The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“You tell them to go shopping,” Castillo continued. “Underwear, maybe dresses, whatever else they’ll need for two, three days. No luggage. Shopping bags only.”

“They won’t be going back to the apartment?” Munz asked.

“No. They’ll take a cab to the Buquebus terminal, arriving no more than ten minutes before they have to…”

“There’s a ferry leaving at nine-thirty,” Munz said. “It gets to Montevideo about one in the morning. Which means they would have to be there at nine-fifteen. Considering the traffic, they’d have to leave Unicenter no later than eight-thirty.” He looked at his watch. “It’s now ten to six. It’ll be tight but that much can be done. What’s the rest?”

“Artigas will have taken a cab to Buquebus right after you point out him and Yung to your family. That’s (a) so he can buy the tickets and (b) in case Yung, who will stay in Unicenter with your family—and follow them in another taxi to Buquebus—somehow gets separated from them. In other words, Artigas’ll be at the terminal with their tickets and passports when your family gets there. That should reassure them a little. And they’ll stay with them as long as they’re in Uruguay.”

“I’m not going to drive them?” Ricardo Solez asked.

“You’re going to take the passports, bring them here, have them stamped, and then take them to Artigas at the Buquebus terminal.”

“Got it.”

Castillo went on: “Alfredo is going to get in his car—he left it in the Unicenter parking lot—and take Putin the pancake flour and maple syrup…”

Artigas decided, Pancake flour and maple syrup have to be code names for something—something they don’t want me to know about. But what?

“…And he’s going to tell Putin that I called him, had him meet me at Unicenter, and gave him the flour and syrup, then asked him to take it to him. He will also cleverly drop into their conversation that I told him I was going to the States either tonight or tom

orrow.”

Munz nodded.

“I’m going to follow him out there—and I think I better have a weapon—Tony?”

“I just happen to have a spare Glock in my briefcase,” Santini said.

“I’m going to wait for Alfredo in the supermarket parking lot near where Putin’s holed up. You know where I mean, Alfredo?”

Munz nodded.

“When Munz comes back from delivering the flour and syrup to Putin, he will drive to his apartment with me following him. There he will put his car in the garage, go to his apartment, and turn on the lights, then turn them off again and go out of the apartment and to the kiosk around the corner. Somehow, during this time, he will get into the backseat of the Cherokee without being noticed and I’ll take him to the apartment on Arribeños.”

“What’s that?” Munz asked.

“It’s where you’ll spend tonight,” Castillo said. “Tomorrow, presuming nothing went wrong with renting it, you—and Eric Kocian, Max, and Kocian’s bodyguard—will as quietly as possible be moved to a safe house in the Mayerling Country Club in Pilar.”

“Who are those people?” Munz asked.

“One is a man named Eric Kocian. He’s a journalist. He’s got a lot of material I want you to go through to see if we can make a connection.”

“I don’t like journalists much myself,” Munz said. “But he needs a bodyguard?”

Castillo nodded. “They tried to kill him twice in the last week. They also tried to stick a needle full of phenothiazine in him. You’ll like the bodyguard. He used to be an inspector in the Budapest police department, and, before that, a hitch in the French Foreign Legion.”

“They speak Spanish?”

“German and Hungarian.”

“And the third one? Max Something, you said?”

“Max Bouvier,” Castillo said. “He doesn’t talk much.”

“Another bodyguard, Karl?”

“Oh, yes,” Castillo said.