"What is it?"
"Do you have your passport, Senor Bertrand?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"You're sure, senor?"
"Yes, of course I'm sure. Why do you ask?"
"Senor Bertrand, as you may know, our immigration records are now computerized."
"So I've heard."
"This afternoon, Senor Bertrand, according to the computer, you attempted to enter Uruguay on a Varig flight from Rio de Janeiro."
"That's absurd!"
"The computer also says that you entered Uruguay some time ago, and have never left."
"That's true."
"What we suspect, Senor Bertrand, is that the other Senor Bertrand, who is being held in custody, is not really who he says he is. That his passport is either a forgery, or that he has somehow come into possession of your passport."
Assistant Chief Inspector Muller gave Jean-Paul Bertrand time to think this over, and then went on. "One or the other is true, Senor Bertrand. And the question can be simply answered. If you have your passport, then the other is a forgery. And the other Senor Bertrand will be dealt with accordingly. On the other hand, if your passport has somehow been… misplaced… It happens, senor. If it has been misplaced into the hands of the other Senor Bertrand, then he will be dealt with accordingly. I cannot believe that a gentleman of your reputation and standing would loan his passport-"
"I certainly would not!" Jean-Paul proclaimed righteously. "My passport is-or should be-in my safe. I'll get it for you."
"Thank you very much, senor."
"May I offer you a cup of coffee, something to drink, while I get it?"
"No, thank you, senor," Inspector O'Fallon said. "We're on duty."
"I'll be right with you," Jean-Paul Bertrand said. "My safe is in my office, in the rear of the house."
"Thank you, senor," Assistant Chief Inspector Muller said.
"The sitting room is in here," Jean Paul said. "If you'll wait there? Are you sure I cannot offer you anything?"
"Thank you just the same, senor," Muller said. The safe was bolted both to an interior wall and to the floor. Jean-Paul had learned that when he was looking for something in it, it was much easier just to sit on the floor than to bend over and try to look inside. He had done so now.
He had a hell of a time finding the damned passport, but finally did.
A forged passport, I understand. But one with my name on it? What's that all about?
Oh, of course. In case someone checks, there is a valid passport in the name of Jean-Paul Bertrand.
Oh, God, is this incident going to be in the newspapers?
He heard a sound, and looked over his shoulder.
The younger one, Inspector O'Fallon, was standing behind him.
What the hell is he doing in here?
"Inspector O'Fallon, isn't it?" Jean-Paul asked.
"No, not really," Castillo said, in English.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You know how it is, Lorimer. Sometimes people use other names. Will you hand me the passport and stand up, please?"
"What's going on here?"
Castillo snatched the passport from Lorimer's hand as he stepped over him and pushed the safe door open more widely.
Jean-Paul scurried backward on the floor and ran into a set of legs.
Then he felt himself being hauled to his feet.
"Put your hands behind you, please," the man who had said he was Assistant Chief Inspector Muller ordered.
Jean-Paul did as he was told.
He looked around his office.
Muller was doing something with his wrists.
Jean-Paul took a closer look at the face of the man who had said he was Inspector O'Fallon but had just now called him Lorimer, in American English.
But then something else caught his eye.
There was a face at the window, and it looked as if whoever stood there was trying to break the window with something.
The last thing Jean-Paul Lorimer, Ph.D., saw in this world, before two 9mm bullets struck him in the mouth and forehead, was the breaking glass of the window and an orange flash. Castillo reacted to the sound of the breaking glass and the burst of submachine fire instinctively. He dropped to the ground, scurried behind the desk, and reached for the Beretta he was carrying in the small of his back.
What the fuck?
This desk is going to be about as much protection against a 9mm as a Kleenex.
There was the sound of more firing outside. He recognized the characteristic chatter of a Car 4. More than one Car 4. And then the sharper crack of a 7.62.
Didn't I hear a 7.62 just before the goddamn submachine gun went off?
He saw a cord running across the floor to the desk.
If they can't see you, they can't shoot you.
Unless they spray the room with a submachine gun.
What the hell!
He jerked on the cord and a lamp on Lorimer's desk crashed to the floor. But didn't go out.
Sonofabitch!
There was the sound of another 7.62mm round going off, and of voices shouting something unintelligible, and then several more bursts from Car 4s.
Castillo reeled in the lamp, finally found the switch, and turned it off. The room was now dark.
Castillo got to his knees, then took a running dive from behind the desk toward the corner. No one shot at him. He found the wall with his hands and pushed himself into the corner. He waited for a moment to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. To turn the lamp off, he had had to find the switch, which was a push device in the bulb socket, which meant that he'd had the light from a clear-glass sixty-watt bulb right in his eyes.
Finally, he could make out the outline of the windows, and raised the Beretta in both hands to aim at it.
"Alfredo?" he called.
"I'm hit," Munz called back. "I don't know how bad. I have Lorimer's brains all over me."
There was another burst of Car 4 fire, this one farther away.
And then Sergeant Kensington's voice. "Anybody alive in there?"
"Only the good guys," Castillo called back.
There was the sound of a door being kicked open. And then a hand holding a flashlight appeared in the door and the light swept the room.
Then Kensington came into the room with Corporal Lester Bradley on his heels, sniper rifle at the ready.
"Get that goddamn light out of my eyes," Castillo ordered. "There's a lamp on the floor behind the desk."
Kensington found the light and turned it on, and then walked to where Castillo was getting to his feet. He waited until Castillo was fully up, then said, "These cocksuckers, whoever the fuck they were, got past Kranz. Can you believe that?"
"Is he all right?"
"They garroted him, Major," Kensington said.
"Oh, shit!"
Castillo walked to the desk again, looked at the exploded head of Jean-Paul Lorimer, and then at the blood oozing from the chest of El Coronel Alfredo Munz, and said, "Oh, shit!" again. [FOUR] Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembo Province Republica Oriental del Uruguay 2225 31 July 2005 "You're going to be all right, Colonel," Sergeant Robert Kensington said to Munz, who rested just about where he had fallen behind Lorimer's desk. "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," Munz said.
"Your call, Alfredo," Castillo said. "But how are you going to explain the wound? And if Kensington says he can get it out, he can."
"No offense, 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, and 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?"