The shooters pa-4

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Jesus Christ!" Castillo said.

  "To answer your unspoken question: Yes, Herr Kocian is being sat upon. Miller will stay with him until we get the Secret Service in place. Have you any further questions, Colonel, or can we get on with this?"

  "Get on with what?"

  "Please tell Milton what steps you have taken vis-a-vis your little problem in Paraguay."

  "I don't know who the hell Milton is."

  "Trust me, Ace," Delchamps said sarcastically. "Milton Weiss is not a member of the drug mafia."

  Castillo almost said, So what? but stopped. Instead, he asked, "Why?"

  "Before you begin to apply damage control, Ace, it is convenient to know the extent of the damage."

  Castillo looked at Delchamps but didn't say anything.

  "Trust me, Charley," Delchamps said, this time very seriously.

  If I don't go along with him now, he's entirely capable of telling me to go fuck myself, get up, and walk out of here and the OOA.

  And I can't afford to lose him.

  "Lorimer says," Castillo began, "and I think he's right, that they have Timmons in the sticks-on an estancia of some kind-in either Paraguay or across the river in Argentina. Not far from Asuncion, in other words. Someplace we can't easily-if at all-get to on the ground without being spotted.

  "So the problem is, one, to find out where he is, and, two, to stage an operation to get him back.

  "One, I hope, isn't going to be much of a problem. A very competent agency guy is already in Asuncion-"

  "You mean the station chief?" Weiss interrupted.

  "No, I mean a guy who works for me. The station chief in Asuncion is apparently…intellectually challenged. The guy I'm talking about knows his business."

  Weiss nodded.

  Castillo went on, "My guy is there-the phrase he used was 'To make sure the cork is back in the bottle'-because a very bright young DIA guy in Asuncion pretty much figured out another operation we ran down there, and my guy went to Asuncion on his own, to make sure nobody else in the embassy talks too much. My guy-"

  "Milton and Alex Darby are old pals, Charley," Delchamps said.

  Weiss nodded, and there was the hint of a smile on his lips.

  Is he laughing at me?

  "Darby will learn in about nine hours, maybe ten, about this new mission."

  "How?" Weiss asked softly.

  "From a…"

  Oh, to hell with it!

  "From a man named Munz, who used to run SIDE and who now works for me-"

  "Good man, Milt," Delchamps said softly.

  "-and is now on his way to Asuncion on our airplane. The airplane is also carrying radios-ours, with some incredible capabilities-"

  "The ones you get from AFC?" Weiss asked.

  Did this guy already know about the radios?

  Or did Delchamps tell him?

  Castillo nodded. "Which, with a little bit of luck, they'll be able to get into Paraguay. And with a little more luck, Munz and Darby will be able to get up and running.

  "The fallback plan there is that if they can't smuggle the radios into Paraguay, Munz will arrange to see that we can get them into Argentina, and from there into Paraguay. And one of my sergeants-who can get the radio, radios, up and running-will be on the first plane to Asuncion tomorrow morning. That's if he couldn't get on the last plane today. And two Delta Force communicators were supposed to be on the 1130 Aerolineas flight from Miami to Buenos Aires tonight. They're going as tourists, with orders to report to a certain lady at our embassy…"

  "Susanna isn't what comes to mind when one hears the phrase 'clandestine service,' is she?" Weiss said, smiling.

  I don't think Delchamps told him about Susanna Sieno. And if I'm right, that means he knows a hell of a lot about what's going on down there.

  Who is this guy?

  "Cutting this short, if Alex Darby and Munz are half as good as I think they are, finding out where these bastards have Timmons won't take nearly as long as setting up the operation to get him back will take."

  "Tell Milton how you plan to do that," Delchamps said.

  "The only way to do that is with helicopters," Castillo said. "And the problem there is that we're going to have to use Hueys. Nobody in Argentina or Paraguay has Apaches or Black Hawks or Little Birds. The problem there is where to get the Hueys, and crews for them. I don't want to use active-duty Army pilots if I don't have to; same thing with the technical people.

  "There used to be a long list of unemployed Huey drivers hanging around China Post…"

  Castillo stopped and looked at Weiss to make sure he understood what he was talking about. Weiss nodded, just perceptibly, signaling he knew that China Post No. 1 (In Exile) of the American Legion, in addition to providing the camaraderie and other benefits of any Legion Post, also served as sort of an employment agency for retired special operators of the various branches of service.

  "…but when I called there, a friend of mine said most of them are now either back in the service, or working for Blackwater or people like that, or the agency. He's trying to find me some chopper drivers, etcetera, but that may take some time, if it works at all.

  "And then, presuming I can pull that rabbit magically from the hat, that leaves the problem of getting the aircraft and the people into Argentina black.

  "Taking first things first, I'm going to Fort Rucker right after the briefing tomorrow-"

  "What briefing?" Weiss asked.

  "Montvale is gathering all the experts in his empire to give me everything they have on what's going on down there."

  Weiss nodded. "And you're going to do what at Fort Rucker?"

  "They have some Hueys. Montvale is going to have somebody from the secretary of Defense's office call down there and tell them to give me whatever I ask for, and not to ask questions. I'm going to see what's available and what shape it's in. And then I'm going to borrow an airplane and go see Ambassador Lorimer, who lost his house to Hurricane Katrina and wants to move to Estancia Shangri-La until he can get a new house in New Orleans. I've got to talk him out of that."

  "I hadn't heard about that," Delchamps said.

  "What are you going to do about shooters?" Weiss asked.

  Castillo was surprised at first at Weiss's use of the term. Few people outside the special operations community used the politically incorrect term to describe special operators whose mission was likely to require the use of deadly force.

  What the hell, he seems to know about everything else.

  "My friend at China Post told me I just about wiped out the list of available shooters when I hired them to protect the Mastersons," Castillo said. "That assignment's just about over, but those guys are all getting a little long in the tooth, so I'm probably going to have to get my shooters from Delta at Fort Bragg. I already gave General McNab a heads-up."

  "That's about it?" Weiss said.

  "I probably could have gotten more done if I hadn't spent all that time playing the slots in Vegas," Castillo said.

  Weiss smiled.

  "You're right, Ed," he said. "He is a wiseass, but he's also good. Very good."

  "Am I supposed to blush at the compliment?" Castillo challenged.

  "The station chief in Asuncion is not intellectually challenged, Colonel," Weiss said.

  "That's not my information," Castillo said. "If he's a friend of yours, I'm sorry."

  "Jonathon Crawford's a very good friend of mine, actually," Weiss said. "And for that reason I was delighted to hear your unflattering opinion of him."

  Castillo looked at him in confusion, then threw both hands up to signal he didn't understand.

  Weiss explained: "If you-and more important, Alex Darby-didn't see through the image Jonathon has painted of himself as a mediocrity sent to an unimportant backwater post to keep him from causing trouble working beyond his limited ability somewhere important, then perhaps that very important deception is working."

  Castillo looked at Delchamps.

  "This is where
you tell me what's going on here, Ed."

  "We've got your attention now, do we, Ace?" He looked at Weiss. "Okay. Where do I start? You want to do this?"

  "You do it. I don't think the colonel trusts me."

  Delchamps nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment, then said: "When I was bringing you up to speed on the Cold War dinosaurs, Ace, I may have led you to believe that we all came out of Europe. Not so. There is a subspecies, Latin American, which is held with just about the same degree of suspicion and contempt by many people in Langley as are those of us who worked Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and points east. Milton here is one of these. Fair, Milton?"

  "Actually, I think of myself more as a chasmatosaurus, rather than a dinosaur, but close enough."

  "As a what?" Castillo asked.

  "The chasmatosaurus was a crocodilelike meateater from the Triassic period," Weiss said. "Generally acknowledged to be far more lethal than the dinosaur, the proof being that their descendants are still eating dogs and the occasional child in Florida, Australia, and other places, whereas the dinosaurs are no longer with us."

  "Whatever the paleontological distinction," Delchamps said, smiling at the look on Castillo's face, "these people recognize each other as noble persons facing extinction at the hands of the politically correct members of what is laughingly known as the 'Intelligence Community.' "Such was the case when Milton saw me rooting about in the South American files in Langley. He suggested that we have a drink for auld lang syne. And on the fourth drink, he idly inquired what I was looking for. Knowing him as well as I do, I asked him why he wanted to know.

  "He said it had come to his attention that I had been in the Southern Cone, and he wanted to know what I could tell him to confirm or deny a credible rumor that Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia-dressed up as a Ninja at an estancia in Uruguay called Shangri-La-had been whacked by a bunch of special operators operating under a Presidential Finding."

  "Jesus Christ!" Castillo exclaimed softly.

  "I asked him where he had heard this rumor, and he told me from his pal Crawford, and one thing led to another, and he told me why he was interested, and I told him what we have been up to in Gaucho Land."

  "Jesus Christ!" Castillo said again.

  "I suppose you are aware, Colonel," Weiss said, "that you would not win any popularity contests held in Langley?"

  Castillo nodded. "So I have been led to believe."

  "If I were to tell you that you are a burr under the saddle blankets of two distinct groups of people over there, would that come as a shock to you?"

  "Two distinct groups?"

  "Group One, as I suspect you know, is composed of those annoyed because you (a) found that stolen 727 they couldn't, thereby splattering a good deal of egg on the agency's face, and (b) you-the Office of Organizational Analysis-is operating under the authority of that Presidential Finding, which among other things has seen Ambassador Montvale give this dinosaur"-he pointed at Delchamps-"blanket access to anything he wants at Langley.

  "Group Two-which, as hard as you may find this to believe, I don't think you know about-is a bunch of good guys who are running an important operation they feel you are about to fuck up by the numbers while trying to get this DEA agent back."

  "What kind of an important operation? And why hasn't Montvale told me about it?"

  "Montvale doesn't know about it," Weiss said. "He's almost as unpopular over there as you are. For a number of reasons, the most obvious being that he's now over the agency. The DCI isn't even number two; just one more subordinate chief of agency, like the heads of DIA and DEA."

  "What's this important operation?"

  "How much do you know about the drug trade?" Weiss asked.

  "Virtually nothing," Castillo admitted.

  "Okay. Basic Drugs 101. The agency estimates-and this sort of thing is what the agency is really good at-Afghanistan will have half a million acres devoted to the growing of Papaver somniferum L., or the poppy. Opium is obtained from the unripe poppy seed pods, and then converted to heroin. Afghanistan grows more than ninety percent of poppies used in the heroin drug trade.

  "Most of the other eight or nine percent is grown-and converted to heroin-in Colombia and Bolivia. This is sold, primarily, in the East Coast cities here. Most of the stuff consumed in Hollywood and other temples of culture on the West Coast is grown and processed in Mexico, and is not nearly as pure as what's sold on the East Coast.

  "Quality, as well as supply and demand, determines price. Will you take my word for it, Colonel, that there's a hell of a lot of money being spent on heroin on the East Coast?"

  Castillo nodded.

  "One-I guess several-of the good guys I mentioned before took a close look at the business and came up with several questions. Some were pretty obvious. Why are the heroin people in Bolivia sending their product south, into Paraguay and then Argentina, when the market's in New York City, in the other direction?

  "The Colombians send most of their product into Mexico. The Mexicans don't seem to be able to stop much-if any-of that traffic. It has been suggested that the authorities have been bought. But whatever the reason, getting their product into Mexico and then across the border into the United States doesn't seem to pose much of a problem. Possibly because our overworked Customs and Border Protection people working the border-crossing points just can't inspect more than a tiny fraction of the thousands of eighteen-wheelers coming into the country every day.

  "Or an even smaller fraction of the cars of the tourists returning home from a happy holiday south of the border. You have that picture, Colonel?"

  "Ed calls me Charley, Mr. Weiss."

  "I thought he called you Ace? You don't like being called colonel, Colonel?"

  "Not the way you pronounce it."

  "That's probably because I'm having trouble thinking of you as a colonel; you don't look old enough to be a colonel. When Ed and I were running around together, the colonels we dealt with had gray hair-if they had hair at all-and paunches. No offense was intended."

  "You won't mind, right, Milton, if I don't believe that?"

  "You are a feisty youngster, aren't you? Aren't you, Charley?"

  "Better, Milton. Better."

  "Getting back to the subject at hand, Charley. On the other hand, Argentina does have a working drug-interdiction program. They even have a remarkably honest-honest by South American standards-police organization called the Gendarmeria Nacional.

  "So why run the greater risk?

  "Looking into it further, the good guys learned a little more about the flow of drugs through Argentina and into the U.S., and the manner of doing business. Normally-you've seen the movies-it's a cash business. The farmers sell the raw material-that stuff that oozes out of the poppy seed pods-to the refiners. They don't get much for it, but they get paid in cash. Next step, normally, is for the refiners to either sell what is now heroin to someone who shows up at the refinery and carries it off. That is also a cash transaction. Or they take it someplace away from the refinery and sell it there. That's where you see those briefcases full of money in the movies.

  "Every time the product changes hands, in other words, so does cash. Usually.

  "This didn't seem to be happening with the drugs coming out of Paraguay into Argentina, either when it arrived from the refiners, or when the movers got it into Argentina, or when it left Argentina. The first time money changed hands was when the movers had it in the States and turned it over to the wholesalers. Then we had the briefcases full of hundred-dollar bills.

  "So what could be inferred from this? That it was being operated in what the Harvard School of Business Administration would call a vertically integrated manner. The whole process-from initial receipt of the product from the refiner, through the movement to Uruguay, to Argentina, to the United States and the sale there-was under one roof.

  "The refiners, the movers, the smugglers, and the transporters, rather than being independent businessmen, were al
l employees."

  "What's the purpose of that? What difference does it make?" Castillo asked.

  Weiss held up his hand, signaling he didn't want to be interrupted.

  "Another problem businessmen involved in this trade have is what to do with the money once they have sold the product. It cannot be dropped into an ATM machine, for obvious reasons. And, to get it into one of those offshore banks we hear so much about, it has to be transferred through a bank; no cash deposits allowed.

  "Unless, of course, the bank is also in the vertically integrated system."

  "You mean they own the bank?"

  Weiss nodded.

  "And that raised the question, among many others, in the good guys' minds, 'Where did all this come from?' Drug dealers are smart, ruthless, and enterprising, but very few of them have passed through Cambridge and learned to sing 'On, Fair Harvard!' "That suggested something very interesting," Weiss went on, "that it was not a group of Colombian thugs with gold chains around their necks who were running this operation, but some very clever people who may indeed have gone to Harvard and were employed by their government. Two governments came immediately to mind."

  "Which?"

  "The Democratic People's Republic of Cuba and the Russian Federation."

  "Jesus H. Christ!"

  "Another thing needed to run this operation smoothly, Charley," Delchamps said, "is discipline. The employees-especially the local hires-had to completely understand that any hanky-panky would get them, and their families, whacked."

  "Lorimer told me that Timmons's driver-"

  "Timmons?" Weiss interrupted.

  Just as Weiss had a moment before, Castillo held up his hand imperiously, signaling he didn't want to be interrupted.

  Delchamps chuckled, and Weiss, smiling, shook his head.

  "-was garroted," Castillo finished, "with a metal garrote."

  "Interesting!" Weiss said. "Stasi?"

  "And that might explain what Major Vincenzo and the others were doing at Shangri-La," Castillo said. "Maybe he didn't come from Cuba for that. Maybe he-and the others-were already in Paraguay."

  "And," Delchamps added, "since Lorimer wasn't involved with drugs-they wanted to shut his mouth about what he knew of the oil-for-food scam-and Vincenzo was, that suggests there's a connection. Somebody who wanted Lorimer dead was able to order Vincenzo and company to do it."