The Shooters Read online

  “Permission to speak, sir?” the man on the tile said.

  “Why not?” Castillo said.

  “Sir, I request to see Lieutenant Colonel Costello.”

  “Nobody here by that name,” Castillo said. “Why don’t we talk about what the hell you’re doing here?”

  “Sir, I came to see Colonel Costello.”

  “And if this Colonel Costello was here, what were you going to say to him?” Castillo asked.

  “I was going to ask him for his help.”

  “Help about what?” Castillo asked, but before the man had a chance to open his mouth, Castillo asked another question. “You sneaked in here to ask somebody for help?”

  “Sir, I didn’t know what name you were using for the safe house. And even if I did, I didn’t think you would pass me through the gate to this place. So I had to come in surreptitiously.”

  “Son,” Edgar Delchamps asked, “how’d you get past the motion sensors on the fence? Fences, plural?”

  “Dry ice, sir. I froze the mercury switches.”

  “Where’d you get the dry ice?”

  “I bought it from a kid who delivers ice cream on a motorbike from the Freddo’s ice cream store in the shopping mall.”

  “And where’d you learn to use dry ice on mercury switches?”

  “Fort Huachuca, sir.”

  He pronounced that correctly, Castillo thought. “Wah-choo-kuh.”

  “What were you doing at Huachuca?” Delchamps challenged.

  “Going through the Intelligence School.”

  “You’re an Army intelligence officer?”

  “Yes, sir. First Lieutenant Edmund Lorimer, sir.”

  “Lorimer?” Castillo said. “Your name is Lorimer?”

  “Yes, sir. Same as that UN guy who got himself whacked in Uruguay.”

  “Your witness, Colonel,” Delchamps said, gesturing grandly.

  “You’re Colonel Costello?” Lorimer asked.

  “For the time being, I’ll ask the questions,” Castillo snapped, and was immediately sorry. “You may get up, Lieutenant Lorimer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You can put the .45 away, Bradley,” Castillo said. He added, “But good job, Lester.”

  “Thank you, sir. The credit is due Max. He either detected unusual movement in the pines or perhaps smelled him.”

  “Take them inside the quincho, tell them ‘good dog!’, and give them each a bone.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, when Max has too many bones—and he’s already had several today—he suffers flatulence.”

  “Use your good judgment, Lester.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Castillo had been watching Lorimer out of the corner of his eye, idly wondering why he was getting to his feet slowly and carefully. He saw that Lorimer was smiling at Bradley, probably at the word “flatulence.”

  Lorimer’s eyes met Castillo’s for a moment, and when Lorimer was half-sitting on the table there, Castillo saw what had caused him to get to his feet so slowly and carefully.

  And why Ricardo had called him “Pegleg.”

  Lorimer’s right trouser leg had been pulled up. Rising from his stockinged ankle was a dully shining metal tube.

  Titanium, Castillo thought. They now make those things out of titanium. How do I know that?

  “What happened to your leg?” Castillo asked gently.

  “RPG,” Lorimer said.

  “Where?”

  “Afghanistan. We got bushwhacked on the way to Mazar. On Highway A76.”

  Castillo knew well the Mazar airfield—and, for that matter, Highway A76, the road to it from Kabul. The next to last time he had been there, he had “borrowed” a Black Hawk helicopter to make an extraction of the crew of another Black Hawk that had been shot down. Far senior officers had reluctantly concluded that the weather was so bad that making such an attempt would have been suicidal.

  The last time he’d been at Mazar was to board a USAF C-5 Galaxy for the States, which carried him home with a vaguely phrased letter of reprimand for “knowingly and flagrantly violating flight safety rules.”

  The letter of reprimand was the compromise reached between several very senior officers who wished to recommend him for the Distinguished Service Cross—or perhaps even The Medal—and other very senior officers who wished to bring the crazy Special Forces sonofabitch before a General Court-Martial for willful disobedience of orders.

  “How far up does that thing go?” Castillo asked.

  “To the knee. Actually, the knee’s part of it. All titanium.”

  “What were you doing in Afghanistan?”

  “I thought I was winning their hearts and minds until this happened.”

  “You were Special Forces?”

  Lorimer nodded. “Was. Now I’m Intelligence. DIA.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Well, for a while I thought I could do a Freddy Franks, but that didn’t work.”

  General Frederick M. Franks Jr., then an Army major, lost a leg to wounds suffered in the Cambodian Incursion during the Vietnam War. He managed to stay in the Army by proving he could pass any physical test required of any officer. He became both the first one-legged general since the Civil War and, as a four-star general, the commander of ground forces in the First Desert War. Franks served as an inspiration to all—particularly to amputees.

  “Why not?”

  “It hurt too much.”

  “Okay. Who told you about this place?” Castillo asked.

  “I asked around, sir.”

  “I asked who, Lieutenant.”

  Castillo looked at Ricardo Solez, who proclaimed his innocence by shaking his head and wagging both hands palms outward.

  Lorimer said, “A lot people, sir. I just put it together.”

  “Among them Solez?”

  “He was one of them, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. But he’s how I found out where you were.”

  Castillo glanced at Solez, who motioned to maintain his innocence, then looked back at Lorimer.

  “He told you where we were?” Castillo said.

  Lorimer shook his head. “I followed him and that kid with the .45 out here from the embassy.”

  Solez and Bradley, who had been posted to the embassy before they had been drafted by Castillo, had been assigned to make daily—sometimes twice-daily—errand runs from Nuestra Pequeña Casa to the embassy specifically and to Buenos Aires generally. The theory was they were familiar faces and would attract the least attention.

  Castillo looked at Solez, whose face now showed pain.

  Castillo was tempted to let it go, but changed his mind. Getting followed was inexcusable.

  “No rearview mirrors on the Trafic, right, Ricardo?” Castillo asked.

  “Jesus Christ, Carlos, I’m sorry.”

  His embarrassment—shame—was clear in his voice.

  “He’s pretty good, Colonel,” Lorimer said. “He led me up and down every back street between here and Palermo.”

  “But you’re better, right?”

  “Yes, sir. I guess I am.”

  “Okay. So you’re here. Why?”

  “A friend of mine, a DEA agent, got kidnapped about a week ago. I need some help to get him back. I figured you were the guy who could help, maybe the only one,” Lorimer said.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you got the bad guys who kidnapped Jack the Stack’s wife and whacked him.”

  “What if I told you I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  “Sir, I would expect you to say just that,” Lorimer said. “But, sir, with respect, you better get used to the idea that the cat’s out of the bag. I even heard of what went down and I’m pretty low down on the pay scale. And in Paraguay.”

  Castillo looked at Delchamps.

  “Write this down, Ace,” Delchamps said. “There’s no such thing as a secret.”

  “Oh, shit!” Castillo said, and shook his head. Then he turned to Lorime
r.

  “Lieutenant Lorimer, I am Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, Special Forces, U.S. Army.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I inform you herewith that I am here operating on the authority of a Presidential Finding….”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Close your mouth until I’m finished, Lieutenant. You are advised herewith that each and every aspect of this operation is classified Top Secret Presidential. From this moment on, you will not discuss with anyone what you think you may have learned, or what you think you may have surmised, about anything connected with this operation. That includes the names of personnel, and the location of personnel or facilities, and what I or anyone connected with this operation may or may not have done. Any breach of these instructions will result in your trial by General Court-Martial—at which, trust me, you will be found guilty—and being placed in solitary confinement at probably Leavenworth until the details of this operation are no longer of interest to anyone. You run off at the mouth, and you’ll wish the RPG had got all of you. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He’s got it. His face is white. And I feel like a shit.

  “You heard what he said, Ace, about the cat being out of the bag?” Delchamps asked, but it sounded to Castillo like a statement.

  “Edgar, butt out,” Castillo said.

  “I was thinking about collateral damage,” Delchamps said. “Who’s he been talking to? Which of them has been running at the mouth? What are you going to do about shutting them up?”

  There I go again, underestimating Delchamps!

  “Let’s go to the house,” Castillo said, gesturing. “You, Ed, and Tony and—somebody go inside and get Sieno.”

  “Which one, Colonel?” Davidson asked.

  “Both of them,” Castillo ordered. “And, Jack, sit on Lieutenant Lorimer here. If he even looks like he’s thinking of taking off, shoot him in his good leg.”

  There were two suites of rooms on the second floor of Nuestra Pequeña Casa, each containing a large bedroom, a walk-in-closet, and a bathroom. The Sienos occupied the larger of the two. Castillo had taken the slightly smaller one for himself.

  Castillo’s bedroom had one chair—at a dressing table—and a chaise lounge. Susanna Sieno—a trim, pale-freckled-skin redhead who did not look like what came to mind when “an officer of the clandestine service of the CIA” was said—took the dressing table chair. Delchamps and Paul Sieno sat side by side on the chaise lounge. Solez wordlessly asked permission to sit on the edge of the bed. When Castillo nodded, and he had, Tony Santini sat beside Solez.

  Castillo leaned against the wall by the door, and after a moment said, “The word that comes to mind is ‘compromised’…goddammit!”

  “It happens, Ace,” Delchamps said.

  “Okay, we shut down. We were going to the States anyway in a couple of days. Now we go now.”

  There were nods of agreement.

  “I’d love to know how this happened,” Castillo said.

  “I’d say Uruguay,” Susanna Sieno said.

  Castillo looked at her, then made a come on gesture.

  “The OK Corral shoot-out took place there,” she explained. “And you jerked Dave Yung and Julio Artigas out of the embassy, which was sure to cause gossip in the embassy, and then they found Howard Kennedy’s body in the Conrad in Punta del Este….”

  “What’s that got to with this Lieutenant Lorimer in Paraguay?” Castillo interrupted.

  “The spooks and the cops in Asunción find a lot of reasons to, quote, confer, close quote, with the spooks and the cops in Montevideo,” she said. “Like the dentists who go to Hawaii for two weeks, all tax-deductible, to confer for two hours on how to drill a molar with caries.”

  Delchamps chuckled.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Castillo said.

  “I think Susanna is onto it, Ace,” Delchamps said. “I’ll put it in soldier terms for you. You know what R&R is, right?”

  Castillo nodded. “Rest and Recuperation.”

  “Sometimes known as I & I, for Intercourse and Intoxication,” Delchamps went on. “And we know how every second lieutenant is required to memorize, ‘If indiscretions you must have, have them a hundred miles from the flagpole.’”

  Castillo smiled. “Okay.”

  “I don’t know anything about this, of course,” Susanna Sieno said, “but my husband, who as far as I know never lies to me, says that healthy young men not lucky enough to be accompanied by their wives on an assignment to someplace like Asunción have unsatisfied physical desires….”

  “When you were in short pants, Ace, and I was in Moscow,” Delchamps said, “I used to confer with my professional associates in Vienna every couple of months. It wasn’t smart to accept the female companionship offered to horny young spooks by the KGB in Moscow. Getting the picture, or do I have to be more graphic and make you blush?”

  “I’m getting the picture,” Castillo said.

  “So try this scenario on for size,” Susanna Sieno said. “Agent X, of the firm, or the DIA, or the DEA, or the FBI, checks in with his peers at the embassy in Montevideo. This satisfies the requirements of his temporary-duty orders. He spends an hour in the embassy, and then it’s off to the sandy beaches and the bikini-clad maidens of Punta del Este. So Agent X asks, ‘Well, what’s new, Willy?’

  “And Willy says, ‘Nothing much here, but you heard about Jack the Stack Masterson getting whacked in front of his wife in Buenos Aires?’

  “And Agent X says, ‘Yeah, what was that all about?’

  “And Willy says, ‘God only knows, but what’s interesting is that a Washington hotshot—I don’t know this, but I heard that he’s an Army officer sent by the President—has taken over the investigation.’

  “So Agent X goes back to Asunción and tells this interesting story to the boys. And then Agent Y goes on R&R to Montevideo.

  “‘Willy, tell me about Jack the Stack’s murder and the hotshot.’

  “To which Willy replies, ‘I don’t know much, but it’s getting interesting. First, Dave Yung, one the FBI guys, gets jerked out of here and onto a plane for Washington. No explanation. And then, two days ago, right after Yung mysteriously disappeared, they find an American, who worked for the UN, and six guys all dressed like Ninjas, all dead at an estancia named—would you believe it?—Shangri-La. Nobody has a clue what that was all about.’

  “So Agent Y, his physical desires satisfied, goes back to Asunción and tells his pal, Agent Z, what he heard in Montevideo. Agent Z then takes his R&R in Montevideo, where he asks Willy—or Tom, Dick, and Harry—‘Tell me more about the six dead Ninjas and the UN guy.’

  “‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ he’s told. ‘Turns out the dead American was a drug dealer and Jack the Stack’s brother-in-law. There’s a very interesting rumor that a special operations team, probably run by the hotshot—he’s an Army officer by the name of Costello; we found that out—whacked the Ninjas and maybe also the drug guy—his name was Lorimer—and then they jerked another FBI guy, Artigas, out of here. No explanation.’”

  Susanna paused.

  “End of scenario,” she said after a moment.

  “Good scenario,” Castillo said.

  “These are all bright, clever guys, Charley,” she said. “Trained investigators.”

  “With diarrhea of the mouth,” Castillo said.

  “Nobody told them all this was Top Secret Presidential,” Sieno said. “Call it shop talk.”

  “No excuse,” Castillo said.

  “It wasn’t as if they were running off at the mouth in a bar,” Delchamps said. “These guys were swapping gossip with people they knew had the same security clearances they did. Arguably, their sharing of such information could hold a kernel that would prove to be a missing piece of a puzzle they were working, one they otherwise would not have had….”

  “That’s not an excuse, Ed, and you know it,” Castillo said.

  “I didn’t say it was right, Ace. I said I think it
explains what happened. I think Susanna’s right on the money. And it explains the young man with the titanium leg coming here. His pal got snatched and now he’s desperate….”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” Susanna said.

  “What he said was his pal, a DEA agent, was snatched a week ago,” Delchamps explained. “And, though he didn’t say this, I’ll bet nobody in Paraguay is doing anything at all to get him back that might annoy the host government in any way. So he came looking for John Wayne here.”

  “So the question then becomes ‘What do we do about it?’”

  “About getting the DEA guy back?” Delchamps asked.

  “The DEA guy is not my problem,” Castillo said.

  “No, he’s not,” Delchamps said. “Write that down.”

  Castillo flashed him a cold look.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning for a moment there, Ace, I thought you were starting to think you really are John Wayne, flitting around the world righting wrongs,” Delchamps said.

  “My primary concern is making sure this operation isn’t compromised any more than it already is,” Castillo said.

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Well, first we’re going to get out of here. There’s no reason we can’t move it to the Nebraska Avenue Complex. Or is there?”

  Delchamps shook his head.

  “The Sienos, Tony, and Alex Darby will be here. Plus Bob Howell in Montevideo,” Delchamps said. “They can handle anything that comes up with regard to this…” He gestured in the direction of the quincho.

  Castillo nodded. Darby was the CIA station chief in Buenos Aires and Howell his counterpart in Montevideo.

  “But what are you going to do about the guy downstairs?” Tony Santini asked. “You can’t trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Particularly since Charley’s not going to rescue his pal from the bad guys,” Susanna said.

  “He goes with us,” Castillo said. “Unless somebody’s got a better idea?”

  “Tony, who do you know in the embassy in Asunción?” Delchamps asked.

  “I’ve been up there, of course,” Santini said. “But I don’t have any pals there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You’re not alone,” Susanna said.

  Castillo and Delchamps looked at her. When she didn’t respond, Delchamps asked, “Who’s the station chief?”