A U.S. Marine in dress trousers and a stiffly starched open-collared khaki shirt was waiting for him outside the main entrance to the embassy building. He had a large revolver in a holster suspended from what looked like a patent-leather Sam Browne harness.
“Mr. Danton?”
“Thank God, an American!”
“Mr. Danton?”
“Roscoe Danton, an alumnus of the Parris Island School for Boys, at your service, Sergeant.”
“If you will come with me, Mr. Danton?”
The sergeant led him into the building, through a magnetic detector, and down a corridor to the right.
He pointed to a wooden bench.
“If you will sit there, Mr. Danton, someone will attend to you shortly. Please do not leave this area.”
Roscoe dutifully sat down. The Marine sergeant marched away.
There was a cork bulletin board on the opposing wall.
After perhaps thirty seconds, Roscoe, more from a desire to assert his journalist status than curiosity—he had been thinking, Fuck you, Sergeant. I ain’t in the Crotch no more; you can’t order me around—stood up and had a look at it.
Among the other items on display was the embassy Daily Bulletin. It contained the usual bullshit Roscoe expected to see, and at the end of it was: UNOFFICIAL: ITEMS FOR SALE.
His eyes flickered over it.
“Bingo!” he said aloud.
Immediately after an offer to sell a baby carriage “in like-new condition”— Like-new condition? What did they do, turn the baby back in?—was an absolutely fascinating offer of something for sale:
2005 BMW. Royal Blue. Excellent Shape. 54K miles.
All papers in order for sale to US Diplomatic Personnel or Argentine Nationals. Priced for quick sale. Can be seen at 2330 O’Higgins. Ask doorman. Alex Darby. Phone 531-678-666.
Five seconds after Roscoe had read the offer, the paper on which it had been printed was off the wall and in his pocket.
He sat back down on the bench and trimmed his fingernails.
Maybe they have surveillance cameras.
Maybe they saw me tear that off.
If they did, so what?
“Mr. Danton, Ms. Grunblatt will see you now.”
Sylvia Grunblatt was sitting behind a large, cluttered desk. She was not svelte, but neither was she unpleasingly plump. She had very intelligent eyes.
“What can the embassy of the United States do for Roscoe J. Danton of The Washington Times-Post?” she greeted him. “How about a cup of coffee for openers?”
“I would be in your debt,” Roscoe said.
She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to him.
“Sugar? Canned cow?”
He shook his head.
“What brings you to the Paris of South America?” Grunblatt asked.
“I’m writing a feature with the working title, ‘Tacos and Tango.’”
“Sure you are,” she said. “What did you do, get demoted? I’m one of your fans, Mr. Danton, and you don’t write features for the Sunday magazine.”
“How about one with the lead, ‘U.S. diplomats living really high on the taxpayer’s dollar in the Paris of South America’?”
“If you were going to do that, you wouldn’t tell me.”
“I came down here to see Alex Darby,” Roscoe said.
“Nobody here by that name,” she said.
“You mean ‘Nobody here by that name now,’ right?”
“We had a commercial counselor by that name, but he’s gone. Retired.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t seem to recall. I could find out for you, but then we would get into privacy issues, wouldn’t we?”
“Or security issues. You know who cut his checks, Miss Grunblatt.”
“One, it’s Ms. Grunblatt—but you can call me Sylvia if ‘Mizz’ sticks in your craw.”
“And you may call me Roscoe, Sylvia.”
“And two, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Mr. Darby was our commercial counselor. Who fed you that other wild notion?”
“Eleanor Dillworth, another longtime toiler in the Clandestine Service of the agency whose name we dare not speak.”
“You know Eleanor, do you?”
“Eleanor came to me. Actually, she and her friend Patricia Davies Wilson came to me. Do you know Patricia?”
“I’ve heard the name somewhere. Eleanor came to you?”
“Both of them did. Whistles to their lips.”
“And who—at whom—did they wish to blow their whistles?”
“They seem to feel the villain is an Army officer named Castillo. Major Charley Castillo.”
“His Christian name is Carlos.”
“You know him?”
She nodded, and said, “If he’s the same man. He was sent down here when our consul general, J. Winslow Masterson, was kidnapped.”
“Sent by who—whom?”
“Our late President. Who then, after Jack Masterson was killed, put him in charge of getting Masterson’s family safely home.”
“Tell me about Major Castillo,” Danton said.
“Tell you what, Roscoe. You tell me what you think you know about Castillo and if I can, I’ll tell you if you’re right.”
“Nice try, Sylvia.”
“Excuse me?”
“If I tell you what I know about this guy, then you will know how close I am to learning what you don’t want to tell me about him.”
“Roscoe, I am a public affairs officer. It is my duty to answer any questions you might pose to the best of my ability. Providing of course that my answers would not include anything that is classified.”
“You ever hear what C. Harry Whelan has to say about public affairs officers such as yourself?”
She shook her head.
“Quote: Their function is not the dissemination of information but rather the containment thereof. They really should be called ‘misinformation officers.’ End quote.”
“Oh, God! He’s onto us! There is nothing left for me to do but to go home and slit my wrists.”
He chuckled.
Sylvia made the time out signal with her hands.
“Can we go off the record, Roscoe?”
“Briefly.”
“What exactly did Eleanor tell you?”
“I presume that ‘off the record’ means that you’re not going to send an urgent message to Foggy Bottom telling Natalie Cohen what Eleanor told me.”
“Girl Scout’s honor.”
“Okay. Actually, she didn’t tell me much. She said I wouldn’t believe what an evil man this guy Castillo is unless I found out myself. What she did was suggest that Castillo had stolen two Russian defectors from her when she was in Vienna. And then pointed me at Alexander Darby.”
Sylvia looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, “Eleanor and I go back a long time—”
“Meaning you have taken Darby’s place as the resident spook?”
She shook her head and raised her right arm as if swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God.
“Meaning we go back a long time,” she said. “Eleanor is very good at what she’s done for all those years. If she says Charley Castillo stole two heavy Russian spooks from under her nose, that means there were two Russian spooks, and she believes Charley Castillo stole them.”
“She said that it cost her her job.”
“Stories like that are circulating, and I’ve heard them,” Sylvia said. “What I can’t figure is why Charley would do something like that unless someone—maybe even our late President—told him to. And I can’t imagine why he brought them here.”
“He brought Russian spooks here?”
“Ambassador Montvale thinks he did.”
“How do you know that?”
“A friend of mine—you don’t need to know who—was in the Río Alba—that’s a restaurant around the corner, magnificent steaks; you ought to make an effort to eat there—at a tab
le near my ambassador’s. He was having lunch with Montvale. Castillo walked in. Montvale told him all would be forgiven if he gave him the Russians. Castillo told him to attempt a physiologically impossible act of self-reproduction. Montvale threatened to have him arrested; he had a couple of Secret Service guys with him. Castillo said if the Secret Service made a move, they would be arrested by a couple of Gendarmería Nacional—they’re the local heavy cops—he had with him.
“The meeting adjourned to the embassy. I guess they were afraid someone might hear them talking. When the meeting was over, Montvale went to the airport without any Russians, got on his Citation Four, and flew back to Washington. Castillo walked out of the embassy and I haven’t seen him since. Reminding you that we’re off the record, my ambassador, who is a really good guy, thinks Castillo is a really good guy.”
“Interesting.”
“One more interesting thing: Right after we bombed whatever the hell it was we bombed in the Congo, a lot of people around here, including Alex Darby, suddenly decided to retire.”
“What people?”
“No names. But a Secret Service guy, and a ‘legal attaché,’ which is diplomat-speak for FBI agent, and even a couple of people in our embassies in Asunción, Paraguay, and across the River Plate in Uruguay.”
“Are you going to tell me where I can find Alexander Darby?”
“I don’t know, and don’t want to know, where he is. The last time I saw him was at Ezeiza.”
“The airport?”
She nodded. “Alex is somebody else I’ve known for a long time. A really good guy. I drove him to the airport.”
“He went home?”
She paused before replying: “Alex applied for, and was issued, a regular passport. I drove him to the airport. He left the country—went through immigration—on his diplomatic passport. Then he went back through the line and entered the country as a tourist on his regular passport. When he came out, he handed me—as an officer of the embassy—his dip’s passport. Then I drove him to his apartment. I haven’t seen him since.”
“You going to tell me where that apartment is?”
“We’re back on the record, Mr. Danton. I cannot of course violate Mr. Darby’s privacy by giving you that information. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course. And thank you very much, Mizz Grunblatt.”
“Anytime, Mr. Danton. We try to be of service.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Did you ever hear what Winston Churchill said about journalists, Mr. Danton?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Churchill said, ‘Journalists are the semiliterate cretins hired to fill the spaces between the advertisements.’”
“Oh, God! He’s onto us! Now I suppose there’s nothing left for me but to slash my wrists.”
“That’s a thought. Good morning, Mr. Danton.”
[FOUR]
Apartment 32-B
O’Higgins 2330
Belgrano
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1505 5 February 2007
“I will miss the view,” Alexander B. Darby—a small, plump man with a pencil-line mustache—said as he stood with Liam Duffy, Edgar Delchamps, and his wife, and gestured out the windows of the Darbys’ apartment on the thirty-second floor. It occupied half of the top floor of the four-year-old building, high enough to overlook almost all of the other apartment buildings between O’Higgins and the River Plate.
“What you’re supposed to be going to miss, you sonofabitch, is your loving wife and adorable children,” Julia Darby—a trim woman who wore her black hair in a pageboy—said.
And was immediately sorry.
“Strike that, Alex,” she added. “I was just lashing out at the fickle finger of fate.”
“It’s okay, honey. And I really don’t think it will be for long.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” Julia said solemnly.
“And the movers never show up when they’re supposed to,” Edgar Delchamps said as solemnly.
The apartment showed signs that the movers were expected any moment. Cardboard boxes were stacked all over, and suitcases were arranged by the door.
“And it is always the cocktail hour somewhere in the world, so why not here and now?” Alex said.
Julia smiled at Edgar and Liam, and said, “Every once in a great while, he has a good idea. The embassy’s glasses are in the cupboard, so all we have to do is find something to put in them.”
“The booze is in the suitcase with the ‘seven’ stuck on it,” Alex said, and looked at the suitcases by the door. “Which, of course, is the one on the bottom.” He switched to Spanish. “Give me a hand, will you, Liam?”
Liam Duffy—a well-dressed, muscular, ruddy-faced blond man in his forties—looked to be what his name suggested, a true son of Erin. But he was in fact an Argentine whose family had migrated to Argentina more than a century before.
They went to the stack of suitcases, moved them around, and in about a minute Alex Darby was able to triumphantly raise a bottle of twelve-year-old Famous Grouse Malt Scotch whisky.
The house telephone rang.
Julia answered it.
“It’s the concierge,” she announced. “Somebody’s here to look at the car.”
“Tell him to show it to him,” Alex said.
He walked into the kitchen carrying the whisky. Liam followed him.
Ninety seconds later, the telephone rang again, and again Julia answered it.
When Alex and Liam returned from the kitchen, Julia announced, “It’s the movers.”
“Which one?”
“His,” Julia said, nodding at Duffy.
“Have them sent up,” Alex said.
“I’m way ahead of you, my darling,” Julia said as she reached for her glass.
Seconds later, the doorbell chimed, signaling there was someone in the elevator foyer.
Duffy went to the door and opened it, then waved three men into the apartment. They were all wearing business suits but there was something about them that suggested the military.
“The suitcases to the left of the doorway,” Duffy said in Spanish. “Be very careful of the blue one with the number seven on it.”
“Sí, mí comandante,” one of them said.
“Did they find a pilot for the Aero Commander?” Duffy asked.
“Sí, mí general. All is ready at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery.”
“Whoopee!” Julia Darby said.
“And the people to stay with Familia Darby?” Duffy asked.
“In place, mí comandante.”
“Whoopee again,” Julia said.
Duffy nodded at the men.
The doorbell rang again.
Duffy pulled it open.
A thirty-eight-year-old Presbyterian from Chevy Chase, Maryland, stood there.
“Mr. Darby?” Roscoe Danton asked.
“I’m Alex Darby. Come in.”
Roscoe entered the apartment and offered his hand to him.
“Roscoe Danton,” he said.
“That was a quick look at the BMW, wasn’t it?” Darby asked.
“Actually, Mr. Darby, I’m not here about the car. I came to see you,” Danton said. “I’m a journalist at The Washington Times-Post. Eleanor Dillworth sent me.”
Darby’s reaction was Pavlovian. One spook does not admit knowing another spook unless he knows whoever is asking the question has the right to know.
Spooks also believe that journalists should be told only that which is in the best interests of the spook to tell them.
“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake,” Darby said, politely. “I’m afraid I don’t know a Miss Duckworth.”
“Dillworth.” Roscoe made the correction even as he intuited things were about to go wrong. “Eleanor Dillworth.”
Comandante General Liam Duffy also experienced a Pavlovian reaction when he saw the look in Darby’s eyes. He made a barely perceptible gesture with the index finger of his left
hand.
The two men about to carry luggage from the apartment quickly set it down and moved quickly to each side of Roscoe Danton. The third man, who was already on the elevator landing, turned and came back into the apartment, looking to Duffy for guidance.
Duffy made another small gesture with his left hand, rubbing his thumb against his index finger. This gesture had two meanings, money and papers.
In this case, the third man intuited it meant papers. He walked to Danton and said, reasonably pleasantly, in English, “Papers, please, Señor.”
“Excuse me?” Roscoe said.
Julia Darby looked annoyed rather than concerned.
“Gendarmería Nacional,” the man said. “Documents, please, passport and other identity.”
Roscoe wordlessly handed over his passport.
The third man made a give me the rest gesture.
Roscoe took out his wallet and started to look for his White House press pass.
The third man snatched the wallet from his fingers and handed it and the passport to Liam Duffy.
“My press passes are in there,” Roscoe said. “Including my White House—”
Duffy silenced him with a raised hand, examined the passport and the contents of the wallet, and then handed all of it to Darby.
Then he made another gesture, patting his chest with both hands.
The two men standing beside him instantly started to pat down Roscoe, finally signaling that he was clean except for a wad of currency, a sheaf of papers, several ballpoint pens, a box of wooden matches, and two cigars. They handed everything to Duffy.
“How did you happen to come to this address, Mr. Danton?” Darby asked, courteously.
Roscoe decided to tell the truth.
“I saw the for-sale ad, for the BMW, in the daily bulletin at the embassy,” he said. He pointed to the sheaf of papers.
“What were you doing at the embassy?”
“I went there to see if they could point me at you.”
“Why would you want to be pointed at me?”
“I told you, Eleanor Dillworth said you would be helpful.”
“In what way?”
“That you could point me toward Colonel Carlos Castillo.”
“I know no one by that name. An Argentine Army officer?”
The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Page 16
