The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Three-Seven-Niner rolling,” Torine reported. “Thank you.”

Then he switched to intercom. “Presuming you can steer it down the runway,” Torine’s voice came over Castillo’s earphones, “I’ll tell you when to rotate. And then when to get the gear up.”

[SEVEN]

Yoff International Airport

Dakar, Senegal

1835 7 August 2005

Max stood beside Castillo as he opened the stair door and, the moment it had extended, pushed Castillo aside and bounded down the stairs, startling more than a little the Senegalese airport authorities who had come to meet the Gulfstream.

Max took a quick look around, then headed for the nose gear, where he raised his leg and voided his bladder. It was an impressive performance, in terms of both volume and duration.

Then he looked around again, saw where the setting sun had cast a shadow to one side of the aircraft, trotted to it, and vacated his bowels in another impressive performance. Then he returned to the stair door and looked up at it, his posture suggesting, Well, I’m finished. What are you waiting for?

Billy Kocian came down the stairs both regally and carefully. He was wearing his wide-brimmed panama hat and a white linen suit. The jacket was draped rakishly over his shoulder and the arm he carried in a sling. His free hand held his cane like a swagger stick.

He looked at the airport authorities, nodded, and said, in Hungarian, “Good God, it’s hot! How long do we have to stand here in the sun in whatever obscure developing country we find ourselves?”

Castillo thought: Well, there’s now no question in the minds of the customs guys who owns this airplane.

“We’re in Dakar, Senegal,” Castillo replied, in Hungarian. “Unless I’m mistaken, that bus will take us to the transient lounge.”

He pointed to a Peugeot van.

“Do you suppose it has air-conditioning or is that too much to expect?” Kocian asked and walked to the bus.

Sándor Tor came down the stairs and followed Kocian. Max trotted after them.

Jake Torine came down the stairs, carrying the aircraft’s documents, and then Fernando Lopez exited.

“I hate to tell you this, Gringo,” Lopez said, “but that landing was a greaser.”

“A greaser? For my very first touchdown, it was magnificent!”

“You and I will fly across the drink, Fernando,” Torine said. “There is nothing more dangerous in the sky than a pilot who thinks he really knows how to fly.”

[EIGHT]

Carrasco International Airport

Montevideo, República Oriental del Uruguay

2030 7 August 2005

“Legal Attaché” David W. Yung, Jr., was in a strange, good—almost euphoric—mood as the Policía Federal helicopter carrying him, “Cultural Attaché” Robert Howell, “Assistant Legal Attaché” Julio Artigas, and Chief Inspector José Ordóñez came in for a landing at the military side of the airport.

It was an almost complete turnaround of feelings from when he’d gotten on the same ancient and battered Huey at eight that morning for the flight to Estancia Shangri-La in Tacuarembó Province.

Then he had been very worried. He had just about convinced himself that the whole thing was going to blow up in his face and God only knew what that would mean, either to the mission ordered by the Presidential Finding or to David W. Yung, Jr., personally. And he hadn’t been the only one worrying that he was about to fuck up spectacularly. He could tell that Howell and Artigas were watching him almost as closely as was Ordóñez.

That hadn’t happened. He hadn’t done anything stupid, even though on the flight to the estancia he had wallowed in the discomfiting thought that while he had conducted a great many interrogations himself, this was the first time he had been on—and all day would continue to be on—the receiving end of an interrogation conducted by an interrogator as skilled—perhaps, better skilled—in that art as he was.

And since he was lying through his teeth—and had very little experience doing that—the odds were that he had already said something, had revealed something, that he shouldn’t have. And, if he hadn’t, that would happen before the day was over.

That hadn’t happened, either.