The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

Fifteen seconds later, they were in the one-hundred-thirty-kilometer-per-hour lane of Route 8 headed south.

Castillo turned to look out the rear window. The BMW was following them.

He looked at Delchamps.

“What else did you find at the laundry van?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Delchamps said. “If, as seems highly likely, we shortly find ourselves chatting with half a dozen of Pilar’s finest law enforcement officers, it will be better if you don’t know.”

[FIVE]

Nuestra Pequeña Casa

Mayerling Country Club

Pilar, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

2155 13 August 2005

Castillo, Pevsner, and Delchamps leaned against the wall of one of the down-stairs bedrooms, watching as U.S. Army Special Forces medic Sergeant Robert Kensington finished bandaging János. The bed had been raised three feet off the floor on concrete blocks to make a perfectly serviceable operating table.

“Bullets are like booze,” Kensington observed, professionally. “The larger the body—unless, of course, the bullets hit something important—the less effect they have. And we have here a very large body.”

János, feeling the effects of three of Kensington’s happy pills, agreed cheerfully. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I am much larger than most men.”

“Perhaps not as smart but indeed larger,” Pevsner said, fondly.

Castillo and Delchamps chuckled.

Pevsner’s cellular buzzed. He looked at its screen to see who was calling and then pointed to the French doors leading from the room to the backyard.

“May I?” he asked.

“Sure,” Castillo said.

Pevsner left the room and walked to the center of the backyard with the cellular to his ear. The floodlights which normally illuminated the backyard had been turned off but there was still enough light from the house and the quincho so that he could be seen clearly. Castillo and Delchamps left the bedroom and stood on the tile-paved patio.

When Pevsner took the cellular from his ear, they walked to Pevsner.

“Anna and the children are pleased that I am impulsively taking them to our place in San Carlos de Bariloche for a little skiing,” Pevsner said. “Anna is concerned that they will lose a few days in school, but under the circumstances…”

“I understand,” Castillo said.

“They are en route to the Jorge Newbery airfield by car,” Pevsner went on. “I have arranged for a Lear to fly us to Bariloche. Now, if I can further impose on your hospitality, there is something else I’d like you to do for me.”

“Which is?” Castillo asked.

“I don’t want Anna and the children to see János in his present condition, of course, and János—despite his present very good humor—is really not in shape to fly halfway across Argentina. There is a place not very far from here that is both safe and where he can recuperate in peace. What I would like to do is have the Ranger pick us up…”

“Not here,” Castillo interrupted. “Sorry.”

“Of course not,” Pevsner said. “Please let me continue, my friend.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“There are eight polo fields at the Argentine Polo Association on the north of Pilar. Do you know where I mean?”

Castillo shook his head.