“Both,” she said. “Who the hell are you?”
Kocian walked quickly to her and kissed her hand.
“Eric Kocian, madam. I am enchanted.”
“As well you should be, Billy,” Doña Alicia said.
“Pray take my seat, and I’ll get the champagne,” Kocian said.
“Hey, Jack!” Davidson said. “How goes it?”
Britton shook his head.
“Ginger-peachy,” he said. “How could it be otherwise?”
Kocian took a bottle of champagne from a cooler, poured some in a glass, and handed it to Sandra.
“Please excuse the stem. It originally came, I believe, filled with yogurt and decorated with a picture of Mickey Mouse.”
“Thank you,” Sandra said. A smile flickered across her lips.
“As a prisoner, of course, I am told nothing,” Kocian said. “So I am therefore quite curious about your obvious distress. What have these terrible people done to you?”
“You sound like a Viennese,” Sandra said.
“How perceptive of you, dear lady. I was born and spent many years in that city.”
“I’m a semanticist—I teach at the University of Pennsylvania. Or I was teaching at the university before I was hustled into the backseat of a Secret Service SUV and hauled off before my neighbors.” She paused. “You’re familiar with Franz Kafka?”
“Indeed.”
“He would have had a ball with this,” she said.
“You are implying bureaucracy run amok?”
“Am I ever.”
“Tell me all, my dear.”
Sandra sipped appreciatively at her champagne, pursed her lips, and then drained the glass.
“Was the offer of something stronger bona fide?”
Kocian nodded.
“In that case, Colonel, I will have one of your famous McNab martinis, thank you ever so much.”
“My pleasure,” Castillo said, and went to a sideboard loaded with spirits and drinking paraphernalia.
“So, what happened, Sandra?” David W. Yung asked.
“Cutting to the chase, Two-Gun,” Sandra said, “ten minutes after my better half here assured me that all was well as the Secret Service was on its way to our bullet-shattered cottage by the side of the road—before which sat our bullet-shattered new car—they did in fact arrive, sirens screaming, lights flashing. I expected Bruce Willis to leap out and wrap me in his masterly arms. By then, of course, the AALs who had turned tranquil Churchill Lane into the OK Corral were in Atlantic City. But what the hell, I thought, naïve little ol’ me, I shouldn’t fault them for trying.”
“Then what happened?” Davidson asked.
“The first thing they did was tell the Philly cops to get lost,” Sandra said. “My living room was now a federal crime scene. And they hustled Jack and me into the back of one of their SUVs and drove off with sirens screaming. I thought they had word the AALs were coming back.”
“The what, my dear?” Doña Alicia asked.
“African-American Lunatics, make-believe Muslims who don’t like Jack very much.”
“Why not?” Doña Alicia asked.
“I kept an eye on them for the police department,” Britton said.
“What he did, Abuela,” Castillo said, “was live with them for long years. He wore sandals, a dark blue robe, had his hair braided with beads. They thought his name was Ali Abid ar-Raziq.”
“And for that they tried to kill him?”
“Actually, they came pretty close to killing both of us,” Britton said.
“Sandra,” Yung said reasonably, “an attack on Jack, a federal officer, made it a federal case.”
“Is that why they took Jack downtown and took his gun and badge away? The way that looked to me was that Jack was the villain for getting shot at.”
“They took your credentials and weapon, Jack?” McGuire asked.
“And it was my pistol, not the Secret Service’s.”
“Had you fired it at the bad guys?”
Britton shook his head.
McGuire looked at the four Secret Service agents who had brought the Brittons to the house.
“Who’s in charge?”
“I am, sir,” the shortest one, who held a briefcase, said.
“Where’s his credentials and weapon?”
“I have them, sir,” the agent said, holding up the briefcase. “Mr. Isaacson said I was to turn them over to you.”
“Give Special Agent Britton his credentials and his pistol.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“That was an order, not a suggestion,” McGuire said. “And then you guys can wait in the kitchen.”
They did.
“Just to keep all the ducks in a row, Tom,” Britton said as he carefully examined the revolver, reloaded it, and put it in his lap, “Joel didn’t take them. The clown in Philadelphia did.”
“ ‘The clown’?” McGuire asked. “Supervisory Special Agent in Charge Morrell? That clown, Special Agent Britton?”
“Right. Just before he told me I was being transferred to Kansas or someplace just as soon as the, quote, interview, close quote, was over.”
“And was that the clown you told what he could do with the Secret Service, Jack?” Delchamps asked.
“You’re not being helpful, Edgar,” McGuire said.
“No. I told that to the clown here in D.C.,” Britton said thoughtfully. “But I think he was a supervisory special agent in charge, too.”
Castillo, Delchamps, and Davidson laughed.
Britton picked up his Secret Service credentials, examined them, and held them up. “Does this mean, as they say in the movies, that I’m ‘free to go’?”
“Not back to Philly to shoot up a mosque, Jack,” McGuire said. “Think that through.”
“Where the hell did you get that? From the clown in Philly?”
“I got that from Joel,” Castillo said. “I think he got it from the clown in Philly. You apparently said something about knowing, quote, how to get the bastards, unquote.”
“By which I meant I was going to go to Counterterrorism—I used to work there, remember?—and see if we couldn’t send several of the bastards away on a federal firearms rap. In the commission of a felony—and shooting up Sandra and my house and car is a felony—everybody participating is chargeable. Use of a weapon in the commission of a felony is another five years, mandatory. Not to mention just having a fully auto AK is worth ten years in the slam and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.” He paused and exhaled audibly. “Did that ass . . . Sorry. Did that supervisory special agent in charge really think I was going to walk into the mosque and open fire? For Christ’s sake, I’m a cop.”
“I don’t think you left him with that good-cop impression, Jack,” Davidson said, chuckling. “I think he saw you as Rambo in a rage.”
“The Philly cops could have gotten a judge to give us a probable-cause warrant to search both the mosque and the place in Philadelphia because of the attack on Sandra, and the Secret Service wouldn’t have been involved,” Britton went on.
“Sandra, do you happen to speak Spanish?” Castillo asked.
“Why? Is that also some sort of Secret Service no-no?”
“Yes or no?”
“Now, why in the world would you suspect that a semanticist might speak Spanish?”
Castillo switched to Spanish: “Fiery Spanish temper, maybe?”
She flashed her eyes at him, then laughed.
“Yeah,” she replied in Spanish. “Classical, Mexican, and Puerto Rican Harlem. What’s that you’re speaking?”
“I was hoping it would sound Porteño.”
It took her a moment to make the connection.
“Yeah,” she said. “You could pass.”
“So how do you think you’re going to like Buenos Aires?”
“I don’t know. I seem to recall another ex-Philly cop got herself shot there.”
“I would say it’s Jack’s call, but that wouldn’t be true, would it?
Your call, Sandra: You two go to Buenos Aires, or stay here and Jack continues his war with the Secret Service. And he’s going to lose that war. They are not going to put him back on the Protection Detail. . . .”
“It’s not fair, Sandra,” McGuire said. “But that’s the way it is. They just don’t take chances with the President and the Vice President. As a matter of fact, there’s an old pal of mine . . . ” He stopped.
“Go on, Tom,” Castillo said. “They’ll find out anyhow.”
“ . . . There’s an old pal of mine who fell off the side step of the Vice President’s limo. It didn’t matter that it was covered with ice. He fell off. And he was off the detail.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He’s in Buenos Aires.”
“So . . . is this what you’re saying?” Britton asked a bit bitterly. “That Buenos Aires is sort of a Secret Service gulag? The dumping ground for Protection Service rejects?”
“Enough is enough, Jack,” Castillo said, his tone now cold. “What’s it going to be?”
“If we go down there, what happens to my job?” Sandra asked.
Castillo didn’t reply.
Sandra then answered the question herself: “The same that would happen if we went to Saint Louis, Kansas City, or wherever that guy said. How long would we have to stay?”
“As long as Tom and I think is necessary,” Castillo said.
“And the AALs walk on this,” Britton said more than a little bitterly.
“Not necessarily,” Castillo said. “But you’re never going back on the Protection Detail.”
“So then what finally happens to me?”
“Tom and I will, sooner or later but probably sooner, find something for you to do.”
“You mean go to work for you?”
Castillo nodded.
“You didn’t mention that,” Britton said.
“You didn’t give him much of a chance, Rambo,” Davidson said.
“I’d like that,” Britton said simply. “Thank you.”
“When do we go?” Sandra asked.
“As soon as we can get you on a plane,” Castillo said. “Maybe even tonight.”
“All we have is an overnight bag,” Sandra said.
“They have wonderful shops in Buenos Aires,” Doña Alicia said.
“Let’s give Tony a heads-up,” McGuire said, and added to the Brittons: “Tony Santini’s the old pal who fell off the limo.”
“We have a state-of-the-art communications system down there,” Castillo said, “but in his wisdom the kindly chief of OOA figured the odds of anything happening today were slim to none, and so told the guys sitting on the radio to take Christmas day off. So we’ll have to use this primitive device.”
Castillo put his cellular telephone on the table, pushed a speed-dial button, then the speakerphone button.
Proof that the system worked came twenty seconds later when a male voice answered, “Boy, it didn’t take long for Munz to call you to tell you, did it, Charley?”
“And a merry, merry Christmas to you, too, Tony. It didn’t take Munz long to call me to tell me what?”
“You haven’t heard about your Irish pal Duffy?”
“What about him?”
“They tried to take him out about seven o’clock last night. He had his wife and kids with him. Out in Pilar. He’s one pissed-off Irishman.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“No. Thank God.”
“They get the people that did it?”
“No. But this is not the time to be on the roads in a Ford F-150 pickup with a dented rear end. Duffy rammed his way through what was supposed to be a stop-and-shoot ambush. Every gendarme in Argentina is working Christmas looking for it.”
“Is Alfredo looking into who did it?”
“I thought it was probably him on the phone just now.”
“Have him send what he finds out to Miller.”
“Done.”
“What I called about, Tony: You remember Jack Britton?”
“Sure.”
“Party or parties unknown—probably those Muslims he was undercover with—tried to take him and his wife out yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, so long Protection Detail. Is he all right? His wife? Where are they going to send him? I could sure use him down here when they’re through with him.”
“How about as soon as I can get them on a plane?”
“That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”
“He said unkind things to the supervisory special agent in charge when he told him he was off the detail. Isaacson turned him over to me just before they were going to handcuff him. I need to put him on ice.”
“He told off the SAC? Good for him! I wish I had.”
Delchamps laughed.
“Who was that?” Santini said.
“Edgar Delchamps,” Delchamps said. “Ace has you on speakerphone, Tony. We’ve got a whole host of folks at the Christmas dinner table working on this.”
“Glad to hear it,” Santini said.
“Why do you need Britton, Tony?” Castillo said.
“I keep hearing things like there’s a raghead connection with our friends in Asunción that we didn’t pick up on. He can pass himself off as a raghead, I seem to recall.”
“I don’t want him going undercover.”
“Why not?”
“Say, ‘Yes, sir, Charley. I understand he’s not to go undercover.’ ”
“Yes, sir, Charley.”
Castillo thought he heard a mix of annoyance and sarcasm in the reply. He knew he saw gratitude in Sandra Britton’s eyes.
“Okay,” he went on, “as soon as we have the schedule, we’ll give you a heads-up. Put them in Nuestra Pequeña Casa. If Munz wants to tell Duffy, fine. Otherwise, not. I have a gut feeling.”
“Yes, sir, Charley, sir.”
Castillo ignored that. He said, “Alex Darby presumably knows about Duffy?”
“Yeah, sure. And anticipating your next question, Alex called Bob Howell in Montevideo so that he could give a heads-up to the China Post people sitting on the ambassador at Shangri-La. He told me that Munz had already called Ordóñez to give him a heads-up. I’d say all the bases are pretty well covered. But what the hell’s going on, Charley?”
“I wish I knew. You’ll be among the first to know if I ever find out. I’ll be in touch, Tony. Take good care of the Brittons.”
“Anybody who says rude things to a SAC is my kind of guy, Charley. Try to stay out of trouble.”
Castillo broke the connection.
He looked at Britton.
“Masterson’s mother and father—ambassador, retired—lost their home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. They’re now living on the estancia in Uruguay—Shangri-La—which he inherited from his late son, who was the bagman for the oil-for-food cesspool. I couldn’t talk the ambassador out of it. And I really had a hard time getting him to agree to having four guys from China Post—even on our payroll, not that he couldn’t have easily afforded paying them himself—to go down there to sit on him.”
“ ‘China Post’?” Mr. and Mrs. Britton asked in unison.
“Some people think that Shanghai Post Number One (In Exile) of the American Legion,” Davidson explained, “is sort of an employment agency for retired special operators seeking more or less honest employment.”
“What Santini just told me,” Castillo said, “was that Alex Darby, the CIA station chief in Buenos Aires, has given Bob Howell, the station chief in Montevideo, a heads-up, and that Alfredo Munz, who works for us . . .”
“Sort of the OOA station chief,” Davidson injected drily.
“. . . down there has given a heads-up to Chief Inspector José Ordóñez of the Interior Police Division of the Policía Nacional del Uruguay,” Castillo went on. “A really smart cop, even if he doesn’t like me very much. One of the first things I want you to do down there is get with him. Bottom line, I think, as Santini said, we have all the bases covered down there.”
He looked at her for a long moment before replying.
“It looks that way, Abuela. But Liam Duffy is more a friend of Alfredo Munz than mine.”
“Just a coincidence, would you say, Karlchen?” Kocian asked. “Two such incidents on the same day?”
Plus your friend, Billy. That makes three.
And the deep-cover asset in Vienna makes four.
Shit . . . five if you count his wife.
Castillo said: “What Montvale described as a deep-cover asset in Vienna, a man named Kuhl and his wife—”
“Kurt Kuhl?” Delchamps interrupted, and when Castillo nodded, he asked, “What the hell happened to him?”
“Merry Christmas,” Castillo said. “The Kuhls were found garroted to death behind the statue of Johann Strauss on the Ring in Vienna yesterday. You knew him?”
“Yeah, I knew both of them well,” Delchamps said.
“You’re talking about Kurt Kuhl who ran the chain of pastry shops?” Kocian asked, and looked at Delchamps.
“I think it has to be him,” Delchamps said. “Them.”
“Then so did I know them,” Kocian said. “They were friends for many years.” He paused, then asked incredulously, “ ‘Deep-cover asset’? You’re not suggesting he had a connection with the CIA?”
“For longer than our leader here is old,” Delchamps said. “If there’s going to be a star on the wall—and there should be two stars; Gertrud was as good as Kurt was—it should be studded with diamonds.”
“I don’t understand,” Doña Alicia said.
“There’s a wall in Langley, Doña Alicia, at the CIA headquarters, with stars to memorialize spooks who got unlucky.”
“I didn’t know,” she said softly.
“Am I permitted to ask what Kurt and Gertrud did for the CIA?” Kocian asked.
After a moment, Delchamps said, somewhat sadly: “Well, why not? They turned people, Billy. Or they set them up to be turned. . . .”
“Turned?” Doña Alicia asked softly, as if she hated to interrupt but really wanted to know.
“They made good guys out of bad guys, Abuela,” Castillo said. “They got Russian intelligence people to come to our side.”
“And East Germans and Poles and Czechs and Hungarians,” Delchamps said. “What I can’t understand is why they were just killed. Excuse me, garroted.”
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