“Go,” Mr. D’Alessandro said by way of answering his CaseyBerry.
“Bad news, Vic,” General McNab said. “Danny Salazar and two DEA guys with him were whacked about noon fifty miles from Acapulco. They were in an embassy SUV with Colonel Ferris. The SUV and Ferris are missing.”
“Shit! What happened?”
“I want you to go down there-black-and find out,” McNab said. “You and no more than two of your people. By the time you get to Pope, the C-38 will be waiting to fly you to Atlanta. By the time you get there, you should have reservations on Aeromexico to either Acapulco or Mexico City. I’ll try to confirm while you’re en route.”
In a closely guarded hangar at Pope Air Force Base, which abutted Fort Bragg, were several aircraft, including a highly modified Boeing 727 and a C-38, the latter the military nomenclature of the Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd./Galaxy Aerospace Corporation Astra SPX business jet. The C-38 had civilian markings.
“I’ll take Nunez and Vargas.”
“Your call.”
“Who’s paying for this?”
McNab, who hadn’t considered that detail, gave it some quick thought.
There were two options, neither of which would cost the U.S. taxpayer a dime. In D’Alessandro’s safe, together with an assortment of passports in different names, were two manila envelopes, one marked “TP” and one “Charley.” Each envelope held two inch-thick stacks of credit cards, American Express Platinum and Citibank Gold Visa cards, the names embossed on them matching the names on the passports, and two business-size envelopes, each holding $10,000 in used hundred-, fifty-, and twenty-dollar bills.
There had been a “TP” envelope in the safe for several years. TP stood for Those People. Those People were an anonymous group of very wealthy businessmen who saw it as their patriotic duty to fund black Special Operations missions when getting official funds to do so would be difficult or impossible.
The “Charley” envelope was a recent addition to D’Alessandro’s safe. Charley stood for Lieutenant Colonel Carlos G. Castillo, Special Forces, U.S. Army, Retired. The Amex Platinum and Citibank Gold Visa cards in the Charley envelope identified their holders as officers of the LCBF Corporation.
During a recent covert operation-which went so far beyond black that McNab had dubbed it Operation March Hare, as in “mad as a March hare”-Castillo and McNab had learned that Those People had concluded that since they were making a financial contribution to an operation, they had the right to throw the special operators under the bus when it seemed to be the logical thing to do, considering the big picture.
One of the results of that was the LCBF Corporation’s decision to provide General McNab with the same sort of stand-by funding as Those People provided. It had not posed any financial problems for the LCBF Corporation to do so. The LCBF Corporation already had negotiable assets of more than $50 million when the director of the Central Intelligence Agency handed Mr. David W. Yung-LCBF’s vice president, finance-a Treasury check for $125 million in settlement of the CIA’s promise to pay that sum, free of any tax liabilities, to whoever delivered to them an intact Russian Tupelov Tu-934A transport aircraft.
Mr. D’Alessandro had written “Charley” on the LCBF envelope without thinking about it. D’Alessandro had still been a sergeant major when Second Lieutenant Castillo had first been passed behind the fences of the Stockade. And as good sergeants major do, he had taken the young officer under his wing. Both D’Alessandro and General McNab devoutly believed they had raised Castillo from a pup.
General McNab would have dearly liked to stick Those People with the costs of D’Alessandro’s reconnaissance mission, but decided in the end it would not be the thing to do now. He would think of something else-a bayonet, maybe-to stick them with at a later time.
“Let Charley pay for it, Vic,” he said.
“I’ll be in touch,” D’Alessandro said, and broke the CaseyBerry connection.
FOUR
The Machiavelli Penthouse Suite The Venetian 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South Las Vegas, Nevada 1710 11 April 2007
Aloysius F. Casey, Ph.D., chairman of the board of the AFC Corporation, stepped off the elevator onto the upper-level reception foyer of the Machiavelli Suite, and then stepped to one side, graciously waving out the two females from the elevator.
The first woman was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, who was fifty-one, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby. Mrs. Forbison was vice president, administration, of the LCBF Corporation. Previously she had been-as a GS-15- administrative assistant to the Honorable Thomas Hall, secretary of the then-newly formed Department of Homeland Security, and after that, deputy chief for administration of the now-defunct Office of Organizational Analysis.
Second to get off the elevator was a stunningly beautiful woman with luxuriant dark red hair. Her passport identified her as a Uruguayan citizen by the name of Susanna Barlow.
Following Senorita Barlow off the elevator was Lieutenant Colonel Carlos G. Castillo, Ret.-a good-looking, six- foot, 190-pound thirty-seven-year-old-who was the president of the LCBF Corporation. Castillo was followed by an enormous black dog, a Bouvier des Flandres, who answered to Max.
As Castillo stood beside Miss Barlow, she said-hissed perhaps would be more accurate-“You remember I told you this was a mistake.”
On Castillo’s heels came Mr. Edgar Delchamps, a nondescript man in his early sixties, who was vice president, planning and operations, of the LCBF Corporation. He was retired from the Central Intelligence Agency, where he had served for more than thirty years as an officer of the Clandestine Service.
Delchamps was followed by thirty-three-year-old David W. Yung, Jr., who stood five feet eight and weighed 150 pounds. Despite his obvious Oriental heritage, Mr. Yung could not speak any of the languages of the Orient. He was fluent, however, in four other languages. The vice president, financial, of the LCBF Corporation was an attorney and previously had been a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The final passenger stepped off the elevator. His Argentine passport identified him as Tomas Barlow. He was about the same age as Castillo and was built like him. He was Senorita Barlow’s brother. In a previous life, they had been Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky, the SVR
Castillo walked to the edge of the upper-level entrance foyer, rested his hands on the bronze rail atop the glass wall, and looked down to the lower level. Max went with him, put his front paws on the rail, and barked.
Four men-three of them well, even elegantly, dressed-were standing there, looking up at the upper level. One of them was a legendary hotelier who owned four of the more glitzy Las Vegas hotels, and three more in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Biloxi, Mississippi.
Another was a well-known, perhaps even famous, investment banker. Another had made an enormous fortune in data processing. Castillo knew him to be a U.S. Naval Academy graduate. The fourth man was a sort of mousy-looking character in a suit that looked as if it had come off the final-clearance rack at Goodwill. All that Castillo knew about him was that no one knew exactly how many radio and television stations he owned.
Those People and the executive board of the LCBF were about to meet.
Castillo turned and walked back to the people by the elevator door.
“This is your show, Aloysius,” he said, loudly enough for Those People to hear. “You get to choose who gets thrown off the balcony first.”
Delchamps and Tom Barlow chuckled. Yung smiled.
Casey shook his head and walked toward the head of the curving staircase leading to the lower level. Max trotted after him, then turned to look at Castillo as if expecting an order to “stay.” When that did not come, he went down the stairs ahead of Casey, headed directly for a coffee table laden with hors d’oeuvres, and with great delicacy helped himself to a caviar-topped cracker.
“Careful, Max,” Castillo called. “They’re probably poisoned.”
“Enough, Carlito!” Senorita Barlow ordered.
She then started down the stairs. Everyone followed, Casey last, after Castillo, as if to ensure that Castillo
