The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Make sure everybody else knows.”

“Including Kocian?”

“Especially Kocian.”

“Done, Colonel. You don’t have a time, do you?”

“Anywhere from four to twenty-four hours after they find out where he is. And, by now, they may already know.”

“Kocian wants to go into Buenos Aires for lunch.”

“That’s off. He is not to leave Mayerling. I’d prefer that he not go outside the house.”

“Well, you and I have sat on difficult people before. I’ll deal with him.”

“We’ll be coming down there after a stop in Midland, Texas.”

“To see Colonel Munz’s family?”

“No. We found out there’s a connection in Midland between the oil-for-food scam and the two million dollars the Philadelphia Muslims got for their bomb shelter. We’re going to see what we can find out and then come down there.”

“Got an ETA?”

“When there is one, I’ll get it to you.”

“I think we can handle things here, Colonel. Anything else?”

“I was about to ask you to patch me through to the embassy, but I just decided it’ll be better if I make a perfectly ordinary call from here. I don’t want to be responsible for tipping these bastards about Mayerling.”

“Understood.”

“Okay, Jack. Keep your eyes open and watch your back.”

“You, too, Colonel.”

“Break it down, Neidermeyer.”

Pevsner’s phone numbers were in the cellular telephone Alex Darby had given him in Buenos Aires and Castillo had to go into his briefcase for it. When he turned it on, the screen read LOW BATTERY.

He pushed himself away from the desk and went into the outer—Mr. Agnes Forbison’s—office, where, the moment Agnes saw him with the cellular in his hand, she put her hand out for it. Then she pulled open a drawer in her desk, where—predictably—she had a box full of assorted chargers and in a moment had fitted one of them to the phone.

“There’s a socket in your banker’s lamp on your desk,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“I gather you’re going somewhere?” she asked.

“Midland, Texas, and then Buenos Aires,” Castillo replied. “I think we’ve found the link between the oil-for-food scam and the nuclear suitcase bombs.”

She didn’t say anything but her eyes asked for clarification.

“If I tell you this, there will be a nuclear mushroom over Philadelphia before I finish the sentence,” Castillo said. “But right now, I really don’t think there is a suitcase bomb any nearer than Siberia.”

“Thank God!” she said.

“That whole scenario was to pull our chain,” Castillo said. “Or, at least, pulling our chain was part of it.”

“Can Dick tell me about it?”