say in the movies, that I’m ‘free to go’?”
“Not back to Philly to shoot up a mosque, Jack,” McGuire said. “Think that through.”
“Where the hell did you get that? From the clown in Philly?”
“I got that from Joel,” Castillo said. “I think he got it from the clown in Philly. You apparently said something about knowing, quote, how to get the bastards, unquote.”
“By which I meant I was going to go to Counterterrorism—I used to work there, remember?—and see if we couldn’t send several of the bastards away on a federal firearms rap. In the commission of a felony—and shooting up Sandra and my house and car is a felony—everybody participating is chargeable. Use of a weapon in the commission of a felony is another five years, mandatory. Not to mention just having a fully auto AK is worth ten years in the slam and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.” He paused and exhaled audibly. “Did that ass . . . Sorry. Did that
“I don’t think you left him with that good-cop impression, Jack,” Davidson said, chuckling. “I think he saw you as Rambo in a rage.”
“The Philly cops could have gotten a judge to give us a probable-cause warrant to search both the mosque and the place in Philadelphia because of the attack on Sandra, and the Secret Service wouldn’t have been involved,” Britton went on.
“Sandra, do you happen to speak Spanish?” Castillo asked.
“Why? Is that also some sort of Secret Service no-no?”
“Yes or no?”
“Now, why in the world would you suspect that a semanticist might speak Spanish?”
Castillo switched to Spanish: “Fiery Spanish temper, maybe?”
She flashed her eyes at him, then laughed.
“Yeah,” she replied in Spanish. “Classical, Mexican, and Puerto Rican Harlem. What’s that you’re speaking?”
“I was hoping it would sound Porteno.”
It took her a moment to make the connection.
“Yeah,” she said. “You could pass.”
“So how do you think you’re going to like Buenos Aires?”
“I don’t know. I seem to recall another ex-Philly cop got herself shot there.”
“I would say it’s Jack’s call, but that wouldn’t be true, would it? Your call, Sandra: You two go to Buenos Aires, or stay here and Jack continues his war with the Secret Service. And he’s going to lose that war. They are not going to put him back on the Protection Detail. . . .”
“It’s not fair, Sandra,” McGuire said. “But that’s the way it is. They just don’t take chances with the President and the Vice President. As a matter of fact, there’s an old pal of mine . . . ” He stopped.
“Go on, Tom,” Castillo said. “They’ll find out anyhow.”
“ . . . There’s an old pal of mine who fell off the side step of the Vice President’s limo. It didn’t matter that it was covered with ice. He fell off. And he was off the detail.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He’s in Buenos Aires.”
“So . . . is this what you’re saying?” Britton asked a bit bitterly. “That Buenos Aires is sort of a Secret Service gulag? The dumping ground for Protection Service rejects?”
“Enough is enough, Jack,” Castillo said, his tone now cold. “What’s it going to be?”
“If we go down there, what happens to my job?” Sandra asked.
Castillo didn’t reply.
Sandra then answered the question herself: “The same that would happen if we went to Saint Louis, Kansas City, or wherever that guy said. How long would we have to stay?”
“As long as Tom and I think is necessary,” Castillo said.
“And the AALs walk on this,” Britton said more than a little bitterly.
“Not necessarily,” Castillo said. “But you’re never going back on the Protection Detail.”
“So then what finally happens to me?”
“Tom and I will, sooner or later but probably sooner, find something for you to do.”
“You mean go to work for you?”
Castillo nodded.
“You didn’t mention that,” Britton said.
“You didn’t give him much of a chance, Rambo,” Davidson said.
“I’d like that,” Britton said simply. “Thank you.”
“When do we go?” Sandra asked.
“As soon as we can get you on a plane,” Castillo said. “Maybe even tonight.”
“All we have is an overnight bag,” Sandra said.
“They have wonderful shops in Buenos Aires,” Dona Alicia said.
“Let’s give Tony a heads-up,” McGuire said, and added to the Brittons: “Tony Santini’s the old pal who fell off the limo.”
“We have a state-of-the-art communications system down there,” Castillo said, “but in his wisdom the kindly chief of OOA figured the odds of anything happening today were slim to none, and so told the guys sitting on the radio to take Christmas day off. So we’ll have to use this primitive device.”
Castillo put his cellular telephone on the table, pushed a speed-dial button, then the speakerphone button.
Proof that the system worked came twenty seconds later when a male voice answered, “Boy, it didn’t take long for Munz to call you to tell you, did it, Charley?”
“And a merry, merry Christmas to you, too, Tony. It didn’t take Munz long to call me to tell me what?”
“You haven’t heard about your Irish pal Duffy?”
“What about him?”
“They tried to take him out about seven o’clock last night. He had his wife and kids with him. Out in Pilar. He’s one pissed-off Irishman.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“No. Thank God.”
“They get the people that did it?”
“No. But this is not the time to be on the roads in a Ford F-150 pickup with a dented rear end. Duffy rammed his way through what was supposed to be a stop-and-shoot ambush. Every gendarme in Argentina is working Christmas looking for it.”
“Is Alfredo looking into who did it?”
“I thought it was probably him on the phone just now.”
“Have him send what he finds out to Miller.”
“Done.”
“What I called about, Tony: You remember Jack Britton?”
“Sure.”
“Party or parties unknown—probably those Muslims he was undercover with—tried to take him and his wife out yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, so long Protection Detail. Is he all right? His wife? Where are they going to send him? I could sure use him down here when they’re through with him.”
“How about as soon as I can get them on a plane?”
“That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”
“He said unkind things to the supervisory special agent in charge when he told him he was off the detail. Isaacson turned him over to me just before they were going to handcuff him. I need to put him on ice.”
“He told off the SAC? Good for him! I wish I had.”
Delchamps laughed.
“Who was that?” Santini said.
“Edgar Delchamps,” Delchamps said. “Ace has you on speakerphone, Tony. We’ve got a whole host of folks
