“In that case, tell him.”
“Sure. Tell him.”
“Why not?”
The elderly lady added: “As long as he understands that if he runs at the mouth. .”
Oh, no! Danton thought. Not the old woman, too!
“. . we’ll have to kill him.”
Another of the men, about Delchamps’s age, pointed at the centerpiece of dinosaurs, and said: “That should make it quite obvious, Mr. Parker. This is where us old dinosaurs come to die.”
There were grunts, and then came what appeared to Parker and Danton to be a regular war of words among the residents.
“Oh, shit, there he goes again with that crap!”
“Jesus Christ, Mac, will you knock off with that come-to-die nonsense?”
“Speak for yourself, John Alden! You’ve always-”
“Let me have a shot at this!” Dianne Sanders interrupted. “Mr. Parker, everybody in this room-except those two and me-is retired from the Company.”
She pointed to the enormous black man and to a man who looked to be in his late forties.
“That’s Dick Miller and Tom, my husband. They used to run around the block with Charley Castillo and General McNab until the Army decided they were no longer able to play Rambo, and medically retired them. I was a cryptographer, and took my retirement, too. Then came the glory days of the Office of Organizational Analysis. . you both know what that was?”
Parker and Danton nodded.
“Charley needed a safe house here, and OOA bought this. Then Uncle Remus-you know who he is?”
Roscoe Danton knew that Uncle Remus was the politically incorrect-and some suggested racist-name that only his close friends could call Chief Warrant Officer (5) Colin Leverette, U.S. Army, Retired.
Danton nodded.
Porky shook his head.
“He’s the guy who took Colonel Hamilton to the Fish Farm in the Congo,” Delchamps clarified.
“One of the better snake eaters,” Tom Sanders further clarified. “Dianne and I were in our happy, exciting retirement in Fayetteville, watching the mildew grow in the bathtub when Uncle Remus showed up and asked if we’d be interested in running this place. We were on the next plane up here.”
“Then we thought we’d be out of a job when OOA was broken up,” Dianne picked up. “But when Edgar said he needed a place to live now that he was retired, he moved in ‘as a temporary measure.’ ”
“And then the other dinosaurs started moving in, one by one,” the elderly lady offered. “We were scattered all around D.C. I was in the Silver Oaks Methodist Episcopal Ladies Retirement Community in Silver Spring. You can imagine how much I had in common with the ladies there.”
“So you’re also retired from the CIA?” Danton asked.
“Thirty-four years in the Clandestine Service,” she said with quiet pride.
“Dinosaurs?” Porky Parker asked.
“That’s what they call us at Langley,” the elderly lady said. “We still believe that the only good Communist is a dead Communist, so we’re dinosaurs to them.”
“And, so,” one of the men in a wheelchair said, “with the not inconsiderable help of Two-Gun, we formed Lorimer Manor, Inc., and bought this place from the Lorimer Charitable and Benevolent Trust. When one of Castillo’s Merry Outlaws needs to use a safe house-Edgar, Two-Gun, and Gimpy stayed here last night, for example-we send a bill to the LCBF Corporation.”
Gimpy, Danton thought, must be the big black guy in the aviator sunglasses.
“What’s the LCBF Corporation?” he asked.
“That’s who’s going to pay you your combat pay, Roscoe,” Delchamps said.
Porky Parker’s eyebrows rose at that.
“Think of it as our basic corporate structure,” Two-Gun amplified. “Providing complete financial services to our little community.”
“All right, David,” the elderly lady said, a little impatiently. “Now it’s your turn. What the hell happened at Langley this morning?”
“. . And so the President told me he was accepting my resignation and to get off his goddamn helicopter, and then I ran into Roscoe, and he brought me here,” Porky Parker concluded.
“I said, and you all heard me,” one of the middle-aged men said, “that there was something phony about that failed microphone.”
“What is that sonofabitch up to?” the elderly lady asked softly.
“I have no idea,” Parker said. “My question is, what do I do now?”
“You stay out of sight,” Delchamps said. “I already told you that. Maybe go to Mexico with us. You’ve got your passport?”
“My official passport is in my briefcase with my laptop,” Parker said. “The last time I saw it was when I asked one of the Secret Service guys to watch it for me backstage in Auditorium Three.”
“I hoped you kissed it-them. . the passport and laptop-good-bye,” Delchamps said.
“My regular passport is in my apartment,” Parker said.
“Outside of which members of the media can be counted on, sitting,” Roscoe said, “burning with desire to hear your version of your surprising and sudden departure from distinguished government service.”
Which will also screw up my exclusive interview with Porky.
There was a buzzing sound.
“Our master’s voice,” Dick Miller said as he took a CaseyBerry from his pocket and put it to his ear.
“How nice of you to call,” he went on. “I just put you on conference, Charley.”
Roscoe saw Delchamps and Yung quickly put their CaseyBerrys to their ears. He took out his own, found the CONF button, and pushed it.
“I didn’t call to chat, Gimpy,” Castillo’s voice announced. “I called hoping to hear that Edgar has Roscoe in the bag and that you’re about to go wheels-up. Better yet, that you’re already in the air.”
Danton made a face.
“Roscoe in the bag”?
What the hell does that mean?
“Ace, Roscoe is in the bag,” Delchamps said.
What the hell are they talking about?
“And he brought Mr. John David Parker with him,” Delchamps continued.
“What the hell is that all about?” Castillo said.
“Roscoe, would you be so kind as to tell our leader what the hell that’s all about?”
“The press is looking for him,” Danton said.
“Why?”
“Right about now, the President is going to announce he’s accepted his resignation,” Danton replied.
“Because of that fucked-up press conference?”
“Yes, but Porky didn’t fuck it up,” Danton said.
After a moment, Castillo replied, “Got it. And you are-what is it you say? — ‘chasing the story.’ ”
“That’s right.”
“So what are you planning to do with Mr. Parker?”
“We’re trying to figure that out, Charley.”
“Is Mr. Parker also trying to evade the press, Roscoe, or do you have him in handcuffs?”
“He doesn’t want to see them, either.”
“Okay, so bring him down here,” Castillo said.
“What?”
“Bring him down here; we’ll work it out later,” Castillo said. “Got it, Edgar?”
“Jawohl, mein Fuhrer!” Delchamps barked.
“Spare me the sarcasm,” Castillo said. “Just call me when you’re wheels-up. I need Roscoe and the Mustang down here yesterday.”
He needs me? What the hell for?
And where’s “down here”?
“Jawohl, mein Fuhrer,” Delchamps repeated.
A moment later, Roscoe, seeing that everyone had taken their CaseyBerrys from their ears, turned his off.
“Where is ‘down here’?” Danton asked.
“Cozumel,” Yung replied.
Danton looked at him, and thought: If he says “And now that you know that I’ll have to kill you,” I’ll throw this goddamn phone at him.
“And he wants me to go d
own there?” Danton asked incredulously.
Yung looked at Delchamps, and said: “Small problem. Mr. Parker doesn’t have his passport.”
“I don’t have my passport, either,” Danton said.
“Catch, Roscoe,” Delchamps said, and when Danton looked at him, Delchamps tossed him a passport.
“We’ve been through the ‘I don’t have my passport’ routine with you before,” Delchamps said.
“This was locked in my desk!”
“Yes, it was,” Delchamps said.
“What do I need my passport for?” Parker said. “I don’t want to go to Cozumel. I don’t even know where that is.”
“Not far from Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula,” Yung furnished.
“What’s going on there?” Parker asked.
“Your call, Mr. Parker,” Delchamps said. “We’ll drop you anywhere you want on our way to the airport.”
“John,” Danton suggested, reasonably, “going to Cozumel would get you out of sight for a couple of days.”
Parker considered that for a moment and then shrugged.
“Why not?” he said finally. “I don’t have any other clever ideas at the moment.”
Danton nodded, and thought, Great! For a couple of days, I’ll have you all to myself.
“Back to Mr. Parker’s passport problem,” Yung said.
“Where do you live, Mr. Parker?” the elderly lady asked.
“The Verizon, it’s at 777 Seventh, Northwest-”
“I know where it is,” she said. “No problem, Two-Gun. You take your friends to BWI. By the time Gimpy has the rubber bands on the Citation wound up, we’ll meet you with Mr. Parker’s passport and a quick change of linen.”
“How are you going to get into my apartment? Past the press?”
“Getting into your apartment would be easier, Mr. Parker, if you gave me the keys,” she said. “As far as the press is concerned, it’s been my experience that they pay very little attention to little old ladies who use a walker, especially little old ladies being helped into a building by a kindly member of the clergy-and accompanied by a snarling hundred-twenty-pound dog.”
“Where are you going to get the kindly clergyman?” Roscoe asked.
Tom Sanders stood.
He motioned with his right hand to form a cross, then said, “Bless you, my children. Go and sin no more. And just as soon as I get my clerical collar on and load one of the dogs into a Yukon, we can get this show on the road.”
THREE
The Tahitian Suite Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort Cozumel, Mexico 1710 12 April 2007
Vic D’Alessandro, whose barrel chest and upper arms strained his short-sleeved floral-print Hawaiian shirt, walked onto the balcony of the penthouse suite and announced, “Jesus, it must be nice to be rich!”
“It’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place, Vic,” Fernando Lopez said agreeably. “Write that down.”
Lopez, a very large man with a dark complexion, was sprawled on a chaise longue with a bottle of Dos Equis on his chest. He raised his right arm over his head without turning, and offered his hand. D’Alessandro walked to him and shook it.
Castillo got off his chaise longue and walked to D’Alessandro. They wordlessly embraced. Max sat on his haunches and thrust his paw repeatedly at D’Alessandro until D’Alessandro shook it. Lester Bradley stood behind Castillo.
“Hey, Dead Eye,” D’Alessandro said.
“It’s good to see you, sir,” Bradley said.
Aleksandr Pevsner, Tom Barlow, and Stefan Koussevitzky, sitting on chaise longues in the shade of a striped awning, stood. D’Alessandro nodded to them, then went over and offered his hand.
“Good to see you, Mr. Pevsner,” D’Alessandro said.
“And you, Mr. D’Alessandro,” Pevsner replied. “This is our friend Stefan Koussevitzky.”
“You can be nice to Stefan, Vic,” Castillo called. “You guys went to different snake-eating schools.”
“I know you by reputation, Mr. D’Alessandro,” Koussevitzky said. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“You’re the guy who Sweaty shot on that island, right? And call me Vic.”
Koussevitzky smiled and nodded.
“I was one of them. She also shot General Sirinov in the foot. Fortunately, mine was a minor flesh wound in the leg with a thirty-two.”
“Fortunately for Stefan, Svetlana always liked him,” Tom Barlow said. “She was never at all fond of the general.”
“So where is Charley’s redhead?” D’Alessandro asked.
“She’s having a bikini wax. She should be up in a minute in her bikini,” Castillo said. “Lester, why don’t you get Vic a Dos Equis? After which he can tell us all about Acapulco.”
“Lester,” D’Alessandro said, “why don’t you get your old Uncle Vic a double of that Jack Daniel’s?”
“Yes, sir.”
D’Alessandro slid onto a chaise longue in the shade of the striped awning, and sat on it.
“Is everybody familiar with the official version, the message Ambassador McCann sent to Secretary of State Cohen?” he began.
“Which she passed to Roscoe Danton, giving him his scoop,” Castillo said. “Yeah, Vic, we’re all familiar with that.”
“Our guys in Acapulco-there’s three-and the DEA guys there think that what happened is Ferris’s Suburban was stopped by a roadblock manned by either Federales or people wearing Federales uniforms. They got talked out of the Suburban and the bad guys whacked everybody but Ferris. Then they loaded Ferris back into the Suburban and took off for God knows where. Or God knows why.
“Supporting this theory is that Ferris and Danny Salazar-especially Danny-had been around the block more than once, had either M-16s or CAR-15s with them, and would have offered some pretty skilled resistance to an ambush.
“Why wouldn’t Ferris-and again, especially Danny-be suspicious of a Federales roadblock? Because they had good relations with the Federales, good relations being defined as sharing intelligence with them, which is further defined as they tell us only what they want us to know, and we tell them everything we know, which they promptly pass to the drug cartels.”
“That bad, huh?” Castillo asked. “And Ferris went along with this?”
“How well do you know Jim Ferris, Charley?”
Castillo shrugged. “Not well. I’ve seen him around. People who know him well seem to respect him.”
“Including me,” D’Alessandro said. “He’s a hell of a teacher, probably the best we have.”
“But?”
“You and Ferris are different in several ways, Charley. First, you’d be a lousy teacher. You’d also be a lousy instructor, and there’s a difference.”
“Probably,” Castillo admitted.
“Which, McNab being aware of this, is why you never found yourself at McCall teaching Snake Eating 101 to a class of would-be Green Beanies.”
“I always thought it was the press of my other duties,” Castillo said sarcastically.
“No. It was because McNab knew-and I knew and Uncle Remus knew-that you would set a lousy example for the new guys. You ever actually eat a snake, Charley?”
“No, and I never bit the head off a live chicken running around in the Hurlburt Field swamps, either,” Castillo said.
“But-the proof being you’re still alive-you performed satisfactorily in the real world, huh? And have all those medals to prove it?”
“Where the hell are you going with this, Vic?” Castillo asked more than a little testily.
“You wanted to know who Jim Ferris is. I’m telling you. He’s almost exactly your opposite. He caught, killed, and ate snakes because that’s what he was ordered to do. And he taught a whole bunch of people to obey orders and eat snakes, too. You went into the swamps at Hurlburt with two pounds of high-protein bars taped to your legs because you heard snake would be on the menu.
“The point being that when Jim Ferris came down here, he obeyed his orders from the ambassador to cooperate with
the Mexicans. He argued with both Ambassador McCann, and the ambassador before McCann, but he obeyed his orders.
“What you would have said, Charley, is: ‘Screw this. I was sent down here to get the drug guys and that’s what I’m going to do.’ ”
Castillo, who did not look as if he took offense to that, then said: “So you’re suggesting the drug cartel had no reason to whack anybody because Ferris’s people weren’t causing them any trouble?”
“Yeah. And they must have known that killing three Americans and kidnapping a fourth would bring a lot of attention.”
“Tell me about the drug guys,” Castillo said.
“Pacific Coast operations are run by the Sinaloa cartel, which is headed by two guys, Joaquin Guzman Loera and Ismael Zambada Garcia. You ever hear of Los Zetas?”
Castillo shook his head.
“Loera and Garcia needed a private army, so they bought one. They went to the Mexican army and said, ‘If you come work for me, bringing along the weapons the Americans gave you, I will pay you five times what the Army has been paying you. If you don’t come, we will kill you and rape your wives, mothers, and other female relatives.’ ”
“Shit!” Castillo said.
“These are really charming people, Charley, and they have very deep pockets. They have about a battalion’s worth of Mexican soldiers-officers, noncoms, and privates. And all the equipment we gave them. Los Zetas are really bad guys, Charley.”
“And they could have been manning the roadblock?”
“Either in Mexican army uniforms or Federales uniforms,” D’Alessandro answered. “Which brings us back to why?”
“Edgar thinks it had nothing to do with the drug cartels,” Castillo said, “and Alek agrees with him.”
“Then what?”
“It has been suggested that Mr. Putin, on reflection, has decided that an armistice is not the way for him to go,” Tom Barlow offered. “And that he’s coming after Svetlana and me again.”
“And after Charley,” D’Alessandro added.
“And me,” Pevsner said. “Not necessarily in that order.”
“Jesus, I guess I should have thought of that,” D’Alessandro said. “I will think about it now. Lester, I’d think better after I’ve had a second taste of the Jack Daniel’s.”
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