By the time they got to Washington, Yung had figured out a likely scenario to explain the money, and why they had been attacked at the estancia: Dr. Lorimer—by now identified as the bagman for oil-for-food bribes and payoffs—had stolen the sixteen million bucks from his as-yet-unidentified employers.
These people had kidnapped Lorimer’s sister—Mrs. J. Winslow Masterson—then murdered her husband before her eyes to impress upon her that they were quite serious about being willing to kill her and her children unless she told them where in hell they could find Lorimer and their sixteen million. But she hadn’t told them because she didn’t know.
The bad guys had found Estancia Shangri-La by themselves.
That they arrived there to reclaim their money and eliminate Lorimer ten minutes after Castillo’s covert team had arrived to repatriate Lorimer was pure coincidence. Not to mention damn bad luck.
“They didn’t expect to find anything at the estancia, Mr. President, but Dr. Lorimer and the sixteen million dollars in bearer bonds,” Castillo had explained the next day in the presidential apartment in the White House.
“Surprise, surprise, huh?” the President replied. “You have no idea who these people were, Charley?”
“I don’t think they were South American bandits, Mr. President. But aside from that—”
“Find out who they are, Major,” the President interrupted, “and render them harmless.”
Castillo noted that he’d been formally addressed. And, as such, so ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else, Charley?”
“Mr. President, what do we do with the money?”
“Sixteen million, right? Where is it? Are you sure you can cash those bearer bonds?”
“Sir, to make sure we could retain control of money, we already have. It’s now in the Riggs Bank.”
“I’m not going to get involved with dirty money,” the President said. “You understand that, of course?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. President.”
“But on the subject of money, and apropos of nothing else, Charley . . .”
“Yes, sir?”
“I funded OOA with two million from my discretionary funds. That’s really not very much money, and I have a good idea of how expensive your operations are. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to come to me for more money, and right now I just don’t see how it will be available. It’s something to keep in mind.”
“Sir, are you suggesting—?”
“Major, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What sixteen million?”
Thus was established the Lorimer Charitable & Benevolent Fund, with an initial donation the next day of nearly sixteen million dollars from an anonymous well-wisher.
On the same day, David W. Yung, Jr., and Corporal Lester Bradley were placed on indefinite temporary duty with the OOA.
At the time, there was only one true volunteer in the ranks of the OOA, essentially because very few people had even heard of it. Sergeant Major John K. “Jack” Davidson had learned of OOA from Corporal Bradley, whom Castillo, perhaps unwisely, had sent to Camp Mackall—the Special Forces/Delta Force training base near Fort Bragg, North Carolina—“for training” but actually to get him out of sight—and out of truthfully answering questions from his gunny and any other superior—short-term until Castillo could figure out what to do with him long- term.
Davidson’s function at Mackall was to evaluate students to see if they were psychologically and physically made up to justify their expensive training to become special operators. He had taken one look at nineteen-year-old Corporal Bradley—who stood five-four and weighed one thirty-two—then decided that someone with a sick sense of humor had sent the boy to Mackall as a joke.
Davidson put Bradley to work pushing the keys on a computer.
The next day, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, disabused Davidson of this notion that whatever the kid was, he was no warrior.
The general had choppered out to Mackall to take Corporal Bradley to Sergeant Krantz’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Davidson had no Need to Know, of course, but he and General McNab had been around several blocks together, and so the general told him what had happened to Krantz on Charley Castillo’s
Davidson, as he reminded General McNab, also had been around the block several times with Charley Castillo. He further reminded General McNab that the general knew as well as he did that while Charley was a splendid officer, he tended sometimes to do things that he would not do if he had a sober, experienced advisor, such as Davidson, at his side to counsel him.
General McNab, who first met Castillo when Castillo had been a second lieutenant, and who thus had been around the block with him on many occasions, considered this and agreed.
Sergeant Major Davidson was sent to OOA.
It was Davidson who had recruited Dianne and Harold Sanders to run the OOA safe house on West Boulevard Drive. Master Sergeant Harold Sanders, who had been around the block several times with both Jack Davidson and Charley Castillo, had been unhappy with his role after he had been medically retired. Sanders said that he had become a camp follower, because CWO3 Dianne Sanders had remained on active service. But recognizing the situation, she then had retired, too.
Living the retired life in Fayetteville, North Carolina, however, then caused the both of them to be bored— almost literally—out of their minds.
They had jumped at the chance to work again with Charley and Jack, even if it only would be guarding the mouth of the cave. Still, both suspected that Charley would sooner or later require the services of a cryptographic analyst—and Dianne, recognized as one of the best code-breakers around, would be there.
Edgar Delchamps had been the CIA station chief in Paris, France, when Castillo, running down Dr. Lorimer’s various connections, first met him. Men with thirty years in the Clandestine Services of the agency tended to regard thirty-six-year-old Army officers with something less than awe, and such had been the case when Delchamps laid eyes on then-Major C. G. Castillo.
He had told Castillo that he was the station chief in Paris as the result of an accommodation with his superiors in Langley. They didn’t want him to retire because his doing so would leave him free to more or less run at the mouth concerning a number of failed operations that the agency devoutly wished would never again be mentioned. Langley reasoned that if Delchamps was stationed in Paris—the only assignment he was willing to accept—he couldn’t do much harm. Paris wasn’t really important in the world of intelligence.
“Despite my name, I’m a Francophobe, Ace,” Delchamps had told Castillo. “My files say all sorts of unkind things about the Frogs. They are sent to Langley, where, of course, they are promptly shredded—unread—by a platoon of Francophiles humming ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris.’”
Delchamps made it perfectly clear that he had no desire whatever to become in any way associated with OOA. When, a month or so later, Castillo decided he had to have him whether or not he liked it, and Delchamps received orders to immediately report for indefinite temporary duty with OOA, he first had stopped by Langley to fill out his request for retirement, effective immediately.
He was dissuaded from going through with his retirement when Castillo told him he was going after the oil- for-food people with a presidential carte blanche to do what he thought had to be done, and that the carte blanche specifically ordered the Director of Central Intelligence to grant access to OOA to whatever intelligence—raw, in analysis, or confirmed—the CIA had in its possession. Castillo said he thought Edgar Delchamps was just the man to root around in Langley’s basement. It was an offer Delchamps could not refuse.
And there was one man in the kitchen who was neither an American nor a member of OOA. Sandor Tor was the chief of security for the
There were other people assigned to OOA, but all of those who had families—Corporal Lester Bradley, for
