Hazardous Duty - PA 8 Read online

  Word spread quickly among the Retired Clandestine Community—known disparagingly by many newcomers to the CIA as “the Dinosaurs”—that ol’ Edgar Delchamps was holed up comfortably in a big house in Alexandria. Perhaps there would be room for one more of them?

  The place was shortly full up, and there was a waiting list. It was of particular interest to females who had retired from the Clandestine Service. They were uncomfortable living, for example, in the Silver Springs Methodist Retirement Home for Christian Ladies, and places of that nature.

  Mr. David W. Yung—he was good at this sort of thing—had quickly set up a nonprofit corporation to handle the administration of the facility. A housekeeper—herself a retired Special Operations cryptographer married to a retired member of Delta Force—was engaged, rates were set, a board of directors established, and so on, and soon Lorimer Manor was off and running, so to speak.

  As part of the deal, two rooms in Lorimer Manor were always kept in readiness for Merry Outlaws who happened to be in our nation’s capital and needed a discreet place to rest their heads.

  Mr. Delchamps led Mr. Danton into Lorimer Manor’s recreation room, which was essentially a bar offering as large a selection of intoxicants as the one in the Willard he had just left.

  The centerpiece decoration of the bar was two dinosaurs, facing each other. One of them had a pink ribbon around its neck.

  “Sit, Roscoe,” Edgar ordered. “And tell Two-Gun and me everything you know about how our President’s latest aberration affects our leader.”

  Mr. Delchamps’s reference to Mr. Yung as “Two-Gun” unnerved him. He had no idea why the Merry Outlaws so referred to Mr. Yung, but the mental image of Mr. Yung with a pistol in each hand, blazing away at the bad guys, à la Mr. Bruce Willis in many of his motion pictures, was menacing.

  The explanation was simple. In the very first days, Mr. Yung and Mr. Delchamps had gone from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Buenos Aires. Both had pistols. In the case of Mr. Yung, this was perfectly legal, as Mr. Yung was then still officially a legal attaché of the U.S. embassy in Montevideo, which position afforded him diplomatic status. Diplomatic status, in turn, permitted him to go about armed and to park wherever he wanted to.

  Mr. Delchamps, who did not have diplomatic status, not only had to pay to park his car like ordinary people, but would have been arrested had he attempted to pass through Argentine customs with his preferred lethal weapon—a Colt Officer’s Model 1911A1 .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol—tucked in the back of his trousers. The solution was simple. He handed the .45 to Mr. Yung, who passed through customs carrying both. He had thereafter been known to his fellow Merry Outlaws as “Two-Gun Yung,” which had a certain onomatopoetic ring to it.

  Thus Mr. Danton, reasonably, was unnerved by the moniker. As was he unnerved after having been kidnapped from The Round Robin Bar.

  But what really unnerved him was being reminded that both Delchamps and Yung regarded him as one of their own—as, in other words, a fellow Merry Outlaw.

  Roscoe was willing to admit they had their reasons. One was that he had permitted dreams of journalistic glory to overwhelm his common sense. Specifically, armed with a borrowed Uzi machine pistol, he had jumped aboard the Black Hawk helicopter that Castillo had bought from a corrupt Mexican police official just before it had taken off in the Venezuelan incursion known as Operation March Hare.

  And, Roscoe was willing to admit, he had taken “the King’s Shilling.” Actually, it was “the Merry Outlaws’ Million Dollars After Taxes.” Mr. Delchamps and Mr. Yung had decided that since Roscoe had gone to the Venezuelan airbase on La Orchila Island carrying an Uzi, he was as much entitled to the bonus as anybody else who had gone on the operation.

  When the money was offered, Roscoe had thought only a fool would refuse a million dollars after taxes. He had since often wondered if that had been the right decision.

  “Edgar,” Roscoe said, with all the sincerity he could muster, “with Almighty God as my witness, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “My sainted mother, Roscoe,” Delchamps said, “taught me that religion is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

  “Have Roscoe play the intercepts,” Two-Gun said. “If that doesn’t trigger his memory, we’ll let him play with the dogs.”

  Edgar could see from the recreation room windows the dogs to which Two-Gun referred. There were eight or nine Bouviers des Flandres in the backyard of Lorimer Manor. One of them was playing tug-of-war with the garden hose. The gardener had one end still in his hands as the Bouvier dragged him around the garden on his stomach. The rest of the Bouviers, like a herd of buffalo, bounded after them, competing for the gardener’s back, onto which they leapt and rode like a sled until one of their siblings knocked them off and took their place.

  “Roscoe, take out your CaseyBerry and push button number nine, which will cause some intercepts to play. When you have listened carefully, tell us what you think.”

  While Roscoe was doing so, Edgar went behind the bar and prepared three drinks of twelve-year-old Macallan single malt whisky. He then signed Roscoe’s name to the honor system bar tab. He slid one glass to Two-Gun, but when Roscoe reached for what he thought was intended for him, Edgar waved his index finger at him negatively and said, “First, analysis, then booze.”

  “Depending, of course,” Two-Gun amplified, “on the quality of your analysis.”

  As Roscoe listened to the intercepts, the elegant grandmother type in her seventies came into the recreation room with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

  “If you give me one of those,” she said, pointing to his drink, “I will give you access to these.” She held up the tray.

  “Deal,” Delchamps said, and made her a drink.

  By the time he was finished, Roscoe had finished listening. He began to deliver his preliminary analysis: “I would hazard the guess that Jake Torine and Dick Miller are going to Argentina.”

  “The question then becomes, ‘Why are they going to Argentina on Frank Lammelle’s dime?’” Two-Gun said.

  “It… This is so wild I hate to even suggest it,” Roscoe said. “But it may have something to do with the President’s announcement at his press conference that he was convening a Cabinet meeting right after the press conference to implement his out-of-the-box thinking vis-à-vis the Somali pirates and the Mexican drug problem. Maybe he had Charley—”

  “That’s the best you can do, Roscoe?” Edgar interrupted.

  “I swear to G— Yes, it is.”

  Two-Gun said, “It’s really too far off the wall that Clendennen would want to involve Charley—”

  “You’ve got to stop thinking like an FBI agent, David,” Edgar interrupted him. “And start thinking out of your little box. This is so far off the wall that I think there’s probably something to Roscoe’s analysis.”

  He slid the glass of twelve-year-old Macallan to Danton.

  Danton took a sip, then said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “But as much as I hate to leave such pleasant company, I’m going to have to run along,” Roscoe said.

  “And you’re going to have to start thinking out of your journalist’s little box, Roscoe. You’re one of us now. And when one Merry Outlaw appears to be in the really deep doo-doo, other Merry Outlaws rush to help—they do not go into hiding. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. Just so we’re all on the same page.”

  “What do we do now?” Roscoe asked.

  There was an ordinary telephone—a base plugged into the wall with a cord and a handset—sitting below the two dinosaurs behind the bar. Delchamps went to it and dialed a number from memory.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Director, sir. This is one of your retired employees, sir, Edgar Delchamps. How are you this afternoon, sir?”

  “W
hat can I do for you, Edgar?” DCI Lammelle asked.

  Twenty-plus years previously, on his first assignment as an officer of the CIA Clandestine Service, Lammelle had been sent to Athens, Greece, to work for the station chief there, Mr. Edgar Delchamps.

  His orders had been to “shine shoes, make beds, and do whatever else Delchamps tells you to do. And be goddamned grateful for the chance to see him at work.”

  “Well, Louise and I have been sitting around Lorimer Manor—you remember Louise, don’t you, Mr. Lammelle?”

  Two assignments after Greece, Lammelle had been sent to Lima, Peru, where Louise Chambers had been the CIA station chief. His orders then had been “to wash dishes, make beds, and do whatever else Miss Chambers tells you to do. And be goddamned grateful for the chance to see her at work.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lammelle said.

  “Well, as I was saying, Mr. DCI, sir, Louise and I have been sitting around Lorimer Manor having a little taste, watching the grass grow, and wondering if anything interesting was happening at our former place of employment. So we thought we’d give you a call for Auld Lange Syne and ask.”

  “I can’t think of a thing, Edgar, but it’s nice to hear your voice.”

  “And it’s always a pleasure to hear yours, sir. I guess you don’t consider chartering a Gulfstream from Panamanian Executive Aircraft to fly to Argentina as interesting as Louise and I do.”

  “How the hell did you hear about that?” Mr. Lammelle inquired, and then hung up.

  Fifteen seconds later, Mr. Delchamps’s CaseyBerry buzzed.

  Delchamps said, “I’ll put this on loudspeaker,” and then punched the appropriate buttons.

  Mr. Lammelle’s voice on the CaseyBerry loudspeaker picked up the conversation where he had left it: “Casey told you, right?”

  “A good Clandestine Service officer, even a retired one, never reveals his sources. I thought I taught you that,” Delchamps said.

  When Lammelle didn’t reply, Delchamps went on. “Well, if you’re not willing to share this with us, Mr. DCI, sir—and by this I mean everything, of course—then I guess ol’ Roscoe Danton, who just happens to be sitting here with Louise and me, is going to have to ask Mr. Blue Jay Hoboken, President Clendennen’s—”

  “His name is Robin, not Blue Jay,” Lammelle interrupted without thinking.

  “Whatever. I’ve never been much of an ornithologist. We’ll just have Mr. Danton ask Mr. Robin Redbreast Hoboken what transpired at the President’s Cabinet meeting that might have an effect on Charley Castillo. You remember Colonel Castillo, don’t you, Mr. DCI, sir?”

  “Oh, shit!” DCI Lammelle said, and then, biting the bullet of recognition that he had no other choice, reported all he knew.

  When he had finished, and there was no reply from Delchamps, Lammelle said, “Okay, Edgar, now it’s your turn. What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I think we have to wait until we learn what happens in Argentina. I can’t believe Charley would go along with a recall to extended hazardous duty, but he’s surprised me before.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Why don’t you call Panamanian Executive Aircraft and have them bill the LCBF Corporation for the charter? Why did you volunteer to have the Agency pay for it, anyway?”

  “Because I didn’t think Jake would fly his airplane down there pro bono. Why does LCBF want to pay for it? Isn’t that robbing Peter to pay Paul?”

  “LCBF isn’t going to pay for it. Casey got Those People to advance us a million dollars for our expenses in this.”

  “So Casey is where you got your information?”

  “No. I just got it from the CIA. Nice to talk to you, Mr. Director, sir. Let’s take lunch sometime when your busy schedule permits.”

  “Edgar, I’m asking as nice as I know how. Please don’t do anything rash.”

  “Have I ever done anything rash as long as you’ve known me?”

  Lammelle grunted.

  “I will pass on to you anything I hear, Edgar, if you do the same. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  [THREE]

  Aeropuerto Internacional Teniente Luis Candelaria

  San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro Province, Argentina

  0045 6 June 2007

  The Gulfstream 550 touched smoothly down after a five-hour-and-twenty-six-minute flight—mostly at forty-five thousand feet and averaging 475 knots—from Panama City, Panama.

  The co-pilot, who had made the landing, was a thirty-six-year-old, six-foot-two, 220-pound, very black native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he had taxied the Gulfstream to the visiting aircraft tarmac and started to shut it down, he turned to the pilot, a forty-seven-year-old, six-foot-one, 170-pound, pale-skinned silver-haired native of Culpepper, Virginia.

  “Candelaria was the first guy to fly over—I guess, really through—the Andes,” the co-pilot, Major H. Richard Miller, Junior, USA, Retired, announced. “Very large set of gonads.”

  “Who was? And he did what?” Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF, Retired, asked.

  “Lieutenant Luis Candelaria,” Miller clarified. “On April thirteenth, 1918, he took off from Zapala, Argentina, in an eighty-horse Sounier Morano Parasol, and two hours thirty later put it down the other side of the mountains in Cunco, Chile. He was Argentina’s first military aviator.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with me, Dick. I always like to begin my day with little nuggets of aviation history.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And you are going to tell me, right, why you chose to enrich my life with that particular nugget at this moment in time and space?”

  “Because that’s where we are,” Miller said. “Aeropuerto Internacional Teniente Luis Candelaria.” He pointed to a sign on the terminal building that said so. “The first time I came in here I saw that and figured I’d landed at the wrong airport—the Garmin screen said it was lining me up to land at Bariloche International—so I looked it up.”

  “Experienced Air Force pilots such as myself never fully trust computerized navigation systems. I thought I’d taught you that.”

  Miller didn’t reply, and instead pointed out the window. “There’s Pevsner’s chopper, Liam Duffy, and the local authorities, but I don’t see either a brass band or our leader.”

  A glistening black Bell 429XP helicopter sat on the grass just off the tarmac. Beside it were two official trucks and eight men in an assortment of uniforms.

  “I was afraid of that,” Torine said. “McNab told me that when he told Charley we were coming down here to talk about what the President wants him to do, Charley said unless Clendennen wanted to help him commit hari-kiri, he wasn’t interested in doing anything for him. When McNab said we were coming anyway, Charley said we would be wasting our time. And then he said, ‘Nice to talk to you, sir,’ and hung up.”

  “So,” Miller interrupted, “when Charley got word we were an hour out, he came here in that 429, loaded Sweaty and Max into that adorable little three-million-dollar Cessna Mustang Sweaty gave him for his birthday, and the two of them took off…”

  Torine took up the thought: “. . . and right about now he is making his approach to Santiago, Chile, or Punta del Este, Uruguay, or some other exotic South American dorf—”

  “Where they will register in a nice hotel as Señor and Señora José Gonzales of Ecuador,” Miller finished the scenario.

  “I see that our great minds are still marching down the same path,” Torine said. “So what do we do when we learn Charley is not available to be convinced he should trust the Commander in Chief and answer his call to extended hazardous active duty? And incidentally, what’s that ‘hazardous duty’ all about?”

  “Hazardous duty pays an extra two hundred
a month, and the President thinks that will entice Charley to accept the offer.”

  “I forgot that. He must know how desperately Charley needs another two hundred a month. So, what do we do when we can’t find Charley?”

  “We will get on our CaseyBerrys and have Junior tell his daddy and have Vic D’Alessandro tell General McNab. They are accustomed to being screamed at by them.”

  “Colonel Naylor doesn’t like it when you call him ‘Junior,’” Torine said.

  “I know. Payback. When we were at the Point, he encouraged my roommate to call me that. He knew I didn’t like it.”

  “And what did he call you at West Point?”

  “‘Sir.’ Junior was a year behind Charley and me.”

  Torine pushed himself out of the pilot’s chair.

  “Let’s go get the bad news,” he said.

  Comandante Liam Duffy of the Argentine Gendarmería Nacional was waiting at the foot of the stair door. He warmly embraced both Torine and Miller.

  “So tell me,” Miller said, “what’s my favorite Argentine-Irish cop doing out here in the boonies so far from the crime and fleshpots of Buenos Aires?”

  “You mean in addition to greasing your way through Immigration and Customs?” Duffy replied in English that made him sound as if he had been born and raised in South Boston.

  “Yeah.”

  “I hoped you would ask,” Duffy said. “I am making sworn on the Holy Bible statements to His Eminence Archbishop Valentin and his chief of staff, Archimandrite Boris, of the ROCOR—which I’m sure you know is the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad—vis-à-vis Sweaty’s late husband—”

  “What the hell is that all about?” Miller asked.

  “Even a heathen like you should know that the Holy Scripture—specifically First Corinthians chapter seven, verse nine—clearly says that it’s better to marry than to burn.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Liam?”

  “I’d love to clear things up, but they’re holding dinner for us.”