There were a dozen people sitting at the table, which had places for twenty. There were perhaps twice that number sitting on chairs against the walls, obviously subordinates of the people at the table, and not senior enough to be at the table.
The only person Castillo recognized was Milton Weiss. He was sitting near one end of the table, between a man and a woman, obviously the CIA delegation.
Castillo and Miller took seats halfway down the table across from Weiss, who looked at Castillo but gave no sign of recognition.
“If I may have your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” Ellsworth said. “Now that Lieutenant Colonel Castillo, who is the representative of the Department of Homeland Security, has joined us, we can get this under way.”
You pompous sonofabitch!
Should I have brought a note from my mommy saying why I’m late?
“My name is Truman Ellsworth. Ambassador Montvale had other things on his plate this morning and sent me to represent him. This is, as I said, an informal meeting, but in view of the sensitive material which may come to light, a Top Secret security classification is in place, and it is not to be recorded.
“As I understand it,” Ellsworth went on, “the attorney general and the DNI, Ambassador Montvale, are agreed that there may well be intelligence aspects to the kidnapping of a DEA agent in Paraguay, and that it behooves us to share, informally, what information we have which might shed light on the situation.
“May I suggest that the principals identify themselves? Why don’t we work our way around the table?”
He sat down and nodded to a swarthy man on his right.
“John Walsh, DEA,” the man said.
“Helena Dumbrowsky, State Department,” a somewhat plump, red-haired woman announced.
“Norman Seacroft, Treasury.” He was a slight, thin man in a baggy suit.
“Milton Weiss, CIA.”
“Colonel K. L. DeBois, DIA.” The representative of the Defense Intelligence Agency was tall and wiry, and wore his hair clipped almost to the skull.
“C. G. Castillo, Homeland Security.”
“Inspector Bruce Saffery, FBI.” Saffery was a well-tailored man in his early fifties.
Castillo thought: I wonder if he knows Inspector John J. Doherty?
“Excuse me,” Colonel DeBois said, looking at Castillo and holding up his index finger. “But didn’t Mr. Ellsworth just refer to you as ‘Lieutenant Colonel’?”
Ellsworth, you sonofabitch. I’m not wearing a uniform. You didn’t have to refer to me as an officer.
And why do I think that wasn’t an accident?
“Yes, sir, I believe he did.”
“You’re a serving officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And—presuming I’m allowed to ask—what exactly is it you do for the Department of Homeland Security, Colonel?”
“Sir, I’m an executive assistant to the secretary.”
“How much do you know about the Office of Organizational Analysis?”
“Aside from that we’re using their conference room, sir, not much.”
“The reason I’m asking, Colonel, is that I was ordered to transfer one of my officers, a young lieutenant who was stationed in Asunción, to the Office of Organizational Analysis.”
Oh, shit! Lorimer!
Castillo glanced at Truman Ellsworth and saw that he was looking at him. Ellsworth’s face was expressionless, but he was looking.
“His name is First Lieutenant Edmund J. Lorimer,” DeBois pursued.
“I just can’t help you, Colonel,” Castillo said.
This meeting hasn’t even started and I’m already lying through my teeth to a fellow officer who looks like a nice guy.
“Perhaps you could ask Secretary Hall, Colonel Castillo,” Ellsworth suggested, helpfully.
Oh, you miserable sonofabitch!
“Yes, I suppose I could do that,” Castillo said. “I’ll get back to you, Colonel, if I’m able to find out anything.”
“I’d appreciate it,” DeBois said. “He’s a nice young officer who lost a leg from above the knee in Afghanistan. I’ve been sort of keeping an eye on him.”
“I’ll see what I can find out for you, sir, as soon as this meeting is over.”
“I’d really appreciate it, Colonel.”
“Why don’t we start with you, Mr. Walsh?” Ellsworth said. “Exactly what happened in Asunción?”
Walsh took ten minutes to report in minute detail less than Castillo already knew. He didn’t mention the garrote with which Timmons’s driver had been murdered, just that he had been killed, means unspecified. Castillo decided he either hadn’t been told how the driver had been killed, or had and didn’t understand the significance.
Without saying so in so many words, Walsh made it clear that he thought the DEA could get Timmons back by themselves, if certain restrictions on what they could do were relaxed.
Mrs. Dumbrowsky of the State Department took the same amount of time to explain the excellent relations enjoyed by the United States with the Republic of Paraguay, expressed great admiration for the Paraguayan law-enforcement authorities, and made it clear without saying so in so many words that she strongly felt it would be a diplomatic disaster if a cretin like Walsh was allowed to destroy the aforesaid splendid relationship by going down there guns blazing and taking the law into his own hands.
Mr. Seacroft of the Treasury Department somewhat jocularly said that while he wasn’t much of an admirer of anything French, he did think it was hard to disagree with their criminal investigation philosophy of searching for the money, and announced that he was going to run everything he had through the computers again and see what came out the other end.
Castillo had glanced at Ellsworth several times during Mr. Seacroft’s discourse. Castillo had seen from Ellsworth’s look of utter contempt that he, too, knew that the French criminal investigation philosophy was Cherchez la femme—though their seeking of femme meant “women,” not “money.”
Milton Weiss of the CIA said that he had to confess being a little surprised at the attention the kidnapping of Special Agent Timmons was getting. He had heard—unofficially, of course—that it was a not-uncommon occurrence—perhaps even common—and that in the end the drug thugs usually turned the kidnappee free.
He implied that the agency had far more important things to do than worry about one DEA agent, who, it could be reasonably assumed, had some idea of what he was getting himself into when he first became a DEA agent and subsequently went to Paraguay. The CIA would, however, Weiss said, keep its ear to the ground and promptly inform everybody if it came up with something.
It was Castillo’s turn next.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know nothing about this. I’m just here to listen and learn.”
And the truth here, if I’m to believe what I’ve heard from these people, is that I know more about this than anyone else.
Except, of course, Weiss, and he’s lying through his teeth.
Making at least two of us here who are doing that.
Colonel DeBois was next, and he immediately began to prove that he had come to the meeting prepared to share whatever knowledge the DIA had with the rest of the intelligence community.
“I think I—the DIA—has more knowledge of the situation down there than maybe we should,” he began. “The background to that is that our people there, the defense attaché and his assistants, are encouraged to report informally on matters that come to their attention that are not entirely defense related but which they feel may be of interest to the DIA.
“Lieutenant Lorimer, to whom I referred earlier, became friends with Special Agent Timmons, and from him learned a good deal about the DEA operations there, which Lorimer passed on to us. Timmons may well have crossed the ‘need to know’ line there, telling Lorimer what he did, but I think that area’s a little fuzzy. If we’re here to share intelligence, what’s really wrong with our people in the field doing the same thing?”
“It�
��s against the law, for one thing,” Milton Weiss said.
“Oh, come on, Weiss,” John Walsh of the DEA said. “They all do it, and we all know they do it, and you know as well as I do that there’s nothing really wrong with it.”
Good for you, Walsh. I think I like you.
“If I’m getting into something here that perhaps I shouldn’t?” DeBois said.
“Whatever you heard from your people couldn’t really be called reliable intelligence, could it?” Ellsworth said. “It would be, in legal terms, ‘hearsay,’ would it not?”
“I’d like to hear the hearsay,” Castillo said.
Ellsworth flashed Castillo an icy look.
Is that because he doesn’t like me challenging him?
Or because he doesn’t want DeBois to report what Lorimer told him?
“Please go on, sir,” Castillo said.
“I thought you were chairing this meeting, Mr. Ellsworth?” Weiss demanded.
“We’re supposed to be sharing intel, so let’s share it,” Castillo said.
Careful, Charley, you don’t want to lose your temper.
After a moment’s hesitation, Ellsworth said, “I think if Colonel Castillo wants to hear what Colonel DeBois has to say, then we should. With my caveat that it really is hearsay.”
“Actually, rather than hard intelligence,” DeBois said, “what Lieutenant Lorimer provided might be called background—his informal assessment of the problems down there, his own opinions, plus what he heard from Special Agent Timmons and others.”
“Why don’t you get on with it, Colonel?” Weiss said impatiently. “So the rest of us can get out of here?”
“Very well,” DeBois said. “Lorimer reported that Timmons said, and he agreed, that the drug operations in Paraguay are more sophisticated than might be expected.”
“Sophisticated?” Weiss parroted incredulously.
“The drug people in Paraguay seemed to be taking unusual steps to keep from calling attention to themselves,” DeBois said.
“I thought all drug dealers did that,” Weiss said.
“If you keep interrupting Colonel DeBois, Mr. Weiss,” Castillo said, “we’ll all be here a long time. Why not let him finish, and then offer your comments all at once?”
Colonel DeBois looked at Castillo gratefully, then went on: “According to Lorimer, Timmons said they had sort of a system, a sophisticated system, of dealing with the Paraguayan authorities. A system of rewards and punishment.”
“I’d like to hear about that,” Walsh said. “This is all news to me.”
“For one example, people approach the children of Paraguayan police on their way home from school. They give them envelopes to give to their mothers. The envelopes contain money.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Dumbrowsky said.
“Well, to Special Agent Timmons, it was pretty clear it was a message. If you don’t give us trouble, we will give you money. And if you do, we know where to find your family.”
“Mr. Walsh, how experienced an agent was Timmons?” Weiss asked.
“He hadn’t been down there long, if that’s what you’re asking,” Walsh said.
“And how long had he been with the DEA?”
“He hasn’t been in DEA very long, but if you’re suggesting he was—that he is—sort of a rookie, I don’t think that’s right. He was a cop in Chicago. He comes from a family of cops. And he’s a lawyer. He was recruited for the DEA by one of our guys in Chicago who met him and liked what he saw. He’s fluent in Spanish.”
“Go on, please, Colonel,” Weiss said, “and tell us whatever else this very bright, very new DEA agent has theorized.”
Colonel DeBois nodded and said, “Timmons also saw sophistication in how these people dealt with DEA agents. There were significant differences. For one thing, there were no envelopes with money, which Timmons felt was significant because it meant that the drug people knew the DEA agents could neither be bought nor coerced by threats against their families. Or because the drug people knew that injuring—or killing—the family of an American would bring a good deal of attention.”
“But they are willing to kidnap DEA agents?” Inspector Saffery of the FBI asked.
That’s the first time he’s opened his mouth.
“Oh, yes.”
“One would think that DEA agents would protect themselves from being kidnapped,” Weiss said. “Wouldn’t you, Inspector?”
“Very few FBI agents are kidnapped,” Saffery said, chuckling.
“That’s what Timmons found interesting,” DeBois said.
“Doesn’t kidnapping imply a ransom?” Norman Seacroft, of the Treasury Department, asked. “That’s interesting! How much did they ask?”
“Kidnapping is taking someone against his or her will,” Saffery said, somewhat intolerantly. “There doesn’t have to be a ransom element.”
“These people don’t ask for a ransom?”
“Not so far,” Walsh said.
“Then why do they kidnap them? And how do we get them back?” Seacroft asked.
“According to what Timmons told Lorimer, they kidnap them to suggest that working too hard to interdict the flow of drugs is not smart.”
“But they turn them loose, right?” Seacroft said.
“As I understand it, all the DEA agents who have been kidnapped have been returned unharmed,” Weiss said.
“Mr. Weiss, are you suggesting that becoming addicted to heroin is not being harmed?” Colonel DeBois asked, coldly courteous.
“Addicted to heroin?” Seacroft parroted.
DeBois explained, “I don’t know the exact figure—Timmons didn’t know—but at least two kidnapped DEA agents who were turned free by their captors had become addicted to heroin.”
“Four,” Walsh said.
“Let me make sure I understand this,” Inspector Saffery said. “While these people held the DEA agents, they forced heroin on them? Turned them into addicts?”
“Correct,” Walsh said.
“That’s hard to believe!” Mrs. Dumbrowsky said.
“The ones who were addicted were released after there had been a successful delivery of a large drug shipment,” Walsh said.
“This is the first I’ve heard of this!” Saffery said, indignantly.
“Inspector,” Walsh said, “think about it. If you were a field agent who had become involuntarily addicted, would you like that information to become widely known? Even—perhaps especially—within the FBI?”
“As Mr. Ellsworth has pointed out, this is nothing more than hearsay,” Mrs. Dumbrowsky said. “The State Department has heard nothing like this.”
“And unless the colonel has some more fascinating hearsay to relate,” Weiss said, “I really do have other things to do.”
He stood up.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Weiss, I wasn’t quite through,” DeBois said, coldly.
Weiss reluctantly sat down.
“Putting everything together, Timmons had been wondering if perhaps the Paraguayan drug-shipment operation was being run by someone other than the Paraguayan/Colombian/Bolivian drug people.”
Castillo glanced at Weiss.
You didn’t expect to hear that, did you, Milton?
But who is he talking about?
I can’t believe that Timmons got into the Stasi/DGI involvement.
“That’s absurd!” Weiss said.
“Why is it absurd, Mr. Weiss?” DeBois asked, courteously.
“On its face,” Weiss said.
“Wait a minute,” Saffery said. “Why not? The drug trade didn’t start last week. A lot of these people have lived in the States for years—some of them even legally with Green Cards, even citizenship—”
“Your point, Inspector?” Weiss interrupted.
“What I’m saying is that they’ve been in the States long enough to figure out what Cousin José back in Colombia has been doing wrong and to tell him how to do it right.”
“Define ‘right’ for me, please, Ins
pector,” Weiss said.
“Don’t kill our DEA people,” Saffery said. “That draws attention to you. Knock off that macho bullshit—excuse me, Mrs. Dumbrowsky—that doesn’t make us any money. Getting the stuff through is what makes us money.”
“With all respect, Inspector, I still think that’s absurd,” Weiss said, and stood up again. “Mr. Ellsworth, if I have to say this, if the agency comes by some solid intelligence, it will be immediately brought to your attention, and that of Ambassador Montvale.”
“Thank you,” Ellsworth said.
The rest of the CIA delegation was now on its feet.
They followed Weiss to the door.
“Not that one, Weiss,” Castillo blurted. “That’s the door to my office.”
By then Weiss had cracked the door open.
He turned to look at Castillo.
Max, towing Sergeant Phillips behind him, shouldered the door open.
The edge caught Weiss on the side of the face.
“Sonofabitch!” he exclaimed, and backed away, running into the rest of the CIA delegation and causing further consternation. No one actually fell down, but almost, and two briefcases hit the floor.
Max went to Castillo, sat down, and offered him his paw.
“Colonel, I’m sorry,” Phillips said. “I didn’t realize how strong he is!”
“Presumably, Castillo, that animal is yours?” Ellsworth said.
“Actually, I’m just minding him for a friend,” Castillo said. “You all right, Mr. Weiss?”
Weiss glared at him, then marched to the other door, and the CIA delegation departed.
The others in the room were reacting as if an auto accident had just happened before their eyes. No one moved, or showed any inclination to do so.
“Well, it would appear this meeting is over,” Castillo said.
Ellsworth looked at him with a stone face, then turned to those at the table and said, “Yes, it would appear that way. Thank you, all, for coming.”
“Colonel,” Castillo said to Colonel DeBois. “May I have a moment of your time, sir?”
He gestured toward the open door to his office.
DeBois nodded, stood up, and walked to the door, then through it. Castillo, with Max and Phillips behind him, followed, and then Miller.
The Shooters Page 25