The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“My name is Aleksandr Pevsner,” Pevsner said, icily, “as if you don’t already know that.”

“Right,” Delchamps said. “So I called Aleksandr here, and he not only had what the good guys needed, and at the right price, but was prepared to drop-ship it for me. He had just acquired his first Boeing 737. Before that he had—excuse me, Aleksandr, but it’s the truth—a couple, maybe three, really ratty, worn-out Antonovs that I was always surprised could get off the ground.”

Castillo looked at Pevsner and saw that while his face showed no emotion, Pevsner’s ice-blue eyes could have burned holes in the old CIA agent.

Delchamps went on: “But he wanted cash on delivery, Aleksandr did. By then, I would have thought my credit was good. We’d done a lot of business before and he’d always gotten his money. And there wasn’t all that much involved in this deal. A couple hundred Kalashnikov AK-47s, ammo, a few mortars, and I think there was even a dozen light .30 caliber Browning machine guns left over from Vietnam. Right, Aleksandr?”

“We all know you’re not here to remember the past,” Pevsner said. “Dare I hope this charade will soon come to an end?”

“Let me finish this for Charley, Aleksandr,” Delchamps went on, casually. “So what that meant was I had to go to Kisangani—what used to be Stanleyville—with all this cash in my briefcase—”

“Goddamn it, Charley,” Pevsner suddenly interrupted, having clearly lost his temper, “what have you done with Alfredo Munz and his family? I’ve had all of your sick humor that I can handle.”

“The girls have been put to work in the prison kitchen,” Castillo said. “They seem to have adjusted well to it. Would you like to see a picture?”

“If it would not be too much trouble,” Pevsner said, icily. His face was still flushed, but he seemed to have his temper under control.

“Could we go into the living room? The pictures are in my computer. I need some place to put it down.”

“You know the way,” Pevsner said.

“The lady holding Señora Munz’s shoulder is my grandmother,” Castillo said, in Russian, when he’d opened the laptop and shown Pevsner how to cycle the images onscreen by using the arrow keys.

A minute later, Castillo said, “I should be very angry at you for even considering the possibility that I would be holding them hostage. But all I am is a little sorry for you.”

Pevsner met his eyes for a long moment, then said, “I didn’t know what to think.”

“Your apology is accepted,” Castillo said.

“And Alfredo?”

“He’s near here.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“He won’t come here.”

“There are some questions I have to ask him, and I want to do that face-to-face and alone.”

“Well, he won’t come here—he doesn’t trust you, Alek—and I won’t take you to where he is. The telephone won’t do?”

Pevsner shook his head. “I need to look in his eyes.”

Castillo didn’t reply.

“He trusts you, apparently,” Pevsner said.

“I think so.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Let me ask that first, Alek. Do you trust me?”

“With the caveat that we have different agendas, yes, I do.”

“Same answer, Alek. And now let me tell you what my agenda is: I want Howard Kennedy. Let me rephrase that. I am going to have Howard Kennedy.”

“Which means what?”