The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

"Well, Howell, what do you think?" McGrory asked.

"What do I think about what, Mr. Ambassador?" Howell replied.

While officially the cultural attache of the embassy, Howell was in fact the CIA's Uruguay station chief.

"What do we really have here?"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't see anything odd in Lorimer's father coming down here to live on that estancia in the middle of nowhere? With a butler?"

"I thought that was pretty well explained when Yung told us the ambassador lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, sir."

"And the presence of Yung? That didn't strike you as unusual?"

"I can think of a likely scenario, sir."

"Let's have it."

"It could very well be that the secretary, who I think has known the ambassador a long time, went out of her way to do what she could for the ambassador. She knows he has a heart condition. His son-in-law was murdered, and right after Mr. Masterson's remains were repatriated, the hurricane struck and destroyed the ambassador's home."

"Huh!" the ambassador snorted.

"And Yung, who was on the secretary's personal staff-"

"We learned after the fact," McGrory interrupted. "Nobody knew that when he was here."

"Yes, sir. Well, he was available. He was still accredited diplomatically down here. Yung probably struck her as the obvious choice to come here and set things up."

"Traveling in a private Gulfstream jet airplane. I wonder what that cost?"

"I don't like to think, Mr. Ambassador. But on the other hand, we know the ambassador's daughter came into her husband's money. And we know how much of that there is. It poses no financial strain on her to charter airplanes. Or, for that matter, to pay for the private security people who will be coming here with the ambassador."

"And none of this strikes you as suspicious?"

"I don't know what to suspect, Mr. Ambassador."

"Years ago, Howell, there was a terribly racist saying to the effect that one suspected an African-American in the woodpile."

"I'm familiar with the expression, sir, but I don't know what Ambassador Lorimer could be concealing."

"I'm not referring to Ambassador Lorimer," Ambassador McGrory said impatiently, stopping himself just in time from finishing the sentence with you idiot!

"You're referring to the butler, sir? Leverette?"

McGrory stared at Howell and thought, I can't believe this. This man works for the Central Intelligence Agency?

If he's typical, and I suspect he is, they should call it the Central Stupidity Agency.

"No," Ambassador McGrory said carefully, aware he was on the edge of losing his temper. After a moment, hoping his contempt wasn't showing, he went on, "That was a figure of speech, Howell, a figure of speech only. I was suggesting that there's something about this whole sequence of events that doesn't seem…"-he stopped himself just in time from saying kosher-"…quite right."

"And what is that, Mr. Ambassador?" Howell asked.

"If you've been in this business as long as I have, Howell, you develop a sense, a feeling," McGrory explained somewhat smugly.

"I understand," Howell said. "How may I help, Mr. Ambassador?"

"You can keep a close eye on Yung and that man Leverette. See if they do anything suspicious; see who they talk to."