thinking surprised him. He never felt that way about his employees. On one level, he felt good about this. On another, it made him uneasy. It undercut his trust. He no longer felt totally safe in presuming, as he had been doing, that Budge was simply a highly competent lackey, happy to be serving in a job that paid him well. Now Budge seemed more than that. Perhaps he wasn’t—as Haret had always seemed to be—one of those little suckerfish that connects itself to sharks. Maybe Budge had his own predatory talents. Worse, maybe Budge had his own personal agenda.
At the airport he found Budge waiting in the lounge for private aircraft crews. He was reading a magazine, looking comfortable.
“We’ll probably have to spend a night or two out where we won’t find hotel accommodations,” Winsor said. “Are you prepared for that?”
“Always am,” Budge said. “Bed roll in the storage space and some U.S. Army canned rations. How about you? Will I be sharing my food?”
“I’ll make other arrangements,” Winsor said. “I’ll be meeting some associates.”
Budge considered that, nodded.
“I’ll sit up front with you,” he told Budge as they boarded the jet. “I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” Budge asked.
“Just curious,” Winsor said. “I’m paying your salary. I’m putting some confidence in you. So I need to know more about you.”
“You know the rule,” Budge said. “Passengers will please refrain from talking to the driver.”
“I make the rules,” Winsor said.
Budge studied him, expressionless. He nodded. “When we get to altitude and we get into the flight pattern, then we will talk,” he said. “Until then, I’ll be talking only to the tower. You can listen.”
Judging from what Winsor was seeing of the landscape, they were over West Virginia before Budge turned toward him.- “All right. Now what do you want to know.”
“We could start with your biography,” Winsor said. “All I know about you is what the congressman told me. You flew for the government in that messy rebellion in Guatemala. You got in some sort of trouble. You had connections in the CIA down there and they got you to Washington. That about right?”
Budge considered, said: “That’s about it.”
“I’m not even sure I know your real name. ‘Robert Budge’ doesn’t sound like you. That doesn’t seem to fit what you look like.”
Budge thought about this. “That does sound a little pale for me, I guess. How about Sylvanius Roberto C. de Baca. That sound right?”
“ ‘Sylvanius’? That sounds Greek. But that ‘C. de Baca’ sounds Spanish.”
“It is Spanish,” Budge said. “Or technically Basque, I guess. It’s my father’s name. He was one of those freedom fighters who gave Franco and his fascists troubles.”
“What’s the ‘C’? Maybe Carlos?”
“ ‘C’ is short for ‘Cabeza.’ Cabeza de Baca.”
“I had a high school course in Spanish. Doesn’t
“When you studied Spanish, they didn’t get into history much, I guess. Anyway, back in the fifteenth century, when the Castilians were fighting that long civil war to drive the Moors out of Spain, the king gave my family that name. A grandfather of mine, six centuries removed, led a scouting party to find a way the Spanish army”—Budge paused, looked at Winsor—“you familiar with Spanish geography, lay of the land?”
Winsor felt himself flushing. He wasn’t accustomed to this.
“I’ve never had a reason to be,” he said.
“I’ll make it simple then. He found a way for the army of the king to get a column of cavalry across a river where they could outflank the Moors. That won the war for our side. According to the legend, my ancestor marked the ford with the skull of a cow stuck up on the end of a pole. After the Moors surrendered, the king had a ceremonial banquet in the palace and made this very distant granddad of mine Duke of Cabeza de Baca.”
Winsor laughed. “Maybe they ate the beef from the historic baca’s cabeza.”
Budge cut off what he was about to say to that, paused, adjusted something on the instrument panel.
“That was fourteen hundred and thirteen. Long, long ago,” he said, and laughed. “About when the early Winsors would have still been gathering roots and berries, eating with their fingers and killing each other with clubs.”
Winsor took a deep breath, held it, and stared out the windshield. “Interesting,” he said after a long silence. “About all I know about the Spanish culture is from Cervante’s novels, and the plays the Spanish dramatists were writing about that time and the stuff we got in the world lit classes at Harvard. Now, tell me what brought the Cabeza de Baca family to the Americas.”
“Spirit of adventure. Lust for gold. Hard times in Europe. The same old story. I think my ancestors had a habit of being on the wrong side of too many political battles.”
“What did you do for the CIA?” Winsor’s question produced a long silence.
“One thing I would have been required to do, if I ever did work for the Central Intelligence Agency, was put my hand on a Bible and take an oath of secrecy. So if I did that, I can’t talk about it. And if I didn’t do that, then there’d be nothing to tell you. Right?”
A long silence ensued.
“When we get about an hour from El Paso, I’m making some calls,” Winsor said. “You take care of dealing with getting my plane parked. I’ll meet a man I need to talk to at the administration building. You brought your cell phone?”
“Always. And the pager.”
“Stay close to the plane. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“Sure,” Budge said.
They crossed the American midlands in silence. Over the flatness of West Texas Winsor extracted his cell phone and dialed. He waited, looking impatient.
“Ruben? ... Yes, yes. Did our lawyer show up? ... Yes, at the airport. You talk to the people at Rancho Corralitos? ... Yes ... yes, but that means the stuff hasn’t actually arrived there yet. ... True? But when? ... That sounds all right. But you make damn sure nothing holds it up. Tell me how you’re checking on it.”
The answer to that took time. Winsor glanced at Budge, who seemed to be absorbed with reading his instrument panel.
“All right then. But call me as soon as it’s there. And I’m thinking now that we’ll be coming right on in from El Paso this afternoon. Make damn sure that landing strip is cleaned off better than it was the last time. And I’ll probably have to spend the night. Where we’re going next we can’t land in the dark. And did those Corralitos people have anything new to say about that woman?”
A brief pause. “What woman? The snoopy Navajo gal that was nosing around at the Pig Trap site, taking pictures. We had her picture spread around.”
Winsor listened. Said: “Son of a bitch! Did you ask Ed Henry about that?” Listened again. Shook his head, said: “How did Henry know the man was a Navajo.” Said: “I mean, how did he know he was a Navajo Tribal Police cop. They don’t have any jurisdiction down there. None at all.” He listened again, said: “All right,” and clicked off without saying good-bye. He put the phone back in his jacket pocket and glanced at Budge.
“You need to be ready to fly on to the smelter. Take care of refueling if you need to, as soon as we get landed.”
Budge nodded.
“We need to get there before dark,” Budge said. “I’m not going to fly in on that strip by starlight.”
While he was saying that, Winsor was staring at him, expression thoughtful.
“Budge,” he said. “You sort of enjoyed that assignment I gave you with Chrissy, didn’t you? I mean, manhandling that pretty little girl like that.”
Budge kept his eyes on the instrument panel, shrugged.
“I think I’m going to have another one of those for you,” Winsor said.
Budge considered that a moment. “Who?”
