The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Scotch, if that would be convenient,” Ordóñez said. “But before we get into that, may I help you with your bandage?”

  Yung looked at his bandaged hand. Blood had soaked the gauze and the gauze was dirty.

  What the hell? It looked all right the last time I looked at it.

  I must have fucked it up crawling under the BMW on the ferry.

  “If you’ll forgive my saying so, it appears to need attention,” Ordóñez said.

  “I’ve got some stuff in the bathroom,” Yung said, and belatedly added, “Thank you.”

  Ordóñez skillfully and tenderly removed the bandage, then examined the cracked, crusted blood over the gouge.

  “You were lucky,” he said. “Another few millimeters and there would have been serious damage.”

  “I’ll send a box of chocolates to your guy with the shotgun,” Yung said.

  Ordóñez chuckled.

  “I’ve already had a word with him. And if I may say so, his intentions were noble. He was trying to save your life.”

  Ordóñez was now swabbing the wound with antiseptic and Yung was trying not to grimace at the burning sensation.

  Yung said, “You don’t happen to know a good body shop, do you? My Blazer looks like it was in a war.”

  Why the hell did I say that?

  “Well, it was, wasn’t it?” Ordóñez said. “And, as a matter of fact, I do. I’ll leave you the address and I’ll also call him and tell him you’re a friend of mine.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That should do it,” Ordóñez said three minutes later as he let loose of Yung’s freshly bandaged hand. “And can we now have the whiskey you have so kindly offered?”

  “Thank you, Chief Inspector Ordóñez.”

  “It was my pleasure to be of assistance. And please call me José.”

  Yung smiled and gestured for him to precede him out of the bathroom.

  “What would you like?” Yung asked, indicating the bottles on his bar.

  “The Famous Grouse, please.”

  When Yung handed him a glass and wordlessly asked if he would like ice, Ordóñez nodded, said “Please,” then went on: “I used to drink Johnnie Walker Black. But then the Johnnie Walker people took the distributorship away from a friend of mine—it had been in his family for four generations—and I stopped drinking Johnnie Walker and started drinking Famous Grouse, which my friend now distributes.”

  “How interesting,” Yung said.

  He handed the glass of Famous Grouse to Ordóñez, then poured one for himself.

  “We Latins—you must have been here long enough to know this—are like that,” Ordóñez said. “We reward our friends, punish our enemies, and hold grudges for a longtime.”

  “Is that so?” Yung said.

  “Are the Chinese like that, Señor Yung? May I call you David?”

  “We Chinese are inscrutable,” Yung said.

  “Like FBI agents?”

  “Like some FBI agents. There are some FBI agents, I must admit, who talk too much. I don’t happen to be one of them. I tell you that as a friend. And, yes, you may call me David.”

  Ordóñez chuckled.

  “Thank you,” he said, then went on, “Speaking of friends, do you happen to know an Argentine by the name of Alfredo Munz?”

  Oh, shit!

  When it was obvious that Yung wasn’t going to reply, Ordóñez continued.

  “Until recently, he was head of SIDE. You know what that is?”

  “I know what SIDE is,” Yung said.

  “El Coronel Munz was recently retired,” Ordóñez said. “The word went around that he was retired because of his inability to quickly apprehend whoever it was who first kidnapped Mr. Masterson and then murdered her husband before her eyes.”

  Yung said nothing. He took a sip of his scotch.

  “The Argentines, unfortunately, are like that,” Ordóñez said. “They always like to divert blame from themselves. What’s the English phrase, ‘Find a scapegoat’?”

  “Something like that.”

  “The Argentine government can now say, ‘Why should we be embarrassed that a U.S. diplomat’s wife was kidnapped and the diplomat himself murdered on our soil? We have sent the man who should have prevented that from happening into disgraceful retirement for incompetence.’”

  “That wasn’t very nice of them, was it?” Yung said.

  “No. But that’s the way it is. And when the word got around that El Coronel Munz had shot himself while cleaning his pistol, many people thought that he had somehow missed while attempting to take his own life because of the shame his incompetence had brought down on his head.”

  “Shot himself cleaning his pistol, did he?”

  “You’re sure you don’t know at least who I’m talking about?”

  Yung didn’t respond.

  “How do I translate your silence and the inscrutable look on your face, David? That you do know Alfredo Munz—or at least who he is—or that you don’t?”

  “Try, that’s one of the questions Yung doesn’t have to answer unless he wants to,” Yung said.

  Ordóñez made a thin smile.

  “Well, David, I was not one of those who believed that Munz was either incompetent or had shot himself while attempting suicide or cleaning his pistol.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not for a second. You see, David, Alfredo Munz is a close friend of mine—one might even say a dear friend.”

  “Is that so?”

  “We met because we were, so to speak, counterparts. He ran SIDE on his side of the river Plate and I ran —run— the Interior Police Division of the Uruguayan Policía Nacional on this side. Despite the innocuous name, my unit does for Uruguay what SIDE does for Argentina.”

  “I didn’t know that, of course,” Yung said.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Ordóñez said. “After all, you were just one of a dozen or so FBI agents in your embassy involved in nothing more than the investigating of money laundering, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Well, shortly after Alfredo and I started to work together, we learned—I’m sure to our mutual surprise—that we were both honest cops. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many of us in either Argentina or Uruguay.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Well, over the years, as Alfredo and I worked together on projects of mutual interest—for example, dignitary protection…”

  “‘Dignitary protection’?”

  “That involves the protection of our own officials, diplomats, and visiting dignitaries, such as heads of foreign states. Fidel Castro, for example. Did you know that when Fidel Castro visits Uruguay, he and the more important members of his entourage always stay at the Belmont House Hotel right down the street from here?”

  “I think I heard that,” Yung said.

  “Well, for example, when Castro visited Argentina, where he was under Munz’s protection, and then came here, where I was responsible for his protection, Alfredo and I naturally worked together.”

  “I can understand why that would happen.”

  “Well, when I heard that my friend Alfredo had had—how do I put this? —some difficulty involving a firearm, the first thing I wanted to do was help. I couldn’t rush across the river to Buenos Aires, of course, because I was deeply involved in the investigation of the massacre at Estancia Shangri-La. And when I tried to telephone him, using a very private line to his very private line in his apartment, there was never an answer. There were several possible reasons for this, the most likely being that he saw, on caller identification, that I was calling and didn’t think it wise—for his sake or mine—that we talk.”

  Ordóñez raised his glass.

  “May I impose on your hospitality for another of these, my friend David?” He smiled. “This glass seems to have a hole in it.”

  “Of course.”

  While Yung put ice then Famous Grouse into Ordóñez’s glass, he thought, I really should not have
another of these. I’m out of my depth with Ordóñez and I have no idea where this is leading—but then poured another two inches of scotch into his own glass.

  “Here you go, José,” Yung said, handing him the drink.

  “Thank you. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. As I said, it was impossible for me—because of the massacre investigation—to personally go to Buenos Aires to see what I could do to help Alfredo, or even to get him on the phone, so I did the only thing I could think of to help: I put a watch on the immigration computers.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I instructed our immigration service to notify me personally and immediately should the Munz name appear. I already had issued such a watch for two U.S. diplomats, Julio Artigas and David W. Yung, Jr.”

  “How interesting.”

  “Aren’t you at all curious why I am curious about the movements out of and into Uruguay of you and my cousin Julio?”

  “I figure if you want me to know, you’ll tell me.”

  “Actually, there have been two interesting developments in the Shangri-La massacre that I wanted to ask you both about,” Ordóñez said. “We know—or at least are reasonably sure—where the helicopter out there came from, and we have positively identified one of the men who died out there from a 7.62mm rifle bullet in his head.”

  Oh, shit! I don’t think that’s a bluff!

  “You going to tell me about that?”

  “In due time,” Ordóñez said. “Well, tonight, shortly after the parties for whom I’d issued a watch passed through immigration at the Buquebus terminal in Buenos Aires, immigration called me at my home to tell me that not only were the two American diplomats on the ferry, but so were Señora Munz and her two daughters.”

  Shit!

  “And here I owe both you, David, and my cousin Julio an apology. I have to confess that I suspected an unpleasant connection between you two and the family of my dear friend Alfredo. I should have known better and I’m more than a little ashamed.

  What the hell is this?

  “So what I did was call my man on the Buquebus—as you can imagine, it’s handy to have your men on the ferry. In civilian clothing, of course. We normally have two, one with a charming Labrador that has a fantastic nose.”

  He smiled, took a healthy swallow of scotch, then continued.

  “Anyway, I called him, and told him to take the Munz family under their protection, and to be especially watchful of the two American diplomats.

  “He called back in half an hour to report that all parties were on the first-class deck, sitting separated from each other. He also said that the Chinese American diplomat had smiled at one of the Munz girls as he watched and that rather than being frightened—or even offended—she smiled back.

  “That, of course, confused me. As did the next call from the ferry, shortly before it docked. The Chinese American diplomat was on his back on the car deck, as if looking for drugs—or, less likely, an explosive device—hidden under the car. That’s probably where you soiled your bandage, David.”

  Yung did not reply.

  “The final call from the ferry,” Ordóñez went on, “reported that the Munz family had willingly gotten into the BMW bearing diplomatic plates with the two American diplomats and were about to drive off the ferry.

  “You didn’t see me in the port, but I saw you, and I saw how Señora Munz and the girls smiled at you in the Belmont House. So, here I am, David, looking for an explanation.”

  “Of what?”

  “Who are you protecting the Munz family from? And why? And what are they doing here? And what’s your connection with El Coronel Munz, whom you say you don’t know.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t know him; I said that was a question I didn’t choose to answer.”

  “Are you going to tell me now?”

  “Are you going to tell me about the interesting developments about the Shangri-La massacre?”

  Ordóñez took a long moment before he replied.

  “Do the names Vasily Respin and Aleksandr Pevsner ring a bell with you, David?”

  “It’s one man,” Yung said. “I’m not sure which is his real name, and there are other aliases. There’s a dozen, maybe more, Interpol warrants out for him. For all sorts of things.”

  “He’s in Argentina, using the name Pevsner,” Ordóñez said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Alfredo Munz told me.”

  “Why hasn’t he been arrested?”

  Ordóñez shrugged. “Obviously, it is not in the best interests of the Argentine government to arrest him.”

  “He’s paid somebody off?”

  Ordóñez shrugged. “That could be. He has all kinds of money. Enough, for example, to own a Bell Ranger helicopter.”

  Jesus Christ! Is that where Castillo got the Ranger? From an international mafioso?

  “It’s not like fingerprints, of course, but the skids of helicopters make skid-marks in mud—like the mud near Estancia Shangri-La—that are identifiable. I mean, it’s not too hard to determine what type of helicopter made the marks in the mud. The helicopter at Estancia Shangri-La was a Bell Ranger.”

  “You think it was Pevsner’s?”

  “I don’t know. I do know there aren’t very many of them around Buenos Aires. I do know that after being at Jorge Newbery airport, early on the night of the Shangri-La massacre, Pevsner’s Bell Ranger took off, visual flight rules, for Pilar. It closed out its flight plan over Pilar. Since there is no airport in Pilar, there is no record of it landing there. Very early in the morning on the day of the massacre, Pevsner’s helicopter returned to Jorge Newbery, again flying under visual flight rules from Pilar. And again, since it had not landed at an airport, there is no record of it having taken off from one. It stayed there until late in the day, when it again returned to Pilar under visual flight rules.

  “There is enough time between Pevsner’s Bell Ranger closing out its flight plan over Pilar the night of the massacre and its return to Jorge Newbery early the next morning for it to have been flown to Tacuarembó Province and back. By flying very low, it would not have appeared on radar either here or in Argentina.”

  “You think Pevsner was involved in the business at the estancia?”

  “I don’t know, David. But Pevsner is not one of those people I dismiss from suspicion because of his lily-white reputation. Now I will tell you what else I have learned, with the caveat that when I finish you will tell me what you know about any of this.”

  “If that was the offer of a deal, it wasn’t accepted.”

  “That’s an admission, you realize, that you know something.”

  “No, it isn’t. I had no idea, for example, until just now that this Russian mafioso was in South America or that he owns a helicopter. I said ‘No deal’ because, after you tell me what else you know and ask me what I know and I tell you nothing, you can’t say I’m breaking our deal.”

  Ordóñez looked at Yung intensely for a moment but did not respond directly. Instead, he said, “You remember me telling you that, among other things we did together, we worked on the protection of foreign dignitaries, such as Fidel Castro?”

  Yung nodded.

  “And that one of the things that really puzzled me about the massacre was that two of the Ninjas were shot with a special rifle bullet issued only to your competitive marksmen and Special Forces soldiers?”

  “I remember.”

  “An additional puzzling factor here was the reaction of Ambassador McGrory when Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez very circuitously asked him if there was any possibility that your Special Forces were in any way involved. I was watching his face. His surprise was genuine, as was his anger at the question. If your Special Forces were involved, Ambassador McGrory didn’t know about it. That leaves two possibilities—that they were not involved or that they were on a mission of such secrecy that the American ambassador was not told.”

  Christ, he’s got us!

  “José, there’s a very strict rule that n
othing surreptitious—especially using Special Forces—can take place in a country without the ambassador’s knowledge and approval.”

  “Yes, I know,” Ordóñez said. “But let me go on. All of these questions were in my mind when I went to the English hospital during the autopsy procedures on Mr. Lorimer and the Ninjas. And then, looking at the Ninja who had been shot in the head, I had the strangest feeling that I had seen him before.”

  “Had you?”

  “It took me thirty-six hours to remember when and where,” Ordóñez said. “And then I took out my photo album—and there it was. A photograph of Fidel Castro standing in front of the Belmont House Hotel with three familiar faces in the background. El Coronel Alfredo Munz, me, and Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Yung blurted. “Are you sure?”

  Ordóñez nodded slowly. “We generally make a practice of getting fingerprints of people like that who visit our country. We have yours, for example. I checked the prints. Major Vincenzo of the Cuban DGI, who came here as Castro’s security chief, was one of the Ninjas who died at Estancia Shangri-La of a Special Forces bullet in his brain.”

  “They were Cubans?”

  “We could not match the prints of any of the others, but there is no question about Vincenzo.” Ordóñez stood up. “If I may, friend David, I will have another Famous Grouse while you decide what help you can offer me.”

  “What the hell was a Cuban doing at the estancia?” Yung blurted.

  Ordóñez laughed.

  “You will forgive me if I say that your reaction is as transparent as was Ambassador McGrory’s? You were genuinely surprised to hear that, weren’t you, Señor Inscrutable?”

  “Yeah, I was,” Yung said.

  “May I start asking questions?”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” Yung said.

  He thought, Now I really wish I was Castillo. I’m in way over my head here.

  “Let’s start with the most important thing to me,” Ordóñez said from the bar. “Why are you protecting the Munz family? And from whom?”

  “Munz is concerned for their safety.”

  “What concern of that is yours?”

  “We owe him.”