"Instead of what the ambassador is saying it is?"
Castillo nodded. "Something like that."
The waitress appeared with coffee and pastry.
"That was quick," Kennedy said.
He reached for a petit four.
Castillo said, "My grandfather used to say the only things the Argentines do consistently well is eat."
Kennedy chuckled. "You going to tell me the nature of the personnel problem at the embassy?"
"Just as soon as you tell me what you're really doing here."
Kennedy smiled at him. "Now that I think about it, I really don't give much of a damn about personnel problems in the embassy."
"On the other hand, I'd really like to know what you're really doing here."
"I'm sure you would. But you're going to have to be satisfied with that it is neither illegal nor inimical to the interests of the United States."
"I could ask for no more," Castillo said, and then asked, "You ever see that Mel Gibson movie where they kidnap his kid?"
"No. I can't say that I have. I'd love to know why you're asking."
"It was the in-flight movie. I fell asleep in the middle, and I've been wondering how it turned out."
"I think you're serious."
"They kidnapped his kid, and he had to decide to pay the ransom, which his wife and the FBI wanted him to do, or not pay."
Kennedy shook his head.
"In a previous employment," Kennedy said, "I worked a half dozen big-dollar kidnappings. Big-dollar kidnappings are usually either inside jobs, in which case a couple of good interrogators can usually find out who done it in a matter of hours. Or they're professional jobs, in which case the victim is kept alive only long enough for them to collect the ransom. Phrased somewhat indelicately, if you pay the ransom, you lose the victim and the money. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Charley? What did Gibson do?"
"I told you I fell asleep before that happened."
"And now you'll lie awake nights wondering about it," Kennedy said sarcastically, and then asked, "How long are you going to be here, Charley?"
Castillo raised both hands in a Who the hell knows? gesture.
"Maybe we can have dinner," Kennedy said, "or drinks."
"I'd like that."
"How do I get in touch with you?"
"Here, I suppose."
"You don't have a cellular? Or you're not going to give me the number? Which?"
"You show me yours and I'll show you mine."
"Deal."
They exchanged cellular phones.
I know how come I have a cellular, even though I just got here.
So where did you get yours, Howard? Maybe you didn't just arrive in the obscene hours of the morning?
"Rushed right from the plane to the cellular store, did you, Charley?"
"Howard, it's not nice-didn't your mommy tell you?-to read other people's minds. But, to satisfy your curiosity, I got mine from the Secret Service guy here. The Secret Service takes care of its own. Where did you get yours?"
"I borrowed it from a friend."
"Sure."
Kennedy looked at him and smiled, but didn't respond directly. He handed Charley's cellular back to him.
"I'd love to push the autodial buttons on that, and see who answers."
"Who do you think might answer?"
"They call the FBI guys in embassies 'legal attaches,' I guess you know."
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Castillo responded, "none of the autodial buttons will call the FBI. I don't even know anybody in the FBI here. As a matter of fact, I just learned they don't even have an FBI detachment, or whatever, at the embassy. What about your buttons?"
Kennedy didn't reply directly to that, either. Instead, he said, "So what's on your agenda right now? Can I drop you someplace?"
"I'm going to the embassy."
"It's right on my way. I'll drop you."
"On your way to where?"
"The King Faisal Islamic Center. It's just a couple of blocks from the embassy."
"I have a hard time picturing you touching your forehead to the floor in prayer."
"It's business, Charley. Just business."
"Isn't that the line the Mafia uses, just before they shoot people?"
"Would that the Arabs were as easy to deal with as the Mafia," Kennedy said, and stood up. He took a wad of money from his pocket and dropped several bills on the table. "You want a ride or not?"
A black Mercedes-Benz S500 with heavily darkened windows was waiting for Kennedy when he came through the revolving door. A large man who looked vaguely familiar got quickly out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear door.
"You remember Herr Gossinger, don't you, Frederic?" Kennedy said.
"Guten morgen, Herr Gossinger," the man said without expression.
The last time I saw you was in Vienna. I pegged you as either Hungarian or Czech, but what the hell. It all used to be Austria.
"Gruss Gott!" Charley said, trying to sound as Viennese as possible.
Kennedy got quickly in the backseat, and Charley slid in after him. [TWO] The United States Embassy Avenida Colombia 4300 Buenos Aires, Argentina 0905 22 July 2005 As Kennedy's Mercedes turned off Avenida Libertador, Castillo could see both the American embassy and the ambassador's residence, a large, vaguely European-looking mansion fronting on Libertador. A large, armored, blue Policia Federal van was parked on the street across from it, but Charley couldn't see any police.
The embassy sat a block away, overlooking a park, behind both a steel picket fence and a half circle of highway-divider concrete barricades. It was unquestionably American, he thought somewhat unpatriotically.
Another building-the embassies in London and Montevideo come to mind-built to the pattern that should have won the architect the opposite of the Pritzker Prize: one for designing the Ugliest Office Buildings of the Century.
The only thing that keeps people from confusing that drab concrete oblong with a misplaced airport warehouse is that the gray walls are perforated with neat rows of square inset windows.
There are probably a thousand roadside Marriott or Hilton motels that are better-looking and look American. Why the hell couldn't they have used brick, and thrown in a couple of columns? Made it look a little like Monticello, or even the White House?
The intensity of his reaction surprised him.
Why am I pissed?
Fatigue? Hangover?
Being sent down here to do something I have no idea how to do?
Maybe that. Okay, certainly that. But really, it's Howard Kennedy.
What the hell is he doing here? It's no coincidence. Or is it?
I don't know-have no way of knowing-and that disturbs me.
And why is he absolutely unable to believe that I have no intention of flipping him to the FBI? Goddammit, by now he should know he can trust me. Which of course makes me unable to trust him…
"The entrance is way down on the left," Kennedy said. "And it looks like there's a line of people ahead of you."
"Probably people applying for visas," Castillo replied. "There's supposed to be an employee entrance on the right. Just drop me anywhere along here."
A moment later the Mercedes pulled to the curb. Charley saw the man in the front jump out to open the door for him. He turned to Kennedy and offered his hand.
"Thanks, Howard," he said.
"I have every confidence you're not going to tell the legal attache how you got here."
"Oh, goddammit, Howard! I told you, there's no FBI here."
"So you said."
"Fuck you, Howard."
"Hey, Charley, I'm just pulling your chain."
"No, you're not."
"Let's try to have a drink and/or dinner," Kennedy said.
"Yeah. Give me a call."
He got out of the Mercedes and walked quickly across the street. There was a gap wide enough to walk through between the wedges of the concrete barrier. Once through that, he could see a gate, with a guard shack and a revolving barrier, in the steel picket fence.
There were three men in the guard shack, wearing police-style uniforms with embroidered patches of some security service on the sleeves. What looked like Smith amp; Wesson.357 Magnum revolvers hung in open holsters from Sam Browne belts.