"You think my room in the Crillon is bugged?"
"I don't know for sure that it's not."
"Why all the concern?"
"How much do you know about Lorimer?"
"A little more than I knew when I first talked to you," Castillo replied. "There are people looking for him. They killed Masterson to make the point that they are willing to kill to find him."
"And do you know who these people are?"
"No. That's why I'm hunting Lorimer."
"Would it surprise you that some Russians are doing the same?"
"Nothing would surprise me."
"Or some Germans?"
"Same answer."
"Or some French? Or some former members of Saddam Hussein's regime? Or, for that matter, some people from Houston, Texas?"
"Get to the point, please, Howard. I'm not good at riddles."
"Your friend Lorimer was a bagman-maybe the head bagman-for that noble program called Oil for Food. Which means that he knows who got paid off. That's enough for any of the aforementioned people to take the appropriate steps to make him dead."
"Give me a minute to think that over."
A traffic cop stepped into the street and with a shrill burst from his whistle and an arrogant wave of his stiff arm stopped traffic. Kennedy, with a heavy foot, brought the Mercedes to a stop at the crosswalk. As Castillo watched the trickle of early-morning commuters making their way to cafes and then to work, he considered how Kennedy might-or might not-be trying to play him.
"In addition to his knowing too much, Charley, there are those who think he skimmed the payoff money. To the tune of some-depending on who you talk to- twelve to sixteen million dollars."
"Jesus!"
"Yeah, Jesus. And one more little item. This gets uncomfortably close to Alex."
"How Alex?"
"How do you think you move that kind of money around? By wire transfer? By UPS?"
"You tell me."
"One hundred thousand U.S. dollars fresh from the mint comes in a neatly wrapped plastic package about so big," Kennedy said, taking his hands off the wheel to demonstrate the size. He could have been mimicking a stubby shoe box.
The traffic cop blew another burst of his whistle and waved traffic forward.
"And Alex moves freight, right?" Castillo said. "No questions asked?"
"You don't really expect me to answer that, do you?"
"So why are you telling me what you did?"
"Alex thinks you're a lot smarter than I do," Kennedy said. "He thinks it's possible you'll find this sonofabitch before anybody else does, and that you'll share that information with him."
"Tell Alex, sorry, no. I want this sonofabitch alive, not with a beauty mark in the center of his forehead."
"Why? So he can tell you who's after him?"
"Exactly."
"You really are a virgin, aren't you? These people are untouchable. Believe me."
"The answer is no, Howard. Tell Alex that."
"I told him that's what you would probably decide," Kennedy said.
They were now almost to the Arc de Triomphe de L'etoile. Kennedy made an abrupt left turn onto Rue Pierre Charron and stopped.
"Get out, Charley. Conversation over."
Without another word, Castillo got out of the car. Kennedy drove quickly off.
Castillo walked back to the Champs-Elysees, and then down it, toward the Crillon.
XV
[ONE] Suite 301 Hotel de Crillon 10 Place de la Concorde Paris, France 0730 27 July 2005 There was a knock at the door, and Castillo, still chewing on a piece of toast, stood up from the breakfast table and went to open the door.
A nondescript man in his late fifties-maybe a little older-was standing there in a somewhat rumpled suit.
"Mr. Castillo?"
"Right. You're Mr. Delchamps?"
The man nodded.
"Come on in. Would you like some breakfast?"
"No, thanks."
"Maybe some coffee?"
Delchamps shook his head, and looked at Fernando and Torine.
"I wasn't told about anybody else," Delchamps said.
"This is Colonel Torine and Mr. Lopez," Castillo said. "And this is Mr. Edgar Delchamps, the CIA station chief."
"Not only wasn't I told about anyone else, but, Mr. Castillo, as you may or may not know, the identity of the CIA station chief, whoever that might be, is classified."
"Not a problem, Mr. Delchamps. Both the colonel and Mr. Lopez have the necessary clearances."
"How do I know that?"
"Someone from the office of the director of national intelligence was supposed to have given you a heads-up about what we're doing here."
"Someone did. But only your name was mentioned."
"It looks to me that there is some sort of a communications problem," Castillo said. "Before we go any further with this, why don't we go next door to the embassy, get on a secure line to the director of national intelligence, and clear this up?"
"It's half past one in the morning in Washington," Delchamps said.
"I know. But I don't have time to waste playing the classified game with you, Mr. Delchamps."
"Maybe later," Delchamps said. "I was told you were interested in a man named Jean-Paul Lorimer. What do you want to know about him?"
"Everything you know about him."
"The phrase used was 'tell him anything you think you should,'" Delchamps said.
"Then there is a communications problem between Ambassador Montvale and whoever you spoke with," Castillo said. "What he was supposed to tell you was to tell me whatever I wanted to know, and what I want to know is everything."
"It was Montvale who called me," Delchamps said.
"And the phraseology he used was you were to tell me what 'you think you should'?"
"That's what he said."
"In that case, Mr. Delchamps, when we go next door and get on the secure phone, we're going to talk to the President, and you are going to tell him what Ambassador Montvale told you."
Delchamps didn't reply.
"For what it's worth, Mr. Delchamps," Colonel Torine said, "I was with Mr. Castillo-on Air Force One-when the President told Ambassador Montvale that Mr. Castillo was to have anything he asked for."
"Why should I believe that?" Delchamps asked.
"No reason," Torine said. "Except it's the truth."
Delchamps considered that for a moment, then said, "Fuck it."
"Excuse me?" Castillo said.
"I said 'fuck it.' Don't tell me you never heard that phrase before. Montvale said you're really an Army officer. A major."
"Guilty."
"Who was given more authority than he clearly will be able to handle, and won't have it long."
"That sonofabitch!" Torine exploded.
"Yeah," Delchamps said.
"You're going to have to go to the President, Charley," Torine said.
"Before you do that, let me tell you where I'm coming from," Delchamps said. "And we'll see how this plays out."
"Go ahead," Castillo said.
"I've been in this business a long time," Delchamps said. "Long enough to be able to retire tomorrow, if I want to. I have been around long enough to see a lot of hard work blown-and, for that matter, people killed- because some hotshot with political power and a personal agenda stuck his nose in what was being developed and blew it. I've been working on this scum Lorimer for a long time, years. And it hasn't been easy."
"How so?" Castillo asked.
"Have you got any clue what he's been up to?"
"Yeah," Castillo said, "he's a bagman, maybe the most important bagman, in the Iraqi oil-for-food scheme."
Castillo saw the surprise on Torine's and Fernando's faces. He had not told them what Kennedy had told him, only that they had met and Kennedy didn't know where Lorimer was.
"The skinny is, as you know," Castillo said, "that the French wanted to ease the sanctions on Hussein but the United States-and the Brits-said hell no. So in
its infinite wisdom, the UN security council, in 1996, stepped in with Oil for Food, saying it would keep the Iraqi people alive. It in fact provided Saddam a way to reward his friendly Frogs and Russians and other crooks. Oil allocations totaled some sixty-five billion dollars by the time the United States bagged Baghdad-and with it the program-in 2003. There's plenty to skim off sixty-five thousand million dollars, and Lorimer was there holding the bag and taking names."
"You want to tell me where you got that about Lorimer being the bagman?" Delchamps asked. It was close to a challenge.
"No."
"I'll ask you again, later," Delchamps said. "Maybe you'll change your mind."
"Anything is possible," Castillo said.
"Okay, for the sake of argument, he's been the most important bagman. He knows maybe fifty percent of the people-maybe more-who've been paid off, how much they've been paid off, how, and when. And what for. Some of these people are in the UN, high up in the UN. Therefore, the UN is not interested in having this come out.
"Some of those paid off are French. The French have an interesting law that says the President of France cannot be investigated while he's holding that office. And the Deuxieme Bureau-you know what that is?"
Castillo nodded.
"They regard the agency as a greater threat to La Belle France than the Schutzstaffel ever was, and cooperate accordingly. That's made looking into this difficult."
"I can see where it would," Castillo said.
"Same thing for the Germans," Delchamps went on. "I've still got some friends on the other side of the Rhine-I did some time in Berlin and Vienna in the good old days of the Cold War-and they've fed me some stuff, together with the friendly advice to watch my back as some very important Germans were involved and don't want it to come out.
"There were a lot of Russians involved, too. A lot of the cash we found in Saddam Hussein's closets got there on airplanes owned by a legendary Russian businessman by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner. You ever hear that name?"
"I've heard it," Castillo said.
"He runs sort of a covert FedEx courier service for people who want to ship things around the world without anybody knowing about it. Going off on a tangent with Pevsner, about a month ago I was told-all the station chiefs were told-not to look into anything that sonofabitch was doing without the specific approval of Langley in each case."
"Pevsner was involved with the oil-for-food business?" Castillo asked.
"Not directly, as far as I've been able to figure out. What he did was move the money around-like so much freight-and I suspect that a lot of stuff Saddam Hussein wasn't supposed to get got to Baghdad on his airplanes."
Torine's eyes met Castillo's for a moment.
"Which brings us to the Americans," Delchamps went on. "We had several enterprising businessmen in Houston who were in the oil-for-food racket up to their eyeballs. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but it has been my experience that when rich oil guys make large contributions to politicians, the politicians lend sympathetic ears to them when, for example, they want the agency and the FBI, etcetera, to lay off another businessman, like, for example, this guy Pevsner."
Delchamps paused.
"Can I change my mind about the coffee?"
"Absolutely," Castillo said, and picked up the coffee pitcher.
Delchamps took the cup, added sugar, and stirred it for a moment.
"So there I was, a couple of days ago, when this Lorimer business came up."
"I don't think I follow you," Castillo said.
"The Secret Service guy here is a pal of mine. You know, two old dinosaurs in a forest of young, politically correct State Department flits. Some pal of his called him up and asked him to find Lorimer, and he came to me because he knew I was working on him."
He took a sip of coffee, and then went on: "I knew it was going to go bad, even before the ambassador called me in and asked about Lorimer. He'd had a call from… Whatsername, Cohen, the secretary of state herself."
"Natalie Cohen," Castillo furnished.
"Feisty little broad," Delchamps said. "I like her. Anyway, there I was, about to really bag the little bastard, when somebody blows the whistle on the whole thing."
"You want to explain that?"
"My somewhat cynical makeup made me suspect that somebody in Langley had a big mouth and told somebody in Foggy Bottom that I was about to finish my report on Lorimer. There are people in Foggy Bottom who deeply regret the current feelings of ill will between the Frogs and the United States-and between some senators investigating the oil-for-food scam and the UN-and think it would be just dreadful if we exacerbated those unfortunate situations by suggesting we had information that the Frogs-all the way up to Chirac, and maybe him, too-were involved, and that the bagman was a UN diplomat."
"You thought they were going to kill your report?" Castillo asked.
"Bury it," Delchamps said. "The way Lorimer was buried. If he was lucky."
"Excuse me?" Castillo said.
"It's possible, of course, that he's in Moscow, or maybe Berlin, telling all he knows about who got paid off besides the Russians or Germans. Knowing where the other guys' bodies are buried is a very useful diplomatic tool. It keeps them from talking about where yours are."
"You're suggesting that Lorimer has been killed?" Castillo asked.
"He was lucky if he was killed quick-in other words, just to shut him up. If somebody wanted to know what he knew… They did a real job on his pal, a Lebanese named Henri Douchon, in Vienna. To encourage him to answer questions, they pulled two of his fingernails, and half a dozen of his teeth. Then they cut his throat."
"When was this?" Castillo asked.
"A couple of weeks ago."
"When was the last time anybody saw Lorimer?" Castillo asked.
"Going by his American Express charges, he flew to Vienna on the twelfth of this month. The same day, he bought-or somebody bought using his AmEx card-a train ticket from Vienna here. I don't know if he ever used it; it might be something to throw off anybody looking for him. But he might have come back here. Just don't know. A scenario that occurs to me is that he was grabbed when he went to see his pal Douchon. Then they took him somewhere to ask him questions, or didn't. Following either possibility, they cut him up in little pieces and dropped him into the beautiful Blue Danube. Or he came back here, where they grabbed him, and after he answered their questions, what was left of him was dropped into the Seine."
"Have you considered he might be in hiding?" Castillo asked.
"Sure. Don't think so. My guess is that he's dead. These are very nasty people who wouldn't think twice before they took him out."
"I heard he might have been skimming from the payoff money," Castillo said.
"Could be. I doubt it. He was paid well, of course, but I can't find any trace of big money."
"And you think you would have been able to?"
Delchamps nodded confidently.
"I even got into his apartment," he said. "He had some really nice stuff, antiques, paintings, etcetera. More than he could afford on what the UN paid him, but a lot less, I think, than he would have had had he been stupid enough to try to steal from these guys."
"Okay," Castillo said. "Thanks. But one more question: If, for the sake of argument, he were hiding, where would you guess that would be?"
"In a closet somewhere," Delchamps said. "Or under a bed. Jean-Paul Lorimer was a wimp. He didn't have the balls to be a criminal."
"You knew him?"
"I saw him around. I'm the cultural attache at the embassy. I can put the opera, et cetera, on the expense account.And I get invited to all the parties. The Corps Diplomatique loves to have Americans around so they can tell us how we're fucking up the world." He paused. "Okay, that's what I know. Anything you think I missed?"
"I'd like to see all your files on Lorimer," Castillo said.
"So they can disappear into the black hole?"
"Photocopies would do. That way you'd still have the originals
."
"You're not asking for the originals?"
Castillo shook his head. "Photocopies would be fine. How long would it take you to make copies?"
"Which you would then turn over to Montvale-or somebody in the agency, maybe-so they could message me to 'immediately transfer by courier the originals of the documents listed below and certify destruction of any copies thereof'?"
"I don't have to give Montvale anything," Castillo said, "and right now I can't think of anything I want to give him. And as far as the agency is concerned, I am on Langley's Fuck the Bastard If Possible list. I want the copies for me."
Delchamps inclined his head, obviously in thought. Then he took another sip of his coffee. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and lit a small cigar.
"Odd that you should ask about photocopies of my files on Lorimer, Mr. Castillo. By a strange coincidence, I spent most of the afternoon and early evening yesterday, starting right after Ambassador Montvale called me, making photocopies of them. At the time, I was thinking of retiring and writing a book, What the CIA Didn't Want to Get Out About Oil for Food."
"What about the 'my lips are sealed forever plus three weeks' statement you signed? You could get your tail in a crack doing something like that."
"You ever run into a guy named Billy Waugh?"
Castillo nodded.
"I thought you might have," Delchamps said. "Billy wrote a book called I Had Osama bin Laden in My Sights and the Wimps at Langley Wouldn't Let Me Terminate Him-or something like that-and nothing ever happened to Billy."
"They were probably afraid that Billy would write another one, CIA Assholes I Have Known," Castillo said.
Delchamps chuckled. "I thought about that," he said. "And I figured they'd probably come to the same conclusion about me."
He pushed himself out of the chair and held his hand out with his thumb and index finger held wide apart. "It makes a stack about this big," he said. "I'll go next door and get them."
"Thanks," Castillo said. "One more question. Why did you change your mind? About telling me anything?"
"Straight answer?"
"Please."
"Like I said, I'm a dinosaur. I've been doing this a long time. When I was a kid, starting out in Berlin, we had guys there who had been in the second war, Jedburghs, people like that. I even knew Bill Colby. One of them told me if you couldn't look into a man's eyes and size him up you'd better find something else to do. He was right. You-the three of you-have all got the right look."
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