The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

There had been three police vehicles—two cars and a small van—parked in front of the estancia and, as the helicopter approached, a half dozen policemen came out from under the shielded veranda of the house to watch the helo land.

And there was another man, a burly, middle-aged Uruguayan wearing a suit jacket and tie and gaucho pants stuffed into red rubber boots. He knew that had to be Ricardo Montez, the manager of the estancia.

Early in the assault, Montez had been tied, blindfolded, and “tranquilized” by one of Castillo’s Green Berets, but there was still a very good chance that he would somehow recognize Yung, or at least eye him suspiciously, which, of course, would immediately be picked up by Ordóñez.

That hadn’t happened. When Ordóñez introduced them to Montez and the police as “representatives of the U.S. embassy” and said they had come to have a look at the crime site and to begin the process of protecting the late Señor Lorimer’s property, there had been not even a glimmer of recognition.

Ordóñez gave them a guided tour of the crime scene, beginning by showing the Americans the chalk body outlines indicating where two of what everyone was now calling the Ninja had fallen on the veranda.

Next, Ordóñez showed them the chalk body outline of the Ninja who had fallen just inside the front door. Yung had been more than a little surprised at his reaction to that one—virtually none—although he’d killed that Ninja himself, taking him down with two quick shots as he had been trained to do at the FBI school at Quantico. It was the first time since he’d been in the FBI that he’d ever taken his pistol from its holster with any prospect at all of having to use it.

What the hell is wrong with me? Am I a cold-blooded killer?

Remembering suddenly that he was still carrying his pistol had caused another moment of anxiety.

I haven’t even cleaned it. Not smart, Yung!

Christ, if Ordóñez gets his hands on my pistol they can match it to the slugs in the Ninja I took down. Proof that not only was I involved in this but that I killed that man!

The anxiety hadn’t lasted long: Calm down! You have diplomatic immunity. Ordóñez can’t even ask for the pistol.

Next came the chalk body outline in Lorimer’s office, showing where Lorimer had fallen.

That produced virtually no reaction, either, although it did trigger a sharp and very unplea

sant memory of Lorimer’s body in the morgue refrigerator in the British Hospital in Montevideo the previous afternoon.

A Uruguayan pathologist who spoke English like the queen had pulled Lorimer’s naked body from its shelf in the cooler and unceremoniously pulled the sheet from it.

“Just going through the motions, you know,” the pathologist had said, conversationally. “Either of the bullets in the poor chap’s brain would have killed him instantly. But the chief inspector said he wanted a full autopsy, so I did one.”

He had gestured at the corpse. A full autopsy had apparently required that a large incision—sort of a flap—be made in the body from the upper chest to the groin. It had been sewn shut, some what crudely. So had the incisions made in Lorimer’s face and skull. The bullets in his head had made large exit wounds and the skull was deformed.

Ordóñez next showed them where the other three Ninja had fallen outside the house. Two of them, Ordóñez said, to bursts of 5.56mm rifle fire, probably from an M-16 firing on full automatic close up. One of the bodies had five wounds; the other, three. The third had died of a 9mm bullet to the forehead. That body, Ordóñez said, also had stab wounds, suggesting there had been hand-to-hand combat before he was killed by a bullet.

Yung, who had searched all the bodies and then photographed and finger-printed them right after the firefight, could only hope he was making the right facial expressions and asking the right kind of questions as he “learned this for the first time.”

By the time Ordóñez—watching all of them closely to see their reactions—had finished his guided tour of the main house and the grounds immediately outside and the field where he’d found the skid marks of the Bell Ranger, Yung felt a good deal less nervous. He felt that he’d handled himself well.

A four-hour search of the house had turned up nothing useful, which was not surprising, since immediately after the firefight Castillo had quickly gathered up everything he thought might be useful—including the entire contents of the safe—and loaded it on the Ranger.

That material, including an encrypted address book, was now being evaluated in Washington.

And, of course, Ordóñez’s men had conducted their own search of the house. If they had found anything interesting, Ordóñez wasn’t saying.

Most of the search was spent going through Lorimer’s rather large library one book at a time to see if he had hidden something in the books. Or in the bookcase.

And going through his closets and bureaus, all that turned up was proof that Lorimer had spent a lot of money on luxury clothing.

Onan impulse, thinking of the crudely sewn corpse in the British Hospital, Yung took a Louis Vuitton suitcase from a shelf and put in it a nearly black custom-made Italian suit, handmade Hungarian shoes, and a shirt, socks, and underwear, all silk and all bearing labels: SULKA, RUE DE CASTIGLIONE, PARIS.

“What the hell are you doing?” Howell asked, softly.

“Taking this stuff to the undertaker’s in Montevideo.”

“Why?”

“The last time I saw Lorimer—we saw him—he was naked.”