“Thank you, Jose,” Munz said.
“Me, too, Jose,” Castillo said.
Ordonez made a gesture that said,
He said, “And so, having of course never been here, I’m going to have another glass of the perfumed fairy Cabernet and leave.”
[TWO]
Berezovsky and Svetlana came out of the room where they had been waiting.
Castillo handed the FBI backgrounder to Berezovsky, who read it and then gave it to Svetlana.
“I do not know what this is,” Berezovsky said.
“It’s a backgrounder,” Castillo said. “The FBI sends this sort of thing to people they think would be—or should be—interested. It’s unofficial, but of course in effect it is official.”
“The question,” Darby said, “is: Where did it come from? My primary suspect is Montvale.”
“Ye olde knife in Ace’s back?” Delchamps said. “Despite his promise to lay off?”
“Could be Montvale,” Castillo said. “But it could be the FBI itself, never mind the President’s standing order of hands off the OOA. The FBI’s under the Department of Justice, not Montvale. They don’t like him any more than they like me. And by now the story of me having snatched Dmitri and Svet from the agency station chief in Vienna has had plenty of time to get around Washington. They have the capability of locating the Gulfstream; they know it was in Buenos Aires. That’d explain the ‘was seen in Buenos Aires’ line.
“So, thinking that it would be very nice indeed if they could embarrass Montvale
Darby, DeWitt, and Davidson chuckled. Delchamps grunted.
“In Buenos Aires,” Castillo went on, “a couple of things might’ve happened. Maybe Artigas got the backgrounder and ‘lost’ it—”
“Who, Charley?” Dick Miller said.
“Julio Artigas. Used to be an FBI agent in Montevideo. He looks like Ordonez’s brother. Smart. Good guy. He learned—intuited—more about us than was comfortable, so we had him transferred to OOA and moved him to the embassy in Buenos Aires. Inspector Doherty has made it clear to him that if he behaves, Doherty will take care of him in the FBI.”
Miller nodded his understanding.
“So he got the backgrounder and tore it up. Or he didn’t get it. Some other FBI agent did and took it to Ambassador Silvio for permission to tell SIDE or whatever, and Silvio said ‘Not yet’ or even ‘Hell, no.’
“The backgrounder also went to Montevideo, where (a) the FBI guys are still pissed at Two-Gun Yung, who they now know works for us, and (b) the ambassador is still pissed at us generally because of Two-Gun, and me personally. I can see McGrory—”
“Who?” Miller said again.
“The ambassador,” Castillo furnished. “I can see him smiling broadly, saying that he thought the local authorities should be made aware of the contents of the message. But then McGrory also says to slip it under Ordonez’s door in the middle of the night, thus covering his ass by producing what is called ‘credible deniability.’ I thought it interesting that ‘FBI’ was nowhere to be found on this.”
He tapped the backgrounder with his fingertips.
“Yeah,” Darby said.
“Ol’ Ace really isn’t as dumb as he looks, is he?” Delchamps said, earning him a cold look from Svetlana.
“So, what does it mean?” Berezovsky said.
“Since we don’t know where else that backgrounder may have gone, I just don’t know what it means. But I don’t think it’s a very good idea for you and Svet—for that matter, any of us—to go back to Argentina right now.”
Delchamps said, “One thought that pops into my mind is that you face facts and abandon this wild idea of yours to take out the chemical factory.”
“Is that what you really think I should do?” Castillo said evenly. “That is, not do?”
“It’s an option, Ace.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s obviously the most sensible thing to do,” Delchamps said. “But on the other hand, I still have this romantic, second-childhood notion that I’d like to go out in a blaze of glory.”
Miller grunted. “You’re saying your idea of going out in glory is being boiled in a pot for somebody’s juju supper? You heard what the ambassador said about the chances of a white guy in the Congo.”
“And the ambassador is right, Mr. Delchamps,” DeWitt said.
“If you call me ‘Mr. Delchamps’ one more time, I’m going to start calling you Bee Fu Om—that’s short for Bald Fat Ugly Old Man.”
“Let me think a minute,” Castillo said.
When it seemed to Delchamps the minute had expired, he said, “Well, Ace, since we can’t go to Argentina, and Ordonez made it pretty clear Porto Alegre is not a viable destination option,
“Washington,” Castillo said.
“That I think is what is known as an off-the-wall thought,” Delchamps said.
“Hear me out,” Castillo said. “We send Alfredo back to Argentina. He can catch a civilian flight, Aerolineas or something else. Maybe even catch a flight today. The minute he gets there, he calls Pevsner and tells him we’re headed for Cancun, and to set that up for Dmitri and Svet.”
“You’ve lost me,” Delchamps said. “Cancun?”
“Actually, an island just off Cancun. With an airport that will take the Gulfstream. Cozumel. On which is the Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort, featuring sandy beaches, a golf course, deep-sea fishing, and some really nice cuisine. You’ll like it, Svet—”
“I am not going to . . . wherever you said.”
“—and not only because it is owned by your cousin Aleksandr. It also has, for reasons I don’t wish to think about, a security system that is at least as mind-boggling as the ones in Bariloche and Pilar Polo & Golf. Or Golf & Polo. Whatever the hell it is.”
“Where, my Carlos, do you think you would be going without me?”
“To Washington, Svet. You heard what the ambassador said, what DeWitt said. Thinking that we can find the chemical factory, much less take it out, is pissing in the wind. What I can do is go directly to the President.
“According to Montvale, as of the day before yesterday, the President has been shielded from my ‘outrageous behavior’ in Vienna. I can see no reason for him to have told him since then, because that would mean the CIA would have to fess up that they don’t have either of the top SVR agent defectors wanted on an Interpol warrant that they claim they do.
“That means I can get to the President. Just as soon as we drop Svetlana and Dmitri into the arms of luxury on Cozumel and go wheels-up, I get on the AFC and call him. Unless he’s in Nome, Alaska, we can go direct to wherever he is. And with a little luck, get there before Montvale hears what’s going on.
“Even if Montvale’s sitting there with the President when we get there, and has told him his version of the story, the President will hear me out.” He paused and looked at the men seated around Delchamps. “That is, hear
There was a moment’s silence.
“Either the President will hear us out, or we go directly to jail without passing Go. Going with me will be on a voluntary basis, and I would be neither surprised nor disappointed if everybody elected instead to go trolling for
