The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“You’re sure?” Agnes asked and, when he had nodded, said, “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Castillo said as he watched Agnes tenderly wrap Yung’s hand with a sterile bandage.

“We met in the Round Robin,” Yung said, referring to the ground-floor bar in the Willard Hotel, which is across the street from the Marriott.

“Whence I had gone separately for a little liquid sustenance,” Delchamps said, “the Marriott bar being full of road warriors and ladies offering them solace for a price…”

“I thought you were going to get on the horn to the retired dinosaurs association?” Castillo interrupted.

“…after I had conversed with several gentlemen whose advanced age has fortunately not dimmed their memories,” Delchamps went on. “And there was this Asiatic gentleman, with a bandaged wing, extolling the virtues of Argentine beef to a tootsie at the bar. It could have been a coincidence, but I didn’t think so. I thought I was looking at Two-Gun Yung, the wounded hero of the Battle of the River Plate, whose exploits so shocked Doherty yesterday. So what I did was borrow a sheet of paper from the bartender and sent him a note.”

“You sonofabitch,” Yung said. “You really got me!”

“The note read ‘Colonel C thought you would probably talk too much. Leave immediately. Go to your hotel and wait for instructions,’” Delchamps went on, pleased with himself. “My reasoning being that if Confucius had never heard of Colonel C. no harm would be done. But if I was right…and I was…”

“You bastard,” Yung said, good-naturedly.

“He read the note and became scrute…”

“Became what?” Agnes asked.

“As in ‘inscrutable,’” Delchamps explained. “Nervously licking his lips, he looked frantically around the bar, searching for counterintel types, and…”

“He didn’t make you?” Castillo said, laughing.

Delchamps shook his head. “I carry with me this often helpful aura of bemused innocence,” he said. “So what Dave did was hurriedly pay his bill, say good-bye to the tootsie, and head for the door. At that point, I took pity on him and bought him a drink.”

“We had a couple,” Yung admitted.

“I hope your mind is clear, Dave. I’ve got a bunch of stuff from NSA I need you to translate and, after that, you can tell me about the funeral.”

Castillo was not unaware that Delchamps’s attitude had done a one-eighty from that of the previous morning.

Maybe because he’s working?

Or maybe because he’s working and he senses that he’s not going to be ignored now after breaking his ass trying to do a good job.

“Good morning, Inspector Doherty,” Yung said politely as he walked into the conference room.

“How are you, Yung?” Doherty replied.

And ice filled the room, Castillo thought. So far as Doherty’s concerned, Yung has betrayed his beloved FBI, and there’s not much of a difference between him and Howard Kennedy.

And Yung not only knows this, but probably—almost certainly—has to feel uncomfortable about that, maybe even a little ashamed of himself.

Is that going to fuck things up? Is Dave going to backslide and become a good little FBI agent again?

The answer came immediately.

“Well, aside from this,” Yung said, raising his bandaged hand, “I’m fine, Inspector. How about you?”

“I heard about that,” Doherty said.

“Colonel Castillo told you?”

Doherty nodded.

“I thought he would probably have to have told you—Edgar Delchamps told me what you’re doing here. So I guess he also told you that you can’t go back to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and tell them, ‘Guess what? We were right all along about Yung. He can’t be trusted any more than Howard Kennedy can. Wait till I tell you what he’s been up to.’”