Covert Warriors

Central America, and the rest of South America. Susanna speaks the Southern Cone variety.”

“I heard that,” Juan Carlos said. “Uruguay, huh? Is that where you two met?”

“Yeah,” Castillo said.

A maid appeared, and Fernando told her to bring whiskey.

“So,” Juan Carlos asked, “what brings you to Hacienda Santa Maria, Senorita Barlow?” Before she could reply, Juan Carlos added: “Barlow doesn’t sound very Hungarian, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“It used to be Borocz,” Sweaty said. “Which no one could pronounce, much less spell, in Spanish. So we changed it.”

“You were telling me what you’re doing here,” Juan Carlos said.

“Stefan and I are looking at those,” Sweaty said, pointing to the grapefruit grove. “When Carlos told us his family was in the citrus business-I have some pastureland I’m thinking of converting-and then that he was coming here, I imposed on his hospitality. Really imposed on it. I brought a half a dozen citrus experts with me. Stefan’s the expert’s expert.”

“I didn’t know they grow grapefruit in Uruguay,” Juan Carlos said.

“They don’t grow much, but some. Maybe I can change that.”

“And your expert’s expert is another Hungarian? Koussevitzky doesn’t sound like he’s a native of Uruguay.”

“Actually, I’m Israeli,” Koussevitzky said. “Or was. Now I’m an Uruguayan citizen.”

“They grow grapefruit in Israel?”

“All the citrus fruits, our-their-biggest market is Italy and France,” Koussevitzky said.

“I’ll be damned. I never heard that,” Juan Carlos said, and then asked, “What were you doing in Uruguay, Carlos?”

“I was an assistant military attache of the American embassy.”

“‘Assistant military attache,’ huh?” Juan Carlos parroted. “Sounds pretty snazzy.”

“It’s what the Army does with officers who are not going to get promoted, and don’t have enough time in to retire,” Castillo said. “They send them to an embassy until they have enough time. The only good thing about it was that I met Susanna in Montevideo.”

“So you’re retired now?” Juan Carlos said.

The maid came to them with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and accoutrements on a tray. When she poured the Tennessee whiskey into a glass, Juan Carlos gestured for her to add more.

“Jack Daniel’s is like sex,” he announced. “You can never get enough.”

“So is gold,” Sweaty said.

Juan Carlos looked at her and smiled.

“I like her, Carlos,” he said, raising his glass and taking a healthy swallow. “What I can’t figure out is what a redhead like that sees in a skinny gringo like you.”

“It’s been a long time, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said. “But I think I can still kick your ass.”

Juan Carlos looked at him for a moment, and then smiled and said, “I’ll bet you could. You know I’m just kidding, Red, right?”

“Carlos wasn’t,” Sweaty said.

He considered that for a moment, smiled, and said, “So you’re retired now, huh?”

“For a couple of months.”

“I was thinking that the last time I saw you was when you had just graduated from West Point. You were a second lieutenant about to go to flight school.”

“I guess that’s right,” Castillo said.

He thought: My ol’ pal Juan Carlos didn’t come here for auld lang syne.

He came here to find out what’s going on here at Hacienda Santa Maria.

He may have even heard about the ex-Spetsnaz “citrus experts.”

Heard about but not seen.

Fernando flew them here onto our strip, and Stefan told them to keep out of sight, which means they did.

Which means I’m being interrogated.

Does Juan Carlos think I don’t know that?

Or doesn’t care if I do?

“And now you’re a retired colonel.”

“Retired lieutenant colonel,” Castillo said. “I got passed over for promotion to colonel twice. That was when they sent me to Uruguay.”

“So what brings you to Hacienda Santa Maria?”

“I think you know, Juan Carlos.”

“I don’t have a fucking clue, Carlos.”

“The Army officer who was kidnapped, Jim Ferris, is a West Point classmate of mine, an old friend. I thought-Fernando told me you’re the commandant of the Policia Federal in Oaxaca Province-you’d be the guy who would know. Maybe even tell me how I could help to get him back.”

“You want some good advice, Carlos?”

“That’s what I came here for.”

“Get in your airplane and go home. Better yet, go back to Uruguay. Before you and your friends get hurt. You don’t want to fuck with these people, Carlos. They’re really bad news.”

“So I’ve heard. Fernando told me. But I figured my old friend, now a heavy-duty Federale, could protect me.”

“Your old friend has a tough time protecting himself,” Juan Carlos said. “You saw Lieutenant Gomez, the guy with the CAR-15?”

Castillo nodded.

“There’s two more guys with CAR-15s in my Suburban, and four more of them in the other Suburban. I call them the American Express,’cause I never go anywhere without them. Don’t you read the papers?”

“You’re talking about the drug cartel people?”

“You bet your fucking ass I am.”

“I’ve been in Uruguay. There’s drugs in Uruguay. The cops down there don’t run around with CAR-15s.”

Pena looked at him as if he couldn’t believe Castillo’s naivete.

Or stupidity. Or both.

“Well, Carlos, let me tell you about the drugs here,” Juan Carlos said. “As opposed to in Uruguay. Where the fuck is Uruguay, anyway?”

“On the other side of the river from Buenos Aires.”

Got you now, Juan Carlos, ol’ buddy!

Rule Seven in the Uncle Remus List of Rules for the Interrogation of Belligerent Bad Guys: “Make them think you’re stupid and then let them show you how smart and knowledgeable they are.”

“Let me try to sum it up this way, Carlos,” Juan Carlos said. “This stuff starts out when some campesino in Bolivia or wherever the fuck sticks his knife in a flower, a poppy, and collects the goo that comes out. Or boils down the coca leaf. The last stop is when some junkie in the States either sucks it up his nostrils, or sticks it in his vein. By then it’s either cocaine or heroin.”

“What are you telling me you think I don’t know?”

Juan Carlos held his now empty whiskey glass. The maid took it.

“Put enough in it this time,” he said in Spanish, and then switched back to English.

“Shut your mouth for a fucking minute, Carlos, and I’ll tell you what you don’t know. At every step, from processing that shit so it becomes heroin or cocaine, the price goes up, way up. You do understand that?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Juan Carlos.”

“You could have fooled me. Now, the same thing is true in every step between the fields and the junkie’s nose. The price goes up. Way, way up by the time it gets close to the States.

“Now, the people in this business, as you can imagine, are not very nice people. Dona Alicia would not invite them to dinner-and on that subject, thank you very much, but I can’t stay for dinner.”