After six or seven kilometers at what Castillo decided was at least twenty klicks above the posted 130-kilometers-per-hour speed limit-meaning they were going ninety-plus miles per hour-the road split, and Frederic took the left fork. Signs said that the right fork was the highway to Uruguay and that they were now headed for Pilar.
They went through a tollbooth without stopping, just slowing enough for a machine to read a device that opened the barrier, and then Frederic quickly accelerated back to their way-above-the-speed-limit velocity.
On the left was a large factory, a long rectangular building three stories high and three hundred meters long, connected to four enormous round concrete silos with a rat's nest of conveyors.
LUCCETTI, LA PASTA DE MAMA was lettered in thirty-foot-tall letters across the silos.
Castillo chuckled. Kennedy looked at him.
"Mama's family obviously eats a lot of pasta," Charley said.
Kennedy smiled and said, "There are more Italians here than Spanish."
The autopista here was narrower-three lanes in each direction-but the speed limit was still 130 kph, and Frederic was still driving much faster than that.
Outside the autopista fence there were now large, attractive restaurants and what looked like recently constructed showrooms for Audi, BMW, and other European and Japanese automobiles. Charley saw only a Ford showroom to represent American manufacturers, and wondered idly where Mercedes-Benz had their showroom.
He had been out this way as a kid, too, but then there had been only a two-lane highway leading from Buenos Aires to the estancias in the country.
The area around Pilar was obviously now an upscale residential area-somebody had to be buying the Audis and BMWs-but there were no houses visible from the highway, just businesses catering to people with money.
Frederic took an exit ramp off the highway, and there was the missing Mercedes showroom, a typically elegant affair across the road from a large shopping center anchored by a Jumbo supermarket.
And then they were in the country again.
Three klicks or so down a two-lane highway-which slowed Frederic down to no more than, say, sixty-five or seventy mph-the car braked suddenly and turned off the road and slowed as they approached a two-story red-tiled-roof gatehouse.
A sign carved from wood read BUENA VISTA COUNTRY CLUB.
There were four uniformed guards at the gatehouse, two of whom looked into the Mercedes carefully before a heavy, red-and-white steel barrier pole was raised. All the guards were armed, and inside the gatehouse Charley saw a rack holding a half-dozen riot guns. They looked like American Ithaca pump shotguns.
Now this, Castillo thought, is what you call a "gated community."
Once inside the property, there were signs announcing a thirty-kph speed limit, and these were reinforced with speed bumps on the macadam road every two hundred meters or so. Frederic now obeyed the speed limit.
And then, far enough into the property so they would not be visible from the road outside, the first houses came into view.
The Mercedes rolled slowly down a curving road past long rows of upscale houses set on well-manicured hectare lots. There were no barred windows, as there had been on the upscale houses in San Isidro. They passed a polo field-lined with the same quality houses-and then another, and then came to several greens and then the clubhouse of a well-maintained golf course. There were thirty or so cars in the parking lot.
And then more houses on the winding road. The houses and the lots in this area were larger. Some- perhaps most-of them were ringed with shrubbery, tall enough so that only the upper floors of the houses were visible. Castillo saw that the shrubbery also concealed fences.
Frederic turned off the road and stopped before a ten-foot-high gate. After a moment, the gate rolled open to the right. Charley saw a workman at what was probably the gate control. He had a pistol under his loose denim jacket. Once they were inside, Charley saw a man in a golf cart rolling along the perimeter of the property. There was a golf bag mounted on the cart that did not completely conceal the butt stock of a shotgun.
This is obviously a double-gated community, a gated community within a gated community, as opposed to a double-gaited community, which is one whose inhabitants are a little vague about their sexual preferences.
He saw first a Bell Ranger helicopter sitting on what looked like a putting green, and then the house, an English-looking near mansion of red brick with casement windows. As they approached, the main door of the house opened and a tall man who appeared to be in his late thirties walked out and down a shallow flight of steps to the cobblestone driveway.
Aleksandr Pevsner-also known as Vasily Respin and Alex Dondiemo and a half dozen other names, an international dealer in arms and, it was often and credibly alleged, head of at least a dozen other enterprises of very questionable legality, and for whom arrest warrants had been issued at one time or another by at least thirteen governments-was wearing gray flannel slacks, a white button-down shirt (in the open neck of which, in the Argentine manner, was a silk scarf held in place by a sterling silver ring), a powder blue pullover sweater, and highly polished brown shoes with thick rubber cushion soles.
He folded his arms over his chest, smiled, and waited for the Mercedes to stop and for Frederic to quickly run around the front of the car to open the rear door.
"Ah, Charley," Pevsner called in Russian as Castillo got out. "Thank you for coming. It's a delight to see you."
"Frankly, I didn't think much of the first invitation, Alex," Castillo replied, also in Russian, offering Pevsner his hand.
"For which I have already apologized, and will apologize again now, if you wish."
"Once is enough, Alex," Castillo said, adding, "Nice house."
Pevsner broke the handshake and put his hands firmly on Castillo's upper arms and looked into his eyes. Pevsner's eyes were large and blue and extraordinarily bright. The first time Charley had met him, he had unkindly wondered if Pevsner had been inhaling controlled substances through his nose.
"I must ask you two questions, my friend," Pevsner said. "In a moment, you will understand why."
"Ask."
"What are you doing in Argentina? Why are you here?"
This is one of those times when telling the truth and only the truth is the smart thing to do. Charley immediately answered, "The wife of the chief of mission at our embassy here has disappeared under circumstances which look like kidnapping. The President sent me down here to see what's going on."
Castillo saw that his answer surprised Pevsner, but he didn't pursue it directly.
"Your being here has nothing to do with me?"
Castillo shook his head.
"Not a thing. I had no idea you-or Howard-were anywhere near Argentina."
Pevsner looked into Castillo's eyes for a long moment.
Alex, I don't care how long you look for signs of me lying. You won't find any. And if I have any luck at all, you won't see signs indicating that I'm more than a little afraid of you.
Pevsner finally squeezed Castillo's arms in a friendly gesture and let him go.
"Thank you for your honesty, my friend," he said. "Now, why don't we go in the house, have a glass of wine, and let me introduce you to my family?"
"Your family?" Castillo blurted.
"Yes. My family. My wife and children."
I'll be goddamned! Well, that explains all the concern. But what the hell are they doing here? Castillo, after meeting Aleksandr Pevsner for the first time in Vienna, had reported to Secretary of Homeland Security Matt Hall that Pevsner had told him the missing 727 had been stolen by Somalian terrorists who intended to crash it into the Liberty Bell. Pevsner had said he would do whatever he could to help locate it because he was against Muslim terrorists for many reasons, the primary one being he was a family man who adored his wife and three children. He didn't want them hurt by Muslim fanatics. Pevsner had then produced a photograph of him with what he said was his family: a very attractive blond wife and three blond children who looked straight from a Clairol advertisement. Castillo knew it sounded incredible, and that Hall was going to have a hard time believing any of it.