The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“We have only theories about why he was shot,” Castillo said.

“Then get to them later. Who shot him?”

“There were six guys in their assault party…”

“Whose assault party?”

“We don’t know. We have identified one of them positively as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Dirección General de Inteligencia.”

“Now, that’s interesting,” Doherty said. “Who’s your source for those facts. How reliable is he?”

“I’m the source,” Castillo said. “I was there.”

“Why?”

“We were going to repatriate Lorimer.”

“To where?”

“Here. He was an American who worked for the UN in Paris.”

“How were you going to do that? And why?”

“We were going to snatch him, chopper him to Buenos Aires, load him on a Lear, and fly him here. To find out what we could from him about who might have murdered J. Winslow Masterson, who was his brother-in-law.”

“Who’s we? Who was there with you?”

Castillo hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and started to tell him. He stopped when a moment later Juliet Knowles and a pale-faced young woman who looked British came into the room, pushing a blackboard mounted on a wheeled frame. Mr. Forbison, carrying a laptop computer, was on their heels.

“Colonel Gregory J. Kilgore of NSA is here, chief,” Agnes said as she put the computer on the conference table. “What do you want me to tell him?”

“I better see him,” Castillo said. “This is going to take a little while to get organized anyhow.”

Colonel Kilgore was a tall, slender Signal Corps officer in a crisp uniform.

“Colonel Castillo?” he asked.

“I’m a brand-new lieutenant colonel and I don’t wear my uniform around here, sir,” Castillo said.

“Ambassador Montvale made it pretty clear, however, that you’re the man in charge. What would you like me to call you?”

“How do you feel about first names? Mine is Charley.”

“I’d be more comfortable with Mr.,” Kilgore said.

“That’s fine with me.”

“What can NSA do for you, Mr. Castillo?”

“This is a covert and clandestine operation authorized by a Presidential Finding and the classification is Top Secret Presidential.”

“Understood.”

“I’m going to need some intercepts,” Castillo said. “The priority is a wire transfer into the Merchants National Bank of Easton, Pennsylvania, from a numbered account in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited in the Cayman Islands. The amount was $1,950,000. What I need is who that Cayman account belongs to, what monies have been transferred into it, when and by whom.”

“If NSA provided you with that information, it would be in violation of several sections of the United States Code, as I’m sure you’re aware, and even if we gave it to you it could not be used as evidence in a court of law.”

“Didn’t Ambassador Montvale tell you, Colonel, that you are—NSA is—to give me whatever I asked for?”