The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Sir, I don’t believe you have that authority,” Castillo said. “As I understand it, only the President and I do.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Just who the hell do you think you are? I’m the director of National Intelligence. I decide who is cleared for what.”

  “Ambassador, you don’t have the authority to clear anyone for that Presidential Finding,” Castillo said.

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what the President has to say about that,” Montvale said, “and about your attitude.”

  “Yes, sir. I guess we will,” Castillo said.

  “Before this gets out of hand, gentlemen,” General Naylor said, “I’m going to say that neither one of you wants this disagreement to go any further.”

  “Nothing is going to get out of hand, thank you very much, General,” Montvale said.

  “Good,” Naylor said, “because it would not be in the best interests of the country—or either of you—if it did.”

  Montvale looked icily at him.

  “Frankly, General, I was hoping that you would help me reason with Major Castillo, help him to understand where he fits into the system.”

  “It’s now Colonel Castillo, Mr. Ambassador,” Naylor said.

  “Lieutenant colonel, I believe,” Montvale said. “Like Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who was also a junior officer given more authority than he was equipped to handle. You remember Lieutenant Colonel North, don’t you, General?”

  “I don’t have the feeling, Mr. Ambassador,” Naylor said, “that the President thinks he has given Colonel Castillo more authority than he can handle. Do you?”

  Montvale didn’t respond.

  “Let me suggest a scenario, Mr. Ambassador,” Naylor said, glancing around the lounge, then, satisfied no one was trying to follow their conversation, continued in a lower voice: “This dispute comes before the President. That would force him to choose between you two. From what I have seen of the President, he doesn’t like to be forced to do anything.”

  “Nevertheless…”

  “Obviously,” Naylor went on, “you are of far greater importance to the government, to the country, than is Colonel Castillo. Colonel Castillo would be relieved. But he would be replaced, because we know the President likes having an agent—a presidential agent, if you will—answerable only to him. And you and I both know that his replacement would not be anyone you might suggest, however well qualified he might be. That would be giving you too much of a victory.

  “So it would be another military officer. And I put it to you, sir, that no matter how well that officer might do, his performance would be compared by the President against that of Colonel Castillo and found wanting. Partially because in the two successful operations Colonel Castillo has run as the President’s agent he was—as he is well aware—incredibly lucky. And partially because it wasn’t all luck. Colonel Castillo has demonstrated that he is obviously extremely well qualified for the duties the President has chosen to give him.

  “And I put it to you further, Mr. Ambassador, that always—always—the President is going to be thinking, If Montvale hadn’t gotten on his high horse and forced me to get rid of Castillo, things would have turned out better. You were there. He did everything but beatify Charley in that little post-promotion speech he gave.”

  Naylor turned to Castillo.

  “And you, Colonel, are going to have to learn something that is not taught at West Point. An accommodation is not a surrender. You are going to have to come to some arrangement, an accommodation, with Ambassador Montvale. And he with you. Or you will both be failing the President, and I’m sure neither of you wants that.”

  Montvale was about to reply when the waiter delivered their drinks, stopping the conversation.

  After he’d gone, Montvale stirred his for several seconds, then extended the plastic stirrer to Castillo.

  “Take it,” the director of National Intelligence said. “Think of it as an olive branch.”

  “Make love, not war?” Castillo asked as he took the stirrer. It earned him a dirty look from Naylor.

  “I really don’t want to get in a war with you, Charley,” Montvale said.

  “Charley”? Not “Castillo”? Not “Colonel”? Or even “Major”?

  I’m being charmed again and that’s dangerous.

  “Nor I with you, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Shall we lay our cards on the table?”

  “I have only one card to play: going to the President and telling him I can’t function with Mr. Ellsworth looking over my shoulder and reporting to you everything I’m doing or planning on doing.”

  “I don’t understand why my being kept aware of what you’re doing is wrong,” Montvale said. “Certainly, you confide in General Naylor.”

  “He does not,” Naylor said, flatly. “I frankly hoped he would, but he has not.”

  Montvale raised an eyebrow. “You both realize, I’m sure, that would put another arrow in my quiver if I have to go to the President? ‘Mr. President, he doesn’t even tell General Naylor what he’s doing. Remember Ollie North?’”

  Naylor said, “To which the President might well reply, ‘That’s because Colonel Castillo doesn’t work for General Naylor, he works for me.’”

  “Point well taken,” Montvale said after a moment with a smile.

  “Are you going to the President, Mr. Ambassador?” Castillo asked.

  “Probably, but not right now. That one card of yours—at this moment—is the ace of all spades. General Naylor is right. If the President was the pope, after that session in the apartment tonight you would now be Saint Carlos the Savior of His Country.”

  Both Naylor and Castillo chuckled.

  “So you are going to find something else for Mr. Ellsworth to do?” Castillo asked.

  “Let me show you my cards,” Montvale said. “Okay?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “I’m very impressed with you.”

  “Is that what they call the ‘flattery card’?”

  “Hear me out. All it will cost you is a little time.”

  “My standard tactic when I’m dealing with someone I know is smarter than me is to run,” Castillo said.

  “Is that your flattery card?”

  “I am out of my class with you and I know it. Just because it may be flattering doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Castillo said.

  “Then why does it have to be untrue that I’m impressed with you?”

  “That would depend on why you’re impressed.”

  “Like the President, I think you did one hell of a job finding that airplane and then finding this Lorimer fellow. The major problem I have with you—other than that the President thinks you should be beatified—is that I think you should be working for me.”

  “Mr. Ambassador, I don’t want to work for you.”

  “At the moment, that’s a moot question, isn’t it? The President is very happy with his presidential private agent.”

  “All I want from you, sir, is to be left alone to do what the President wants me to do.”

  “Until you said that, I was beginning to think you might really be as smart as the President thinks,” Montvale said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t afford to be alone, Charley,” Montvale said. “You need me. My assets. My authority. My influence. Think about it. They use your face as a dartboard in Langley and in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The FBI is starting to hate you as much as they do your friend Howard Kennedy.”

  “I wasn’t sure you believed that story,” Castillo said.

  “I checked on it,” Montvale said. “I have some friends in the bureau. To a man, they would like to see Kennedy dragged apart by four horses after he was disemboweled.”

  Curiosity overwhelmed General Naylor. “Who is this fellow? What did he do?”

  Montvale smiled, more than a little condescendingly.

  “As Charley told me—and my friends confirmed—after being made privy to the darkest secret
s of the FBI, Mr. Kennedy went to work—presumably at a far more generous salary—for a notorious Russian mafioso, a chap named Aleksandr Pevsner, taking with him all the darkest secrets.” He paused. “The reason they hate our friend Charley is because when they sent an inspector to tell him they expected him to notify them immediately of any contact with Kennedy, our friend Charley told them not to hold their breath. They also suspect—correctly—that Charley was behind the President’s order to them to immediately cease and desist looking for Mr. Kennedy.”

  “Pevsner and Kennedy have been useful to me in the past,” Castillo said. “And almost certainly will be useful to me in the future.”

  Charley saw the look on Naylor’s face.

  It’s a look of…sympathetic resignation.

  He’s thinking I’m going down Ollie North’s path.

  And that I have just lost this confrontation.

  Well, what the hell did I expect?

  Montvale’s right. I am a junior officer given more authority than I am equipped to handle.

  A very small fish in a large pond about to be eaten by a very large shark.

  “What are you suggesting, Mr. Ambassador?” Castillo asked.

  “Until such time as I can convince the President—and that’s a question of when, not if—that the Office of Organizational Analysis should be under me, I suggest that it would be in our mutual interest to cooperate.”

  “Cooperate how?”

  “On your part, primarily by keeping me informed of what you’re doing. I really don’t like walking into the Oval Office to have the President greet me with, ‘Charles, you’re not going to believe what Castillo has done, ’ and have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. I want to be able to tell him that I knew what you would be going to try to do and that I did thus and so to help you do it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, just before he was shot down in flames, “but if that means you will insist on your liaison officer, no deal.”

  The look on the general’s face now means I have really just shot myself in the foot.

  “That’s negotiable,” Montvale said.

  “Negotiable?” Castillo blurted. It was not the response he expected.

  “That means you offer me something in lieu thereof and I decide if I’m willing to take it.”

  “That telephone call I made just now? It was to my chief of staff, Major Richard Miller.”

  “What about him?”

  “You take Mr. Ellsworth out of my office and I will instruct Major Miller to tell you—promptly—everything he can, without putting the lives of my men at risk, about what I’m doing and why.”

  “We are, I presume, talking about the same Major Miller who comes to my mind?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The general’s son? The man whose life you saved—at considerable risk to your life and career—in Afghanistan? The man whom Mr. Wilson accused of making improper advances to her when she was in fact at the time making the beast with two backs in your bed? That Major Miller?”

  “Yes, sir. That Major Miller.”

  “Deal,” Montvale said and got half out of his chair and put out his hand.

  Jesus H. Christ!

  This is too easy.

  When does the other shoe drop?

  Montvale’s grip was firm.

  “Our new relationship will probably be a good deal less unpleasant for you than I suspect you suspect it will be,” Montvale said, smiling.

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said.

  “Okay, why are you going to Paris?” Montvale asked, retaking his seat.

  Okay, a deal is a deal. I’ll live up to my end of it.

  “I got Ambassador Lorimer, Mr. Lorimer’s father, to give me sort of power of attorney to settle his affairs in Paris and Uruguay. I want to see what I can turn up in his apartment and at his estancia.”

  “You’re also going to Uruguay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you think you are qualified to perform searches of that nature?”

  “No, sir, I don’t. I’m going to enlist the CIA station chiefs in both places to help me.”

  “What makes you think they will?”

  “Because I have already dealt with them, sir. They’ll help.”

  Montvale nodded.

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “I have a source in Budapest. I’d rather not identify him. He gave me a list of names of people involved in the oil-for-food business, with the caveat that I do not turn them over to the agency or anyone else. I’m going there to see if I can get him to release me from that agreement.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then I will have to see if I can get another list from someone else.”

  Montvale nodded but did not respond directly, instead asking, “What’s happened to the money?”

  “We got it out of Uruguay, first into an account an FBI agent there had opened in the Caymans…”

  “Yung? The one who was with you when Lorimer was terminated?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sending him back to Uruguay to cover our tracks.”

  “He’ll be able to do that?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “He would probably be useful permanently assigned to you,” Montvale said. “Have you thought about that?”

  “Yes, sir. I have. Secretary Hall arranged it.”

  “Well, fine. But the next time something like that comes up, I suggest you come to me with it.”

  What is he doing, trying to cut Matt Hall out of the loop?

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You said ‘first’ into Yung’s account?” Montvale pursued.

  “And then I moved it into an account I opened in the same bank, the Liechtensteinische Landesbank. That took place today.”

  “In your name?”

  “In the name of an identity—that of a German national—I use sometimes. I thought that would be best.”

  “And you can trust the people at Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., to keep their mouths shut?” Montvale asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said, as the realization dawned, Jesus Christ, he knows about that, too. And he asked the question in absolutely fluent German.

  Montvale switched back to English.

  “Goddamn, he is good, isn’t he, General?” Montvale asked.

  Naylor didn’t reply. Instead, he asked, “Am I permitted to ask, ‘What money?’”

  “You can ask, of course,” Montvale said, smiling. “But getting an answer would depend on the colonel, as he correctly pointed out he and the President are the only ones with the key to the Finding. It would be a felony for me to tell you.”

  What’s he doing now? Playing with me? With General Naylor? With both of us?

  “General,” Castillo said. “Lorimer had nearly sixteen million dollars in several banks in Uruguay. We took it over. It is now the operating fund for the Office of Organizational Analysis.”

  “How did you manage to do that?” Naylor asked.

  “He doesn’t need to know that, does he, Colonel?” Montvale asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Naylor answered for him. “And I don’t think I want to.”

  “I have access to business jets in Europe and in Brazil,” Montvale said. “Would it facilitate your travel if I made them available to you?”

  “It would probably draw attention to me,” Castillo replied.

  “They’re agency assets, actually,” Montvale said. “The agency owns two charter companies in Europe and one in Brazil. Sort of an aerial version of the Town Car limos that prowl the streets of Manhattan. I don’t think taking a ride in one would draw undue attention to you. All I would really be doing—unless you needed a plane for more than carrying you from point A to point B—would be ensuring you went to the head of the line.”

  “Can I have a rain check?”

  “When we shook hands, you got your rain check,” Montvale said. “Good for as long as you hold up your end of our deal.”

&n
bsp; He took a large wallet from his jacket, took a card from it, and laid the card on the table. Then he took an electronic notebook from another pocket, consulted it, and wrote several numbers on the card. He handed the card to Castillo.

  “By the time you get to France, the aerial limo services will understand that when you call, you go to the head of the line. The bottom number on there is mine. Use it if you ever need anything you think I can provide and can’t get through to me through the White House switchboard.”

  “Thank you,” Castillo said.

  “Can you think of anything else I can do for you?” Montvale asked.

  “Mr. Wilson is a now a senior analyst in the agency’s South American Division’s Southern Cone Section,” Castillo said.

  Montvale pursed his lips thoughtfully.

  “I knew she managed not to get fired, but I didn’t know that,” he said. “We can’t have that, can we?”

  “Miller and I ran into her in the lobby of the Mayflower earlier tonight,” Castillo said. “She called me a miserable sonofabitch.”

  “Well, I can see how she might feel that way,” Montvale said. “I’ll deal with it first thing tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, sir, I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Well, in that case, I’m afraid I’m going to have to be going,” Montvale said.

  He stood up, drained his drink, and offered his hand to Naylor, who had risen to his feet.

  “It’s always a pleasure, General Naylor,” he said.

  Then he turned to Castillo, shook his hand, and patted his shoulder.

  “This turned out better than either of us thought it would, didn’t it?” he asked. “Keep in touch, Colonel.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  Montvale walked out of the room and Naylor and Castillo sat down.

  “Jesus Christ!” Charley said. “Why does his being so cheerful, charming, and accommodating make me so uncomfortable?”

  “Maybe because you weren’t asleep when they were lecturing about never under estimating your enemy?”

  Castillo chuckled.

  “I’m sorry I said that,” Naylor said thoughtfully a moment later. “That was a hell of a session, but I’m not so sure he doesn’t mean exactly what he said. The bottom line is that he got what he wanted.”