The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“I am not as happy to see you, my friend,” Chief Inspector José Ordóñez said as he wrapped Munz in a bear hug and kissed his cheek, “as I would be if you were alone.”

He looked at the others. “And my friend David Yung and Mr. Howell, of the culture department of the American embassy. How nice to see you both again.”

He turned to Castillo and Delchamps and put his hand out to Delchamps.

“Colonel Castillo, I’m Chief Inspector José Ordóñez of the Federal Police and I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

“My name is Smith,” Delchamps said. “No hable Español.”

Ordóñez smiled at him and shook his hand.

“I’m Castillo,” Castillo said.

“Jose Ordóñez, Colonel,” Ordóñez replied, offering his hand. “If I may say so, you’re very young to have done all the things people say you have done.”

“I try to live clean,” Castillo said. “What did we do, walk in on a police convention?”

“I suppose it does look like a convention, doesn’t it?” Ordóñez said. “But, sadly, no. We are all here on duty. One of your countrymen has run into some difficulty.”

“You don’t say?”

“I was just about to call your embassy and tell them, but since Mr. Howell and Mr. Yung are here I can dispense with that. I’ll show them the problem. If it’s all right with them, the rest of you may come along.”

He gestured toward the elevator bank and they all got in.

The door from the corridor opened into the living room of suite 1808. One wall was mostly glass and offered a view of the Punta del Este downtown sky-line and the Atlantic Ocean.

There were two men sitting in high-backed upholstered chairs. One of them, who looked as if he had slipped down in the chair, had his mouth open. The back of the chair behind him was matted with blood and brain tissue.

The other man was Howard Kennedy.

He had been strapped into his chair with duct tape. There was something in his mouth, either a red ball or a ball of another color, now covered with blood. His eyes were wide-open.

His body seemed strangely limp and, after a moment, when he saw Kennedy’s hands, Castillo understood.

“It would seem,” Ordóñez said, matter-of-factly, “that Mr. Kennedy was beaten to death, not with a baseball bat or something like that but with a piece of angle iron. They started with his toes, then his feet, then his shins, and then changed to his fingers, hands, wrists, etcetera. You can tell by the blood pattern. It must have taken some time for them to finish. We believe this man to be Howard Kennedy.”

“That’s Howard Kennedy,” Castillo said. “Was Howard Kennedy.”

“We’re not sure who the other man is,” Ordóñez said.

“That’s Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov,” Delchamps furnished, “of the FSB’s Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight Against Terrorism.”

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“That’s not what his passport says, Señor Smith,” Ordóñez said. “It says he’s a Czech businessman.”

“Then I’m obviously wrong,” Delchamps said.

“I really hope so,” Ordóñez said. “What we have here is bad enough, an American businessman and a Czech businessman murdered during a robbery. Even if that robbery, as has been suggested, was part of a drug deal that went wrong, that would pose far fewer problems for me—and, indeed, for Uruguay—if I had to start investigating the murders of a senior KSB officer and a man known to have close ties to an international outlaw by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner. You understand?”

“I think so,” Delchamps said.

“I am really sorry to have subjected you to this. I fully understand that it ruined your holiday and has caused you to feel that you have to leave Uruguay immediately and not to return until this terrible memory has had time to fade.”

“The man has a point, Ace,” Delchamps said.

“Chief Inspector Ordóñez,” Castillo said, offering his hand, “may I ask you one question before I leave?”