The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

At the next level, they found themselves in an area much like the level they had just left. Vehicles of all descriptions were parked tightly together against the walls.

Max was standing in the middle, looking at a brown uniformed gendarmeria sergeant sitting on a folding chair with an Uzi in his lap. The gendarme sat in front of a steel door in an interior concrete-block wall.

As the man led them across the open area toward the door, the gendarme, eyeing Max warily, got quickly out of his chair and had the door open by the time the man got to it.

The man went inside, and there was again the flicker of fluorescent lights coming on.

"Please," he said once more, as he waved them inside.

Max trotted in first.

The room was dominated by an old desk-once grand and elegant-before which sat a simple, sturdy, rather battered oak conference table. There were eight chairs at the table. The wall behind the desk was covered with maps of Argentina in various scales, including an enormous one of Buenos Aires Province. Along both walls were tables holding computers, facsimile machines, telephones, a coffee maker, and some sort of communications radios. All of it looked old.

"Please," the man said again, this time an invitation for everyone to sit down.

"That will be all, thank you," Munz said to the man.

"Si, mi coronel," the man said, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Max lay down with his head between his paws and looked at the closed door.

"Okay, Alfredo," Castillo said. "What's going on, starting with where are we?"

"We have a law of confiscation in Argentina, Karl," Munz said. "This building was being used as a warehouse for cocaine and marijuana; it was seized. And so were the vehicles you saw. Comandante Liam Duffy of the Gendarmeria Nacional now uses it, unofficially, as an office and base of operations."

"He's the guy who the DEA guy was on his way to see when he was snatched?" Delchamps asked.

Munz nodded.

"So what are we doing here?" Delchamps went on. "And who are all the guys with guns?"

"Comandante Duffy thought there was a good chance that you would be at some risk at the airport…"

"How did he know we would be at the airport?" Torine asked.

"He was with us at the house when you radioed saying you were going to Ezeiza instead of Jorge Newbery," Darby offered.

"You had this guy in Nuestra Pequena Casa?" Castillo snapped at Alex Darby. "That's supposed to be our safe house!"

"A lot of things have happened, Charley," Darby replied.

"Obviously," Castillo said, thickly sarcastic.

"Easy, Ace," Delchamps said, then looked at Darby. "Like what, Alex? What has happened?"

"The bottom line is that Chief Inspector Jose Ordonez, of the Interior Police Division of the Uruguayan Policia Nacional, is back in the game…"

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo exploded. "How the hell-?"

"Let him finish, Ace," Delchamps said reasonably.

Castillo glowered at him but said nothing.

"If I may…," Alfredo Munz began, and when Castillo motioned impatiently for him to go on, Munz picked up the explanation: "The day I came back here, I called Jose Ordonez. For several reasons. One, to thank him for what he had done for us. And to tell him that I was back. And, frankly, the primary reason I called was to ask him how well he knew Duffy. I knew we had to deal with Duffy, and I knew Duffy only casually. And I knew Duffy would know that I had been 'retired' from SIDE, and was afraid that he wouldn't want to have anything to do with me."

"And?" Castillo said.

"Jose told me that Duffy had come to Uruguay to see him, and that as a result of the interesting conversation he'd had with him, he had called Bob Howell and asked him how Duffy could get in touch with me. And, more important, with you."