"Inspector Bruce Saffery, FBI." Saffery was a well-tailored man in his early fifties.
Castillo thought: I wonder if he knows Inspector John J. Doherty?
"Excuse me," Colonel DeBois said, looking at Castillo and holding up his index finger. "But didn't Mr. Ellsworth just refer to you as 'Lieutenant Colonel'?"
Ellsworth, you sonofabitch. I'm not wearing a uniform. You didn't have to refer to me as an officer.
And why do I think that wasn't an accident?
"Yes, sir, I believe he did."
"You're a serving officer?"
"Yes, sir."
"And-presuming I'm allowed to ask-what exactly is it you do for the Department of Homeland Security, Colonel?"
"Sir, I'm an executive assistant to the secretary."
"How much do you know about the Office of Organizational Analysis?"
"Aside from that we're using their conference room, sir, not much."
"The reason I'm asking, Colonel, is that I was ordered to transfer one of my officers, a young lieutenant who was stationed in Asuncion, to the Office of Organizational Analysis."
Oh, shit! Lorimer!
Castillo glanced at Truman Ellsworth and saw that he was looking at him. Ellsworth's face was expressionless, but he was looking.
"His name is First Lieutenant Edmund J. Lorimer," DeBois pursued.
"I just can't help you, Colonel," Castillo said.
This meeting hasn't even started and I'm already lying through my teeth to a fellow officer who looks like a nice guy.
"Perhaps you could ask Secretary Hall, Colonel Castillo," Ellsworth suggested, helpfully.
Oh, you miserable sonofabitch!
"Yes, I suppose I could do that," Castillo said. "I'll get back to you, Colonel, if I'm able to find out anything."
"I'd appreciate it," DeBois said. "He's a nice young officer who lost a leg from above the knee in Afghanistan. I've been sort of keeping an eye on him."
"I'll see what I can find out for you, sir, as soon as this meeting is over."
"I'd really appreciate it, Colonel."
"Why don't we start with you, Mr. Walsh?" Ellsworth said. "Exactly what happened in Asuncion?"
Walsh took ten minutes to report in minute detail less than Castillo already knew. He didn't mention the garrote with which Timmons's driver had been murdered, just that he had been killed, means unspecified. Castillo decided he either hadn't been told how the driver had been killed, or had and didn't understand the significance.
Without saying so in so many words, Walsh made it clear that he thought the DEA could get Timmons back by themselves, if certain restrictions on what they could do were relaxed.
Mrs. Dumbrowsky of the State Department took the same amount of time to explain the excellent relations enjoyed by the United States with the Republic of Paraguay, expressed great admiration for the Paraguayan law-enforcement authorities, and made it clear without saying so in so many words that she strongly felt it would be a diplomatic disaster if a cretin like Walsh was allowed to destroy the aforesaid splendid relationship by going down there guns blazing and taking the law into his own hands.
Mr. Seacroft of the Treasury Department somewhat jocularly said that while he wasn't much of an admirer of anything French, he did think it was hard to disagree with their criminal investigation philosophy of searching for the money, and announced that he was going to run everything he had through the computers again and see what came out
the other end.