The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

you tell me what's going on here, Ed."

"We've got your attention now, do we, Ace?" He looked at Weiss. "Okay. Where do I start? You want to do this?"

"You do it. I don't think the colonel trusts me."

Delchamps nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment, then said: "When I was bringing you up to speed on the Cold War dinosaurs, Ace, I may have led you to believe that we all came out of Europe. Not so. There is a subspecies, Latin American, which is held with just about the same degree of suspicion and contempt by many people in Langley as are those of us who worked Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, and points east. Milton here is one of these. Fair, Milton?"

"Actually, I think of myself more as a chasmatosaurus, rather than a dinosaur, but close enough."

"As a what?" Castillo asked.

"The chasmatosaurus was a crocodilelike meateater from the Triassic period," Weiss said. "Generally acknowledged to be far more lethal than the dinosaur, the proof being that their descendants are still eating dogs and the occasional child in Florida, Australia, and other places, whereas the dinosaurs are no longer with us."

"Whatever the paleontological distinction," Delchamps said, smiling at the look on Castillo's face, "these people recognize each other as noble persons facing extinction at the hands of the politically correct members of what is laughingly known as the 'Intelligence Community.' "Such was the case when Milton saw me rooting about in the South American files in Langley. He suggested that we have a drink for auld lang syne. And on the fourth drink, he idly inquired what I was looking for. Knowing him as well as I do, I asked him why he wanted to know.

"He said it had come to his attention that I had been in the Southern Cone, and he wanted to know what I could tell him to confirm or deny a credible rumor that Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia-dressed up as a Ninja at an estancia in Uruguay called Shangri-La-had been whacked by a bunch of special operators operating under a Presidential Finding."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo exclaimed softly.

"I asked him where he had heard this rumor, and he told me from his pal Crawford, and one thing led to another, and he told me why he was interested, and I told him what we have been up to in Gaucho Land."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo said again.

"I suppose you are aware, Colonel," Weiss said, "that you would not win any popularity contests held in Langley?"

Castillo nodded. "So I have been led to believe."

"If I were to tell you that you are a burr under the saddle blankets of two distinct groups of people over there, would that come as a shock to you?"

"Two distinct groups?"

"Group One, as I suspect you know, is composed of those annoyed because you (a) found that stolen 727 they couldn't, thereby splattering a good deal of egg on the agency's face, and (b) you-the Office of Organizational Analysis-is operating under the authority of that Presidential Finding, which among other things has seen Ambassador Montvale give this dinosaur"-he pointed at Delchamps-"blanket access to anything he wants at Langley.

"Group Two-which, as hard as you may find this to believe, I don't think you know about-is a bunch of good guys who are running an important operation they feel you are about to fuck up by the numbers while trying to get this DEA agent back."

"What kind of an important operation? And why hasn't Montvale told me about it?"

"Montvale doesn't know about it," Weiss said. "He's almost as unpopular over there as you are. For a number of reasons, the most obvious being that he's now over the agency. The DCI isn't even number two; just one more subordinate chief of agency, like the heads of DIA and DEA."

"What's this important operation?"

"How much do you know about the drug trade?" Weiss asked.

"Virtually nothing," Castillo admitted.

"Okay. Basic Drugs 101. The agency estimates-and this sort of thing is what the agency is really good at-Afghanistan will have half a million acres devoted to the growing of Papaver somniferum L., or the poppy. Opium is obtained from the unripe poppy seed pods, and then converted to heroin. Afghanistan grows more than ninety percent of poppies used in the heroin drug trade.

"Most of the other eight or nine percent is grown-and converted to heroin-in Colombia and Bolivia. This is sold, primarily, in the East Coast cities here. Most of the stuff consumed in Hollywood and other temples of culture on the West Coast is grown and processed in Mexico, and is not nearly as pure as what's sold on the East Coast.

"Quality, as well as supply and demand, determines price. Will you take my word for it, Colonel, that there's a hell of a lot of money being spent on heroin on the East Coast?"

Castillo nodded.

"One-I guess several-of the good guys I mentioned before took a close look at the business and came up with several questions. Some were pretty obvious. Why are the heroin people in Bolivia sending their product south, into Paraguay and then Argentina, when the market's in New York City, in the other direction?

"The Colombians send most of their product into Mexico. The Mexicans don't seem to be able to stop much-if any-of that traffic. It has been suggested that the authorities have been bought. But whatever the reason, getting their product into Mexico and then across the border into the United States doesn't seem to pose much of a problem. Possibly because our overworked Customs and Border Protection people working the border-crossing points just can't inspect more than a tiny fraction of the thousands of eighteen-wheelers coming into the country every day.

"Or an even smaller fraction of the cars of the tourists returning home from a happy holiday south of the border. You have that picture, Colonel?"