. “Vladimir Vladimirovich has raised his ugly head again, and we need some help to cut him off at the knees. This is the problem. .”
II
ONE
Yadkin and Reilly Road Fort Bragg, North Carolina 0845 12 April 2007
The Federal Express truck pulled to the curb before a two-story brick house, and the driver, after first taking a FedEx Overnight envelope from where he had stuck it on the dashboard, got out.
He took a quick look at the envelope as he walked around the front of the truck.
The Overnight envelope, sent by the Mexican-American News Service of San Antonio, Texas, was addressed to: LTC BRUCE J. MCNAB, YADKIN AND REILLY ROAD, FORT BRAGG, NC 28307.
The FedEx driver had served in the Army, and knew that LTC meant “lieutenant colonel.” And he had served long enough to know that lieutenant colonels do not live in large brick homes on what was known locally as “Generals’ Row.”
After a moment, he decided it was a simple typo; LTC was supposed to be LTG, the abbreviation for “lieutenant general.” A small wooden sign on the lawn of the house confirmed this analysis. It showed three silver stars, the rank insignia of a lieutenant general, and below that was neatly painted B. J. MCNAB.
The driver, now convinced he was in the right place, continued up a walkway through the immaculately manicured lawn toward the house.
He was almost at the door when a black Chevrolet Suburban came-considerably over the posted 25 mph speed limit-down Reilly Road, stopped and quickly backed up the driveway of the house. Doors opened. The driver, a young Green Beret sergeant in a camouflage-pattern battle-dress uniform, and a young Green Beret captain in dress uniform got out of the front seat. The sergeant quickly removed a cover from a red plate bearing three stars mounted on the bumper and then rushed to open the passenger door. He was too late. The door was opened by a Green Beret colonel in a dress uniform who marched purposefully toward the house with the captain trailing him.
The driver stood beside the passenger door.
The front door of the house opened and General McNab came through. He was in dress uniform and wearing a green beret. Both breasts of his tunic carried more ribbons and qualification badges than the driver had ever seen on one man during his military service.
Colonel Max Caruthers, who was six foot three and weighed 225 pounds, and Captain Albert H. Walsh, who was almost as large, saluted crisply and more or less simultaneously barked, “Good morning, General.”
General McNab returned the salute and then turned his attention to the FedEx deliveryman.
“Far be it from me to stay a FedEx courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds, but curiosity overwhelms me,” he announced. “Dare I hope that envelope you are clutching to your breast is intended for me?”
“It is, if you’re Bruce J. McNab,” the courier said.
“Guilty,” General McNab said.
The courier extended the clipboard for the addressee’s signature.
Captain Walsh snatched the Overnight envelope from the driver, handed it to the general, and then signed the receipt on the clipboard.
General McNab ripped open the strip at the top of the envelope and took from it an eight-by-ten-inch photograph.
“Oh, my!” he said, in a tone similar to what a grandmother would use when her cake batter slipped from her hands and splattered over her kitchen floor. “Oh, my!”
He handed the Overnight envelope to Captain Walsh.
“Hold that by its edges, Al,” he ordered. “Gloves would be better. It will probably be futile, but we will have tried.”
“Something wrong, General?” the FedEx courier asked.
“Nothing for which you could possibly be held responsible,” General McNab said. “And now, although I would rather face a thousand deaths, I must go treat with General Naylor.”
The courier looked confused.
Colonel Caruthers, who recognized the remark as a paraphrase of what Confederate general Robert E. Lee had said immediately before leaving his headquarters to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, failed to keep a smile off his face.