The Shooters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Bradley and the Famous Grouse single-malt appeared three minutes later. But Bradley was not alone. Edgar Delchamps and David Yung followed him into the quincho.

  “You really should let people know when you come home, Daddy,” Delchamps greeted him. “Otherwise, Two-Gun and me will start to think you don’t love us.”

  “Sorry, Ed. I just wanted to see what the satellite—”

  “Is that why you’re celebrating?” Delchamps asked, and crossed the room so that he could look at the monitors.

  He moved quickly, but not as quickly as Sergeant Major Davidson’s fingers on his laptop keyboard.

  All four monitors now displayed images of provocatively posed naked young females.

  Delchamps gave Davidson the finger.

  “Me, too, Jack,” Susanna Sieno said, disgustedly. “Really!”

  Davidson hit more keys and the composite came back up on the center screen.

  “What are we looking at?” Delchamps asked.

  “That’s where these people have Timmons and two gendarmes chained to a pole,” Castillo said. “It’s a couple of miles south of Asunción. In Paraguay.”

  “Believed to be the location,” Delchamps asked, “or confirmed to be?”

  “We have a visual from a very good man,” Castillo said. “Master Sergeant Ludwicz, who is Captain Urquila’s intel sergeant.” He pointed to Urquila. “First name Tony, right?”

  Urquila nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “This is Ed Delchamps, known as The Dinosaur, and Two-Gun Yung of the Federal Bureau of Ignorance.”

  The men nodded at each other.

  “For real, Urquila?” Delchamps asked. “You got a man into this place and got an eyes-on?”

  Castillo said, “What Ludwicz saw was two guys in brown uniforms and a gringo in a suit. Chained to a pole, and probably doped up. That’s what we’re going on.”

  “I asked him, Ace, but okay. That’s enough really good news to start pouring the sauce, Lester, my boy, but the colonel don’t get none.”

  “Might I dare to inquire why not?” Castillo responded.

  “There are several obvious reasons,” Delchamps said. “But primarily because you’re about to fly Two-Gun and me to Montevideo. And I have this perhaps foolish aversion to being flown about by a sauced-up pilot.”

  “Curiosity overwhelms me. Why am I flying you and Two-Gun to Montevideo? Why can’t you go commercial? And what are the other obvious reasons to which you allude?”

  “Well, Ace, if you insist—about three inches, please, Lester, two ice cubes and no water—for one thing, Ordóñez wants to see you before Ambassador Lorimer arrives, which will be about seven P.M. if Miller is to be believed. And what is The Gimp doing flying that airplane? I am wondering. For another, before you slip into your armor and gallop off on your white horse to do battle with the forces of evil, we have to have a long chat about what the CIA is up to in Asunción, and I want you to be sober for that.”

  “And what evil is the CIA up to in Asunción?”

  Castillo was having trouble restraining a smile. Captain Urquila had absolutely no idea what was going on, and it showed on his face.

  “When I explain that to you, Ace, I’m sure you will have cause to shamefully remember what you said about Two-Gun being a member of the Federal Bureau of Ignorance.”

  “Oh, I doubt that!”

  “That’s because I haven’t told you what splendid service Inspector John J. Doherty has rendered to our noble cause.”

  “Which is?”

  “I will tell you on the way to Montevideo, on which journey will we embark immediately after Brother Davidson has explained to me the computer game he is playing. And, of course, after I finish this drink and probably another. I always need a little liquid courage in order to fly with you at the wheel.”

  He turned a chair around and sat in it backward, facing the monitor.

  “You may proceed, Brother Davidson,” Delchamps said. “And speak slowly and use itsy-bitsy words, as Two-Gun will also be watching, and I don’t want to have to explain everything all over again to him.”

  XIV

  [ONE]

  Jet-Stream Aviation

  Jorge Newbery International Airport

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  1735 12 September 2005

  Corporal Lester Bradley was in the copilot seat of the Aero Commander, holding Castillo’s laptop, with which Castillo was going to navigate their route to Montevideo. Edgar Delchamps and David Yung sat behind them, trying with little success to get Max to move to the area behind their seats.

  “We’re up, sir,” Bradley announced.

  Castillo looked at the laptop screen. There was a representation of an automobile—Casey’s programmers had yet to add the option of an aircraft icon—sitting just off the single main runway of the downtown airport.

  “You guys ready?” Castillo asked over his shoulder as he reached for the main buss switch.

  “Don’t wind it up just yet, Ace,” Delchamps said. “Daddy has a confession to make.”

  Castillo turned to look at him.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Oh, really. And my shame and humiliation is tempered only by the fact that you—once you hear it—are going to have to abjectly apologize for all the unkind things you have been saying about the FBI.”

  “Time will tell, Edgar,” Castillo said.

  “You can listen to this, Lester,” Delchamps went on, “even though it will probably shatter the childlike faith you have in me. And with the caveat, of course, that once you hear this, I shall probably have to kill you to keep you from spreading this among your friends.”

  “And you are going to make this confession in the next fifteen minutes or so, right?” Castillo said.

  “This is very difficult for me, Ace. I seldom make errors of this magnitude. The last time was in 1986, when I erroneously concluded I had made an error.”

  Bradley giggled.

  “Don’t encourage him, for God’s sake, Lester,” Castillo said. “We’ll never get to Montevideo.”

  “My mistake this time was in thinking I had conned Milton Weiss, when the opposite is true,” Delchamps said.

  He’s serious now. This is no joke.

  “That whole scenario about how he and Crawford plan to seize cruise ships is pure bullshit,” Delchamps said. “And I not only swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, but encouraged you to do the same. Mea culpa, Ace.”

  “How do you know?” Castillo asked.

  “Inspector John J. Doherty of the blessed Federal Bureau of Investigation, those wonderful checkers of fact, told Two-Gun,” Delchamps said. “Before Two-Gun could come from Shangri-La to tell me, Doherty—damn his black Irish heart—got on the Gee-Whiz radio himself to break the news to me as gently as a mother telling her child, ‘Sorry, there really is no Santa Claus.’ He actually was embarrassed to have to tell me what a spectacular ass I’d made of myself.”

  “You are going to give us the details, right?” Castillo said, softly.

  “Not yet. Not until you say something really nice to Two-Gun, who turned over the rock, so to speak.”

  “Okay,” Castillo said, and turned to Yung. “‘Something nice,’ Two-Gun. Now, what damn rock did you turn over?”

  Yung shrugged. “There was something about that ship-seizure plot that smelled, Colonel,” he said. “So I got on the radio to Inspector Doherty, went over all the details we knew of it, then asked him what he thought. It smelled to him, too, so he checked it out. He called me back and said it doesn’t work that way. There are fines for companies whose ships do something illegal like moving drugs. But it’s not like what the cops can do—seize a car, then have the bad guys go to court and try to get their car back.”

  Delchamps picked up the story: “According to Doherty, the only way these people could lose their ship is if after a trial—actually, a hearing—there is a fine and they don’t pay it. Then the ship could theoretically be so
ld at auction to pay the fine. According to Doherty, that doesn’t often happen—almost never happens—because the fines are never more than a hundred thousand, or two hundred thousand, never anything approaching the value of the ship—”

  “And according to Doherty,” Yung interrupted, “the only ships that tend to get sold to pay the fine are old battered small coastal freighters, the like of which aren’t worth the cost of the fine. The drug people just let them go as a cost of doing business.”

  “So we was had, Ace,” Delchamps said. “Not only was I led down the primrose path, but I held your hand as you skipped innocently along beside me.”

  “What’s their angle?” Castillo asked, almost as if to himself.

  “After my admission, I’m surprised you’re asking me,” Delchamps said.

  “Come on, Ed. You made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “I was conned by a guy I knew was a con artist.”

  “So what’s his angle?”

  “I have a theory, which of course I can’t prove…”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Weiss and Crawford are almost as old as I am. They’re close to retirement, and I really don’t think they’ve salted much away for their golden years. Can your imagination soar from that point, Charley?”

  “They sold out,” Castillo said.

  “And justifying their actions—which wouldn’t be hard, I admit—by telling themselves the company never appreciated all they’d done for it for all their long years of faithful service, the proof of that being Weiss riding a desk in Langley and Crawford being station chief in godforsaken Asunción, Paraguay. So why not take a few bucks for slipping the drug guys a little information from time to time? Everybody knows the damn drugs are going to go through anyway.”

  “I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Castillo said, softly. “That explains why nobody in Langley knew about their seize-the-cruise-ships operation; there was no seize-the-cruise-ships operation.”

  “It also explains why they were going to try—probably still are trying—to whack you. You were liable to stumble across something they didn’t want you to hear or pass to Langley. So you get whacked, and they, of course, would have no idea who did you…”

  “Isn’t whacking me a little extreme?”

  “So was Weiss coming to me at Langley, and then to you, with that bullshit story. Desperate people do desperate things, Ace. These guys are not only liable to lose their pensions, they’re liable to get sent to the slam.”

  “Okay. Point taken. But doesn’t that suggest they’ll try to whack you, too? And Two-Gun?”

  “And anybody else they consider a threat,” Delchamps agreed. “And we must bear in mind they probably have access to the Ninjas.”

  “And anybody else would include Ambassador Lorimer and his wife. Shit!”

  “Yeah,” Delchamps agreed. “Including Ambassador Lorimer and his wife. Who will arrive in Montevideo shortly after we do.”

  Castillo exhaled audibly.

  “And with us whacked and pushing up daisies,” Delchamps went on, “nobody even hears about the bullshit seize-the-cruise-ships scenario they handed us, because we’re the only ones they handed that line to.”

  “Except Dick Miller,” Castillo said. “He eavesdropped on that conversation. And now he’s coming down here…where they can whack him, too.”

  “They don’t know he heard it,” Delchamps said.

  “He’s close to me, so they whack him just to be sure. And blame that on the drug guys, too.”

  “Yeah,” Delchamps agreed after a moment.

  “So what do we do?” Castillo asked.

  “Well, we can go to Langley and tell the DCI or Lammelle. You can go to the DCI or Lammelle without going through Montvale. And an investigation will be started—”

  “Which they will hear of,” Castillo interrupted, “and so long, Special Agent Timmons.”

  “Or we can get Timmons back and then go to the DCI…”

  “Who may or may not believe us,” Castillo said. “More egg on their face.”

  “Or,” Yung put in, “we can try to find out where their money is. I don’t think they’d have it in a Stateside bank. Or in Paraguay or Argentina. The Caymans, maybe. Or maybe in Montevideo. I ran across a number of accounts with interesting amounts in them that I couldn’t tie to anybody.”

  “That possible, Two-Gun? That you could tie them to these bastards?” Castillo asked.

  “Yeah. With some help. From Doherty, for example. It would take some time, but yeah, Charley. Now that we know what we’re looking for.”

  “Say something nice about the FBI, Ace,” Delchamps said.

  “Hallelujah, brother!” Castillo said, waving both hands above his head. “I have seen the light! I am now second to no one in my admiration of that splendid law enforcement organization. Just hearing the acronym ‘FBI’ sends shivers of admiration up and down my spine.”

  “Actually, it’s full of assholes,” Yung said. “Inspector Doherty and myself being the exceptions that prove the rule. There may be one or two more.”

  There were chuckles.

  “Sir, me too,” Bradley said.

  “You too, what, Lester?” Castillo asked.

  “I heard what Mr. Weiss told you and Mr. Delchamps about the seize-the-ships op.”

  “How did you manage that, Corporal Bradley? You were not supposed to be listening.”

  “I was listening to hear what you were going to say about me going back to the Corps.”

  “Well, the DCI and Lammelle might have trouble believing you and me, Ace, but all they would have to do is look at the pride of the Marine Corps’ honest face and know he is incapable of not telling the truth,” Delchamps said.

  “I can probably lie as well as any of you,” Bradley said, indignantly.

  “And probably a lot better than me, Lester,” Castillo said. “I say that in all modesty.”

  “So what do we do now?” Yung asked.

  “May I suggest we think that over carefully before charging off in all directions?” Delchamps said. “Wind up the rubber bands, Ace, and get this show on the road.”

  [TWO]

  Forty-five minutes later, as the altimeter slowly unwound past 5,000 feet, what had been the dull glow of the lights of Montevideo suddenly became the defined lights of the apartment houses along the Rambla and the headlights of cars driving along it.

  “There it is, Lester!” Castillo cried in mock excitement. “Montevideo! Just where it’s supposed to be. Will miracles never cease?”

  “So the data on the GPS indicates, sir,” Bradley said, very seriously, pointing to the screen of the laptop.

  Castillo looked. The representation of an automobile was now moving over the River Plate parallel to the Rambla.

  What the hell am I going to do with you, Lester?

  I can’t send you back to the Marine Corps.

  Not only do you know too much, but after everything you’ve been through, you’re not going to be happy as a corporal pushing keys on a computer.

  “And now if you will excuse me, Lester, I will talk to the nice man in the tower, after which I will see if I can get this aged bird on the ground in one piece.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Castillo reached for the microphone.

  “Carrasco approach control, Aero Commander Four Three…”

  Five minutes later, as they turned off the Carrasco runway, Bradley said, “There’s Chief Inspector Ordóñez, sir,” and pointed.

  Castillo looked.

  Ordóñez was leaning against the nose of a helicopter sitting on the tarmac before the civil aviation terminal.

  I wonder what he wants?

  That’s one of the old and battered police Hueys I am about to replace for him.

  But that’s an Aerospatiale Dauphin parked next to it.

  I thought he said there was only one of those, and that it belonged to the president.

  What the hell is going on?

  And how the hell did he kno
w we were going to be here?

  Ordóñez was standing outside the Aero Commander when Castillo opened the cabin door.

  “There has been a development, Colonel,” he said without any preliminaries.

  “And how are you, Chief Inspector Ordóñez?” Castillo said.

  Ordóñez ignored the greeting.

  “Would you be surprised to hear that your secretary of State has evinced an interest in the welfare of Ambassador Lorimer and his wife?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “I thought so.”

  “‘I thought so’ what?”

  “That you were behind what has happened. What’s it all about? I don’t like being pressured.”

  “Would you be surprised to hear I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  Max exited the airplane and made for the nose gear. Delchamps, Yung, and Bradley got out and looked at Ordóñez.

  “I’d heard you’d left the estancia,” Ordóñez said to Yung. “By car, in the middle of the night, and had gone to Argentina.”

  Which means he has people watching Shangri-La.

  Why not?

  Is that what’s got him pissed off?

  “I wasn’t aware he needed your permission to do anything,” Castillo said.

  “It was not in connection with your secretary of State? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No, it was not.”

  “Then what?”

  “In my experience, Ordóñez,” Castillo said, “when someone in your frame of mind—to use the Norteamericano phrase, ‘highly pissed off’—asks a question, he usually thinks he has the answer and is not interested in yours, even if yours happens to be the truth. Would I be wasting my breath, in other words?”

  “I suggest you try answering and we’ll find out,” Ordóñez said.

  Okay, bluff called.

  When in doubt, tell the truth.

  “Okay,” Castillo said. “We have reason to believe—Yung found out—that the CIA station chief in Asunción is dirty. Ninety percent certainty. He went to Argentina to tell Delchamps and me, if he could find me.”

  Ordóñez looked at him very closely.

  Somehow, I don’t think that’s what you expected to hear, is it, José?