The Shooters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Aren’t we liable to cause more damage if I go? I just reminded Delchamps that the last time I saw him, he said, ‘Good-bye, and don’t come back.’”

  “He knows you’re planning an operation in either Argentina or Paraguay. That’s none of his business. What he doesn’t want—and will work very hard to prevent—is another operation in Uruguay.”

  “We’re not planning anything in Uruguay,” Castillo said, “except the refueling. And done right, that shouldn’t take much more than a couple of hours.” He paused, then added, “Well, let’s go off on another tangent. Probably the best way to get the Hueys ashore is to launch them one at a time from the Reagan, one every forty-five minutes or an hour. And have them fly into and out of Shangri-La on different courses.”

  He looked at Torine for any input.

  “You’re the expert, Charley,” Torine said.

  “Four Hueys, or even two, flying overhead is going to attract more attention than just one,” Castillo said.

  “True,” Torine agreed.

  “Whatever you decide to do, Karl,” Munz said, “Ordóñez would be more assured if he heard it from you than from me. Like me, José believes you can tell if a man is lying by looking into his eyes.”

  “I’ve got to ask this,” Castillo said. “Would a little gift—hell, a great big gift—make any difference?”

  “The very offer would probably kill any chance at all of him being willing to look the other way,” Munz said. “What you’re going to have to do, Karl, is convince him that his permitting your helicopters to enter—even secretly—Uruguayan airspace and using Shangri-La as a refueling place is in the best interests of Uruguay. That it won’t cause any problems for Uruguay.”

  “Okay. So we go to Uruguay,” Castillo said. “And right now.”

  He gestured for the others to follow him back into the quincho.

  “Comandante Duffy’s going to be annoyed when he finds out we’ve left here,” Castillo explained. “But I will deal with that later when I call him from Montevideo. What I don’t want to do is have any friction with him as we leave that might cause trouble about us going to Montevideo.

  “I regard his threat to have us kicked out of the country—or arrested—as valid. But I think he’s very interested in what he calls our assets, and I don’t think he’s going to blow that whistle until I tell him no, or until I do something suspicious.

  “I am also convinced that the arrogant bastard thinks he’s got me really scared. Which, as a matter of fact, he does. So we’re going to go with exactly that—I’m scared and I’m leaving.

  “What we’re going to do is load in the van everybody who’s going to Uruguay—that’s Yung, Leverette, Sparkman, Munz, Torine, Bradley, and me—and have Neidermeyer drive us out to Ezeiza, where we will file a flight plan to Montevideo, then clear immigration and customs, and leave.”

  Castillo glanced at the others, who would remain at the safe house. Alex Darby, D’Elia, the Sienos, and Lieutenant Lorimer showed no signs of having any problem with that. But Castillo thought he saw questions in Sergeant Mullroney’s eyes.

  Questions, Castillo thought, that he’s learned not to ask, thanks no doubt to our little incident in the mountains outside Vegas.

  Maybe he’s not completely stupid….

  Castillo went on: “I think we can presume Duffy has a car—maybe two—sitting on us at the gate. We are not going to try, à la James Bond, to lose them in traffic. If they can’t keep up, much better, but we’re not going to look as if we’re running away.

  “We can also presume that if they have managed to follow us to Ezeiza, they’ll follow us inside the terminal and learn what we’re doing and tell Duffy. With a little luck, they’ll also tell him we haven’t tried anything sneaky.

  “That’ll give him the choice between letting us leave or trying to stop us, and he’ll have to make that choice in a hurry. I think he’ll decide, ‘Okay, good riddance,’ possibly because keeping us from leaving might be hard for him to do anyway. If we’re brazen, he’ll reason that’s because we’ve destroyed everything—the radios, for example—that could get us in trouble. And he doesn’t want the stink that would be made if a bunch of American tourists were stopped without cause. So I think we can make it to Uruguay.

  “Once we’re airborne, we’ll call on the radio. If you don’t hear from us, or if somebody comes knocking at the door, be ready to use the thermite grenades to torch the radios and anything else that’s incriminating.”

  He looked at everybody and added, “If anybody has any better ideas, I’m wide open.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “What about Max?” Delchamps asked.

  “What about him?”

  “If you don’t take him, Ace, that might give Duffy the idea you plan to come back. But if you do, what are you going to do with him? How are you going to get him back here from Uruguay? The Gulfstream’s going to the States.”

  Castillo looked down at Max, who was lying with his head between his paws, his big eyes looking up at him.

  “Max goes,” he said after a moment. “You’re right. Duffy would expect me to take him with me if I was leaving.”

  Did I say that because I believe it? Or because, quite clearly, I just again heard Abuela saying, “You don’t even have a dog”—and I don’t have the heart to just leave the big sonofabitch here not knowing if I am coming back.

  He’s saved my life, once for sure in Budapest and probably in the garage of the Sheraton Pilar, and I could hide behind that.

  But the truth is, Castillo, that you’re a goddamned softie.

  You like the way he looks at you with those big, soft eyes.

  “Okay, Lieutenant Lorimer, sound ‘Boots and Saddles,’” Castillo ordered.

  [TWO]

  Suite 2152

  Radisson Montevideo Victoria Plaza Hotel

  Plaza Independencia 759

  Montevideo, República Oriental del Uruguay

  1720 9 September 2005

  Special Agent David W. Yung was smiling and shaking his head as he watched Jake Torine toss peanuts to Max, who snapped them from the air.

  Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette, holding a bottle of beer, stood up from the minibar, looked at Yung, and announced, “Two-Gun is thinking about sex. He’s shaking his head in disbelief and smiling.”

  “Close,” Yung replied. “I’m thinking I can’t believe the general manager believed Charley’s yarn—‘I’m an epileptic and this dog has been trained to alert me when he senses a seizure coming on.’”

  “I was counting on him having seen that malady on Fox News,” Castillo said, solemnly. “You always have to have an answer prepared, David.”

  “What our dog lover here was actually counting on working was that hundred-dollar bill he slipped the manager,” Torine said.

  “Max is up here, isn’t he, despite those ‘No Pets’ signs in three languages on the door?” Castillo said.

  “And a good thing for you that he is, Charley,” Torine said. “You’re going to need him to protect you from that cop when he learns you’re back.”

  The telephone buzzed. Castillo signaled for Yung to pick it up.

  “Thank you,” Yung said in Spanish into the receiver. “We’ll be right down.” He hung up, looked at Castillo, and switched back to English: “The car from the embassy is here.”

  “That was quick,” Leverette said.

  “The embassy’s only a couple of blocks from here,” Yung explained, and then added, “Maybe I better take Max with me to protect me from Ambassador McGrory. I don’t think he’s going to be happy to see me.”

  “Nonsense,” Castillo said. “He’ll be thrilled. The secretary of State called him personally to tell him you’re coming.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Yung said.

  “Okay,” Castillo said. “You get the keys to your apartment for Jake and Sparkman. And the keys to your car, if that’s been fixed. All McGrory has to know about Jake and Sparkman is t
hat they’re pilots from the Presidential Flight Detachment, and will be leaving as soon as they get some rest. But tell him that, even if he doesn’t ask; he’s liable to be impressed with that. And then come back here and let us know how he reacted.”

  “Yes, sir,” Yung said.

  Castillo picked up on something in Yung’s tone, something just shy of sarcasm.

  “Dave,” he said, “I learned a long time ago that it’s better to piss off one of your guys by telling him again and again how to do something he already knows how to do than to take the chance he misunderstood you. If I didn’t think you could handle McGrory, I wouldn’t be sending you to the embassy.”

  Yung met his eyes, then smiled and shrugged.

  “Yeah,” he said simply.

  Castillo raised his right arm and hand in the manner of a priest blessing one of the faithful. “Go forth and do good, Two-Gun,” he said solemnly.

  Yung smiled, shook his head, and started for the door.

  Castillo waited until they had left, then turned to Munz.

  “Let’s get it over with,” he said. “Call Ordóñez.”

  Munz punched an autodial number on his cellular telephone. When it began to ring, Munz pushed the SPEAKER button.

  “Ordóñez,” the familiar voice came over the speaker.

  “Alfredo Munz, José.”

  “I’ve been waiting for your call, my friend.”

  “We’re in the Victoria Plaza. 2152.”

  “I know. Stay there.”

  Munz exchanged glances with Castillo, who raised his eyebrows.

  “Where are you?” Munz said into the phone.

  “Sixty kilometers out of Punta del Este. I should be there in about an hour. Did you hear what I said about staying where you are?”

  “Yes.”

  “That includes Colonel Castillo.”

  “Understood,” Munz said, looking at Castillo again.

  “They weren’t supposed to permit Castillo or anyone with him to enter the country,” Ordóñez said. “When I pointed this out to them, they wanted to arrest you. I think I stopped that, but I would not try to leave the hotel.”

  “Yung and three others were with us; they were just picked up by an American embassy car.”

  “I know. Stay in the Victoria, Alfredo.”

  “Very well.”

  There was a change in the background noise, and Munz pushed the phone’s END CALL button.

  Munz said, “He apparently meant it when he said, ‘Good-bye, and don’t come back.’ I don’t know what to think, Karl.”

  Castillo silently raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  The door chimes sounded pleasantly almost exactly an hour later, and Munz went to the door and opened it.

  Uruguayan Policía Nacional Chief Inspector José Ordóñez, a trim, well-dressed, olive-skinned man in his late thirties, stepped into the room. He was visibly surprised to see Max—who sat with his head cocked, as if making up his mind about the visitor—but Ordóñez didn’t seem afraid of the dog; he ignored him.

  He embraced Munz and kissed the air next to his cheek, then looked at Castillo. After a moment, he put out his hand.

  “I won’t say that I’m delighted to see you, Colonel Castillo,” he said in Spanish.

  “Nevertheless, good evening, Chief Inspector,” Castillo replied in Spanish.

  “Amazing,” Ordóñez said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he is a Porteño. The accent is perfect.”

  “Carlos is an amazing man, José,” Munz said.

  “May we offer you something to drink, Chief Inspector?” Castillo said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Ordóñez said without hesitation. “Scotch, please, if you have it.” He looked at an array of bottles on a credenza. “Some of that Famous Grouse single malt, if it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

  “Not at all,” Castillo said.

  He remembered hearing that Uruguay consumed more scotch whiskey per capita than any other nation in the world, and that the present head of the family that had had the lock on importing the whiskey for generations was a Dartmouth graduate.

  What remote corner of the memory bank did that come from?

  He started to open the bottle.

  “Just one lump of ice, please,” Ordóñez said. “And half as much gas-free water as whiskey.”

  “Coming up,” Castillo said.

  He made three identical drinks and handed Ordóñez and Munz theirs.

  They clicked glasses.

  Ordóñez walked to the window, pushed the curtain aside, and looked out.

  “If this hotel had been built in 1939,” he said, “Millington-Drake could have watched in comfort from here—for that matter, from the bar in the Arcadia—rather than having to climb all those stairs to stand in the rain over there.”

  “Excuse me?” Castillo asked.

  “The Arcadia restaurant on the twenty-fifth floor. It has a bar.”

  Castillo’s confusion showed on his face.

  “You do know who Millington-Drake was, don’t you, Colonel?”

  “I have no idea who he was,” Castillo said.

  “Does the name Langsdorff mean anything to you?”

  Langsdorff?

  Who the hell is he talking about?

  What the hell is he talking about?

  Oh, hell!

  You are a disgrace to the Long Gray Line, Castillo!

  “Of course,” Castillo said. “He’s buried in Buenos Aires, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is,” Ordóñez said. “And from the towers of that building—come have a look—”

  Castillo went to the window. In a moment, Munz and Max followed. Ordóñez pointed to a tall building across the street, the open ornate masonry towers of which seemed to be fifty or sixty feet below them.

  Ordóñez said: “Sir John Henry Millington-Drake, the British ambassador, who was a close friend of my great-grandfather, climbed to the top of the towers you see there—it was raining hard, I understand; he must have gotten soaked—to watch the pocket battleship Graf Spee sail out of the harbor and scuttle herself. When the conditions are right, you can make out her superstructure.”

  “Interesting man,” Castillo said, as the memory banks suddenly opened. “After seeing to the burial of his dead, and negotiating the terms of the internment of the rest of the crew, he put on his dress uniform and shot himself to prove that he had scuttled his ship to save the lives of his men; that he personally wasn’t afraid to die. He positioned himself so that his body fell on the German Navy battle flag, rather than the Nazi swastika flag.”

  Ordóñez said, “I thought perhaps you—as a graduate of your military academy—would know who Langsdorff was.”

  Yeah, I indeed know who he was.

  An officer and a gentleman who lived and died by his code, Death Before Dishonor.

  The motto that murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and other human scum in prisons now tattoo on one another to help pass the time.

  “Of course,” Castillo said.

  “My great-grandfather told me, Colonel Castillo, that despite the public story that said it was Millington-Drake’s eloquence and strong personality that caused the Uruguayan government to scrupulously follow international law and order the Graf Spee to leave Montevideo within the seventy-two-hour period required by the law, it was in fact enormous pressure applied by the United States government—which, as I’m sure you know, was, like Uruguay, ostensibly neutral in the war between the English and the Germans—that caused it to do so.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” Castillo said. “But it seems credible.”

  “So what are you doing here, Colonel? You know—I’m sure you remember me telling you—you’re not welcome here. So, again, what is it you’re doing here?”

  “I’m helping Ambassador Lorimer move onto Estancia Shangri-La.”

  “Ambassador Lorimer?”

  “Jean-Paul Lorimer’s father. He’s a retired diplomat. You didn’t know?”

  Ord�
�ñez did not reply directly, instead asking: “Why on earth would he want to move to a remote estancia in Tacuarembó Province?”

  “The Lorimers lost their home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina,” Castillo said. “It is—or at least was—under fifteen feet of water.”

  “I understand that Mr. Lorimer—the late Mr. Lorimer—had an apartment in Paris. Wouldn’t that be more comfortable for Ambassador Lorimer?”

  “The ambassador told me the United Nations took his son’s Paris apartment off his hands. At a very good price. He said he had the feeling they would rather he didn’t go to Paris.”

  “So he decided to come here.”

  Castillo nodded.

  “What are Yung and the others doing at your embassy?”

  “The State Department—actually the secretary of State herself—called Ambassador McGrory to tell him to help Ambassador Lorimer in any way he can. They’re going to see him about that.”

  Ordóñez took a notebook from his pocket, read from it, then asked, “Who are Sparkman and Leverette?”

  “Sparkman is the copilot of the Gulfstream. Leverette is the ambassador’s butler. He’s going out to Shangri-La and set things up. As soon as that’s done, we’ll fly the ambassador and his wife down here.”

  “All right, Colonel, that’s your cover story, and it’s a good one.” He paused as he looked him in the eyes. Then he added: “Now let’s get to the truth. Why are you here?”

  “I just told you—” Castillo began, but when he saw Ordóñez hold up his hand and was about to interrupt him, went on: “And…and…I need your help.”

  “To do what?” Ordóñez asked matter-of-factly.

  “I need to secretly move helicopters into Uruguayan airspace, refuel them, and fly them out of Uruguay.”

  “Using Estancia Shangri-La?”

  “Using Shangri-La,” Castillo confirmed.

  “And what would the helicopters be used for?”

  “One of our DEA agents in Paraguay is being held by drug dealers. My orders are to get him back from the people who have kidnapped him.”

  “You know who they are?”

  Castillo shook his head.