The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“What are you talking about?”

“Guess who got shot in Montevideo last night by parties unknown?”

“Yung?” Castillo asked, incredulously.

“They were waiting for him at his apartment when he came back from the estancia. They probably would have got him—by which I mean grabbed him—if the Uruguayan cops hadn’t been sitting on him.”

“How bad is he hurt?”

“The Uruguayan cops got one of the guys going after him with three shots of double-aught buckshot. The others, probably two, got away. Yung took one pellet in his left hand. Just gouged it. No bone damage, just a canal. Yung’s like you, Charley: he walks through raindrops. He was standing right next to the bad guy when the cops took him out.”

“And the guy the cops shot?”

“No identification. But he did have a hypo full of ketamine—a strong tranquilizer—that I think he wanted to stick in Yung.”

“Jesus Christ!” Castillo exclaimed.

“You got the word that Ambassador McGrory thinks Lorimer was a drug dealer?”

Castillo nodded.

“Well, he’s been told that the people who shot Yung were carjackers.”

“The Uruguayan cops went along with that?”

Darby nodded.

“For reasons of their own, they suggested that story to Yung. I can’t imagine why.”

“Neither can I.”

“Well, if McGrory believes Lorimer was a drug dealer, he’ll probably conclude that the Uruguayan cops know Yung was shot by another drug dealer and don’t want to admit. I sure hope so. If McGrory finds out what really happened at that estancia, the shit will really hit the fan. And some of it will splatter on Ambassador Silvio and I don’t like that.”

“Can you contact Yung? Is he in the hospital?”

“He wouldn’t stay. He’s in his apartment. Bob Howell is sitting on him, Howell and another FBI agent who was at the estancia, and—bad news—according to Howell has figured out what really happened at the estancia.”

“Well, let’s get him over here. I don’t want him grabbed in Montevideo. How soon can you get him here?”

“Two hours from the time I call him,” Darby said, nodding at the telephone.

“That raises the question of a safe house,” Castillo said. “I don’t think this place is going to work. Too many people for one thing. Can we use the place we used before?”

“Mayerling? No and, maybe, yes.”

“Come on, Alex.”

“The place we used before is not available,” Darby said. “But there’s a place for rent out there that would really be better.”

“Rent it,” Castillo said. “How quickly can you do that?”

“The problem there is the rent. Four thousand a month. First and last month due on signing, plus another two months up front for a security deposit. That’s sixteen thousand. I have just about that much in my black account. If I ask for more, Langley’s going to want to know what for.”

“Money’s not a problem,” Castillo said. “We now have the Lorimer Charitable and Benevolent Fund to draw on.”

“The what?”

“Lorimer had almost sixteen million in three banks in Montevideo. Most of it is now in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank in the Cayman Islands.”