Black Ops

Darby said to tell you that Ambassador Silvio says ambassadors can’t do visas—but that he asked the consul, who does, and who was delighted to authorize multiple-entry visas for any friends of Colonsel Castillo.”

Thirty-five minutes after that, they landed at the San Martin de los Andes airport. Max had barely begun his nose gear ritual when three Mercedes-Benz SUVs pulled up beside the Gulfstream.

There had been a brief but intensely emotional moment as everybody, tears running shamelessly down their cheeks, embraced everyone else. Castillo had been a little wet-eyed himself.

Then everyone—including Ivan the Terrible and Marina—loaded into the SUVs and took off.

Max looked at Castillo with his head cocked, as if asking, Where the hell are those people going with my children? But when he heard the whine as Miller began to restart the engines, he trotted quickly up the stairs into the fuselage without waiting to be told.

Five minutes later, they broke ground.

The fuel stop at Bariloche posed no problems whatever, and when Miller checked the weather he learned it would be perfect all the way to Punta del Este.

And they found that the immigration authorities had the same immigration setup at Bariloche as the Buquebus had in Buenos Aires. Which was: An Argentine immigration officer put the DEPARTED ARGENTINA stamp in their passports, officially stating that they had left Argentina. Then he slid the passports to a Uruguayan immigration officer sitting next to him, who put the ENTERED URUGUAY stamp in the passport. There would be no immigration formalities when they got to Punta del Este.

An hour into what would be the final leg, Sergeant Kensington called again to report that Alfredo, Darby, and “their friend” were aboard the Buquebus about to leave for Montevideo. That meant there had been no questions asked about Berezovsky’s new national identity card.

And the flight to Aeropuerto Internacional Capitan de Corbeta Carlos A. Curbelo had been smooth, uneventful, and had ended in what Castillo with all modesty considered to be one of his better landings.

And what that means, as stated clearly in Castillo Rule Seven, is:

“That inasmuch as everything has gone perfectly so far, something will surely fuck up big-time in the next couple of minutes.”

“The last time I landed here, we were the only airplane on the field,” Castillo said as they turned off the runway to trail a FOLLOW ME pickup truck to where they would be parked. “Now look at it!”

There were too many airplanes on the field to count, but the bigger aircraft among them were four glistening Boeing 737s. Two bore the logotypes of LAN-CHILE and Aerolineas Argentinas. The other two—GOL and OceanAir —Castillo had never heard of, but to judge by the flag on their vertical stabilizers, both were Brazilian.

The FOLLOW ME pickup truck led them between lines of private aircraft—mostly Beechcraft turboprops, but there were two Gulfstreams, one with Brazilian tail numbers and the other with American.

“What is this place, anyhow?” Miller asked.

“Where the rich of South America come in the summer to rest up from counting their money. In the winter, it’s just about deserted. The last time I was here, it was winter and it looked like a science fiction movie. Lots of plush apartment houses, multimillion-dollar beachfront houses—and just about no people.”

“What were you doing here?”

“Trying to grab Howard Kennedy.” He paused and made a question of the statement: “The renegade FBI agent who went to work for Pevsner?”

Miller nodded his understanding.

“Well, Kennedy sold Pevsner out. He tried to have him whacked, and in the process damned near got me. Would have gotten me if Lester hadn’t been there. My payback plan was to take Mr. Kennedy home so the FBI could arrange for him to be sent to the Federal ADMAX prison in Florence, Colorado, thereby earning me the profound gratitude of the FBI. For some reason, the FBI doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“I’ve heard that,” Miller said. “Jesus, look at all these airplanes!”

“The last time I was here, it was just little ol’ me.”

“Somebody had already whacked Kennedy when you got here, right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. Pevsner decided that being raped on a regularly scheduled basis was not sufficient punishment for Howard having taken Pevsner’s money and then betrayed him. When we got to the Conrad, which essentially is the Caesars Palace of Punta del Este, it looked like every cop in Uruguay was there.

“There’s a Uruguayan cop—the chief inspector of the Uruguayan Policia Nacional, one Jose Ordonez—who also doesn’t like me, by the way. I hope not to see him—”

“Charley, I’ve never been able to understand why so few people actually do like you.”

Miller then pointed out the cockpit window.

The FOLLOW ME truck had stopped, and the driver and another man were getting out.

“Finally,” Castillo said. “I thought he was taxiing us back to Montevideo.”

They were wanded into a parking space, and they shut down the aircraft. Miller unfastened his harness.

“Hold it a second. Let me finish,” Castillo said.

“Okay.”

“Ordonez was in the lobby of the Conrad when we walked in. He took us to one of the better suites, where taped to two chairs were the bodies of Howard Kennedy and a guy who Delchamps recognized as Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov of Putin’s Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight Against Terrorism. Taped because they had been beaten to death. Slowly, with what in Chief Inspector Ordonez’s professional opinion was an angle iron. They started by smashing fingers and toes, then worked up to the larger parts. It was pretty gruesome.”

“I wonder what your good buddy Pevsner would do to some guy who didn’t do right by his cousin?” Miller asked lightly.

Castillo shook his head. “Not a problem, my friend, because that’s not going to happen.”

“I remember you telling me something in those exact words before. Actually, on several occasions. The first was years ago in that motel in Daleville, when you were contemplating nailing the deputy post commander’s daughter. . . .”

Where the hell did that come from? Castillo thought.

He said: “That’s a long time ago. This is now.”

Miller shrugged.

“Cutting this short,” Castillo went on, “Ordonez has twice told me I’m not welcome in Uruguay. The day we found Kennedy and Zhdankov, he told me to get out and stay out. And he told me again the time I used Shangri-La as a refueling point when we flew those black choppers off the Gipper. He sees me causing trouble for Uruguay.”

“But he took the helicopters, right, when you were through with them?”

“Not the way you make it sound, Dick. He’s a good guy, ethical, but not bribable.”

“Really?” Miller replied sarcastically.

“Yeah, really,” Castillo said angrily. “The point of this little lecture is that I want to pass through Punta del Este as quietly as possible. I do not want to have Ordonez adding to our problems.”

“As quietly and inconspicuously as possible, right?”

“Right.”

“That may be just a little difficult, the inconspicuous part.”

He pointed out the cockpit window again.

A glistening white Lincoln stretch limousine had driven up beside the Gulfstream.

“That’s a mistake; that can’t be for us,” Castillo said. “What that looks like is the Conrad Resort & Casino meeting a Brazilian high-roller.”

Miller chuckled.

The liveried chauffeur got from behind the limousine wheel and opened the passenger door. An elegantly dressed man got out and with a welcoming smile waved at the airplane.

There was the electrical whine as the stair door unfolded.

“I hope Edgar has got Max on the leash,” Castillo said.

Edgar did not.