The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  Eric Kocian’s eyebrows rose but he said nothing.

  One of the monitors showed the Jeep Cherokee pulling into a slot in the garage. Alex Darby got out. A monitor showed him unloading a large duffel bag that looked like it contained heavy metal objects—like guns—and walking toward the elevator.

  Mr. Sieno opened the door to the foyer before the elevator got there. Darby walked into the apartment, set the heavy bag down, and put out his hand to Castillo.

  Castillo took it and said, “Good to see you, Alex.”

  Darby had just put out his hand to Torine when the chimes with one missing note sounded again. Everyone looked at the monitors. There was now a Volkswagen Passat station wagon waiting for the door to completely open.

  Other monitors showed the Passat parking and Tony Santini, a Secret Service agent, getting out and going to the back of the vehicle and raising the rear hatch. Sergeant Major Jack Davidson, USA, and Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, both in civilian clothing, got out and joined Santini at the back of the station wagon.

  Castillo grinned slightly.

  Davidson! I don’t know how you got down here, Jack, but am I glad to see you!

  When the monitor showed them inside the elevator, it also showed Davidson looking around for—and then spotting—the monitor camera lens.

  Castillo looked at Torine and saw in his raised eyebrow that he had recognized Davidson, too. Torine saw that Castillo was watching him and raised his eyebrow even higher but didn’t say anything.

  Susanna Sieno opened the door for them.

  Davidson, smiling, put his suitcase down and saluted Castillo.

  “Good morning, Colonel,” he said. “May the sergeant major offer his congratulations on your promotion?”

  “The sergeant major may. But the colonel is surprised that the sergeant major doesn’t know you’re not supposed to salute when not in uniform,” Castillo said.

  “The sergeant major begs the colonel’s pardon for his breach of military custom.”

  They looked at each other, then chuckled.

  Castillo said, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Jack, but—and I know I shouldn’t tell you this—I’m damned glad you are.”

  “Oh, goody!” Davidson said and spread his arms wide as he approached Castillo, then wrapped him in a bear hug, crying, “It’s good to see you, Charley!”

  When he freed himself, Castillo turned to Bradley.

  “I’m not so sure about you, Lester,” he said. “I thought you were safely on ice at Mackall.”

  “That was not one of your brightest ideas,” Davidson said. “Deadeye Dick stood out in Mackall like a whor—”

  Davidson saw Susanna Sieno.

  “Like a lady of dubious virtue in a place of worship?” she furnished, smiling.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Sieno, Sergeant Major Jack Davidson,” Castillo said.

  “You can call me Susanna,” she said.

  “Good to see you, Jack,” Jake Torine said to Davidson. They shook hands.

  The other introductions were made.

  Alex Darby said, “Before this goes any further, I need a private word with you and Tony, Charley.”

  Castillo nodded.

  “Okay if we go in there, Susanna?” Darby asked, gesturing toward a door.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  [THREE]

  Darby led them into a large marble-walled bathroom. The bathtub and the separate shower were stacked high with electronic equipment and there was more on a long, twin-basin washstand. The water closet was still functional, but there were racks of electronics rising almost to the ceiling on either side of it.

  “We’re watching the Cubans,” Darby explained. “Not so much them as the people who go in and out of their embassy. And, of course, their communications. Sometimes, that’s very interesting.”

  “Sieno told me.”

  Darby turned to face him.

  “You’ve got me on a spot again, Charley,” he said. “Ambassador Montvale called me and said I was to call him immediately—him personally, not through the agency—if you showed up here.”

  Castillo nodded and then asked, “If I showed up here, or when?”

  “If,” Darby said. “So what I’ve done—or didn’t do—was not call him to let him know you had called from Recife. But now that you’re here…you tell me what you want me to do.”

  “Call him and tell him I’m here. Better yet, call him and tell him I called you to tell you to call him and tell him I’m here and will call him as soon as I have a chance.”

  Darby considered that a moment.

  Then he turned and picked up a heavily corded telephone sitting on top of the water reservoir of the toilet, then looked at Castillo.

  “It’s half past six in the morning in Washington,” he said, making it a question.

  “The ambassador said immediately, didn’t he?”

  Darby shrugged and put the telephone to his ear.

  “This is Darby. Get me a secure line to the Langley switchboard,” he ordered.

  “Oh, the miracle of modern communications!” Castillo said.

  “How did the ambassador react to having his sleep disturbed?” Santini asked.

  “He asked what else Charley had had to say.”

  “And when you told him I had had nothing else to say?” Castillo asked.

  “And when I told him that, he said when you called to tell you to call him immediately.”

  “Okay. Give me until noon and then call him and tell him you have relayed his message to me.”

  Darby nodded again.

  “What’s the problem with you and Montvale, Charley?” Santini asked.

  “He has a tendency to try to tell me what to do,” Castillo said. “As in, ‘Tell Castillo to call me immediately.’”

  “Well, he is the director of National Intelligence,” Santini said. “Maybe he feels that entitles him to order a lowly lieutenant colonel around.”

  “You heard about that, huh?”

  “You got promoted, Charley?” Darby asked.

  Castillo nodded.

  “From both the director of National Intelligence and Corporal Bradley,” Santini said. “Congratulations, Charley.”

  “Thank you. After what happened in Afghanistan, I was beginning to think I’d never get promoted.”

  “Based on my personal knowledge of what happened in Afghanistan,” Darby said, “that was a reasonable conclusion to draw.”

  “The bottom line,” Castillo said, “is that I made a deal with Montvale. In theory, I tell him what I’m doing and plan to do and he leaves me alone and helps me.”

  “Helps you how?”

  “For example, getting to use the agency’s air taxi services.”

  “Then why are you dodging him?”

  “I told you, because he’s still trying to tell me what to do. Tit for tat, I don’t tell him any more about what I’m going to do than I have to.”

  Darby shook his head.

  “Which leaves Tony and me between a rock and a hard place,” Darby said. “Okay, so who’s the old guy?”

  “His name is Eric Kocian. He runs the Budapest Tages Zeitung. He’s been looking into the oil-for-food scandal.”

  “That could be dangerous. How much has he found out?”

  “Enough so there have been two attempts to kidnap him to see how much. The other Hungarian—his name is Sándor Tor—is an ex-cop who before that did a hitch in the French Foreign Legion. He kept the first attempt to kidnap/ whack Kocian from coming off. One of those guys—there were three; two got away—told the cops he was a vacationing housepainter from Dresden and had the papers to prove it.”

  “You don’t think he was?” Santini asked, and then, when Castillo shook his head, asked, “So who were they?”

  “I’m guessing ex-Stasi. But I don’t know that. And I have no idea who they’re working for. The second time they tried to kidnap and/or whack Kocian, there were two guys. They had Madsens and no i
dentification. Like the people at the estancia.”

  “What’s their story?” Santini asked.

  “I had to take them down. So I don’t know more than I told you.”

  “You had to take them down?” Darby asked, and then, after Castillo nodded, he shook his head and asked, “And how many waves did that make?”

  “I hope none. Sándor took them away in their car.”

  Darby shook his head again.

  “You can’t keeping walking through the raindrops forever, Charley.”

  “That thought has occurred to me. I didn’t have any choice, Alex.”

  “If they’re ex-Stasi, who are they working for now?” Santini asked.

  Castillo shrugged.

  “That’s what I’m hoping to find out. Kocian gave me everything he had. So did Ed Delchamps in Paris.”

  “Ed’s a good man,” Darby said. “So you put him on the spot with Montvale, too?”

  “I suppose it’s very unprofessional of Delchamps getting emotionally involved, but I have the feeling he’s as pissed off at these people as I am. Or maybe with the agency for doing nothing with what he’s been sending them.”

  “I guess that makes me unprofessional, too. Jack Masterson was a friend of mine,” Darby said. “I’d really like to nail these bastards.”

  “What does that make, counting me?” Santini asked. “Four amateurs?”

  “And I think Yung may have something in his files…and may not know it,” Castillo said. “Speaking of him, where is he?”

  “Odd that you should ask,” Darby said. “I was just about to say, ‘Speaking of coincidences.’”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Guess who got shot in Montevideo last night by parties unknown?”

  “Yung?” Castillo asked, incredulously.

  “They were waiting for him at his apartment when he came back from the estancia. They probably would have got him—by which I mean grabbed him—if the Uruguayan cops hadn’t been sitting on him.”

  “How bad is he hurt?”

  “The Uruguayan cops got one of the guys going after him with three shots of double-aught buckshot. The others, probably two, got away. Yung took one pellet in his left hand. Just gouged it. No bone damage, just a canal. Yung’s like you, Charley: he walks through raindrops. He was standing right next to the bad guy when the cops took him out.”

  “And the guy the cops shot?”

  “No identification. But he did have a hypo full of ketamine—a strong tranquilizer—that I think he wanted to stick in Yung.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Castillo exclaimed.

  “You got the word that Ambassador McGrory thinks Lorimer was a drug dealer?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “Well, he’s been told that the people who shot Yung were carjackers.”

  “The Uruguayan cops went along with that?”

  Darby nodded.

  “For reasons of their own, they suggested that story to Yung. I can’t imagine why.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “Well, if McGrory believes Lorimer was a drug dealer, he’ll probably conclude that the Uruguayan cops know Yung was shot by another drug dealer and don’t want to admit. I sure hope so. If McGrory finds out what really happened at that estancia, the shit will really hit the fan. And some of it will splatter on Ambassador Silvio and I don’t like that.”

  “Can you contact Yung? Is he in the hospital?”

  “He wouldn’t stay. He’s in his apartment. Bob Howell is sitting on him, Howell and another FBI agent who was at the estancia, and—bad news—according to Howell has figured out what really happened at the estancia.”

  “Well, let’s get him over here. I don’t want him grabbed in Montevideo. How soon can you get him here?”

  “Two hours from the time I call him,” Darby said, nodding at the telephone.

  “That raises the question of a safe house,” Castillo said. “I don’t think this place is going to work. Too many people for one thing. Can we use the place we used before?”

  “Mayerling? No and, maybe, yes.”

  “Come on, Alex.”

  “The place we used before is not available,” Darby said. “But there’s a place for rent out there that would really be better.”

  “Rent it,” Castillo said. “How quickly can you do that?”

  “The problem there is the rent. Four thousand a month. First and last month due on signing, plus another two months up front for a security deposit. That’s sixteen thousand. I have just about that much in my black account. If I ask for more, Langley’s going to want to know what for.”

  “Money’s not a problem,” Castillo said. “We now have the Lorimer Charitable and Benevolent Fund to draw on.”

  “The what?”

  “Lorimer had almost sixteen million in three banks in Montevideo. Most of it is now in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in the Cayman Islands.”

  “In your account?” Darby asked.

  Castillo nodded.

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Castillo said. “I spent seven million five of it to buy an airplane. A Gulfstream.”

  “You bought a Gulfstream with Lorimer’s money?” Santini asked, incredulously.

  Castillo, smiling, nodded.

  “A G-III. It’s really nice, Tony, to be able to avoid all that frisking and baggage searching and standing in line at airports. You really ought to get one for yourself.”

  “Jesus Christ, Charley! You’re insane!” Darby said. “What’s Montvale going to do when he hears you stole Lorimer’s money and then bought a Gulfstream with it?”

  “Actually, taking the money was Montvale’s idea. I think he saw it as a source of unaccountable funds for him. Which, of course, it would be if I didn’t control it. And I haven’t gotten around to telling him about the airplane yet.”

  “And when he finds out?”

  “All he can do is go to the President and tell him—as he predicted—that I have acted impulsively and unwisely and the airplane is the proof. On the other hand, he may decide it’s a good idea. If he can get the Office of Organizational Analysis under him—which is his announced intention—the airplane would come with it.”

  “And what’s the President going to do when he finds out about the money?” Santini asked.

  “He knows about the money,” Castillo said. “Which brings us back to that. How do I get the rent money to you, Alex?”

  Darby thought that over a moment before replying.

  “The black account is in the Banco Galicia. The agency wires money into it from a Swiss account. I suppose you could do the same thing.”

  “How long would it take to wire it from the Riggs Bank? Before you could get at the money?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty-four hours, I’d guess.”

  “You give me the numbers and the routing and I’ll call Dick Miller and have him wire a hundred thousand down here. There’s going to be other expenses, and I’m going to have to give Davidson some walking-around money, too.”

  “Is Davidson who I think he is?” Darby asked.

  “That would depend on who you think he is.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, the last time I saw him was in Kabul. You were both wearing robes and beards. That was when you were in charge of babysitting the eager young men Langley sent over there to win that war in two weeks.”

  “Yeah, that was Jack. And he never lost one of those starry-eyed young men, either. I was really glad to see him get out of your car.”

  “You didn’t know he was coming?” Santini asked.

  Castillo shook his head, then asked, “While we’re waiting for the money to get here, can you rent this house right away—today, maybe—with the money you have?”

  “I can,” Darby said. “You sure you don’t want to stash the old man here?”

  “His name is Eric Kocian,” Castillo said. “He’s both a very old friend and a good guy. I would love to stash him here but I don
’t think he’d stay. A house in Mayerling might be just what he’s looking for. He thinks—because of the name—that there might be a connection with Austrians or Hungarians involved in the oil-for-food business.”

  “I don’t understand,” Darby confessed.

  “You don’t know the story? Shame on you, Alex.”

  “What story?” Santini asked.

  “Mayerling was the Imperial Hunting Lodge of Franz Joséf. It was in Mayerling that Crown Prince Rudolph, after his father told him he had to get rid of some sixteen-year-old baroness he was banging, that he whacked the baroness and then shot himself. That’s one version. The one I got from my Hungarian aunt—the version Kocian believes—is that Franz Joséf had the crown prince whacked after he learned the kid was talking to the Hungarians about becoming king of Hungary. Kocian thinks maybe Mayerling, the country club, was built with oil-for-food money and named Mayerling to be clever.”

  “That sounds pretty far-fetched, Charley,” Santini said.

  “So does six guys dressed like Ninja characters in a comic strip going to Estancia Shangri-La to whack Lorimer. I’m not saying I believe Kocian, but, on the other hand, he’s one hell of a journalist. Whoever’s trying to whack him thinks he knows more than he should. Anyway, if I can get him out there and keep him alive for a couple of days, maybe I can get the bad guys to back off.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Darby asked.

  “You don’t want to know, Alex.”

  Darby shrugged.

  “What I need now,” Castillo said, “is the boxes I sent to the embassy under diplomatic seal and a black car.”

  “Ambassador Silvio turned them over to me and didn’t even ask what was in them. He’s a good guy, Charley. I really don’t want him to get burned in this.”

  “I’ll do my best to see that doesn’t happen,” Castillo said. “Where are the boxes now?”

  “In the backseat of the Cherokee,” Darby said, and added, “which is registered to a guy in Mar del Plata.” He tossed Castillo a set of keys. “Registration’s in the glove compartment.”