The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“David Yung is an FBI agent who now works for me,” Castillo said. “Jean-Paul Lorimer—an American, a UN diplomat, up to his eyeballs in the Iraq oil-for-food scam—was whacked by parties unknown at his estancia in Uruguay.”

“This is starting to get interesting,” Swanson said.

“The Secret Service is involved,” Castillo said. “I asked Tom McGuire to send people to watch the Lorimer family, the funeral home, the funeral, etcetera, to see if they can make any of the mourners. And to keep an eye on Yung. These bastards have already tried to kidnap and/or whack him.”

“Really interesting,” Swanson said. “Neither Tom or Joel mentioned anything about that, either.”

“I told you they couldn’t,” Castillo said. “And what I said just now about parties unknown wasn’t entirely accurate.” He looked at Britton. “Jack, we now know who one of the Ninjas was. He was positively identified—fingerprints—by a Uruguayan cop as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia.”

“No shit?” Britton said, in great surprise.

“I suppose you realize, Colonel, that you’re really whetting my curiosity?” Swanson said.

“Let’s get in one of the Yukons,” Castillo said. “We can start clueing you in while Torine’s dealing with the airplane. I don’t think we can finish, but we can start.”

Fifteen minutes later, Jake Torine handed Castillo’s American Express card to the Lehigh Aviation Services’ fuel truck driver, who took it without question, ran it through his machine, then handed it back with the sales slip for his signature. Torine signed the slip—using his own signature, but it would have taken the expert eye of a forensic document examiner to determine that the scribble read “Torine” and not “Castillo”—then walked across the blazing-hot tarmac to the black Yukon that Castillo and the others had climbed in.

Special Agent Bob Davis of the Secret Service had to get out of the truck, fold down the middle-row seat he had been occupying, and get in the back, third row of seats so Torine could get in.

“If you weren’t such a paragon of virtue and honesty, Charley,” Torine said, after the introductions were made and as he handed Castillo his credit card, “you probably wouldn’t have to pay for the fuel and the landing fee. I signed the bill ‘Abraham Lincoln.’”

When Torine didn’t get the laugh he expected, he added: “Somehow I sense I’m interrupting something.”

“I have been regaling these gentlemen with the plot of the mystery,” Castillo said.

“How far did you get?”

“Dropping the Munzes at the ranch in Midland,” Castillo said. “I told them everything, Jake. We need all the help we can get.”

“Any of this make any sense to you, Mr. Swanson?” Torine asked.

“No, Colonel, it doesn’t. And I am about to be overwhelmed with curiosity as to how these Rambo operations of yours are connected with these home-grown Muslims we’re watching ‘as a highest priority.’”

“Tell them, Jack,” Castillo ordered.

“Okay,” Britton said, and took a moment to form his thoughts. “You know, Fred, that when I was on the Philly cops, I was undercover for a long time in the Aari-Teg mosque.”

“That must have been fun,” Special Agent Davis commented from the backseat. “How long did you get away with that before they made you?”

“Three and a half years—and they never made me.”

“I’m impressed,” Davis said in genuine admiration.

“Yeah, me, too,” Castillo said.

“Right after we came back from Uruguay,” Britton said, “I heard that another undercover cop in the Aari-Teg mosque, a pal of mine named Sy Fillmore, had gone over the edge—the cops found him wandering around babbling in North Philly. Once they learned, several days later, he was a fellow cop, they had him put in the loony tunes ward in Friends Hospital. So I went to see him.

“And he told me that AALs had bought a hundred-twenty-acre farm in Bucks County on which—or in which—were some pre–Revolutionary War iron mines that they were stocking with food and water, and in which they are going to take cover when a briefcase-sized nuclear bomb is detonated in Philly.”

“Jesus Christ!” Special Agent Davis exclaimed.

“And you’re taking this seriously?” Swanson asked, his tone serious. “It sounds incredible.”

“Yes, it does,” Britton said. “And that’s what Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer decided when he heard it. First of all, it came from Fillmore, who slides back and forth between

making sense and babbling, and is indeed incredible on its face value. Kramer didn’t even tell the FBI. But when I told Charley, both he and McGuire, and I suppose Isaacson, too, decided I should look into it. That’s when you got involved.”

“You mean Joel knew this and didn’t tell me?” Swanson asked, indignantly. “All I got was some bullshit about starting a ‘highest priority round-the-clock surveillance’ of these lunatics, the reason for which I would learn in due time.”