When they walked down the row of cars, and Darby pointed to a Volkswagen Golf and got behind the wheel, Castillo thought he understood. Darby didn't want an embassy car with a driver. The Golf had ordinary Argentine license plates. For some reason, Darby didn't want to be seen at the restaurant in an embassy car.
It wasn't until the security guard at the gate asked for Castillo's identification that Castillo realized Lowery's secretary still had them.
"Don't give me any trouble about this," Darby said, not pleasantly, in fluent Spanish. "All you have to know is that this gentleman is with me."
Reluctantly, the security guard passed them out of the embassy grounds.
"About half of them are really nice guys," Darby said. "The other half are like that. They love to show their authority."
"I had a little trouble getting into the embassy myself," Castillo said.
"So, from what you've seen so far, Castillo, how do you like Buenos Aires?"
Castillo was about to reply when he belatedly realized Darby had switched from English to Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian.
Darby saw the surprise on Castillo's face and laughed. "You really don't remember me, do you?" he asked, still in Pashtu.
Castillo shook his head.
"The last time I saw you was in Zaranj," Darby said. "There were several high-ranking Army officers who couldn't seem to make up their minds whether to court-martial you and send you home in chains, or give you a medal. Something about a stolen Blackhawk, I seem to recall."
"Well, so much for my cover," Castillo said, in Pashtu. "What were you doing in Zaranj?"
Zaranj was a city on the border of Iran and Afghanistan.
"I ran the agency there. Whatever happened to that black guy whose knee was really all fucked up?"
"If you mean, did he make it, yeah, he made it."
"Thanks to you. I was there when you brought the chopper back. He wouldn't have made it-probably none of them would-if you hadn't gone after them."
"He would have done the same thing for me," Castillo said. "As to what happened to him, truth being stranger than fiction, he was-at least for a while- station chief in Luanda, Angola."
"I thought it probably was you two," Darby said.
"Thought what was?"
"I hate to think how many man-hours and how much money I pissed away here looking for that stolen 727," Darby said. "Langley was hysterical when they couldn't find it. And then the search was called off without explanation. I was curious, so when I was in Langley a month ago, I asked. Strictly out of school, an old pal told me that some hotshot named Castillo had put his nose into agency affairs, and found it, and stole it back, said action seriously pissing off the DCI. I figured that had to be you, particularly after he also told me the DCI had tried to crucify the Luanda station chief, who just happened to be an ex-Special Forces officer with a bad knee from Afghanistan, for giving intel to said Castillo."
"I'm not too popular with the FBI, either," Castillo said.
"So now what I'm wondering is what the hell you're doing here, waving a Secret Service badge around."
"The badge is legitimate."
"I figured that. Santini would spot a phony right away. Or would have been told to ask no questions."
"I don't think I could talk you into asking no questions?"
"Not a chance."
"The President sent me down here to find out what's going on with Masterson's wife."
"The way you said that, it sounds as if the President himself said, 'Castillo, go to Buenos Aires'; that it didn't come down through channels."
"What the President said was, 'I want to know how and why that happened, and I don't want to wait until whoever's in charge down there has time to write a cover-his-ass report.'"
"He said that to you?"
Castillo nodded.
"Is that what you think I'm going to do, write a cover-my-ass report?"
"No. I think what you want to do is whatever it takes to get that poor bastard's wife back to him alive."
"Thank you," Darby said.
There was a long silence, and then Darby said, "What we're going to do now is have a nice lunch, during which I will make up my mind what I'm going to tell who about you and when."
"You'll tell me what you decide?"
"Yeah, I'll tell you."
"Thank you," Castillo said.
IV
[ONE] Restaurant Kansas Avenida Libertador San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1315 22 July 2005 "How much of that sixty million did he actually get, do you think?" Castillo asked Darby.
They were sitting at a table in the crowded bar of the Kansas, smoking cigars with their coffee.
They had been sitting for several minutes without speaking, lost in their own thoughts, and the question came out of the blue. It took Darby a moment to come back from wherever he had been.
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Charley, that that's not curiosity."
"I was wondering if there is a ransom demand, and he says, 'Fuck the rules, I want my wife back, I'll pay,' where would he get the money, how would he get it down here?"
"What is that line, 'Great minds run on parallel paths'?"
"Something like that."
"The answer to the first part of the question is that the IRS took their bite-at his level, right at half, countingLouisiana state income tax-out of the lost-wages part of the settlement. In other words, he got something like eight and a half million, and taxes ate half of that. The rest of the settlement was compensation for pain and suffering, et cetera. That's tax free."
"You're talking more than forty million dollars. Where is it?"
"It's more than that now. There's a guy-he and Jack went to some private high school together-in the Hibernia National Bank and Trust in New Orleans who's been managing it for him. Managing it very well."
"He's from New Orleans?"
Darby shook his head. "Just across the border in Mississippi, a place called Pass Christian, on the gulf. Betsy's from New Orleans; her father, who's a retired ambassador, lives there."
"You checked Masterson out, I guess?"
"No. He told me. I met Jack when we were both in Paris, years ago. We're close. I'm the successor executor-after his father-of his will. So he figured I should know what I was letting myself in for."
Castillo nodded and they fell silent for a moment.
"That's another problem the poor bastard has, telling Betsy's family," Darby said.
"You think he's told his?"
"I don't think he'd want to tell his father without telling Betsy's, and Betsy's father's likely to have a heart attack. Literally. He's got a really bad heart condition."
"Somebody said something about a brother-in-law?"
"Works for the UN. Jack doesn't like him."
"Why not?"
Darby shrugged. "He never told me. But it was pretty evident."
Then Darby changed the subject: "To answer your first question: What I would do if I were Jack Masterson-what I'm half afraid he's already done-is get on the phone to his money guy at Hibernia: 'Get me a million dollars, get on the next plane down here with it, and don't tell anyone.'"
"It might not be that easy," Castillo said. "Rich people don't keep much cash around, either cash-cash, or in a checking account. Even a banker would have trouble coming up with a million in cash without somebody asking some hard questions."
"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Darby said.
Castillo ignored him.
"And a million dollars in hundreds takes up a lot of space. A hundred thousand right from the Federal Reserve makes a bundle about this big."
He demonstrated with his hands.
"You really live in an apartment in the Mayflower, Charley?" Darby asked.
Castillo decided to ignore that, too, but then changed his mind.
"Where'd you hear that?"
"From the same guy who told me about you and the DCI. I won't tell you who he is, but you know him. He was in Afghanistan when we were. Not to worry; he likes you."