The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“If you’re not on that airplane with the body,” Castillo said, “Ambassador McGrory—and others—are going to suspect you didn’t come down here to repatriate the remains. So you will be on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He’s really disappointed.

“And you will stay through the funeral. There’s no telling who might show up for that.” He paused, then looked at Santini. “Tony, could we get the Secret Service to make the plates of the cars at that funeral? Maybe the people themselves?”

“Not a problem. Who are we looking for?” Santini said.

“Names and addresses—and photographs, if that can be done discreetly—to feed to our database,” Castillo said. “Anything. Right now all we have is the database.”

“I’ll get on the horn,” Santini said.

“After that, Dave,” Castillo said, “if you still want to come back here, we’ll see what can be worked out.”

He saw that Yung was pleased with that.

Congratulations, Second Lieutenant Castillo. You remembered that from Leadership 101: “If at all possible, do not discourage enthusiasm.”

“Okay, so where does that leave us?” Santini said. “The passports and what else?”

“The pancake flour and maple syrup,” Castillo said.

Artigas thought, The what?

“I got it,” Santini said. “What’s that all about?”

“Where is it right now?” Castillo asked.

“In the trunk of the embassy BMW,” Solez said.

“It’s for Putin,” Castillo said. “I promised it to him.”

Artigas thought, incredulously: He promised pancake flour and maple syrup to Aleksandr Pevsner, international thug?

“I’d love to know what that’s all about, Charley,” Santini said.

“Alfredo,” Castillo said, “is there any way you can communicate with your wife without using your home phone?”

Munz nodded. “I can call her and give her a message, something innocuous, that tells her to go to the phone in the kiosk around the corner from the house.”

“How is she about taking orders without question?”

“Ordinarily, not good at all,” Munz said, smiling. “But under these circumstances…” He paused. “She knows I didn’t shoot myself cleaning my pistol. And she’s seen the cars.”

“What about your daughters?”

“They’ll do what their mother tells them to do.”

“How do you think this would work?” Castillo began. “You get her on the kiosk phone and tell her to pick up your daughters and their passports—and nothing else, that’s important—and take a taxi to Unicenter. Is there a place you could meet her there?”

“In the food court,” Munz said. “Or, for that matter, the garage.”

“The food court would probably be better,” Castillo said. “I’ll drive you back there and we’ll sneak you in the way we sneaked you out. You will meet them in the food court. I’ll follow you up there and so will Ricardo, Yung, and Artigas. You will point us all out to them so they understand we’re the good guys. You get the passports…”

Munz held up his hand and Castillo stopped.

Munz thought for a long moment, then said, “Okay so far, Karl. Go on.”