"You're in luck, Mike," Silvio said. "This is Tempus Cabernet Sauvignon. Hard to come by."
"From a small bodega in Mendoza," Basto said. "May I open it, Mr. Ambassador?"
"Oh, please," Silvio said.
Goddamn it, McGrory thought, wine! Not that I should be drinking at all. I am-we both are-on duty. But these Latins-and that certainly includes Silvio-don't consider drinking wine at lunch drinking, even though they know full well that there is as much alcohol in a glass of wine as there is in a bottle of beer or a shot of whiskey.
I would really like a John Jamison with a little water, but if I ordered one I would be insulting the restaurant guy and Silvio would think I was some kind of alcoholic, drinking whiskey at lunch.
A waiter appeared with glasses and a bottle opener. The cork was pulled and the waiter poured a little in one of the glasses and set it before Silvio, who picked it up and set it before McGrory.
"Tell me what you think, Mike," he said with a smile.
McGrory knew the routine, and went through it. He swirled the wine around the glass, stuck his nose in the wide brim and sniffed, then took a sip, which he swirled around his mouth.
"Very nice indeed," he decreed.
McGrory had no idea what he was supposed to be sniffing for when he sniffed or what he was supposed to be tasting when he tasted. So far as he was concerned, there were two kinds of wine, red and white, further divided into sweet and sour, and once he had determined this was a sour red wine he had exhausted his expertise.
The waiter then filled Silvio's glass half full and then poured more into McGrory's glass. Silvio picked up his glass and held it out expectantly until McGrory realized what he was up to and raised his own glass and touched it to Silvio's.
"Always a pleasure to see you, Mike," Silvio said.
"Thank you," McGrory replied. "Likewise."
Silvio took a large swallow of his wine and smiled happily.
"The wines here are marvelous," Silvio said.
"Yes, they are," McGrory agreed.
"Don't quote me, Mike, but I like them a lot better than I like ours, and not only because ours are outrageously overpriced."
"I'm not much of a wine drinker," McGrory confessed.
"'Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake,'" Silvio quoted, "'and thine other infirmities.' That's from the Bible. Saint Timothy, I think, quoting Christ."
"How interesting," McGrory said.
The waiter handed them menus.
McGrory ordered a lomo con papas frit as-you rarely got in trouble ordering a filet mignon and French fries-and Silvio ordered something McGrory had never heard of.
When the food was served, McGrory saw that Silvio got a filet mignon, too.
But his came with a wine-and-mushroom sauce that probably tastes as good as it smells, and those little potato balls look tastier-and probably are-than my French fries will be.
"You said you wanted to have a little chat out of school, Mike," Silvio said after he had masticated a nice chunk of his steak. "What's on your mind?"
"Two things, actually," McGrory said, speaking so softly that Silvio leaned across the table so that he would be able to hear.
McGrory took the message about FBI Special Agent Yung and handed it to Silvio, who read it.
"Isn't this the chap you sent here when Mr. Masterson was kidnapped?" Silvio asked.
"One and the same."
"You never said anything to me, Mike, about him being on Secretary Cohen's personal staff."
"I didn't know about that," McGrory confessed.
Silvio pursed his lips thoughtfully but didn't say anything.
"Something else happened vis-a-vis Special Agent Yung," McGrory went on. "The same day-the night of the same day-that the bodies were found at what turned out to be Lorimer's estancia, I received a telephone call from the assistant director of the FBI telling me that it had been necessary to recall Yung to Washington, and that he had, in fact, already left Uruguay."
"He say why?"
"We were on a nonsecure line and he said he didn't want to get into details. He gave me the impression Yung was required as a witness in a trial of some kind. He said he would call me back on a secure line but never did."
Silvio cut another slice of his steak, rubbed it around in the sauce, and then forked it into his mouth. When he had finished chewing and swallowing, he asked, "Did you try to call him?"
"I was going to do that this morning when that message came and then I found out the deputy foreign minister, Alvarez, had called my chief of mission and asked if he could come by the embassy for a cup of coffee."
"Sounds like he wanted to have an unofficial chat," Silvio said.
"That's what I thought. So when he showed up, I told him that my man had the flu and I would give him his coffee."
"What did he want?"
"He had Chief Inspector Ordonez of the Interior Police with him," McGrory said. "The man in charge of the investigation of what happened at that estancia. After they beat around the bush for a while, he as much as accused me of not only knowing that there were Green Berets involved in the shooting but of not telling them."
"Were there?" Silvio asked.
"If there were, I have no knowledge of it."
"And as the ambassador, you would, right?"
"That's the way it's supposed to be, Silvio. We're the senior American officers in the country to which we are assigned and no government action is supposed to take place that we don't know about and have approved of."
"That's my understanding," Silvio agreed. "So where did he get the idea that Green Berets were involved?"
"He had two things," McGrory said. "One was a-I don't know what you call it-what's left, what comes out of a gun after you shoot it?"
"A bullet?" Silvio asked.
"No, the other part. Brass. About this big."
He held his fingers apart to indicate the size of a cartridge case.
"I think they call that the 'cartridge case,'" Silvio said.
"That's it."
"What was special about the cartridge case?"
"It was a special kind, issued only to U.S. Army snipers. And the reason he knew that was because he called the Uruguayan ambassador in Washington, who called the Pentagon, who obligingly told them. They didn't go through me. And when a foreign government wants something from the U.S. government, they're supposed to go through the ambassador."
"On the basis of this one cartridge case, they have concluded that our Green Berets were involved? That doesn't make much sense, does it?"
"They also found out that a helicopter was involved. People heard one flying around and there were tracks from the skids-those pipes on the bottom?-in a nearby field, where it had apparently been refueled. You don't have a helicopter, do you?"
"I have an airplane-the Army attache does, an Army King Air-out at Campo Mayo, but no helicopter. The King Air is so expensive to fly that most of the time it just sits out there."
How come Silvio's Army attache gets an airplane, McGrory thought, and mine doesn't? he said, "Well, according to them, whoever left all the bodies had a helicopter. And they think it was a Green Beret helicopter."
"Maybe they're just shooting in the dark," Silvio said. "They must be getting pretty impatient. Seven people killed and they apparently don't know why or by whom."
"Do you have any idea what that massacre was all about?"
Silvio shook his head, took a sip of wine, then said, "What I'd like to know is what this Lorimer fellow was doing with a false identity in Uruguay. Do you have any idea?"
McGrory shook his head. "No, I-oh, I forgot to mention that. Lorimer had a fortune-sixteen million dollars-in Uruguayan banks. It was withdrawn-actually, transferred to some bank in the Cayman Islands-the day after he was killed. By someone using the Riggs National Bank in Washington."
"Really? Where did Lorimer get that kind of money?"
"Most of the time, when large sums of money like that are involved, it's drug money," McG
rory confided.
"Do they know who withdrew it?"
"Transferred it. No, they don't."
"Well, if you're right, Mike, and I suspect you are, that would explain a good deal, wouldn't it? Murder is a way of life with the drug cartels. What very easily could have happened at that estancia is that a drug deal went wrong. The more I think about it…"
"A fortune in drug money, a false identity…" McGrory thought aloud. "Bertrand, the phony name he was using, was an antiques dealer. God knows, being an established antiques dealer would be an easy way to move a lot of cocaine. Who would look in some really valuable old vase, or something, for drugs?"
"I suppose that's true," Silvio agreed.
"I'm thinking it's entirely possible Lorimer had a room full of old vases stuffed with cocaine," McGrory went on, warming to his new theory. "He had already been paid for it. That would explain all the money. When his customers came to get it, some other drug people-keeping a secret like that is hard-went out there to steal it. And got themselves killed. Or maybe they did steal it themselves. May be there were more than six guys in black overalls. The ones that weren't killed loaded the drugs on their helicopter and left, leaving their dead behind. They don't care much about human life, you know. They're savages. Animals."
"So I've heard."
Ambassador McGrory sat thoughtfully for a long moment before going on: "If you were me, Juan, would you take the insult to the department?"
Silvio paused thoughtfully for a moment before answering.
"That's a tough call, Mike," he said. "If I may speak freely?"
"Absolutely," McGrory said.
"Alvarez's behavior was inexcusable," Silvio said. "Both in not going through you to get to the Pentagon and then by coming to your office to as much as accuse you of lying."
"Yes, It was."
"Incidents like that in the past have been considered more than cause enough to recall an ambassador for consultation, leaving an embassy without an ambassador for an extended period."
"Yes, I know. Insult the ambassador of the United States of America at your peril!"
McGrory heard himself raising his voice and immediately put his wineglass to his lips and discreetly scanned the restaurant to see if anyone had overhead his indiscretion.
"The question is," Silvio said, reasonably, "you have to make the decision whether what happened is worth, in the long haul, having you recalled for consultation. Or if there is some other way you can let them know you're justifiably angry."
"They left my office, Juan, let me tell you, knowing that I was pretty damned angry."
"Oh?"
"Yes, they did. I told Alvarez in no uncertain terms that what they had done was tantamount to accusing me, and thus the government of the United States, of not only conducting an illegal operation but of lying about it and that I was personally and officially insulted, and then I said, 'Good morning, gentlemen, this visit is terminated.'"
"Well, that certainly let them know how you felt," Silvio said.
"And they're really going to be embarrassed when they finally realize that what happened out there was drug connected and their idea that Green Berets were involved was simply preposterous."
"If that's what happened, Mike, you're right."
"And if I take this to Washington," McGrory said, "by the time they actually get around to recalling me for consultation Alvarez more than likely will come to me with his tail between his legs to apologize. I'll accept it, of course, but I'll be one up on him, that's for damned sure. There's no sense bothering the secretary with this."
"I agree," Silvio said and picked up the bottle of Tempus and poured wine into both their glasses.
When they tapped glasses again, McGrory said, "I really appreciate your advice, Juan. Thank you." [SIX] Office of the Ambassador The Embassy of the United States of America Avenida Colombia 4300 Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1605 5 August 2005 "That's essentially what Howell told me, sir," Alex Darby said to Ambassador Silvio, "that Ordonez found the cartridge casing, put it together with the chopper's skid marks and all those bodies, and decided it was something more than a robbery."
"Ambassador McGrory is now just about convinced it was a drug shoot-out," Silvio said. "I sowed the seed of that scenario and he really took it to heart. Between you and me, Alex, I felt more than a little guilty-ashamed of myself."
"Sir, you didn't have much of an option," Darby said. "Castillo was operating with the authority of a Presidential Finding. He had the authority to do what we did and not tell McGrory about it."
"Granting that," Silvio said, "I still felt very uncomfortable."
"You shouldn't feel that way, sir. With all due respect to Ambassador McGrory, can you imagine how out of control things would get if he knew? Or worse, if Castillo had gone by the book and asked his permission?"
Silvio didn't respond to that. Instead, he asked, "Where in the world did Castillo get that helicopter? I asked him, but he evaded the question."
"So did I and he wouldn't tell me, either. I didn't know about the money either."
"You don't think that it will be traceable?"
"The money or the helicopter?"
Silvio chuckled and shook his head. "Both. Neither."
"The helicopter, no. Castillo filed a local flight plan from Jorge Newbery to Pilar, closed it out over Pilar, and then flew over there about five feet off the water. He came back the same way, then got on the horn over Pilar and filed a local flight plan to Jorge Newbery. Nothing suspicious about that."
"If somebody had the helicopter's numbers," Silvio said, "it wouldn't be hard to learn whose machine it is, would it?"
"I thought about that, sir, and decided it was information I would just as soon not have."
Silvio nodded. "You're right, of course. What about the money?"
"Before this happened, Yung was working on finding Americans-and other people-who had decided to secretly invest money down here. I don't know who he was doing that for, but he wasn't just looking for dirty money being laundered. He is therefore an expert on how to move large amounts of money around without anyone knowing. I suspect the reason Castillo sent him back down here was to make really sure there are not racks."
"I think Ambassador McGrory is going to give him a hard time when he gets to Uruguay. For concealing his special status from him. And I find myself thinking McGrory has the right to be annoyed."
"He shouldn't be annoyed at Yung," Darby said. "Yung was just following orders."
"That 'just following orders' philosophy covers a lot of sins, doesn't it?"
"Mr. Ambassador, I'm pretty sure before you tell somebody something, you consider who you're telling it to, how trustworthy they are. And that's how it should be. I've never understood why people don't seem to understand that works both ways."
"I'm not sure I follow you, Alex."
"How much the guy in charge-a corporal in a rifle squad, a station chief in the agency, an ambassador-gets told, official rules be damned, depends on how much the underling thinks the guy in charge can be trusted."
Silvio considered that a moment and then said, "I have to ask, Alex. How much do you tell me?"
"When I got here, Mr. Ambassador, based on my previous experience with people in your line of work, I was careful when I told you what time it was. After a while, when I got to know you, I started telling you everything."
"Thank you," Silvio said, simply.
"Mr. Ambassador, I'd like to get on a secure line and let Castillo know what's happened in Montevideo and here."
"He should know, of course, and right away. But I can do it, Alex. You don't have to."
"Why don't you let me do it, sir?" Darby replied. "I don't feel guilty about going behind McGrory's back."
"Ouch!" Ambassador Silvio said. He paused thoughtfully. "Obviously what has happened, Alex, is that my close association with you has corrupted me. I just realized that I was happy that you offered to make the call. Thank you."
He pushed th
e secure phone toward Darby.
VI
[ONE] Executive Offices Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. Fulda, Hesse, Germany 1105 6 August 2005 Otto Gorner, managing director of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., reached for his private line telephone with his right hand without taking his eyes off the editorial on his desk. It was anti-American, blasting the President of the United States of America personally and the policies of the U.S.A. generally.
He had known from the first couple of sentences that he would not permit it to run in any of the Tages Zeitung newspapers. The author would then think-and more than likely share with his peers-unkind thoughts about the Amizaertlich editor in chief of the Tages Zeitung newspapers for killing a well-thought-out piece about what the Gottverdammt Amis had done wrong again.
By the fourth paragraph, Gorner had realized-with some relief-that he would have killed the piece anyway based on its departure from what he regarded as the entirely Germanic editorial principles of the newspaper chain-in essence, to be fair-and not solely because running it would have offended the Ami who was the sole stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
"Gorner," he growled into the telephone.
"Have you got any influence with the storm trooper guarding the parking lot?" a very familiar voice inquired in English. "He won't let me in."
"Speak of the devil," Gorner said.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Put him on, Karlchen," Gorner said as he rose quickly from his desk and went to his window, which overlooked the parking lot.
Carlos Guillermo Castillo, born Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, was standing by the red-and-white-striped barrier pole to the parking lot and extending a cellular telephone to the guard there of.
As the guard some what suspiciously put the cellular to his ear, Castillo looked up at the window, saw Gorner, and blew him a kiss. The guard followed that gesture, too, with interest.
"In the future," Gorner said to the telephone, "you may admit Herr von und zu Gossinger to our parking lot at any time, even if his car doesn't have an identification sticker."
"Jawohl, Herr Gorner," the guard said.
He handed the cellular back and hurried to the switch that would cause the barrier pole to rise.
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