The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“I’m taking Inspector Doherty with me, sir.”

“To South America?”

“I want him to work with the people and the data down there, Mr. Ambassador.”

“I’d really like to have his take on the probability of there being nuclear weapons about to be detonated in this country.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does that mean you’re going to send him to see or not?”

“I’ve got two more telephone calls to make, Mr. Ambassador, and then we’re going to the airport.”

“In other words, you’re not going to send him to see me.”

“There’s just not time, Mr. Ambassador.”

“This is another of those times when I really wish you were working for me, Castillo.”

“Yes, sir. I thought something like that might be running through your mind.”

There was a long silence, then the White House operator came on the line: “Are you through, Colonel?”

Castillo realized that Montvale had broken his end of the connection.

“It looks that way. Thank you.”

Castillo put the White House phone back in its cradle and picked up the handset of another.

“Lopez.”

“Carlos. You weren’t in your office, but they gave me your cellular number.”

“I’m at the Double-Bar-C,” Fernando Lopez said.

“What are you doing there?”

“Why do you think, Gringo? Abuela’s here.”

“So are half a dozen Secret Service agents.”

“I thought I should be here, okay? What’s on your mind?”

“What do you know about the Kenyon oil company, specifically the Kenyon Oil Refining and Brokerage Company? Is there a Kenyon?”

“Jesus, you really don’t live here anymore, do you?” Lopez said, not very pleasantly. “Yeah, there’s a Kenyon. There’s a lot of them. One of them, Philip, is a classmate of mine. You don’t remember him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Now that I think about it, I’m really surprised. You belted him good one time when he said you had to be queer because you talked funny and rode a sissy saddle.”

“Tubby?” Castillo asked as the memory came to him of a heavyset twelve-year-old trying to fight back tears after his nose had been bloodied.

“Yeah,” Fernando said. “Tubby. Nobody calls him that much anymore.”

“He runs Kenyon?”

“Yeah, he does. Why do I think, Gringo, that I am going to be unhappy when you explain this sudden interest in Philip J. Kenyon III?”