"You weren't planning on flying them back to where they came from?"
"The 'field' from which they will have been flown into Uruguay is an aircraft carrier-the USS Ronald Reagan. By the time I can get Timmons back, it will have sailed around Cape Horn and be halfway up the Pacific coast to Valparaiso, Chile."
"So?"
"I understand some of the lakes in Argentina are very deep," Castillo said.
"You're not suggesting that you intend to…sink four helicopters in an Argentine lake?"
What the hell's going on here?
Why the curiosity? And it's damned sure not idle curiosity!
"What else would you suggest I do with them? I can't just leave them in a field somewhere. Or, for that matter, destroy them, torch them. They have to disappear. My orders are to come down here quietly, get Timmons back quietly, and leave quietly."
"Tell me, Colonel, are helicopters of this type readily available on the commercial market?"
"Sure."
"But wouldn't there be some means of tracing their history? All the way back to the factory?"
"The communists captured several hundred of them when Vietnam fell. Many of those have appeared at various places around the world."
Ordonez nodded and asked, "Involved with criminal activity of some sort?"
Castillo nodded.
I'll be a sonofabitch.
Does Mr. Clean, who Munz warned me was above taking a bribe, want my birds?
Confirmation of that wild theory came immediately.
"It would then be credible, if your helicopters somehow made their way to a field somewhere in Uruguay, for me to find them and announce that they probably had been in the use of drug dealers. Criminals who arrived at the field to refuel them, found no fuel, and had to abandon them."
"Whereupon they would enter the service of the Policia Nacional?" Castillo said.
Ordonez nodded, then asked, "Parts would be available for them?"
"Ordonez, if you let me refuel the choppers at Shangri-La, I'll fly them anywhere in Uruguay you say when I'm finished my operation. Even if I have to fly them there myself."
When Ordonez didn't immediately reply, Castillo added: "And I will get you all the parts you need for them. Either through government channels, or black."
"This 'black' would be better," Ordonez said. "It would continue to keep Ambassador McGrory out of the picture. Also, it would be better if you had someone other than yourself bring them back into Uruguay, Colonel."
"Then we have a deal?" Castillo asked.
Ordonez nodded and exhaled audibly.
"But let me clarify it, Colonel. I don't think it's quite what you're thinking. You haven't bribed me with a gift of helicopters for which you will no longer have a need and which in fact give you a disposal problem. What they represent is a sugar pill for me to accompany the bitter one I have to swallow-that of assisting you in an operation which is really none of my business and which I am really afraid is going to end in a disaster.
"I realized that I was going to have to help you, not because I want to, but because I have no choice but to hope-even pray-that you are successful. Your failure would be a disaster for me. Do we understand each other?"
Castillo nodded.
Ordonez went on, "You mentioned the Buquebus. Why don't you fly back to Buenos Aires?"
Castillo pointed at Max, who was lying beside him with his head between his paws, and said, "Yung told me that taking him on Austral or Aerolineas would be very difficult."
Ordonez considered that, then said: "And even if I helped you overcome the difficulties, it would still attract attention. Let me make a suggestion: If you could arrange to have someone meet you at the customs house at the International Bridge at Fray Bentos-Gualeguaychus, I'll fly you there in one of the Policia Nacional Hueys. We have four very old ones, two of which are flyable. It will perhaps make you understand why I am so interested in yours."
"That's very kind of you, Jose," Munz said.
"You, Alfredo, and your animal. Anyone else?"
"My communicator."
"Give me an hour to set it up," Ordonez said. "Call me when you're ready to go." He stood up. "I presume Alfredo will keep me advised of what's happening?"
Castillo nodded.
"Thank you for your hospitality," Ordonez said, offering Castillo his hand. He embraced Munz, went through the hug-and-kiss rite, and walked out of the room.
[THREE]
Embassy of the United States of America
Lauro Miller 1776 Montevideo, Republica Oriental del Uruguay 1835 9 September 2005 The Honorable Michael A. McGrory, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the President of the United States to the Republic of Uruguay, was a small and wiry, well-tailored man of fifty-five with a full head of curly gray hair. His staff referred to him as "Napoleon" and "Senor Pomposo." McGrory looked across his highly polished wooden desk at Special Agent David W. Yung, who sat beside Colin Leverette. Robert Howell, the embassy's cultural attache, stood near the door.
McGrory smiled and said to Yung, "If you'll be good enough to give me a minute alone with Mr. Howell-I need to speak with him on another matter-you can be on your way."
"Thank you, Mr. Ambassador," Yung said.
"And it's been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Leverette. If you need something for Ambassador Lorimer-anything at all-that either Mr. Yung or Mr. Howell can't arrange, please feel free to come see me at any time."
"Thank you very much, sir," Leverette said.
Yung and Leverette stood up, shook the ambassador's hand, and walked out of the ambassador's office, closing the door behind them.
"Well, Howell, what do you think?" McGrory asked.
"What do I think about what, Mr. Ambassador?" Howell replied.
While officially the cultural attache of the embassy, Howell was in fact the CIA's Uruguay station chief.
"What do we really have here?"
"Excuse me?"
"You don't see anything odd in Lorimer's father coming down here to live on that estancia in the middle of nowhere? With a butler?"
"I thought that was pretty well explained when Yung told us the ambassador lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, sir."
"And the presence of Yung? That didn't strike you as unusual?"
"I can think of a likely scenario, sir."
"Let's have it."
"It could very well be that the secretary, who I think has known the ambassador a long time, went out of her way to do what she could for the ambassador. She knows he has a heart condition. His son-in-law was murdered, and right after Mr. Masterson's remains were repatriated, the hurricane struck and destroyed the ambassador's home."
"Huh!" the ambassador snorted.
"And Yung, who was on the secretary's personal staff-"
"We learned after the fact," McGrory interrupted. "Nobody knew that when he was here."
"Yes, sir. Well, he was available. He was still accredited diplomatically down here. Yung probably struck her as the obvious choice to come here and set things up."
"Traveling in a private Gulfstream jet airplane. I wonder what that cost?"
"I don't like to think, Mr. Ambassador. But on the other hand, we know the ambassador's daughter came into her husband's money. And we know how much of that there is. It poses no financial strain on her to charter airplanes. Or, for that matter, to pay for the private security people who will be coming here with the ambassador."
"And none of this strikes you as suspicious?"
"I don't know what to suspect, Mr. Ambassador."
"Years ago, Howell, there was a terribly racist saying to the effect that one suspected an African-American in the woodpile."
"I'm familiar with the expression, sir, but I don't know what Ambassador Lorimer could be concealing."
"I'm not referring to Ambassador Lorimer," Ambassador McGrory said impatiently, stopping himself just in time from finishing the sentence with you idiot!
"You're referring to the butler, sir? Leverette?"
McGrory stared at Howell and thought, I can't believe this. This man works for the Central Intelligence Agency?