The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

And seeing the pump now, he had the same reaction to it he'd had to the first pump he'd ever seen:

Every time that thing goes up and down, it's fifty cents in his pocket.

And there're a lot of those pumps.

The only difference between then and now is that today West Texas sweet crude brings fifty bucks a barrel.

That, and Abuela left the Double-Bar-C to me.

The women waiting for the Gulfstream were Castillo's grandmother-his abuela-and Colonel Alfredo Munz's wife and two daughters.

The warmth of his memory of Don Fernando turned to cold anger with the sight of the Munzes…and the reason they were at the ranch.

Goddamn the miserable bastards who go after a man's family.

Munz's family had come to the Double-Bar-C because of a very real threat to their lives in Argentina.

"Wake up, First Officer," Jake Torine said. "We are, no thanks to you, safely on the ground."

Castillo unfastened his shoulder harness and went into the cabin.

Alfredo Munz was already out of his seat, waiting for the stair door to be opened. Castillo worked it, and then waved Munz off the plane first.

Castillo saw that Munz had not taken his suitcase with him. He picked it up and went down the stairs with it. He saw the younger girl running toward her father, followed by the older girl, and then, moving more slowly, Senora Munz. In a moment, Munz had his arms around all of them.

Castillo looked at Dona Alicia and saw that she had a handkerchief to her eyes.

And mine aren't exactly dry, either.

He went to his grandmother. She put her arms around him.

"Hey, Abuela, how's my favorite girl?"

"Very annoyed with you, as usual," she said, and kissed him.

She looked at the Munzes.

"How long is he going to stay?" she asked.

"Until I need him, and that will probably be soon. A couple days."

"And when will it be safe for his family to go back to Argentina?"

"Not for a while yet."

"And when are you going to come and stay longer than ten minutes?"

Divulgence of any detail of any operation conducted under the authority of a Presidential Finding to persons not holding the specific Top Secret Presidential security clearance is a felonious violation of the United States Code, punishable by fine and imprisonment.

"A drug enforcement agent in Paraguay has been kidnapped by drug dealers," Castillo said. "The President wants us to try to get him back, and I have no idea how to do that."

She looked at him but did not reply.

"I don't have to tell you to keep that to yourself, do I?"

She shook her head to show the admonition was entirely unnecessary.

"I don't know whether I'm very proud of you, my darling, or very sad for you," she said. "I guess both."