The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  Castillo took a moment to organize his thoughts and then began, “Just before I came down here the first time to see what I could find out about Mr. Masterson’s kidnapping, I called Otto Görner, the general director of the Tages Zeitung newspapers in Germany, to tell him I was coming down here…”

  He saw the question on Silvio’s face, stopped, then explained, “I have an alter ego as Karl Gossinger, the Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung newspapers. I decided the best way to come down here as the President’s fly on the wall was to come as Karl Gossinger.”

  Castillo stopped again when he saw more unspoken questions on Silvio’s face.

  “The Tages Zeitung newspapers are owned by Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. My mother’s maiden name was Gossinger.”

  Silvio’s eyebrows rose but he didn’t respond directly. Instead, he asked, “And this man knows what you really do for a living?”

  “Then, he suspected. Now he knows,” Castillo said. “Anyway, I asked him—primarily, so I would have an excuse for being here as Gossinger—if there was anything I should look into for him while I was here. He told me a rich man from Hamburg is planning to raise the Graf Spee from Montevideo harbor…”

  Silvio’s eyebrows rose again and he said, “That’s the first I’ve heard of that.”

  “And then, reluctantly, he told me that the newspapers were working on a story that some Germans were sending Iraqi oil-for-food money down here, to hide it, the way the Nazis did in World War Two. Then he said he was sorry that he’d brought the subject up, that people looking into it had been killed, and that I was to leave it alone.

  “And then I came down here and things started happening and I forgot what Görner had said about oil-for-food money while I was getting the Mastersons out of Argentina. And then the President issued the Finding.

  “I had absolutely no idea where to start looking for the people who murdered Masterson except that there very probably was a connection between Masterson and his brother-in-law, the missing UN diplomat, so I started there.”

  Silvio nodded his understanding.

  “So I went to Paris. A source told me that Lorimer was the bagman for the oil-for-food—”

  “A source?” Silvio interrupted.

  “Howard Kennedy, a former FBI hotshot who changed sides and now works for Alek Pevsner.”

  “I know that name,” Silvio said. “Why would Pevsner tell you? I presume Kennedy wouldn’t have done that without Pevsner’s permission, or, more likely, at Pevsner’s orders?”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to know as little about Pevsner and/or Kennedy as possible?”

  “I presume your offer to deny telling me anything is still open?”

  “It is. It will stay open,” Castillo said. “Okay. Pevsner has struck a deal with the President. He makes himself useful—I found the missing 727 with his help and I don’t think I could have otherwise—and the President orders the FBI, so long as Pevsner doesn’t violate any U.S. laws, to stop looking for him—and for Kennedy—and orders the CIA to stop trying to arrange Pevsner’s arrest by any other government.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Silvio said. “Who else knows about that?”

  “Secretary Hall, Secretary Cohen, and Ambassador Montvale know about the deal. The director of the FBI and the DCI know they’ve been ordered to lay off Pevsner. I don’t know how much, if anything, they know about the deal.”

  Silvio nodded thoughtfully.

  Castillo went on: “What Kennedy told me about Lorimer was confirmed by the CIA station chief in Paris, who told me he was sure that Lorimer was now in little pieces in the Seine or the Danube. From Paris, I went to Fulda—to Görner at the Tages Zeitung—and told him that I needed to have all the information he had about the oil-for-food payoffs. He gave me what he had, on condition I not make it available to the CIA or the FBI or anyone else, and told me that Eric Kocian, the publisher of the Budapester Tages Zeitung, had more information.

  “So I went to Budapest and Kocian reluctantly, and with the same caveat that I couldn’t share anything with the FBI or the CIA, gave me what he had. Kocian also believed that Lorimer had already been eliminated.

  “Then I came back here—actually, to Montevideo—to see what Yung might have in his files about any of it. He had a file on Jean-Paul Bertrand, a Lebanese national and a dealer in antiquities—who was, of course, Lorimer, and who was alive on his estancia. So I set up the operation to grab Lorimer/Bertrand and repatriate him.

  “And you know what happened at the estancia. We were bushwhacked. Lorimer and one of my men were killed and Colonel Munz wounded.”

  “Doesn’t ‘bushwhacked’ imply you walked into a trap?” Silvio asked.

  “I’ve thought about that. It’s possible, but I think it was more likely just a coincidence. The people Lorimer was running from—and they’re good—found him, and they got to the estancia right after we did.”

  “There’s no one who could have told them about your operation? Where did you get the helicopter?”

  “I got the chopper from Pevsner.”

  “Pevsner’s here?” Silvio asked, surprised. “In Argentina?”

  “If I don’t answer that question, you can swear both that you don’t know where Pevsner is and that I refused to tell you where he is.”

  Silvio nodded. “Consider the question withdrawn.”

  “I had to threaten Pevsner with the withdrawal of his presidential protection to get the chopper. He doesn’t want to lose that. The CIA really would like some other—any other—government to catch him, and either bury him in a prison for the rest of his life or take him out.”

  “Why?” Silvio asked.

  “The CIA used him to move things around, bought weapons from him. They’d like that buried. No, Alek Pevsner didn’t set us up. It would not be in his best interests and he never puts anything above his best interests.”

  Castillo started to say something, then stopped and took out his cigar case. He offered it to Silvio, who nodded his thanks, and they both carefully lit up. It was obvious that both were thinking.

  “We took the contents of Lorimer’s safe with us,” Castillo said, finally. “Among them were sort of cashier’s checks for nearly sixteen million dollars that he had in three Uruguayan banks.”

  “Can I say something?” Silvio asked.

  “Please.”

  “Ambassador McGrory knows about that money. It’s the basis of his theory that Lorimer was a drug dealer. You’re saying you have it?”

  Castillo nodded.

  He puffed his cigar, exhaled, then said, “I will deny telling you this: Ambassador Montvale suggested, and the President went along with him, that we should take the money and use it to fund the Office of Organizational Analysis. Most of it is in a bank in the Cayman Islands. I call it the ‘Lorimer Charitable and Benevolent Fund.’”

  Silvio smiled and shook his head.

  “That’s why I sent Yung back down here, to cover our tracks,” Castillo said.

  “You’ve heard he’s been shot?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “First, I flew to Paris, for a look at Lorimer’s apartment,” Castillo said. “It had been previously searched by the Deuxième Bureau, the UN, and our CIA guy. Nothing there. Then I went to Fulda, and cleared things up with Otto Görner. I told him what I was doing—and on whose authority—and that I wanted to be released from my promise not to share his files with the FBI and the CIA. He agreed and gave me all his files. Then I went to Budapest to get Eric Kocian to release me from my promise.

  “He was perfectly willing to do so, primarily because parties unknown had tried to stick a needle in him on the Franz Joséf Bridge and, when that failed, shot him twice…”

  “My God!”

  “…at one o’clock the next morning…” Castillo’s voice trailed off, then he exclaimed, “My God, that was yesterday morning!”

  “You were in Budapest yesterday morning?” Silvio asked in surprise, if not disbelief.<
br />
  Castillo nodded.

  “And at one o’clock yesterday morning, these people—this time, two bad guys—made another attempt to murder Kocian and to burn his apartment and whatever files he might have there.”

  “You said ‘attempt’?” Silvio questioned.

  “Eric was still in the hospital,” Castillo explained. “I was sleeping in the guest bedroom in his apartment. Eric’s dog woke me up. Instead of Kocian, they got me and a suppressed .22 that I had the foresight to get from the CIA armory at our embassy. Neither body had any identification on it, but the garrote they used on one of Kocian’s security men was a twin of the garrote used on Sergeant Kranz at the estancia. So it seems pretty evident we’re dealing with the same people.”

  “Who are?”

  “I’m beginning to think they’re either ex–East German Stasi or ex–Hungarian Allamvedelmi Hatosag—AVH—but I’m not sure of that and have no idea who they’re working for.”

  “So Mr. Kocian and his files are all right? In your possession?”

  “One copy of the files, sent in the diplomatic pouch from Budapest, should be in Washington by now. I’ve got another copy here. Eric Kocian is in the apartment on Avenida Arribeños.”

  “You brought him with you? How did you get here so quickly?”

  “Him and his dog and his bodyguard, an ex–Hungarian cop who did a tour in the French Foreign Legion.” Castillo chuckled. “I guess I didn’t get around to telling you that the Lorimer Trust was burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought a Gulfstream III with seven and a half million of it. Colonel Torine and my cousin Fernando flew it from Washington, spent about six hours in Budapest and then we flew here. Which may explain why I do feel a tinge of fatigue.”

  “I’m surprised you’re able to walk around,” Silvio said.

  “But not surprised I’m not making much sense?”

  “You’re doing fine, Charley. So what are your plans here?”

  “Alex Darby is right now renting a house for us at Mayerling in Pilar. The Lorimer Trust will reimburse him. Kocian thinks there’s a connection with Mayerling and German—or, more likely, Austrian and Hungarian—oil-for-food money. I don’t know, but Eric is right more often than he’s wrong.

  “The idea was that I would put Kocian in the house and have Yung and him compare notes. They sent me a replacement for Sergeant Kranz—a friend of mine, Sergeant Major Jack Davidson—who has a lot of experience protecting people. We served in Afghanistan together.

  “He brought with him Corporal Lester Bradley and I don’t know what the hell to do with him. Just put him out there with Davidson, I suppose. Darby will move Sergeant Kensington and his radio out to Mayerling as soon as he can. Somebody will have to sit on that around the clock. Lester can help with that.”

  “And Colonel Munz?” Silvio said. “He’ll work with Yung and Mr. Kocian?”

  “Now that he’s been shot, I don’t think Yung will want to be out there. And that brings up Colonel Munz.” He paused. “You beginning to understand why this inept juggler is worried about all the balls he has in the air?”

  “So far, so good, Charley. You haven’t dropped any yet.”

  “Stick around. It won’t be long,” Castillo said. “They call that the ‘Law of Inevitability.’”

  “Tell me about Colonel Munz,” Silvio said, smiling.

  “Well, he thinks people are following him around. He doesn’t know who they are, but he’s worried about his family—a wife and two daughters—and I don’t think he’s paranoid.

  “He suspects—but doesn’t know—that the people following him, or at least some of them, may work for Pevsner. And he knows enough about Pevsner to know that Pevsner’s policy for people who know too much about him is to give them a beauty mark in the forehead.”

  It took a moment for Silvio to understand. Then he grimaced.

  “Since Munz took a bullet for us,” Castillo said, “I told him I would take him and his family to the States until we find out who these people are and stop them. They’ll need visas.”

  “Not a problem,” Silvio said. “The bureaucrats in Foggy Bottom keep whittling away at an ambassador’s authority, but I’m still the man with the last word on who gets a visa.”

  “That’ll have to be done today and I haven’t quite figured out how to do it.”

  “It can be done.”

  “Munz doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay here and help find out who these bastards are.”

  “How badly is he hurt?”

  “His shoulder. I don’t know if he can use a weapon or not.”

  “Why does it have to be today?” Silvio asked.

  “Because (a) I have still more balls to juggle in the States and (b) I need to talk to Ambassador Montvale as soon as I can.”

  “He said the same about you. There’s a secure line here, if you want to use it.”

  “Thank you. A little later,” Castillo said, and then asked: “Do you think Santini’s out there by now?”

  “I’d be surprised if he’s not.”

  “Thank you very much, sir.”

  “For what?”

  “This is probably one more manifestation of exhaustion, but I really feel a hell of a lot better than when we walked in here. Almost euphoric.”

  “I’m glad,” Silvio said. “But I strongly recommend that, as soon as we’re finished with Lowery and Santini, you get some rest. A lot of rest.”

  “I just don’t have the time right now. Maybe I can get some sleep in the Gulfstream on the way to the States.”

  Silvio looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “You said you wanted my advice. Still want it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve been talking about juggling balls and being an inept juggler.”

  Castillo nodded.

  “I think you’re a very good juggler, Charley. If you start dropping balls, it will be because you’re exhausted, not because you’re inept. Stop pushing yourself. You have limits, even if you don’t like to admit it.”

  “I readily admit it. Physical limits, mental limits, and half a dozen other kinds.”

  “Once everyone is set up in the safe house in Mayerling and you get Colonel Munz’s family to the States, I can see no reason why you can’t take forty-eight hours off. Can you?”

  “I have to go see Ambassador Montvale as soon as I get to the States and I don’t think I can put that off for forty-eight hours.”

  “There’s my proof that you’re exhausted and need rest. Even I can think of a way to get around that.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t let him know you’re going to the States tomorrow. Tell him you’re going the day after tomorrow. Better yet, the day after that.”

  “You mean stay here another forty-eight hours? I can’t do that. I want to get Munz’s family out of here as quickly as possible.”

  “I didn’t suggest that you stay here for another forty-eight hours,” Silvio said.

  Castillo met his eyes.

  “You are a friend, aren’t you?” Castillo said after a moment.

  “My advice is to go to Philadelphia and see Special Agent Schneider. From what I’ve seen of you two, she’s the only person in the world who can get your mind off this and that’s what you really have to do. Get your mind off everything about this for forty-eight hours so that when you go back to work you’ll be running on all eight cylinders.”

  “It would be very nice to be running on all eight cylinders when I go to see Montvale. And almost suicidal not to be.” He paused, then met Silvio’s eyes again. “Thank you very much.”

  Silvio nodded and waved at the swinging door leading to his living room.

  [TWO]

  Tony Santini was standing by the large picture window of the simply but richly appointed living room of the ambassador’s residence when Castillo and Silvio entered.

  “Before we get into this, Charley,” Santini said, evenly, “where do you want Solez to sit on Yung? You were a little vague about that
.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “He called two minutes ago. They’re riding around in the park near the waterworks,” Santini said, gesturing toward the river Plate.

  The Buenos Aires potable-water plant was near the river not far from the Jorge Newbery airfield, five minutes or so from the ambassador’s residence.

  When Castillo didn’t immediately reply, Santini added, “Yung’s anxious to see you. And he’s got another FBI agent with him.”

  “What’s that about?” Castillo wondered aloud, then went on immediately, “Is he in a black car?”

  Santini shook his head. “An embassy BMW. We don’t have much of a fleet of black cars, Charley.”

  “Mr. Ambassador, can I bring them here?” Castillo asked.

  Silvio nodded and picked up a telephone from a side table and punched a button.

  “This is Ambassador Silvio,” he said into the handset. “Mr. Solez and two others will be at the gate in a few minutes. Please see they are sent to my apartment.”

  Castillo wondered aloud: “I hope his having somebody with him doesn’t mean that he’s hurt worse than we’ve heard.”

  No one replied.

  Santini was already on his cellular.

  “Ricardo, come to the residence. You’re expected,” he said without any preliminaries, then broke the connection. Yung, Solez, and “Legal Attaché” Julio Artigas came into Silvio’s living room ten minutes later.

  They made their manners to Ambassador Silvio, Santini, and Lowery, then Yung walked to Castillo.

  Artigas was surprised at seeing Castillo: Jesus Christ, he’s not any older than I am. And he’s calling all the shots?

  “You all right, Dave?” Castillo asked.

  “I’m in much better shape than my Blazer, Major,” Yung said. “It has at least a half dozen double-aught buckshot holes in it.”

  Castillo picked up on Yung’s attitude.

  He’s not sullen.

  I was afraid he would be. He didn’t want to come down here and, when he did, he got shot.

  I thought I would really be on his shit list.

  But he’s almost cheerful. Is he a little high on painkillers?

  “And this is?” Castillo asked, indicating Artigas.