The Shooters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “And you didn’t have a letter? I guess you talked to Miller?”

  “I seem to have misplaced the letter, but I didn’t want to admit that to the admiral. But I did clear up his misunderstanding about who I work for.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I told him that I worked for you. And who you work for. And under what authority.”

  “That was necessary?”

  “I thought so, Charley. Wrong move?”

  “I guess it couldn’t be helped. Did he believe you?”

  “Not until I suggested he could get that confirmed at the source.”

  “You called the President?”

  “I got as far as getting the White House switchboard on here. When the admiral heard the White House operator say, ‘Good evening, Colonel Torine,’ the admiral said he didn’t think it would be necessary to disturb the President.”

  “Good move, Jake.”

  “I also told the admiral my orders were to keep you advised of our position every four hours. Aside from coming right out and telling the admiral not to launch the birds—which I don’t think Montvale would dare do—I think that’s the end of the Montvale problem.”

  “And there goes the star he promised you for changing sides, Jake.”

  “Yeah, well, what the hell.”

  “Jake, I want you to take a close look at the pilots.”

  “What will I be looking for?”

  “Any of them who would be uncomfortable with a really dirty operation.”

  “Ouch! That’s likely?”

  “It looks that way. I don’t want you to explain the operation and then ask for volunteers. I’ll do that here. But if there’s somebody who strikes you as…being reluctant…to do what has to be done, just leave him on the carrier.”

  “These are all 160th pilots, Charley. I don’t think I’ll find anybody…”

  “You never know. I knew a 160th guy who turned in his suit and became a Catholic priest after Kosovo.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Don’t put the Argentine insignia on the birds until the last minute; this operation still may get called off.”

  “Done.”

  “And keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  “Give the admiral my regards when you have breakfast,” Castillo said. “Out.”

  Castillo held out the handset to Bradley, who didn’t make any effort to take it.

  “Sir,” Corporal Lester Bradley said, “Mr. Darby wants to talk to you. I’ll have to set that up at the console. Just watch the legend, sir, until you see his name.”

  Castillo nodded, and Lester trotted back into the house.

  He held the handset in his palm until the legend read ALEX DARBY ENCRYPTION ENABLED.

  “What’s up, Alex?”

  “D’Elia had an interesting telephone call from some friends vacationing in Paraguay.”

  “Really?”

  “They asked him to send them a couple of dozen golf balls.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “They said they were completely out, and they’d had to spend a lot of time looking for balls in the rough, and although they’d found a bunch they found only one really good one. They said they were watching that one very carefully.”

  “Bingo!”

  “I don’t see what else they could mean, Charley.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “You going over there?”

  “Just as soon as I can get to the airport.”

  “When you find out for sure, do you want me to tell the Irishman?”

  “I’ll tell you that when I call from there.”

  “Pevsner been any help?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I’ll explain that later. Thanks, Alex.”

  “Talk to you soon, Charley.”

  Bradley came back onto the verandah.

  “You want to speak to anyone else, sir?”

  “Call Major Miller and see what the schedule for the Lorimers coming down is. And then break it down, Lester.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Castillo looked at Munz and Pevsner.

  “Since you could only hear one side of that conversation, I suspect you’re curious.”

  “‘Bingo!’?” Munz said.

  “The shooters in Paraguay have apparently found where they’ve got Timmons,” Castillo said. “Or that’s what I think a message about golf balls meant. We’ll know as soon as we get there.”

  “‘A really dirty operation’?” Munz then asked.

  “Alek says he thinks the only way we can get out of here with Timmons without appearing on the front page of The New York Times and other newspapers around the world is to let the Evil Leprechaun do what he wants to do.”

  Munz considered that.

  “I know you don’t like that, Karl, but I’m afraid Alek is right.”

  “Why did I think you were going to say that?” Castillo said. “Okay, thank you for your hospitality, Alek, and will you now arrange for us to get to the airport?”

  “You’re all going to Asunción?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, I’m going to Buenos Aires, and if someone has to go there, I could take him in the Lear.”

  “Why are you going to Buenos Aires?” he asked, greatly concerned.

  “To see what I can turn up that might be helpful to you. I’ve got a good deal at stake here if you can’t do what you want to do.”

  “Just don’t do anything to help unless you tell me first. Okay, Alek?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Pevsner said, mockingly.

  “I mean that, Alek.”

  “I know, friend Charley,” Pevsner said, seriously.

  XIII

  [ONE]

  Silvio Pettirossi International Airport

  Asunción, Paraguay

  1830 11 September 2005

  It was winter here, and night came early, making moot Castillo’s worry that maybe he should have made a low-level reconnaissance anyway, even after learning the shooters had located where Timmons was being held.

  I wouldn’t have been able to see anything, even if I knew what I was looking for.

  It had been a long flight; they had been in the air almost eight hours, with an hour and a half on the ground at the Taravell airport in Córdoba, where they’d gone through Argentine customs and immigration.

  There almost had been a dogfight at Córdoba. Max had taken an instant dislike to a large black Labrador retriever—a drug sniffer for the Policía Federal—when the Lab had put his curious nose in the Commander the moment the door opened—and found himself facing a visibly belligerent Max determined to protect his airplane.

  After considering his situation for perhaps twenty seconds, the Lab concluded that there was only one wise course of action to take when faced with an apparently infuriated fellow canine twice his size.

  The Lab took it…and rolled over on his back, putting his paws in the air in surrender.

  Max examined the Lab for a moment, gave him a final growl, then exited the aircraft and trotted—Somewhat arrogantly, Castillo thought—to the nose gear of the Commander for what had become his routine postlanding bladder voiding.

  The Lab’s handler was mortified. Thus Castillo was not surprised when he and his fellow officers subjected the cabin and the baggage compartment to a very thorough inspection. As they were doing it, however, Munz softly told him it was probably routine and they could expect a similar close inspection when they landed in Asunción.

  “A lot of drugs are brought across the border in light aircraft like this one,” Munz said. “They don’t take off or land at airports with their contraband, of course, but they sometimes—when empty—put down at airfields like this one to take on fuel or whatever. Sometimes, the sniffer dogs pick up traces of heroin or cocaine or marijuana, and that lets the police know that the aircraft is involved in the trade and they thereafter try to keep an eye on it. It’s about as effective as trying to empty the River Plate wi
th a spoon, but…”

  He shrugged, and Castillo nodded.

  They landed at Pettirossi International immediately after an Aerolíneas Argentinas 727 set down.

  “That’s the last flight today from Buenos Aires,” Munz said. “And it will return. What that means is we’re going to have to wait until the authorities deal with both flights before they turn their sniffer dogs loose on this airplane.”

  “Wonderful! More delay,” Castillo said, disgustedly.

  Standing on the tarmac waiting for the Paraguayan officials, Castillo saw on the terminal building that it was possible to still make out the lettering of AEROPORTO PRESIDENTE GEN. STROESSNER under the fresh paint of its new name.

  For some reason, the wait wasn’t as long as they feared. They got lucky.

  And when they finally made it through customs and were in the unsecured area of the terminal, they saw that a van with HOTEL RESORT CASINO YACHT & GOLF CLUB PARAGUAY painted on its side was waiting for guests.

  “Alfredo, why don’t you take Lester out there, get us rooms, and—without asking—see if you can’t find my shooters? I’m ashamed to admit I don’t have their names, which they almost certainly aren’t using anyway.”

  When Castillo arrived with Lieutenant Lorimer, Sergeant Mullroney, and Max at the U.S. embassy at almost eight o’clock, an officious Paraguayan security guard at the well-lit gate informed Castillo and his party that the embassy had closed for the day.

  “Get the Marine guard out here,” Castillo ordered, angrily, in English.

  As Castillo listened to the security guard speak into his radio in Spanish, he pretended not to understand the unkind things the guard said under his breath about Americans in general and this one in particular.

  The Marine guard who came to the guardhouse several minutes later recognized Lorimer.

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “We need to get inside.”

  “I can let you in, but I can’t let your friends in—”

  “We’re American,” Castillo offered.

  “—without getting one of the officers to pass them in.”

  “Well, then, Sergeant,” Castillo said. “Get an officer. Preferably Mr. Crawford.”

  The Marine guard now examined him more closely.

  “Mr. Crawford, sir? Our commercial attaché?”

  “Mr. Jonathon Crawford, whatever his title,” Castillo said.

  “May I ask who you are and the nature of your business with Mr. Crawford, sir?”

  Castillo handed him the credentials identifying him as a supervisory agent of the United States Secret Service.

  The sergeant examined the credentials very carefully.

  “And this gentleman, sir?”

  “He is Detective Sergeant Mullroney of the Chicago Police Department. Show the sergeant your tin, Sergeant.”

  Mullroney did so. The sergeant examined the leather folder carefully and then handed it back.

  “I guess I can let you gentlemen in as far as Station One, sir,” the sergeant said. “I mean to the building, but not inside. I’ll call Mr. Crawford from there, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you can’t bring that dog into the building, sir.”

  “Why don’t we take Max as far as Station One and then see what Mr. Crawford has to say about that?”

  “I don’t know, sir…”

  “That was more in the nature of an order, Sergeant,” Lorimer said, “than a question.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Marine sergeant said.

  There was a row of chrome-frame plastic seats in the lobby of the building, and two sand-topped, chrome-can ashtrays despite the ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING! signs on two walls.

  Mr. Jonathon Crawford, “commercial attaché” of the embassy, appeared thirty minutes later. He was a nondescript man in his fifties whose only distinguishing characteristic was his eyes. They were deep and intelligent.

  “You wanted to see me?” he asked, without any preliminaries.

  “If you’re Crawford, I do,” Castillo said, and handed him the Secret Service credentials.

  Crawford examined them and looked at Mullroney.

  “Show Mr. Crawford your badge, Charley,” Castillo said, then turned back to Crawford. “I think you know Lieutenant Lorimer?”

  Crawford examined the credentials and handed them back, but said nothing to—or about—Lorimer.

  “This wouldn’t have kept until morning? I have guests at my house.”

  “If it would have kept till morning, I would have come in the morning,” Castillo said.

  “That your dog?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “No dogs in the embassy, sorry.”

  “What do you want me to do, Crawford, call Frank Lammelle—or, for that matter, John Powell—and tell him that you find it impossible to talk to me right now because you have guests and don’t like dogs?”

  “I don’t think I like your attitude, Castillo.”

  “Well, then we’re even, aren’t we? I don’t like being kept waiting for half an hour while you schmooze your guests and finish your drink. Frank sent you a heads-up that I was coming. You should have been expecting me.”

  Crawford looked at him a long moment with tight lips.

  “Make a note in your log, Sergeant,” Crawford ordered, “that—over my objections—Mr. Castillo insisted on bringing his dog into the embassy.”

  Then he gestured for the sergeant to open the door. There came the sound of a solenoid buzzing, and then Crawford pushed the door open.

  He led them to an elevator, waved them onto it, then punched in a code on a control panel to make the elevator operable. It rose two floors. He led them down a corridor to an unmarked door—also equipped with a keypad—punched in the code, and then pushed open that door.

  They entered an outer office, and he led them through that to a larger office and then gestured for them to sit in the leather-upholstered chairs.

  “I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” he said. “The cold truth of the matter is my wife flipped when I told her I had to come down here. I was not in a very good mood. Can we start all over?”

  “My name is Castillo, Mr. Crawford. How are you tonight?”

  “Thanks. I think I just told you how I am. How are you, Lorimer?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “You’re now working for the Office of Organizational Analysis, I understand. What’s that all about? What is the Office of Organizational Analysis?”

  Castillo answered for him.

  “And that transfer, Mr. Crawford,” he concluded, “was already in the works when Special Agent Timmons went missing,” he said. “I brought Lorimer with me because he had been stationed here. I’ve never been in Paraguay.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  Castillo nodded. “I’m a Texican.”

  “A what?”

  “A Texan with Mexican roots. I speak Mexican Spanish.”

  I also can pass myself off as a Porteño, and after I’m here three days, people will swear that I sound just like whatever they call the natives here. Asunciónites?

  But the less qualified you think I am, the better.

  “I heard you were coming here, Mr. Costello…”

  “Castillo,” Castillo corrected him.

  “Castillo. Sorry. But not from Deputy Director Lammelle. Actually, it was back-channel.”

  “You want to call Lammelle and check my bona fides before this goes any further?”

  “No. I understand you’re here officially; there’s no need to bother Deputy Director Lammelle. But I don’t know exactly why you’re here.”

  “There’s unusual interest in Special Agent Timmons. My boss sent me down to find out what I can.”

  “And your boss is?” Crawford asked, casually.

  “And to report to him what I find out,” Castillo went on.

  “You didn’t say who your boss is.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Are those Secret Servic
e credentials the real thing?”

  “About as real as your ‘commercial attaché’ diplomatic carnet. If somebody were to call the Secret Service, they would be told there is indeed a Supervisory Special Agent by the came of Castillo.”

  “Exactly what is it that you want from me, Mr. Castillo?”

  “I want you to give Lieutenant Lorimer and Sergeant Mullroney access to all information regarding this incident, and that means I want them to have access to your people. Alone.”

  “What exactly is Sergeant Mullroney’s role in this?”

  “Personal and professional. Professionally, he works drugs in Chicago. Personally, he’s Special Agent Timmons’s brother-in-law.”

  “That’s not a problem. But is that all?”

  “That’s all I’m going to do for now,” Castillo said. “I’ll write my report, then see if these people turn him loose or not. Or if he dies of an overdose.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Timmons will more than likely be turned loose. Maybe tonight. Maybe two weeks from now. But, for the sake of knowing…what do you plan to do if he isn’t released?”

  “Bring some people and other things down here to help you get him back.”

  “Other things? For example?”

  “For example, a couple of helicopters. Ambassador Montvale is working on that now.”

  Crawford’s eyebrows went up. “The Paraguayan government is not going to let you try to get Timmons back,” he said, “much less bring people and helicopters into the country to do it.”

  “Ambassador Montvale is a very persuasive man,” Castillo said. “And, besides, that wasn’t my decision. I will just implement it.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I’m sure I will be told what to do, and how, and when.”

  “I understand you met Milton Weiss,” Crawford said.

  Castillo nodded, then said, “Is that who gave you the back-channel heads-up about us coming down here?”

  Crawford nodded.

  “Milton,” he said, “led me to believe he let you know a little about an interesting operation we’re planning here.”

  “Grabbing the cruise ships?” Castillo said.

  Crawford didn’t reply.

  “Well,” Castillo went on, “I told Weiss I was not a DEA agent and my paycheck doesn’t come from Langley, so that was none of my business, and I would—if possible—stay out of your way so I won’t compromise your operation.”