MAJOR CARLOS G. CASTILLO, SPECIAL FORCES, U.S. ARMY, IS HEREWITH APPOINTED CHIEF, OFFICE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.
SIGNED:
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WITNESS:
Natalie G. Cohen
SECRETARY OF STATE
TOP SECRET-PRESIDENTIAL
The identification of the bodies in the Sheraton garage-and of two others shortly thereafter in the Conrad Resort amp; Casino in Punta del Este, Uruguay-pretty well "determined the identity of the terrorists."
And, obviously, they had been "rendered harmless" as called for by the Finding.
This accomplishment, however, did not mean that the Office of Organizational Analysis now could be shut down, or that the Finding could be filed in the Presidential Documents Not To Be Declassified For Fifty Years, or that the OOA personnel could be returned whence they had come.
Just about the opposite was true.
The investigation had been going on in Nuestra Pequena Casa for nearly three weeks. To say that no end was in sight was a gross understatement.
The turning over of the rocks had revealed an astonishing number of ugly worms of interest to the director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of State, and other governmental agencies.
"What we have here isn't an investigation," Inspector Doherty, who was on the staff of the director of the FBI and who had given the subject a good deal of thought, said very seriously the night before at dinner, "it's an investigation to determine what has to be investigated."
Doherty had reluctantly-another gross understatement-become part of the investigation only after the President had personally ordered the FBI director to loan the best man he had to OOA, not the senior FBI man who could be most easily spared.
Edgar Delchamps, of the CIA, had replied, "You got it, Sherlock."
Delchamps, too, had come to the OOA reluctantly. So reluctantly that when transferred from his posting as the CIA station chief in Paris, he had reported to Castillo only after he had stopped by CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to put in for retirement.
When Castillo found out about that, it had taken a personal call from the director of National Intelligence, Ambassador Charles W. Montvale, to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to get Delchamps to put off his retirement "for the time being." Montvale told the DCI that the President had personally ordered that the OOA-meaning Delchamps-be given absolute access to any intelligence the agency had gathered on any subject.
Doherty and Delchamps had not at first gotten along. Both were middle-aged and set in their ways. Doherty's way-which had seen him rise high in the FBI hierarchy-was to scrupulously follow the book, never bending, much less breaking, the law. Delchamps had spent most of his career operating clandestinely, often using a fictitious name. There was no book for what he did, of course, because the clandestine service does not-cannot-operate that way. So far as Delchamps was concerned, the end really justified the means.
Yet surprisingly they had become close-even friends-in recent weeks, largely because, Castillo had decided, they were older than everybody but Eric Kocian. They regarded everyone else-including Castillo-as inexperienced youngsters and were agreed that the President had erred in giving Castillo the authority he had given him. (Castillo thought they were probably right.) What Doherty the night before had called the "investigation to determine what has to be investigated" now was just about over.
Castillo and Colonel Torine had flown the OOA's private jet-a Gulfstream III registered to the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Fund-down to Argentina to quietly ferry Delchamps, Doherty, and some of the others-not to mention the results of the investigation, which now filled one small filing cabinet and a dozen computer external hard drives-back to Washington.
Eric Kocian and his two dogs would go with them, too. His notes about the Iraqi Oil for Food scandal had provided keys to much of the information now on the hard drives.
So far as Castillo, Delchamps, and Doherty were concerned, Kocian was going to Washington to serve as a sort of living reference library as their investigation moved into the data banks of the FBI, the CIA, and other elements of the intelligence community.
So far as Kocian was concerned, however, he was going to Washington because there was a direct Delta Airlines flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Budapest. It would allow him to take his dogs. There was no such flight from Buenos Aires.
Kocian owned two Bouvier des Flandres dogs, a male named Max and a bitch named Madchen. At one hundred-plus pounds, Max was time-and-a-half the size of a large boxer. Madchen was just a little smaller. There always had been a Max in Kocian's life since right after World War II, all of them named Max. Madchen was a recent addition, a gift from the Lorimer Charitable amp; Benevolent Fund, not necessarily as a pet for Kocian, but as a companion for Max.
Max's alertness in Budapest had warned Castillo in time for him to be able to use a suppressed Ruger MKII.22-caliber semiautomatic pistol to render harmless two men who had broken into his hotel room bent on his assassination.
As Castillo later had put it-perhaps indelicately-to Edgar Delchamps, "I don't know how things are done in the spook world, but in the Army when someone saves your ass, the least you can do for him is get him laid."
It had been love at first sight between Max and Madchen. But the playful frolicking of two canines weighing more than two hundred pounds between them had caused some serious damage to the furnishings of Nuestra Pequena Casa. Although they slept on the floor in Kocian's bedroom, they mostly had been banished to the backyard and to the quincho, where they had sort of adopted Corporal Lester Bradley, sensing that not only did he like to kick a soccer ball for them, but while manning the secure satellite communication device had the time to do so.
Everyone was so used to seeing Max, Madchen, and Lester together that hardly anyone noticed when Lester went to Ricardo Solez, touched his shoulder, and pointed to the secure radio. Solez nodded his understanding that if the radio went off, he was to answer the call.
Solez thought that Lester and Max and Madchen were leaving the quincho so that the dogs could meet the call of nature and Lester would then kick the soccer ball for them to retrieve. Both dogs could get a soccer ball in their mouths with no more effort than lesser breeds had with a tennis ball.
The first person to sense that that had not been Corporal Bradley's intention was Edgar Delchamps, who happened to glance out of the quincho into the backyard.
"Hey, Ace!" he called to Lieutenant Colonel Castillo. "As much as I would like to think the kid's playing cops and robbers, I don't think so."
Castillo looked at him in confusion, then followed Delchamps's nod toward the backyard.
Corporal Bradley, holding a Model 1911A1.45 ACP pistol in both hands, was marching across the grass by the swimming pool. Ahead of Bradley was a young man in a suit and tie who held his hands locked in the small of his neck. Max walked on one side of them, showing his teeth, and Madchen on the other showing hers.
"What the hell?" Castillo exclaimed.
Sandor Tor, with almost amazing grace for his bulk, got out of his chair and walked toward the door, brushing aside his suit jacket enough to uncover a black SIG-Sauer 9mm P228 semiautomatic pistol in a skeleton holster on his belt.
Castillo moved quickly to the drapes gathered at one side of the plateglass window and snatched a 9mm Micro Uzi submachine gun from behind them.
He opened the door as they approached the verandah of the quincho.
"What's up, Lester?" he asked.
Corporal Bradley did not reply directly.
"On the porch," he ordered the man. "Drop to your knees, and then get on your stomach on the tiles."
"Permission to speak, sir?" the young man in the suit asked.
"I told you to get on your stomach," Bradley ordered as sternly as he could. He did not have much of what is known as a "command voice."
"I'd do what he says, pal," Edgar Delchamps suggested, conversationally. "Lester's been known to use that.45, and Max likes to bite people."
The young man dropped to his knees, then went flat to the tile of the shaded verandah. Max leaned over him, showing his teeth. Madchen sat on her haunches across from him.
"I apprehended the intruder behind the pine trees, sir," Bradley announced, "as he was making his way toward the house."
"He was inside the fence?" Castillo asked. "What happened to the motion detectors?"
"He was inside the fence, sir," Bradley said. "Perhaps there is a malfunction of the motion-detecting system."
Tony Santini, carrying a Mini Uzi, and Ricardo Solez, holding a CAR-4, came out of the quincho.
"Jesus Christ, Pegleg!" Solez exclaimed. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Right now I'm laying on my goddamn stomach," the young man said.
"You know this guy, Ricardo?" Castillo asked.
"Yes, sir," Solez said.
Castillo waited a moment, then asked, "Well?"
"He's an assistant military attache at the embassy in Asuncion."
"Permission to speak, sir?" the man on the tile said.
"See what he's got in his pockets, Sandor," Castillo ordered.
Sandor Tor bent over the man on the tile, took a wallet from his hip pocket, and tossed it to Castillo. Then he rolled the man onto his back and went into the pockets of his jacket. He came up with an American diplomatic passport and tossed that to Castillo.
Castillo examined it.
"Sit, Max," he ordered.
Max looked at him, head cocked.
"He's probably not a bad guy," Castillo added.
After a moment, as if he had considered, then accepted, what Castillo had said, Max sat back on his haunches.
"Permission to speak, sir?" the man on the tile said.
"Why not?" Castillo said.
"Sir, I request to see Lieutenant Colonel Costello."
"Nobody here by that name," Castillo said. "Why don't we talk about what the hell you're doing here?"
"Sir, I came to see Colonel Costello."
"And if this Colonel Costello was here, what were you going to say to him?" Castillo asked.
"I was going to ask him for his help."
"Help about what?" Castillo asked, but before the man had a chance to open his mouth, Castillo asked another question. "You sneaked in here to ask somebody for help?"
"Sir, I didn't know what name you were using for the safe house. And even if I did, I didn't think you would pass me through the gate to this place. So I had to come in surreptitiously."
"Son," Edgar Delchamps asked, "how'd you get past the motion sensors on the fence? Fences, plural?"
"Dry ice, sir. I froze the mercury switches."
"Where'd you get the dry ice?"
"I bought it from a kid who delivers ice cream on a motorbike from the Freddo's ice cream store in the shopping mall."
"And where'd you learn to use dry ice on mercury switches?"
"Fort Huachuca, sir."
He pronounced that correctly, Castillo thought. "Wah-choo-kuh."
"What were you doing at Huachuca?" Delchamps challenged.
"Going through the Intelligence School."
"You're an Army intelligence officer?"
"Yes, sir. First Lieutenant Edmund Lorimer, sir."
"Lorimer?" Castillo said. "Your name is Lorimer?"
"Yes, sir. Same as that UN guy who got himself whacked in Uruguay."
"Your witness, Colonel," Delchamps said, gesturing grandly.
"You're Colonel Costello?" Lorimer asked.
"For the time being, I'll ask the questions," Castillo snapped, and was immediately sorry. "You may get up, Lieutenant Lorimer."
"Thank you, sir."
"You can put the.45 away, Bradley," Castillo said. He added, "But good job, Lester."
"Thank you, sir. The credit is due Max. He either detected unusual movement in the pines or perhaps smelled him."
"Take them inside the quincho, tell them 'good dog!', and give them each a bone."
"Yes, sir. Sir, when Max has too many bones-and he's already had several today-he suffers flatulence."
"Use your good judgment, Lester."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Castillo had been watching Lorimer out of the corner of his eye, idly wondering why he was getting to his feet slowly and carefully. He saw that Lorimer was smiling at Bradley, probably at the word "flatulence."
Lorimer's eyes met Castillo's for a moment, and when Lorimer was half-sitting on the table there, Castillo saw what had caused him to get to his feet so slowly and carefully.
And why Ricardo had called him "Pegleg."
Lorimer's right trouser leg had been pulled up. Rising from his stockinged ankle was a dully shining metal tube.
Titanium, Castillo thought. They now make those things out of titanium. How do I know that?
"What happened to your leg?" Castillo asked gently.
"RPG," Lorimer said.
"Where?"
"Afghanistan. We got bushwhacked on the way to Mazar. On Highway A76."
Castillo knew well the Mazar airfield-and, for that matter, Highway A76, the road to it from Kabul. The next to last time he had been there, he had "borrowed" a Black Hawk helicopter to make an extraction of the crew of another Black Hawk that had been shot down. Far senior officers had reluctantly concluded that the weather was so bad that making such an attempt would have been suicidal.
The last time he'd been at Mazar was to board a USAF C-5 Galaxy for the States, which carried him home with a vaguely phrased letter of reprimand for "knowingly and flagrantly violating flight safety rules."
The letter of reprimand was the compromise reached between several very senior officers who wished to recommend him for the Distinguished Service Cross-or perhaps even The Medal-and other very senior officers who wished to bring the crazy Special Forces sonofabitch before a General Court-Martial for willful disobedience of orders.
"How far up does that thing go?" Castillo asked.
"To the knee. Actually, the knee's part of it. All titanium."
"What were you doing in Afghanistan?"
"I thought I was winning their hearts and minds until this happened."
"You were Special Forces?"
Lorimer nodded. "Was. Now I'm Intelligence. DIA."
"How did that happen?"
"Well, for a while I thought I could do a Freddy Franks, but that didn't work."
General Frederick M. Franks Jr., then an Army major, lost a leg to wounds suffered in the Cambodian Incursion during the Vietnam War. He managed to stay in the Army by proving he could pass any physical test required of any officer. He became both the first one-legged general since the Civil War and, as a four-star general, the commander of ground forces in the First Desert War. Franks served as an inspiration to all-particularly to amputees.
"Why not?"
"It hurt too much."
"Okay. Who told you about this place?" Castillo asked.
"I asked around, sir."
"I asked who, Lieutenant."
Castillo looked at Ricardo Solez, who proclaimed his innocence by shaking his head and wagging both hands palms outward.
Lorimer said, "A lot people, sir. I just put it together."
"Among them Solez?"
"He was one of them, but he wouldn't tell me anything. But he's how I found out where you were."
Castillo glanced at Solez, who motioned to maintain his innocence, then looked back at Lorimer.
"He told you where we were?" Castillo said.
Lorimer shook his head. "I followed him and that kid with the.45 out here from the embassy."
Solez and Bradley, who had been posted to the embassy before they had been drafted by Castillo, had been assigned to make daily-sometimes twice-daily-errand runs from Nuestra Pequena Casa to the embassy specifically and to Buenos Aires generally. The theory was they were fami
liar faces and would attract the least attention.
Castillo looked at Solez, whose face now showed pain.
Castillo was tempted to let it go, but changed his mind. Getting followed was inexcusable.
"No rearview mirrors on the Trafic, right, Ricardo?" Castillo asked.
"Jesus Christ, Carlos, I'm sorry."
His embarrassment-shame-was clear in his voice.
"He's pretty good, Colonel," Lorimer said. "He led me up and down every back street between here and Palermo."
"But you're better, right?"
"Yes, sir. I guess I am."
"Okay. So you're here. Why?"
"A friend of mine, a DEA agent, got kidnapped about a week ago. I need some help to get him back. I figured you were the guy who could help, maybe the only one," Lorimer said.
"Why would you think that?"
"Because you got the bad guys who kidnapped Jack the Stack's wife and whacked him."
"What if I told you I have no idea what you're talking about?"
"Sir, I would expect you to say just that," Lorimer said. "But, sir, with respect, you better get used to the idea that the cat's out of the bag. I even heard of what went down and I'm pretty low down on the pay scale. And in Paraguay."
Castillo looked at Delchamps.
"Write this down, Ace," Delchamps said. "There's no such thing as a secret."
"Oh, shit!" Castillo said, and shook his head. Then he turned to Lorimer.
"Lieutenant Lorimer, I am Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, Special Forces, U.S. Army."
"Yes, sir."
"I inform you herewith that I am here operating on the authority of a Presidential Finding…"
"Yes, sir."
"Close your mouth until I'm finished, Lieutenant. You are advised herewith that each and every aspect of this operation is classified Top Secret Presidential. From this moment on, you will not discuss with anyone what you think you may have learned, or what you think you may have surmised, about anything connected with this operation. That includes the names of personnel, and the location of personnel or facilities, and what I or anyone connected with this operation may or may not have done. Any breach of these instructions will result in your trial by General Court-Martial-at which, trust me, you will be found guilty-and being placed in solitary confinement at probably Leavenworth until the details of this operation are no longer of interest to anyone. You run off at the mouth, and you'll wish the RPG had got all of you. Got it?"
The shooters pa-4 Page 3