The Hunters Read online

  “What is that delightful American phrase? ‘Out of school’?”

  “That is indeed one of our phrases, Señor Alvarez. It means, essentially, that something said was never said.”

  “Yes. All right. Out of school, then. Actually, two things out of school, one leading to the other.”

  “There’s another American phrase,” McGrory put in. “‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ Boys—and maybe girls, too—say that to each other as they vow not to reveal something they are told in confidence. Cross my heart and hope to die, Señor Alvarez.”

  Howell thought: My God, I can’t believe you actually said that!

  “How charming!” Alvarez said. “Well, Señor Ordóñez, who is really with the Policía Nacional—he’s actually the chief inspector of the Interior Police Division—was telling me on the way over that Mr. Lorimer—or should I say Señor Bertrand?—was a very wealthy man until just a few days ago. He died virtually penniless.”

  “Oh, really?” McGrory said. “That’s why you smiled when I called him a ‘poor fellow’?”

  Alvarez nodded. “And I apologize again for doing so,” he said, and went on: “Señor Ordóñez found out late yesterday afternoon that Señor Bertrand’s bank accounts were emptied the day after his body was found.”

  “How could that happen?” McGrory asked. “How does a dead man empty his bank account?”

  “By signing the necessary withdrawal documents over to someone several days before his death and then having that someone negotiate the documents. It’s very much as if you paid your Visa bill with a check and then, God forbid, were run over by a truck. The check would still be paid.”

  “Out of school, was there much money involved?” McGrory asked.

  “Almost sixteen million U.S. dollars,” Ordóñez said. “In three different banks.”

  This was the first Howell had heard anything about money.

  When Alex Darby, the Buenos Aires CIA station chief who had driven Howell’s “black” Peugeot to Tacuarembó so that it could be used to drive Castillo and Munz to the estancia, returned the car to Howell in Montevideo, he had reported the operation had gone bad.

  Really bad, but not as bad as it could have been.

  Darby’s report of what had happened at Hacienda Shangri-La had been concise but complete—not surprisingly, he had been a CIA agent, a good one, for a longtime.

  But no mention at all of any money.

  Hadn’t Darby known?

  Hadn’t he been told?

  Or had he been told, and decided I didn’t have the Need to Know?

  Jesus Christ, sixteen million dollars!

  Did Castillo get it?

  Or the parties unknown—parties, hell, with that kind of money involved, it was probably a government—who had sent the Ninjas after Lorimer?

  “My God!” McGrory said. “Out of school, who was the someone to whom Mr. Lorimer wrote the checks?”

  “We don’t know,” Alvarez said. “They were presented to the Riggs National Bank in Washington. All three of the banks here use Riggs as what they call a ‘correspondent bank.’”

  “Let me see if I have this right,” McGrory said. “Somebody walked into the Riggs National Bank in Washington, handed over whatever these documents were, and they handed him sixteen million dollars?”

  Ordóñez said, “What the Riggs Bank did was send—they have a satellite link—photocopies of the promissory notes to the banks here to verify Señor Bertrand’s signature. When the banks had done that, they notified the Riggs Bank that the signature was valid and the transaction had been processed.”

  “So then they handed the man in Washington sixteen million dollars?”

  “No. What the man in Washington wanted was for the money to be wired to his account in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in the Cayman Islands. That was done. It takes just a minute or two.”

  “And what was this fellow’s name?”

  “We don’t know. For that matter it could just as easily have been a woman. The money went into a numbered account.”

  “But it was Lorimer’s signature on the promissory notes? You’re sure of that?”

  “There was no question at any of the banks—and, with that kind of money involved, you can imagine they were very careful—that Señor Bertrand had indeed signed the promissory notes.”

  “I’m baffled,” McGrory said.

  “So are we,” Alvarez said.

  “Can we find out from the bank in the Cayman Islands…what did you say It was?”

  “The Liechtensteinische Landesbank,” Ordóñez furnished.

  “Can we find out from them who owns the numbered account?” McGrory pursued.

  “I don’t think that will be easy,” Ordóñez said. “They have stricter banking secrecy laws in the Cayman Islands than in Switzerland.”

  “Well, perhaps I can do something,” McGrory said, looking at Howell. “I’ll ask Washington.”

  “We would of course appreciate anything you can do, Mr. Ambassador. Officially or otherwise,” Alvarez said.

  “I suppose if you had any idea who murdered Mr. Lorimer, you would tell me?”

  “Of course,” Alvarez said. “Who murdered Mr. Lorimer or who was responsible for the deaths of the other men we found at Estancia Shangri-La.”

  “We’re working very hard on it,” Ordóñez said. “I think in time we’ll be able to put it all together. But it will take time and we would appreciate anything you could do to help us.”

  “But so far, nothing, right?” McGrory asked.

  “There are some things we’re looking into that will probably be valuable,” Ordóñez said. “For one thing, we are now pretty sure that a helicopter was involved.”

  “A helicopter?” Howell asked.

  “A helicopter,” Ordóñez said. “Not far from the farm, we found barrels of jet fuel. And, beside it, the marks of…what’s the term for those pipes a helicopter sits on?”

  “I don’t know,” McGrory confessed after a moment.

  “Skids,” Howell furnished, earning him a dirty look from McGrory.

  “Right,” Ordóñez said. “There were marks in the mud which almost certainly came from a helicopter’s skids. Strongly suggesting that the helicopter came some distance to the estancia and that the fuel was placed there before the helicopter arrived.”

  “Where would a helicopter come from?” Howell asked. “Brazil?”

  “Brazil or Argentina,” Ordóñez said. “For that matter, from Montevideo. But I’m leaning toward Argentina.”

  “Why?” McGrory asked.

  “Because that’s where the fuel drums came from,” Ordóñez said. “Of course, that doesn’t mean the helicopter came from Argentina, just that the fuel did. The helicopter could just as easily have come from Brazil, as you suggest.”

  “You haven’t been able to identify any of the bodies?” McGrory asked.

  “The only thing we have learned about the bodies is that a good deal of effort went into making them hard to identify. None of them had any identification whatever on them or on their clothing. They rented a Mercedes Traffik van at the airport in Carrasco—”

  “Don’t you need a credit card and a driver’s license to rent a car?” Howell asked. “And a passport?”

  That earned him another dirty look from McGrory.

  And when this is over, I will get a lecture reminding me that underlings are not expected to speak unless told to by the ambassador.

  Sorry, Mr. Ambassador, sir, but I didn’t think you were going to show any interest in that, and it damned well might be useful in finding out who the Ninjas were and where they came from.

  “Both,” Ordóñez said. “The van was rented to a Señor Alejandro J. Gastor, of Madrid, who presented his Spanish passport, his Spanish driver’s license, and a prepaid MasterCard debit card issued by the Banco Galicia of Madrid. The Spanish ambassador has learned that no passport or driver’s license has ever been issued to anyone named Alejandro J. Gastor and that the address
on the driver’s license is that of a McDonald’s fast-food restaurant.”

  “Interesting,” Howell said.

  He thought: Ordóñez is pretty good.

  I wonder if anyone spotted my car up there?

  Or the Yukon from the embassy in Buenos Aires that took the jet fuel there?

  We put Argentinean license plates on it.

  Is that another reason Ordóñez is “leaning toward Argentina” as the place the chopper came from?

  “And so is this,” Ordóñez said, and handed Howell a small, zipper-top plastic bag. There was a fired cartridge case in it.

  “This is one of the cases found at the estancia,” Ordóñez went on. “There were, in all, one hundred and two cases, forty-six of them 9mm, seventy-five .223, and this one.”

  “Looks like a .308 Winchester,” Howell said, examining the round through the plastic, then handed the bag to McGrory, who examined it carefully.

  Howell watched with masked amusement. Señor Pompous doesn’t have a clue about what he’s looking at.

  Ordóñez did not respond directly to the .308 comment.

  Instead, he said, “The 9mm cases were of Israeli manufacture. And the .223 were all from the U.S. Army. Which means, of course, that there is virtually no chance of learning anything useful from either the 9mm or the .223 cases. Or from the weapons we found on the scene, which were all Madsen submachine guns of Danish manufacture. We found five submachine guns, and there were six men in the dark coveralls. There were also indications that something—most likely a sixth Madsen, but possibly some other type of weapon taken because it was unusual—was removed from under one of the bodies found on the veranda.

  “I think it’s reasonable to assume this casing came from the rifle which killed the two men we found on the veranda. They were both shot in the head. We found one bullet lodged in the wall—”

  “I’m afraid I’m missing something,” McGrory interrupted. “Is there something special about this bullet?”

  There you go again, McGrory! The bullet is the pointy thing that comes out the hole in the barrel after the “bang.”

  What you’re looking at is the cartridge case.

  “Mr. Ambassador, what you’re holding is the cartridge case, not the bullet,” Ordóñez said. “And, yes, there is something special about it.”

  Now I know I like you, Chief Inspector Ordóñez. You’re dangerous, but I like you.

  “And what is that?” McGrory asked, his tone indicating he did not like to be corrected.

  “If you’ll look at the headstamp, Mr. Ambassador,” Ordóñez said.

  “Certainly,” McGrory said, and looked at Ordóñez clearly expecting him to hand him a headstamp, whatever that was.

  “It’s on the bottom of the cartridge casing in the bag, Mr. Ambassador,” Ordóñez said.

  That’s the closed end, Señor Pompous, the one without a hole.

  McGrory’s lips tightened and his face paled.

  With a little bit of luck he’s going to show everybody his fabled Irish temper. Does hoping that he does make me really unpatriotic?

  “What about it?” McGrory asked, holding the plastic bag with his fingers so he could get a good look at the bottom of the cartridge casing.

  “The headstamp reads ‘LC 2004 NM,’ Mr. Ambassador,” Ordóñez said. “Can you see that, sir?”

  Oh, shit! I didn’t see that.

  I didn’t look close at the case because I knew what it was and where it had come from: the sniper’s rifle.

  That’s an explanation, not an excuse.

  Darby said the kid fired only two shots, so why didn’t they pick up both cases?

  Is that one lousy cartridge case going to blow the whole thing up in our faces?

  McGrory nodded.

  “If I’m wrong,” Ordóñez said, “perhaps you can correct me, but I think the meaning of that stamping is that the cartridge was manufactured at the U.S. Army Lake City ammunition plant—I believe that it’s in Utah—in 2004. The NM stands for ‘National Match,’ which means the ammunition is made with a good deal more care and precision than usual because it’s intended for marksmanship competition at the National Matches.”

  McGrory looked at him but didn’t say anything.

  “That sort of ammunition isn’t common, Mr. Ambassador,” Ordóñez went on. “It isn’t, I understand, even distributed throughout the U.S. Army. The only people who are issued it are competitive marksmen. And snipers. And, as I understand it, only Special Forces snipers.”

  “You seem to know a good deal about this subject, Chief Inspector,” McGrory said.

  “Only since yesterday,” Ordóñez said, smiling. “I called our embassy in Washington and t hey called your Pentagon. Whoever they talked to at the Pentagon was very obliging. They said, as I said a moment ago, that the ammunition is not issued to anyone but competitive marksmen. And Special Forces snipers. And has never been sold as military surplus or given to anyone or any foreign government.”

  “You are not suggesting, are you, Chief Inspector,” McGrory asked, coldly, “that there was a U.S. Army Special Forces sniper in any way involved in what happened at that estancia?”

  “I’m simply suggesting, sir, that it’s very unusual…”

  The storm surge of righteous indignation overwhelmed the dikes of diplomacy.

  “Because if you are,” McGrory interrupted him, his face now flushed and his eyes blazing, “please let me first say that I find any such suggestion—any hint of such a suggestion—personally and officially insulting.”

  “I’m sure, Mr. Ambassador, that Chief Inspector Ordó—” Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez began.

  “Please let me finish, Señor Alvarez,” McGrory said, cutting him off. “The way the diplomatic service of the United States functions is the ambassador is the senior government official in the country to which he is accredited. Nothing is done by any U.S. government officer—and that includes military officers—without the knowledge and permission of the ambassador. I’m surprised that you didn’t know that, Señor Alvarez.

  “Further, your going directly to the Pentagon via your ambassador in Washington carries with it the implication that I have or had knowledge of this incident which I was not willing to share with you. That’s tantamount to accusing me, and thus the government of the United States, of not only conducting an illegal operation but lying about it. I am personally and officially insulted and intend to bring this to the immediate attention of the secretary of state.”

  “Mr. Ambassador, I—” Alvarez began.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” McGrory said, cutting him off again. “This visit is terminated.”

  Alvarez stood up, looking as if he was going to say something else but changing his mind.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ambassador,” he said, finally, and walked out of the office with Ordóñez on his heels.

  Howell thought: Well, that wasn’t too smart, McGrory. But, on the other hand, I think both Alvarez and Ordóñez walked out of here believing that you know nothing about what happened at Tacuarembó. The best actor in the world couldn’t turn on a fit like you just threw.

  That doesn’t mean, however, that Ordóñez thinks I’m as pure as the driven snow.

  “I regret that, of course, Howell,” McGrory said. “But there are times when making your position perfectly clear without the subtleties and innuendos of diplomacy is necessary. And this was one of those times.”

  “Yes, sir,” Howell said.

  “If this has to be said, I don’t want what just happened to leave this room.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “What is your relationship with Mr. Darby?” McGrory asked.

  “Sir?”

  “Are you close? Friends? If you asked him, would he tell you if he knew anything about anything that went on at that estancia?”

  “We’re acquaintances, sir, not friends.”

  “But you both work for the CIA. Don’t you exchange information?”

  “As
a courtesy, sir, I usually send him a copy of my reports to the agency—after you have vetted them, sir. And he does the same for me.”

  “Nevertheless, I think you should ask him about this. I’m going to catch the next plane to Buenos Aires to confer with Ambassador Silvio. I want you to go with me.”

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “I don’t want to go to Washington with this until I hear what Ambassador Silvio has to say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Why do I think that you’re having second thoughts about throwing Alvarez out of your office?

  [FOUR]

  Office of the Director

  The Central Intelligence Agency

  Langley, Virginia

  1205 5 August 2005

  John Powell, the DCI, a trim fifty-five-year-old who had given up trying to conceal his receding hairline and now wore what was left of his hair closely cropped to his skull, rose from behind his desk and walked across his office with his hand extended to greet his visitor.

  “It’s good to see you, Truman,” he said as they shook hands. “We haven’t been seeing much of each other lately.”

  “The ambassador keeps me pretty busy,” Truman Ellsworth replied. He was also in his midfifties but with thirty pounds and six inches on Powell. He also had a full head of carefully coiffured silver hair. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  Powell gestured to indicate thanks were not necessary.

  “And your coming gave me a much nicer alternative to eating alone or with five people with an agenda, not food, in mind. I ordered grilled trout avec beurre noir. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Ellsworth said and obeyed the DCI’s gesture to precede him into the DCI’s private dining room.

  The table, with room for eight, had been set for two, across from one another, at the head of table.

  A waiter in a stiffly starched jacket asked what they would like to drink.

  “Unsweetened iced tea, please,” Ellsworth said.

  “The same,” the DCI ordered.

  “So what can I do for you, Truman? Or the ambassador?” the DCI asked when the trout had been served and the waiter had left the room.

  “The president has taken a personal interest in the Argentine affair,” Truman said.