The Hunters
Page 49
* * *
Colonel––
I wasn’t sure if we would have time to talk.
This is written before we go to the airport, of course, where we all may be led off in handcuffs.
Ordóñez is one smart cop. Luckily for us, he’s a good friend of Munz.
He knows a lot––too much, but not everything––about the estancia.
He knows the Russian mafiosa’s helicopter was there. He suspects his involvement.
He knows what happened has nothing to do with Lorimer being a drug dealer.
He knows it has to do with the oil-for-food business. I’m afraid I may have confirmed this for him.
He knows that we grabbed the money. No proof, but he knows, and I know he’s good at finding proof of what he suspects.
He has positively identified (by fingerprints) one of the Ninjas as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia, who he met when Castro was in Montevideo and Vincenzo was in charge of his security.
I think as soon as we can get on a secure line we should talk.
If I have screwed things up, I’m really sorry.
Yung
* * *
Castillo read the note twice, then folded it and put it in his shirt pocket.
When the Gulfstream was at altitude, he went to the cockpit and showed it to Torine and Lopez.
[FOUR]
San Antonio International Airport
San Antonio, Texas
0350 10 August 2005
Castillo woke up when Lopez shook his shoulder. He had been sleeping uncomfortably most of the way from Quito in one of the chairs next to the forward bulkhead of the passenger compartment, his feet on the facing chair.
The younger Munz girl was in the chair across the aisle. Señora Munz and the older girl had taken the two couches. When he opened his eyes, Castillo saw that they were now sitting up, and that the eyes of the younger girl, now sitting tensely in her chair, showed concern, maybe even fear.
And then he saw why.
There were four other people in the passenger compartment. One of them was nattily dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The other three were heavily armed and dressed in black jumpsuits, on the breasts of which were badges of officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service.
One of the Customs officers, an enormous, swarthy man, held an Uzi in the position that caused Castillo to speak rudely to him.
“Point that goddamned muzzle at the floor!” Castillo barked, in English.
“Gringo,” Lopez said, cautiously.
The officer moved the Uzi toward Castillo.
“You don’t speak English?” Castillo snapped, in Spanish. “Don’t point that thing at me!”
“Take it easy, sir,” the Citizenship and Immigration Services lieutenant said.
The lieutenant looked at the big guy holding the Uzi and ordered, “Lower that muzzle.”
“Better…” Castillo said, still furious.
“Carlos,” Lopez said, “these gentlemen wish to search the aircraft and our luggage. Torine thought you might wish to discuss that with them.”
“We are going to search the aircraft, understand that!” the enormous swarthy man announced, not at all pleasantly.
Castillo locked eyes with him. “Then might I, sir, with all respect and humility, suggest that you begin your thorough inspection of our luggage with my briefcase?” he asked, sarcastically. “It’s right there on the floor.”
“What’s in the briefcase?” the enormous man asked.
“My credentials,” Castillo said. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Castillo of the Secret Service.”
The swarthy man considered that a moment, then said, “Get it.”
“That’s what he is all right,” the swarthy man said, visibly cowed by the credentials. But that didn’t last long. “We are still going to search your luggage and the aircraft. That’s regulations!”
“Search away,” Castillo said. “I simply wanted to identify myself before you saw the weapons we have aboard.” He turned to the immigration lieutenant. “How do we get through immigration?”
“There’s a van outside that’ll carry you to the commercial side of the airport.”
“And bring us back?”
The lieutenant nodded.
“Ladies,” Castillo said, “leave everything on board but your purses. We have to go through the immigration process. On behalf of the United States of America, I apologize for this rude reception.”
“Thanks for everything, Fernando,” Castillo said when they were back at the Gulfstream. “When you get home, blame everything on me.”
“Maria will do that anyway,” Lopez said.
He picked Castillo off the ground in a bear hug.
“If you need me for anything, forget it,” Lopez said.
“You got it.”
“I didn’t mean that, Gringo, and you know it.”
“What I want you to do is make sure Abuela doesn’t go anywhere near Midland.”
“I will. Believe me.”
“I’ll find someplace else for the Munzes just as soon as I can.”
Lopez nodded, shook hands with Torine, kissed the cheeks of the Munz women, then turned and climbed back in the van.
As the others went aboard the Gulfstream, Castillo watched it drive away until It was out of sight, and then, not remembering if he had seen Torinedo it or not, did the walk-around inspection of the plane, then went up the stairs into it.
He smiled at the younger Munz girl.
“Colonel Torine has said I can ride up in front if I promise not to touch anything.”
She smiled back at him.
When he stepped into the cockpit, he saw that Jake Torine was strapping himself into the copilot’s seat.
“I’m pleased to see that you remembered it’s the pilot in command’s duty to do the walk-around,” Torine said. “Has anything important fallen off?”
[FIVE]
Double-Bar-C Ranch
Near Midland, Texas
0555 10 August 2005
As Castillo applied the thrust reversers, he saw that there were two black GMC Yukon XLs parked next to the hangar. And a silver Jaguar.
Well, the Secret Service is here.
And the Jaguar, which is almost certainly Abuela’s, is here because so was she when the heat got to her. She had the Lear pick her up.
When he had taxied the Gulfstream back to the hangar from the end of the runway and stopped, Torine said, “I’ll shut it down, Charley. You tend to our passengers.”
Castillo unstrapped himself and went to the passenger compartment, where he tripped the DOOR OPEN switch. The door began to move and a dry heat started to blow in. It had a familiar feel and smell.
Señora Munz and the younger girl, smiling, were on their feet and looking down at the older sister, who was sound asleep on one of the couches.
Well, they say a perfect landing is one that (a) you can walk away from and (b) doesn’t wake the passengers.
He smiled at the younger girl.
“I’ll get some ice water,” he said. “You can pour it in her ear. That’ll wake her up.”
“Carlos, that’s an awful thing to say!” a familiar voice said from the open doorway behind him, in English.
Then the voice switched to Spanish.
“I’m Alicia Castillo. This terrible young man is my grandson. Welcome to our home!”
Castillo turned. As his grandmother pushed past him to get at the Munz family, he saw a heavyset man, obviously a Secret Service agent, standing just inside the door.
The heavyset man shrugged and held up both hands.
The meaning was clear: I didn’t know how to stop her.
XIII
[ONE]
Lehigh Valley International Airport
Allentown, Pennsylvania
1035 10 August 2005
As he taxied the Gulfstream to the Lehigh Valley Aviatio
n Services’ tarmac, Castillo saw United States Secret Service Special Agent John M. Britton—brightly attired in a pink seersucker jacket, a yellow polo shirt, light blue trousers, and highly polished tassel loafers—leaning against the front fender of one of two black Yukons whose darkened windows identified them to Castillo as almost certainly Secret Service vehicles.
With Britton were three men—more sedately dressed—who Castillo thought were probably the local Secret Service.
Castillo parked the aircraft.
“You go deal with the welcoming committee,” Torine said. “I’ll do the paperwork and get us some fuel. Speaking of which, you want to give me your credit card?”
Castillo unstrapped himself, worked his way out of the pilot’s seat, gave Torine an American Express card, then went into the empty passenger compartment and opened the door and went down the stairs.
“Nice airplane,” Britton greeted him. “This is the first time I’ve seen it.”
“How are you, Jack?” Castillo said as they shook hands.
Britton made the introductions: “These are special agents Harry Larsen and Bob Davis, and their boss, Supervisory Special Agent Fred Swanson. They’re out of Philadelphia.”
“I’m an old pal of Isaacson and McGuire,” Swanson said as they shook hands.
“Then I guess you heard that my Secret Service credentials are a little questionable?”
“Yeah, and I also heard getting them for you was Joel’s idea,” Swanson said. “So you’re among friends, Colonel.”
“Call me Charley,” Castillo said. “I made light colonel so recently that when someone says it, I look around to see who they’re talking to.”
Swanson chuckled.
“And you know that Jack can hardly be called a grizzled veteran of the Secret Service?” Castillo went on.
“He told me. He also told me Joel recruited him, which makes him okay in my book—I know what Jack did in Philly, too. Isaacson told me that just when he was going to see if he would fit in the protection detail you grabbed him for whatever it is you do.”
“What did he—or anybody—tell you about that?”
“Joel was pretty vague. Britton has been a clam. And when I asked McGuire, he said you were the only guy who could decide we had the Need to Know.”
Castillo considered that, then nodded. “Okay. You do. The classification is Top Secret Presidential. But let’s wait until we’re out of here.”
“Where are we headed? The farm? There’s not much to see,” Britton said.
“I better see what there is,” Castillo said. “But first, Jake and I need a shower and a shave. And then breakfast. It’s been a long flight.”
“Where’d you come from?” Swanson asked.
“Buenos Aires and that’s classified.”
Swanson’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything.
“We’re in the Hotel Bethlehem in Bethlehem,” Britton said. “It’s not the Four Seasons—no marble walls in the bathrooms—but there’s plenty of hot water and towels, and a nice restaurant, and it’s near where we’re going.”
“Fine.”
“I suppose this is also classified,” Britton said. “Yung called Miller from Washington, and Miller called me. Yung was in Miami about to load Lorimer’s body on a plane to New Orleans. He’s really anxious to talk to you.”
“And vice versa,” Castillo said.
“‘Lorimer’s body’?” Swanson parroted. “Can I ask who Yung is?”
“David Yung is an FBI agent who now works for me,” Castillo said. “Jean-Paul Lorimer—an American, a UN diplomat, up to his eyeballs in the Iraq oil-for-food scam—was whacked by parties unknown at his estancia in Uruguay.”
“This is starting to get interesting,” Swanson said.
“The Secret Service is involved,” Castillo said. “I asked Tom McGuire to send people to watch the Lorimer family, the funeral home, the funeral, etcetera, to see if they can make any of the mourners. And to keep an eye on Yung. These bastards have already tried to kidnap and/or whack him.”
“Really interesting,” Swanson said. “Neither Tom or Joel mentioned anything about that, either.”
“I told you they couldn’t,” Castillo said. “And what I said just now about parties unknown wasn’t entirely accurate.” He looked at Britton. “Jack, we now know who one of the Ninjas was. He was positively identified—fingerprints—by a Uruguayan cop as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia.”
“No shit?” Britton said, in great surprise.
“I suppose you realize, Colonel, that you’re really whetting my curiosity?” Swanson said.
“Let’s get in one of the Yukons,” Castillo said. “We can start clueing you in while Torine’s dealing with the airplane. I don’t think we can finish, but we can start.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jake Torine handed Castillo’s American Express card to the Lehigh Aviation Services’ fuel truck driver, who took it without question, ran it through his machine, then handed it back with the sales slip for his signature. Torine signed the slip—using his own signature, but it would have taken the expert eye of a forensic document examiner to determine that the scribble read “Torine” and not “Castillo”—then walked across the blazing-hot tarmac to the black Yukon that Castillo and the others had climbed in.
Special Agent Bob Davis of the Secret Service had to get out of the truck, fold down the middle-row seat he had been occupying, and get in the back, third row of seats so Torine could get in.
“If you weren’t such a paragon of virtue and honesty, Charley,” Torine said, after the introductions were made and as he handed Castillo his credit card, “you probably wouldn’t have to pay for the fuel and the landing fee. I signed the bill ‘Abraham Lincoln.’”
When Torine didn’t get the laugh he expected, he added: “Somehow I sense I’m interrupting something.”
“I have been regaling these gentlemen with the plot of the mystery,” Castillo said.
“How far did you get?”
“Dropping the Munzes at the ranch in Midland,” Castillo said. “I told them everything, Jake. We need all the help we can get.”
“Any of this make any sense to you, Mr. Swanson?” Torine asked.
“No, Colonel, it doesn’t. And I am about to be overwhelmed with curiosity as to how these Rambo operations of yours are connected with these home-grown Muslims we’re watching ‘as a highest priority.’”
“Tell them, Jack,” Castillo ordered.
“Okay,” Britton said, and took a moment to form his thoughts. “You know, Fred, that when I was on the Philly cops, I was undercover for a long time in the Aari-Teg mosque.”
“That must have been fun,” Special Agent Davis commented from the backseat. “How long did you get away with that before they made you?”
“Three and a half years—and they never made me.”
“I’m impressed,” Davis said in genuine admiration.
“Yeah, me, too,” Castillo said.
“Right after we came back from Uruguay,” Britton said, “I heard that another undercover cop in the Aari-Teg mosque, a pal of mine named Sy Fillmore, had gone over the edge—the cops found him wandering around babbling in North Philly. Once they learned, several days later, he was a fellow cop, they had him put in the loony tunes ward in Friends Hospital. So I went to see him.
“And he told me that AALs had bought a hundred-twenty-acre farm in Bucks County on which—or in which—were some pre–Revolutionary War iron mines that they were stocking with food and water, and in which they are going to take cover when a briefcase-sized nuclear bomb is detonated in Philly.”
“Jesus Christ!” Special Agent Davis exclaimed.
“And you’re taking this seriously?” Swanson asked, his tone serious. “It sounds incredible.”
“Yes, it does,” Britton said. “And that’s what Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer decided when he heard it. First of all, it came from Fillmore, who slides back and forth between
making sense and babbling, and is indeed incredible on its face value. Kramer didn’t even tell the FBI. But when I told Charley, both he and McGuire, and I suppose Isaacson, too, decided I should look into it. That’s when you got involved.”
“You mean Joel knew this and didn’t tell me?” Swanson asked, indignantly. “All I got was some bullshit about starting a ‘highest priority round-the-clock surveillance’ of these lunatics, the reason for which I would learn in due time.”
“You weren’t cleared for that information,” Castillo said, reasonably.
“I’ve got a couple of security clearances,” Swanson said. “Three or four of them with names. And Joel knows that.”
“Joel couldn’t tell you,” Castillo said. “Only two people can decide who has the Need to Know.”
The reply didn’t seem to surprise Swanson. He nodded and asked, “The director of National Intelligence and the secretary of Homeland Security?”
Castillo shook his head. “The President and me.”
“Only you and the President? That’s impressive, Colonel,” Swanson said. “Can I interpret that to mean somebody really high up thinks this threat is credible?”
“Ambassador Montvale thinks it’s credible. And as soon as I have a look at this place, Jack, we’re going to Washington. He wants to see you personally.”
“Oh, shit,” Britton said.
“Which reminds me,” Castillo said. He pointed to a radio mounted under the Yukon’s dashboard. “Is that tied into the Secret Service’s communications system? I mean in Washington?”
Swanson nodded.
“I’d like to get word to Montvale that I’m here, and that I’m coming to Washington—with Britton—as soon as we’re through here. ETA to come later.”
Swanson nodded and pressed his finger to his lapel.
“Cheesesteak here,” he said. “Is this thing working?”
The response came immediately: “Loud and clear.”