Hunters pa-3

by W. E. B Griffin

  Jose poured wine for Julio and they touched glasses.

  "There must be something on your mind," Julio said. "This is the good Merlot."

  "How about seven males, six of them dressed in black, shot to death?"

  Artigas thought: I don't think he's kidding.

  He took a sip of the Merlot, then spread liver pate on a chunk of hard-crusted bread and waited for Ordonez to go on.

  "You don't seem surprised," Jose said.

  "I'm an FBI agent. We try to be inscrutable."

  A waiter appeared.

  Julio ordered a blue cheese empanada, bife chorizo medium rare, papas frit as, and an onion-and-tomato salad.

  Jose held up two fingers, signaling the waiter he'd have the same.

  "And where are these deceased Ninja warriors?" Julio asked.

  Jose chuckled.

  "On an estancia-called Shangri-La-near Tacuarembo."

  Julio signaled with a quick shake of his head that he had no idea where Tacuarembo was.

  "It's about three hundred sixty kilometers due north," Jose said. "On Highway 5." He paused. "I was hoping you might go up there with me."

  "That's a long ride."

  "Less long in a helicopter."

  Julio knew the use of rotary-wing aircraft by Uruguayan police was not common, even for the movement of very senior officers.

  "Am I being invited as a friend or officially?" Julio said.

  "Why don't we decide that after we have a look around Estancia Shangri-La?" Jose replied.

  "Okay." Julio paused. "Tell me, Cousin, would I happen to know-or even have met-the owner of Estancia Shangri-La?"

  "You tell me. He is-was-a Lebanese dealer in antiquities by the name of Jean-Paul Bertrand."

  Julio shook his head and asked, "And had you a professional interest in Senor…what was his name?"

  "Jean-Paul Bertrand," Jose furnished.

  "…Bertrand before he was killed?"

  Jose shook his head. "He was as clean as a whistle, so far as I have been able to determine."

  The waiter returned with their empanadas, and they cut off their conversation. They might have returned to it had not two strikingly beautiful young women come in the restaurant.

  They didn't hurry their lunch, but they didn't dawdle over it, either. Twenty-five minutes after Julio had taken his first sip of the Merlot, the bottle was empty and Jose was settling the bill with the waiter.

  When they left the former cattle shed, they walked across the street to the Navy base. Julio saw-with some surprise-that the helicopter waiting for them was not one of the some what battered Policia Nacional's Bell Hueys he expected but a glistening Aerospatiale Dauphin. The pilot was a Navy officer. Julio suspected it was the Uruguayan president's personal helicopter.

  That meant, obviously, that someone high in the Uruguayan government-perhaps even the president himself-considered what had happened at Estancia Shangri-La very important. [TWO] Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembo Province Republica Orientale del Uruguay 1405 2 August 2005 As the Dauphin fluttered down onto a field, Julio saw that there were a dozen police vehicles and two ambulances parked unevenly around the main building of the estancia and that there were twenty-five or thirty people-many in police uniform-milling about.

  Julio had an unkind thought: Well, so much for preserving the crime scene.

  Two portly senior police officers walked warily toward the helicopter. Both saluted Chief Inspector Ordonez as he stepped down from the chopper. He returned their salutes with a casual wave of his hand. Julio remembered seeing him in uniform only once, when Fidel Castro, a year or so before, had come to Montevideo and Ordonez had been head of the protection detail.

  "This is Senor Artigas," Chief Inspector Ordonez said. "You will answer any questions he puts to you."

  Both of the policemen saluted. Julio responded with a nod and offered them his hand.

  "I ordered that nothing be touched?" Ordonez questioned.

  "We have covered the bodies, Chief Inspector, but everything else is exactly as it was when we first came here."

  Ordonez met Artigas's eyes. It was clear to both they were thinking exactly the same thing: The curious had satisfied their curiosity. The crime scene had been trampled beyond use.

  Ordonez gestured with his hand that he be shown.

  There were two bodies on a covered veranda. They were covered with heavy black plastic sheeting. Artigas wondered if that was the local version of a body bag or whether the sheeting had just been available and put to use.

  A large pool of blood, now dried black, had escaped the plastic over the first body. When, at Ordonez's impatient gesture, the plastic sheeting was pulled aside, the reason was clear. This man had died of a gunshot wound to the head. There is a great deal of blood in the head.

  And not a pistol round, either, I don't think. His head had exploded.

  The body was dressed in dark blue, almost black, cotton coveralls, the sort worn by mechanics.

  What looked like the barrel of a submachine gun was visible in the pool of dried blood. The dead man had fallen on his weapon.

  Artigas felt a gentle touch on his arm and looked down to see that Ordonez was handing him disposable rubber gloves.

  "This has been photographed?" Ordonez asked.

  "Yes, Chief Inspector, from many angles."

  Ordonez squatted and pulled the weapon out from under the body. It was a submachine gun, its stock folded. He held it out for Artigas to see.

  "Madsen, right?" he asked.

  "Yes," Artigas said. "That's the 9mm, I think."

  Ordonez raised the barrel so that he could see the muzzle, then nodded.

  Artigas looked around and saw a glint in the grass just beyond the veranda. He walked to it. It was a cartridge case.

  "Have you got a position on this? And photographs?"

  "My sergeant must have missed that, senor," the heftier of the two local police supervisors said and angrily called for the sergeant.

  When Artigas went back on the veranda he saw that Ordonez had replaced the black plastic over the body and had moved ten meters down the veranda, where another police officer was pulling the plastic off another body. This one, too, was dressed in nearly black coveralls.

  Another large pool of dried black blood from another exploded head.

  As he squatted by the body, Ordonez looked at Artigas and asked, "What did you see?"

  "A cartridge casing. Looks like a 9mm."

  "I wonder where this one's weapon went to?" Ordonez asked, studying the body.

  He pointed to a disturbance in the blood that could have been the marks left when someone had dragged a weapon from it.

  "Looks like somebody took it," Artigas agreed.

  "Yeah, but who?"

  The implication was clear. Ordonez would not have been surprised if one of the local cops had taken it, for any number of reasons having nothing to do with the investigation of a multiple homicide.

  I'm not going to comment on that, Ordonez thought.

  "Both head shots," Artigas said.

  Ordonez nodded and then, raising his voice, asked, "Where's the other five?"

  The second police supervisor made a vague gesture away from the house. "Four out there, Chief Inspector," he said. "Senor Bertrand's body is in the house, in his office."

  Ordonez gestured for him to lead the way into the house.

  The body lying on its back behind a large, ornate desk and next to the open door of a safe was that of a some what squat, very black man in his late forties. There were two entrance wounds in the face, one on the right side of the forehead, the second on the upper lip.

  A section of the skull had been blown outward. There was brain tissue on the safe and on the wall beside it.

  Artigas sensed Ordonez's eyes on him.

  "Two entrance wounds that close," Artigas said, "maybe a submachine gun?"

  Ordonez nodded.

  "But from a distance," he said, pointing to the window. One of the panes was brok
en. "If he had been shot in here, for example, the moment he obligingly opened the safe, I think there would have been powder burns on the face."

  "Yeah," Artigas said.

  "The photo album?" Ordonez asked.

  "On the desk, Chief Inspector," the police supervisor said.

  "While Captain Cavallero was leaving everything exactly as it was when he first came here," Ordonez said, drily, "he happened to notice and then scan through a photo album. I think you may find it interesting."

  The Moroccan leather-bound photo album on the desk was open to an eight-by-ten-inch color photograph of a wedding party standing on the steps of a church large enough to be a cathedral. Everyone was in formal morning clothing. Senor Bertrand was standing at the extreme right. The bride, a tall, slim woman, was standing beside an extraordinarily tall, broadly smiling young man.

  "Julio," Ordonez asked, softly, "do you think the bridegroom is who Captain Cavallero thought it might be?"

  Well, Artigas thought, now I know why I'm here.

  "That's Jack the Stack, all right. No question about it," he said.

  "'Jack the Stack'?"

  "Before he was J. Winslow Masterson of the United States State Department, he was Jack the Stack of the Boston Celtics," Artigas said.

  "Really? A professional basketball player? I didn't know that. From the Celtics to the State Department?"

  "He got himself run over by a beer truck as he was leaving a stadium," Artigas said. "No more pro ball. And the settlement-the truck driver had been sampling his wares-made Jack the Stack a very wealthy man. I heard sixty million dollars."

  "Now that I think about it, I remember hearing that story. But I didn't connect it with an American diplomat in Buenos Aires," Ordonez said and then asked, "I wonder what Senor Bertrand's relationship to Senor Masterson was?"

  "That's not all I'm wondering about Senor Bertrand," Artigas replied. [THREE] Office of the Ambassador The Embassy of the United States of America Lauro Muller 1776 Montevideo, Republica Oriental del Uruguay 2035 2 August 2005 The Honorable Michael A. McGrory, minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the President of the United States to the Republic of Uruguay, was a small, wiry well-tailored man of fifty-five with a full head of curly gray hair. He was held in varying degrees of contempt by many members of the "embassy team," the very ones who referred to him-behind his back, of course-as "SenorPompous."

  This was especially true of those members of the embassy team who were not members of the Foreign Service of the United States. These included the twenty-one employees of the Justice Department assigned to the Montevideo embassy. Fourteen of them carried the job description of "Assistant Legal Attache," although they were in fact special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other seven were special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

  There were others-the CIA station chief, for example, representatives of the Federal Aviation Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and even employees of the Department of Agriculture-assigned to the embassy. The latter were charged with ensuring that Uruguayan foodstuffs exported to the United States-primarily, meat and dairy products-met the high standards of purity established by the U.S. government.

  Although all of these specialists enjoyed diplomatic status, they were not really diplomats-and this was often pointed out to them in varying degrees of subtlety by SenorPompous.

  All the specialists would, after several years, return to the States and whatever governmental agency had, so to speak, loaned them to the Department of State.

  The Foreign Service people, on the other hand, regarded themselves as professionals trained in the fine art of diplomacy who could look forward to other foreign assignments after Uruguay and to increasingly senior positions within the Department of State. Presuming, of course, that the hired hands from the Justice Department or the FAA or-especially-the CIA didn't do something violating the rules of diplomatic behavior that would embarrass the embassy and the Foreign Service personnel who were supposed to keep the hired hands under control.

  Ambassador McGrory, for example, had begun his Foreign Service career as a consular officer in Nicaragua. As he over the years had moved from one United States embassy to another in South America, he had risen-some what slowly but steadily-upward in the State Department hierarchy. He had been a commercial attache in Peru, a cultural attache in Brazil, and, before his appointment as ambassador to Uruguay, he had been deputy chief of mission in Asuncion, Paraguay.

  With the exception of the Agriculture Department people-who did their job, kept him abreast of what was going on, and stayed out of trouble-Ambassador McGrory had trouble with just about everyone else who was not a bonafide diplomat.

  There were several reasons for this, and, in Ambassador McGrory's opinion, the most significant was their inability to understand that they were in fact answerable to him. The regulations were clear on that. As the senior official of the United States government in Uruguay, all employees and officers of the United States were subject to his orders.

  Many-perhaps most-of the problems caused were by the DEA agents, whom McGrory privately thought of as hooligans. They often went around "undercover," which meant that not only were they unshaven and unshorn but dressed like Uruguayan drug addicts. And under their shabby clothing they carried a variety of weaponry. It was only a matter of time, in McGrory's professional opinion, before they shot some Uruguayan and he would have to deal with all the ramifications.

  He had issued an order a year before that required that the DEA agents go armed only when necessary. When it became apparent that the DEA agents considered it was necessary all the time, he had modified the order so that they would have to have his permission before arming themselves on any specific occasion. That order had been in effect fewer than seventy-two hours when the assistant secretary of state for Latin America had telephoned him to politely but firmly order him to refrain from interfering with the DEA agents' rights to defend themselves.

  The FBI agents were far better dressed than those of the DEA but, if anything, less willing to keep him abreast of what they were doing and when. Their primary function was the detection of money laundering. Uruguay was known as the South American capital of money laundering. McGrory was naturally interested to know what they were doing, but they rarely told him any specifics.

  And half of them, at least, also went about armed to the teeth.

  Ambassador McGrory was thus concerned when the senior of the FBI agents, a man named James D. Monahan, telephoned him as he was about to leave the embassy and requested an immediate audience.

  "Will this wait until the morning, Monahan?"

  "Sir, I really think you should hear this now."

  "Very well," the ambassador replied. "You may come up."

  Monahan and Julio Artigas arrived at McGrory's office three minutes later. The ambassador did not offer them chairs.

  "Artigas has run into something I thought should be brought to your attention as quickly as possible, Mr. Ambassador," Legal Attache James D. Monahan said, politely.

  "Really?" McGrory replied and looked at Assistant Legal Attache Artigas.

  "Ordonez called me just before lunch-"

  McGrory raised his hand to stop him, and asked, "Ordonez is?"

  "Chief inspector of the Interior Division of the Policia Federal, Mr. Ambassador."

  McGrory nodded and waved his fingers as a signal for Artigas to go on.

  "And asked that I meet him for lunch. I did so, and almost immediately he told me there had been a multiple murder-"

  "Multiple murder?" McGrory interrupted. "How many did he mean by multiple?"

  "Seven, Mr. Ambassador."

  "Seven?"

  "Yes, sir. Seven."

  "And this massacre occurred here in Montevideo?"

  "No, sir. On an estancia near Tacuarembo."

  "And where, refresh me, is 'Tacuarembo'?"

  "It's about three hundred sixty kilometers north of Montevideo, Mr. Ambassador."

/>   "Never heard of it," the ambassador said. "Go on, Artigas."

  "Yes, sir. Chief Inspector Ordonez asked me if I would be willing to go there with him-"

  "I don't think that's a very good idea, Artigas," the ambassador said. "Do you, Monahan? We don't want the embassy splattered with the water from Uruguay's dirty laundry, do we?"

  "Sir, I accepted Ordonez's invitation. I went there," Artigas said.

  "And who did you check with before you did so? I can't believe Monahan would give you the go-ahead to do something like that. You didn't, Monahan, did you?"

  "I didn't check with anyone, sir. I wasn't aware that I was required to."

  "There is a difference, Artigas, between a requirement and the exercise of prudent conduct," the ambassador said. "Perhaps you should keep that in mind."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Go on."

  "We flew to Tacuarembo in what I believe was the president's helicopter," Artigas said. "Which suggested to me that someone very senior in the Uruguayan government was really interested to see that Inspector Ordonez got there in a hurry, that there was interest at high levels in whatever had transpired at Tacuarembo."

  "Several things, Artigas," the ambassador said. "First, I thought you said Chief Inspector Whatever…"

  "It is Chief Inspector Ordonez, sir."

  "Second, what makes you think you went flying in the president's helicopter?"

  "It was a nearly new Aerospatiale Dauphin, sir. The police have old Hueys."

  "In which you have flown?"

  "Yes, sir. Many times."

  "I wasn't aware of that," the ambassador said. "Were you, Monahan?"

  "Yes, sir, I was. We try very hard to work closely with the Uruguayan authorities and-"

  "Working closely with the Uruguayan authorities, of course, is a good idea. But riding in their helicopters? I shudder when I think of how well they are maintained. Or not maintained. I'll have to give that some thought. And until I have had the chance to do just that, I don't think there should be any more helicopter joyrides. Pass that word, won't you, Monahan?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You flew to Tacuarembo, is that what you're saying, Artigas?"

  "Yes, sir."