The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Temporarily,” Yung said. “They sent me back to handle the affairs of Mr. Lorimer. Return of the remains, conservation of assets, etcetera.”

  “The bureau sent you back to do that?”

  “Actually, it was the State Department that sent me.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You work for the State Department, don’t you? A little something you never got around to telling me.”

  “You didn’t have the Need to Know,” Yung said, more than a little lamely.

  “Jim,” Howell said, quickly, “the ambassador would like you to have Julio Artigas work with Yung on this.”

  “Work with Yung on what?”

  “Repatriation of Mr. Lorimer’s remains, for one thing, safeguarding his assets and having a look at Lorimer’s estancia.”

  “The ambassador wants this?” Monahan asked.

  “Yes, he does.”

  Monahan picked up his telephone and punched in a number.

  “Julio, can you come in here a minute?”

  Legal Attaché Julio Artigas was surprised to see Yung in Monahan’s office. In thinking about what had happened at Estancia Shangri-La and his gut feeling when he had gone with Ambassador McGrory to Buenos Aires that Howell and Darby, the Buenos Aires CIA station chief, knew all about what had happened there, he had concluded that Yung was also probably involved.

  The story that Yung had been suddenly recalled to the States to testify in some court case smelled. Artigas had thought it even possible that Yung had been at the estancia during the firefight and had been wounded and taken out of the country by whoever had been at the estancia and won the gun battle. It seemed logical to presume that at least some of the Americans involved had been wounded or even killed—and there was little question in his mind that Americans were involved. Getting Yung out of the country, even with a fishy, hastily concocted story, made more sense than trying to explain how and where he had been wounded.

  Artigas had kept his thoughts to himself. His opinion of James D. Monahan was that his greatest skill was covering his own ass. Monahan liked being the senior FBI agent in the embassy, which allowed him to order the other agents around. But whenever he should have stood up and defended the other agents from one of McGrory’s stupid orders, he was quick to argue that he wasn’t the SAC and that sort of thing wasn’t his business.

  Artigas knew that if he had said anything of his suspicions to Monahan, there was no question that Monahan would have run with it right to McGrory—or, more likely, to Theodore J. Detweiller, Jr., the chief of mission.

  “I think I should tell you, Ted, what a wild idea Artigas came to me with.”

  “What can I do for you, Jim?”

  “It’s what you can do for Yung, “Monahan replied. “Or, more accurately, for the State Department.”

  “You’re back, huh, Yung?” Artigas asked.

  “Yung was sent back,” Howell answered for him, “by the secretary of state to handle the return of Lorimer’s remains and to protect his assets.”

  “And to compile a report for the secretary about what happened at Lorimer’s estancia,” Yung added.

  Artigas looked at Yung. Or maybe, since you know goddamned well what happened, to see how much we know? Or the Uruguayans know?

  “You’re a little late to protect his assets,” Artigas said. “Parties unknown emptied his bank accounts. Of sixteen million dollars.”

  He thought, As you almost certainly know.

  “I’ve heard something about that,” Yung replied, “and I’d like a full report on that. What we know for sure. Ambassador McGrory told me there is some reason to think he was into drugs. But first things first. Where is the body?”

  “In the cooler, in the British Hospital on Avenida Italia. It was taken there for an autopsy. Chief Inspector Ordóñez of the federal police has promised me a copy of the autopsy report sometime today.”

  “I’d like a copy of that, too, of course. And is there going to be any kind of a problem getting into the estancia?”

  “Ordóñez has the estancia pretty well sealed off. He’d be the man to ask about that.”

  “Well,” Howell suggested, “why don’t we go to my office, see if we can get him on the phone? And get out of Jim’s hair.”

  “Just to be sure I know what’s going on here, this has the blessing of the ambassador, right?” Artigas asked.

  “Yes, it does,” Howell said. He nodded toward the door. “Shall we go?”

  “I’d like a brief word with you, Artigas,” Monahan said, then added for Howell, “It’ll take just a couple of seconds, Bob.”

  “Certainly,” Howell said, smiling, and walked out of Monahan’s office. Yung followed him.

  Both heard Monahan say, “Close the door, Jim,” and exchanged glances.

  “I suspect Monahan just told him to report everything we do,” Howell said. “Does that make me paranoid?”

  [FOUR]

  Office of the Cultural Attaché

  The Embassy of the United States of America

  Lauro Miller 1776

  Montevideo, República Oriental del Uruguay

  1055 6 August 2005

  There was no reason for Julio Artigas to report the substance of his conversation with Chief Inspector Ordóñez to Howell and Yung. Howell had punched the speakerphone button on his telephone and they had heard the entire conversation.

  Howell spoke first: “Chief Inspector Ordóñez is certainly obliging, isn’t he?”

  “Uruguayan courtesy,” Yung said. “Or professional courtesy. Maybe—probably—both.”

  “I thought his offer of a Huey to fly us to the estancia was more than generous,” Howell said.

  “And volunteering to go with us. That was rather nice of him,” Yung said.

  “My cousin José is a very charming man,” Artigas said. “But what I think you two have to keep in mind is that he’s one smart cop.”

  “Why do you think we should we keep that in mind, Julio?” Howell asked.

  “Oh, come on,” Artigas said.

  “Oh, come on what?” Howell replied.

  “Something is going on here. I have no idea what. But you two do.”

  “Really?” Howell asked. “What do you think is going on, Julio?”

  “What I don’t think is that Lorimer was a drug dealer who got himself killed when a deal went wrong. And neither does José Ordóñez.”

  “He told you that?” Yung asked.

  “He didn’t have to. I know him pretty well.”

  “What does he think, do you know? Or can you guess?” Howell asked.

  “I know he’s fascinated with several things,” Artigas said. “First, that he can’t identify the Ninjas at the estancia. If they were Uruguayans, Argentines, or Brazilians, by now he would have. Second, that National Match cartridge case. And the cleaning out of Lorimer’s bank accounts. He’s trying to tie those unknowns together. If he can, he’ll know what really happened at Estancia Shangri-La.”

  “What do you know about Presidential Findings, Julio?” Howell asked.

  “Jesus,” Yung muttered.

  Howell looked at him and shrugged, as if to say, What choice do we have?

  “Not much,” Artigas admitted. “I’ve heard the term.”

  “Well—just talking, you understand—what I’ve heard about Presidential Findings is that they are classified Top Secret Presidential. The only persons cleared to know any details of a Presidential Finding are those cleared by the President himself or by the officer the President has named to do whatever the Presidential Finding calls for.”

  “You’ve got my attention,” Artigas said.

  “So hypothetically speaking, of course,” Howell went on, obviously choosing his words carefully, “if there were people privy to a Presidential Finding and it happened that a professional associate of theirs—an FBI agent, for example, or an ambassador for that matter, someone with all the standard security clearances—became interested in something touching on the details of the Finding and went
to one of these people and asked them about it, they just couldn’t tell him no matter how much they might like to, not even if telling that person would facilitate their execution of their assignment.”

  “That would apply to an ambassador, too? I mean, there’s the rule that nothing is supposed to happen in a foreign country that the ambassador doesn’t know about and approves of.”

  “That’s my understanding,” Howell said. “Is that your understanding, too, of how a Presidential Finding works, Yung?”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Yung said.

  “And from what I understand,” Howell went on, “it would be a serious breach of security for someone privy to a Presidential Finding to even admit his knowledge of any detail of a Presidential Finding. He couldn’t say, for example, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Ambassador, but that touches on a Presidential Finding for which you are not cleared.’ He would have to completely deny any knowledge of even knowing there was a Presidential Finding.”

  “Fascinating,” Artigas said. “Can I ask a question?”

  “You can ask anything you want,” Yung said.

  “But I may not get an answer? Is that it?”

  “Ask your question,” Howell said.

  “Just between us, hypothetically speaking, where do you suppose Lorimer got sixteen million dollars?”

  “The ambassador thinks it was from drugs. I’m not about to question the ambassador’s judgment,” Howell said. “But, hypothetically speaking of course, it could have come from somewhere else. Embezzlement comes to mind. It could even, I suppose, have something to do with the oil-for-food scandal. I heard somewhere there was really a lot of money involved in that.”

  “You know, that thought occurred to me, too.”

  “Did it?” Howell asked.

  “One more question?” Artigas asked.

  “Shoot.”

  “Monahan just now told me I was to tell him everywhere Yung went, who he talked to, what he said—everything.”

  “How interesting,” Howell said. “The ambassador told me to do exactly that about Yung.”

  “I’m wondering whether that would mean I should tell him about this little discussion of ours.”

  “What discussion was that?”

  “About Presidential Findings.”

  “I don’t remember any discussion of Presidential Findings, do you, Yung?” Howell asked.

  “No, I don’t remember any discussion like that.”

  Artigas stood up.

  “We’d better be getting over to the British Hospital,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to keep Ordóñez waiting, would we? Since he’s being so helpful?”

  [FIVE]

  Camp Mackall, North Carolina

  0930 6 August 2005

  Sergeant Major John K. Davidson’s job description said he was the Operations Sergeant of the Special Forces training facility. He was, but he actually had two other functions, both unwritten and both more or less secret. It was not much of a secret that he was the judge of the noncommissioned officers going through the basic qualification course—the “Q course.” He was the man who, with the advice of others, decided which trainee was going to go on to further, specialized training and ultimately earn the right to wear the blaze of a fully qualified Special Forces soldier on his green beret and which trainee would go back to other duties in the Army.

  Far more of a secret was that he was also the judge of the commissioned officers going through the Q course.

  Jack Davidson had not wanted the job—for one thing, Mackall was in the boonies and a long drive from his quarters on the post, and, for another, he thought of himself as an urban special operator—as opposed to an out in the boonies eating monkeys and snakes and rolling around in the mud field special operator—and running Mackall meant spending most of his time in the boonies.

  But two people for whom he had enormous respect—he had been around the block with both of them: Vic D’Allessando, now retired and running the Stockade, and Bruce J. “Scotty” McNab, whom Davidson had known as a major and who was now the XVIII Airborne Corps commander and a three-star general—had almost shamelessly appealed to his sense of duty.

  “Jack, you know better than anybody else what it takes,” Scotty McNab had told him. “Somebody else is likely to pass some character who can’t hack it and people will get killed. You want that on your conscience?”

  Sergeant Major Davidson was not surprised when he heard the peculiar fluckata-fluckata sound the rotor blades of MH-6H helicopters make as they came in for a landing. And he was reasonably sure that it was either D’Allessando or the general, who often dropped in unannounced once a week or so, and neither had been at Mackall recently.

  But when he pushed himself out of his chair and walked outside the small, wood-frame operations building just as the Little Bird touched down, he was surprised to see that the chopper held both of them. That seldom happened.

  He waited safely outside the rotor cone as first General McNab—a small, muscular ruddy-faced man sporting a flowing red mustache—and then Vic D’Allessando ducked under the blades.

  He saluted crisply.

  “Good morning, General,” he said, officially. “Welcome to Camp Mackall. May the sergeant major ask the general who the bald, fat old Guinea is?”

  “I told you it was a bad idea to teach the bastard how to read,” D’Allessando said, first giving Davidson the finger with both hands and then wrapping his arms around him.

  “How are you, Jack?” McNab asked.

  “Can’t complain, sir. What brings you to the boonies?”

  “A bit of news that’ll make you weep for the old Army,” McNab said. “Guess who’s now a lieutenant colonel?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest.”

  “Charley Castillo,” Vic D’Allessando said. “Make you feel old, Jack?”

  “Yeah,” Davidson said, thoughtfully. “I remember Charley when he was a second john and driving the general’s chopper in Desert One. Lieutenant Colonel Castillo. I’ll be damned.” He paused, thought about that, then added, “I think he’ll be a good one.”

  “And I want to see Corporal Lester Bradley of the Marines,” McNab said.

  “You heard about that, did you, General?” Davidson said.

  “Heard about what?”

  “The goddamned Marines pulling our chain.”

  “How pulling our chain?”

  “I’m responsible,” Davidson said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I went to Quantico and talked to the jarheads about the people they’re starting to send here. The master gunnery sergeant of Force Recon there—an Irishman named MacNamara—was a pretty good guy. We hit it off. We had a couple of tastes together. And while we were talking, I asked him if he had any influence on who they were sending here. He said he did. So I asked him as a favor if he could send us at least one who wasn’t all muscles, especially between the ears, and could read and write.”

  He stopped when he saw the look on McNab’s face.

  “General,” he went on, “they send all their Force Recon guys through the SEAL course on the West Coast. They run them up and down the beach in the sand carrying telephone poles over their heads. By the time they finish, they all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. They’re more into that physical crap than even the goddamned Rangers.”

  “And?” McNab asked.

  “So I forgot about it,” Davidson said. “I’d pulled MacNamara’s chain a little and I was satisfied. And then Bradley appeared.”

  “And?” McNab pursued.

  “Well, not only can he read and write—he talks like a college professor, never using a small word when a big one will do—and not only is he not all muscle, he’s no muscle at all. And he’s eighteen, nineteen years old and looks fifteen. I have to hand it to Master Gunnery Sergeant MacNamara. He had to look all over the Marine Corps to find this guy.”

  “And where is this stalwart Marine warrior?”

  “In the office. I’ve got him typing. He
didn’t even—I forgot to mention this—have orders. What I’m doing now is hoping that MacNamara’s going to call me and go, ‘Ha-ha! Got you good, my doggie friend. Now you can send him back.’”

  “I think that’s unlikely, Jack,” General McNab said and walked toward the small frame building, where he pushed open the door.

  A voice inside, in a loud but some what less than commanding voice, cried, “Attention on deck!”

  Mr. D’Allessando and Sergeant Major Davidson followed General McNab into the building.

  Corporal Bradley was standing at rigid attention behind a field desk holding a notebook computer.

  General McNab turned and looked at Sergeant Major Davidson.

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” he said. “You might want to write that down, Jack.”

  Then he looked at Corporal Bradley.

  “At ease,” he said, softly.

  Bradley shifted from his rigid position of attention to an equally rigid position, with his hands in the small of his back, his legs slightly spread.

  “Unless I’m mistaken, son,” General McNab said, “you are now standing at parade rest.”

  “Sir, the corporal begs the general’s pardon. The general is correct, sir,” Bradley said, let his body relax, and took his hands from the small of his back.

  “So you’re the sniper, are you, son?” McNab asked.

  “Sir, I was a designated marksman on the march to Baghdad.”

  “Thank you for the clarification.”

  “With all respect, sir, my pleasure, sir.”

  “Tell me, son, how would you describe your role in the assault on that wonderfully named Estancia Shangri-La?”

  “With all respect, sir, I am under orders not to discuss that mission with anyone.”

  “Can you tell me why not?”

  “Sir, the mission is classified Top Secret Presidential.”

  General McNab looked at Sergeant Major Davidson but didn’t say anything.

  Vic D’Allessando said, “It’s okay, Lester. The general and the sergeant major are cleared.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lester said.

  “Well, son? What did you do on that mission?”

  “Sir, Major Castillo, who was in command, assigned me to guard the helicopter.”