The Shooters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “That will be all, thank you,” Pevsner said, and waited to continue speaking until she had left them alone.

  “Would you have me serve you, friend Charley? Or…?”

  “Wait on me, please. I find that flattering. Some of that Famous Grouse single-malt will do nicely, thank you very much.”

  Pevsner shook his head and turned to making the drinks.

  Pevsner began: “The fellow who built this place—I bought it from his grandson—was German. Nothing much is known about him before he came here—and I have inquired and have had friends inquire. There is no record of a Heinrich Schmidt having ever lived in Dresden, which is where his Argentine Document of National Identity says he was born.

  “Of course, the records may have been destroyed when Dresden was firebombed. What’s interesting is that there is no record of his having immigrated to Argentina, or having been issued a DNI. Or of Herr Schmidt becoming an Argentine citizen. What I did learn was he bought this place—it was then four hundred sixteen hectares of forestland—and began construction of the house two months after it was alleged that a German submarine laden with cash and jewelry and gold had discharged its cargo near Mar del Plata and then scuttled itself at sea.”

  Pevsner handed Charley a glass, held his own up, and tapped rims.

  “To friends you can really trust, friend Charley.”

  “Amen, brother. May their tribe increase.”

  “Unlikely, but a nice thought,” Pevsner replied, took a sip, then went on: “Such a submarine was found eighteen months ago off Mar del Plata, incidentally. Probably just a coincidence.”

  “I know that story. There were three of them loaded with loot. One was known to have been sunk in the English Channel. The second is known to have made it here. I thought the third one just disappeared.”

  “It did. But—from what I have learned—only after it unloaded its cargo here in Argentina. Anyway, Herr Schmidt lived very quietly—one might say secretly—here with his family—a wife, a daughter, and a son—until his wife died. Then he passed on. Under Argentine law, property passes equally to children. The son—no one seems to know where he got the cash—bought out his sister’s share, and she went to live in Buenos Aires, where she met and married an American, and subsequently moved to the United States.

  “The son married an Argentine, and aside from shopping trips to Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile—never to Europe, which I found interesting—lived here with his wife and their only son—the fellow from whom I bought the place—much as his father had done. I understand that the father—and, later, the son—were silent partners in a number of business enterprises here.

  “When the son passed on, the widow did not want to live here alone, so she moved to Buenos Aires. The property sat unused for some years, until at her death it was finally put on the market and I bought it. Interestingly, they reduced the asking price considerably on condition I pay cash. More specifically, in gold. And that payment take place in the United Arab Emirates.”

  “What are you suggesting, Alek? That the guy who built this place was a Nazi?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing, friend Charley. But I, too, noticed the architectural similarity to the reception hall at Carinhall, and went to some lengths to check that out. Between you and me, friend Charley, if Hermann Göring walked in the front door, he would think he was in Carinhall. I wouldn’t be surprised if Herr Schmidt used the same architect. For that matter, the same drawings.

  “That led me to look into which business associates of Göring—not party members or people like that—had gone missing during and after the war. No luck in making a connection with Herr Schmidt.”

  “What you are suggesting is that some Nazi big shot did in fact get away with running off to here.”

  “That has happened, you know. Just a year or so ago, they found that the owner of a hotel here in Bariloche, a man named Pribke, had been an SS officer deeply involved in the massacre at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome. He was extradited to Italy. And actually, friend Charley, there is an interesting legend that one of the founders of this area was an American, from Texas, who was here because the authorities were looking for him at home.”

  “Butch Cassidy? The Sundance Kid?” Castillo asked, sarcastically.

  Pevsner shook his head. “They were in Bolivia.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a history buff, Alek.”

  Pevsner looked into Castillo’s eyes for a long moment.

  “What I am, friend Charley, is a man who would like to build a future for his children that would be unconnected with their father’s past. I am more than a little jealous of Herr Schmidt.”

  Castillo looked at him but didn’t reply.

  Jesus Christ, he’s serious.

  Where’s he going with this?

  “You’re a father, you will understand,” Pevsner went on.

  Actually, Alek, I’m having a hard time accepting that I am a father.

  But, yeah. I understand.

  “I think so,” Castillo said.

  “I never thought—I am a pragmatist—that I could do what Herr Schmidt did. These are different times. But I did think that I could perhaps do something like it. Did you see The Godfather?”

  Now what?

  Castillo nodded.

  “I thought I could do something like young Michael Corleone wanted to do: Go completely legitimate. You remember that part?”

  Castillo nodded again.

  “I reasoned that if I gave up the more profitable aspects of my businesses—really gave them up—and maintained what you would call a low profile here—”

  “I get the picture,” Castillo interrupted.

  “Not quite, I don’t think, friend Charley. And I think it’s important that you do.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have been using you since you came into my life, sometimes successfully, sometimes at a price. You recall how we met, Herr Gossinger?”

  “On the Cobenzl in Vienna,” Castillo said. “I thought you had stolen an airplane.”

  “You came very close to dying that night, friend Charley. When I heard that you wanted to interview me, I thought I would send a message to the press that looking into my affairs was not acceptable and was indeed very dangerous.”

  I believe him.

  But why is he bringing that up now?

  “But then Howard found out that you were really an American intelligence officer—Kennedy was very good at what he did; it’s sad he turned out to be so weak and greedy—and you were using the name Karl Gossinger as a cover.

  “I found that interesting. So I decided to meet you in person. And when you suggested that—I love this American phrase—we could scratch each other’s back, I went along, to see where that would go—”

  “Cutting to the chase,” Castillo interrupted, “I would never have found that 727 without you. And I made good on my promise. I got the CIA and the FBI off your back.”

  “So you did, proving yourself intelligent, capable, and a man of your word.”

  “I’m going to blush if you keep this up.”

  “You’ll remember certainly that the Southern Cone, especially Argentina, never came up in Vienna. You found the 727 where I told you it would be, in Central America.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “When that transaction between us was over, I thought it had gone extraordinarily well. You got what you wanted. And I got what I wanted, the CIA and the FBI to leave me alone. Which was very important to me, as I was already establishing myself here and—being pragmatic—I knew that if they were still looking for me, they would have inevitably found me.”

  “And then I showed up here,” Castillo said.

  Pevsner nodded.

  “Now that we both know who Howard Kennedy really was,” Pevsner went on, “I don’t think it is surprising that when you bumped into Howard in the elevator at the Four Seasons, his first reaction was to suggest to me that we had made a mistake in Vienna and it was now obviously th
e time to rectify that omission.”

  You mean, whack me.

  “He suggested we could have our Russian friends do it, so there would be no connection with me. My initial reaction was to go along—I naturally thought that you had turned on me, and had come here to demand something of me.

  “But, again, I was curious, and told Howard that that would wait until we learned what you wanted from me. So I told Howard to put a bag over your head and bring you out to my house in Buena Vista in Pilar. The bag offended you. I understood. So I told Howard to bring you anyway. You could be dealt with at Buena Vista.

  “While I was waiting for you, I realized that I was really sorry I had misjudged you and regretted that I would have to deal with the problem. The strange truth seemed to be that I liked you more than I knew I should.”

  Giving me an “Indian beauty mark” in the center of my forehead with a small-caliber, soft-nose pistol bullet…that’s how you were going to “deal with the problem.”

  “If you try to kiss me, Alek, I’ll kick your scrotum over the chandelier.”

  “You are…impossible!” Pevsner said.

  “But lovable.”

  Pevsner shook his head in disbelief.

  “I often function on intuition. I knew when I looked into your eyes that you were telling me the truth about your reason for being in Argentina, that not only didn’t you want anything from me but you had no idea I was in Argentina.”

  “Oh, but I did. I wanted to borrow your helicopter.”

  “That came later,” Pevsner said, somewhat impatiently. “What happened at the time was that I decided we were friends. I have very few friends. Howard was a trusted employee—my mistake—but I never thought of him as my friend. I trust my friends completely. So I introduced you to my family. Anna liked you from the moment you met. So I decided to help you find—and possibly assist in getting back—the kidnapped wife of the American diplomat. Alfredo was then working for me; it wouldn’t take much effort on my part.

  “That night, I asked Anna whether she thought I had made a mistake about you. She thought not. She said, ‘He’s very much like you.’”

  “I thought you said she liked me.”

  “Why do you always have to mock me?”

  “Because it always pisses you off?”

  Pevsner, smiling despite himself, shook his head.

  “The next morning, you met Alfredo on your way to where Pavel Primakov’s people had left Masterson’s body.”

  “Whose people?”

  “Colonel—I’ve heard he’s actually a colonel general—Pavel Primakov is the FSB’s senior man for South America. You did know they were responsible for the murder of Masterson, didn’t you?”

  “I had no proof and no names. But there was no question in Billy Kocian’s mind that the FSB was responsible, trying to cover Putin’s involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food cesspool.”

  “The proof of that would seem to be what they tried to do with Kocian on the Szabadság híd, wouldn’t you say?”

  An attempt to kidnap—or, failing that, murder—Eric Kocian on the Liberty Bridge in Budapest had been thwarted by his bodyguard, Sándor Tor, and by Max, whose gleaming white teeth had caused severe muscular trauma to one of the triggermen’s arms.

  “Point taken,” Castillo said.

  “Where is the old man now?”

  “In Washington.”

  “The FSB wants him dead—to get ahead of myself—about as much as they do you.”

  “The last time I talked to Billy, he complained that he was being followed around by deaf men wearing large hearing aids who kept talking into their lapels.”

  It took a moment for Pevsner to form the mental picture. Then he smiled. “Good men, I hope.”

  “The best. Secret Service. Most of them are on, or were on, the President’s protection detail.”

  “Getting back where we were, friend Charley,” Pevsner went on, “I asked Alfredo what he thought of you and his response was unusual. He said that he felt you were a lot more competent than your looks—and your behavior—suggested, and that, strangely, he felt you were one of the very few men he trusted instinctively.

  “You proved your competence almost immediately by finding Lorimer on his estancia, getting there with your men before Major Vincenzo and his men did—and they had been looking for him for some time—and then, of course, by effectively dealing with Vincenzo.”

  “And losing one of my men in the process. And getting Alfredo wounded. Let’s not forget that.”

  Pevsner ignored the comment.

  “And then there are two more things.”

  “Keep it up,” Castillo said, raising his glass in a mock toast, then taking a large sip of the single-malt. “Flattery will get you anywhere.”

  “What motivates you to always be a wise guy, friend Charley?” Pevsner asked, exasperated, but went on before Castillo could reply. “First, when Alfredo told you he thought I was trying to dispose of him, you took care of him and his family, knowing that was—if the situation was what you thought it was—in defiance of me.

  “I was annoyed—very disappointed—with you at the time by that, and worse, by the way you threatened me with turning the CIA loose on me again unless I loaned you my helicopter for your Uruguayan operation. I don’t like being threatened.”

  “Would you break out in tears if I told you that you have the reputation for being a ruthless sonofabitch?” Castillo said. “Helping Alfredo was a no-brainer for me, Alek. I knew that Alfredo hadn’t betrayed you—”

  “How did you know that?” Pevsner interrupted.

  “We were talking a moment ago about there being men you instinctively trust. And you do have that ruthless sonofabitch reputation, Alek. Who should I have trusted? A man like Alfredo, or a man with a reputation like yours? Who, incidentally, had a known ruthless sonofabitch whispering in his ear?”

  “And that brings us to that treasonous scum, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?”

  “A traitor who told my good friend Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Komogorov that I was going to meet with you in the Sheraton in Pilar, knowing full well—”

  “Well, that didn’t happen, did it?”

  “If it were not for you, János and I would be dead.”

  “True.”

  “And I am grateful.”

  “Which gratitude you demonstrated by having Howard Kennedy and Viktor Zhdankov beaten to death—slowly, apparently—in Punta del Este. After I told you I wanted Kennedy alive so that I could ask him a couple of dozen questions.”

  “Howard knew too much about me for him to continue to live. And I could not permit it to get around that anyone who attempted to assassinate me would live very long.”

  After a moment, Castillo asked: “Are we getting near the end of our walk down memory lane, Alek? I’d really like to know who wants me whacked.”

  Pevsner ignored the question. He took a long, thoughtful sip of his drink.

  “And now you are here, friend Charley, presumably to ask me something, or for something. I wanted you to know where you and I stand before you do that.”

  “Okay. Cutting to the chase, a DEA agent by the name of Timmons was kidnapped in Paraguay. So far as I know, he’s still alive. As quietly as possible, I want him back. Alive.”

  “‘A DEA agent’?” Pevsner parroted, incredulously.

  “A DEA agent named Timmons,” Castillo repeated.

  “How did you get involved in something like that?”

  “How would you guess?”

  “The President of the United States is involving himself personally in rescuing one drug enforcement agent?”

  Castillo didn’t answer.

  “And how did you think I could help?”

  “I thought maybe you could get word through mutual acquaintances to whoever is holding him that if Agent Timmons were to miraculously reappear unharmed, either in Asunción or somewhere in Argentina, I would not only be very happy but would be out of here within twenty-fo
ur hours. Otherwise, I’m going to have to come after him, which would make everybody unhappy, including me.”

  “I think I’m missing something here,” Pevsner said. “You don’t really think you can load a half-dozen men on my helicopter and just take this man away from these people?”

  “Your helicopter is not in my contingency plans, Alek, but thank you just the same.”

  “Do you even have an idea who has this man? Or where?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Or who they are? I don’t think they’re liable to be Bolivian drug dealers.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “My information is that Major Vincenzo—who was in charge of dealing with the drug people for Colonel Primakov—has already been replaced by another officer from the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia, as have the ex–Stasi people who you also eliminated in Uruguay.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “You can’t be seriously considering dealing with people like that with a handful of men, no more than you can load on my helicopter.”

  “Weren’t you listening when I said your helicopter is not in my contingency plans?”

  “Then what?”

  “Can you keep a secret, friend Alek?”

  “You dare ask me that?”

  “Yes or no?”

  “My God, Charley!”

  “If you’ll give me Boy Scout’s Honor”—he demonstrated what that was by holding up his right hand with the center three fingers extended; Pevsner looked at him in confusion—“that’s Boy Scout’s Honor, Alek. Very sacred. Meaning that you really swear what I’m about to tell you will not leave this room.”

  Castillo waved his right hand with the fingers extended and gestured with his left for Pevsner to make the same gesture. Pevsner looked at him in disbelief, then offered a somewhat petulant philosophic observation.

  “Maybe you behave in this idiotic and childish manner to confuse people,” he said, “to appear to be a fool so that no one will believe you’re as competent as you are.”

  “Yes or no, Alek?”

  Pevsner raised his right hand, extended three fingers, and waved it angrily in Castillo’s face.

  “Thank you,” Castillo said, solemnly. “Alek, you’re a betting man. Tell me, who do you think would come out on top between Señor Whateverhisname is—Vincenzo’s replacement—and his stalwart men and two Delta Force A-Teams dropping in on them with four helicopters armed with 4,000-round-per-minute machine guns?”