The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

There had been a bigger problem than aged avionics when they first went to get the airplane at Jorge Newbery. The Commander's owner had presumed that when Munz had told him he needed to borrow the aircraft, Munz had meant using the owner's pilot, and he had shown up with his pilot in tow.

Ordinarily, Castillo was a devout believer in the aviator's adage "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are very few old, bold pilots." And, accordingly, he really would have preferred a pilot experienced in (a) flying "his" own Aero Commander and (b) flying it around Argentina. Particularly since Castillo himself had not flown an Aero Commander for a long time.

But the unspoken problem was that after Bariloche, Castillo planned on going on to Asuncion…and intended en route to take the opportunity to make what the U.S. Army called a low-level visual reconnaissance of the area.

For some wild reason, Castillo believed that (a) the owner would not be too fond of such an activity and (b) even if the owner gave his blessing, the pilot would not be experienced in such low-level visual reconnaissance techniques.

After considerable discussion, the Aero Commander's owner had apparently decided that the "several large favors" he owed to el Coronel Munz outweighed his enormous reluctance to turn over his airplane to some gringo friend of Munz, even if that gringo sounded almost like a Porteno.

The owner's agreement had come with a caveat: that the owner's pilot take the gringo friend for "a couple of touch-and-goes," what was tactfully explained as being helpful "to familiarize one with the aircraft."

And what that familiarization flight had done was convince Castillo that while the airplane was obviously scrupulously maintained, most of its navigation equipment had been in its control panel when the aircraft was first delivered-some forty-odd years earlier. Clearly, none of it was going to be as reliable as what Aloysius Francis Casey had given Castillo in the form of a prototype laptop computer and was worried about his using.

All of this had taken time, of course, and it was quarter to one before Castillo finally managed to get Colonel Munz, Lieutenant Lorimer, Sergeant Mullroney, Corporal Bradley, and Max aboard and could take off on what he announced to the Jorge Newbery tower as "a local area flight, visual flight rules, destination private field near Pilar."

As Castillo retracted the landing gear, he suddenly remembered that another U.S. Army lieutenant colonel-the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy, who later became a movie star-had been flying in an identical Aero Commander in 1971 when its wing came off in a thunderstorm over Roanoke, Virginia. Murphy, also a skilled aviator, crashed to his death.

"Right on the money, Alfredo," Castillo said, pointing to the GPS satellite map on the laptop screen. "The airport's twenty-odd clicks thataway."

"Pevsner's place is on the other side of the lake-Moreno," Munz replied, and pointed again. "I don't see how we can get over there tonight. It'll be dark by the time we get

to the hotel."

"You'll think of something, Alfredo. You always do."

Then he reached for the radio microphone to call the Bariloche tower.

[THREE]

The Llao Llao Resort Hotel

San Carlos de Bariloche

Rio Negro Province, Argentina 1955 10 September 2005 The general manager of the Llao Llao was about as unenthusiastic with the notion of providing accommodations to Max as the owner of the Aero Commander had been about turning his airplane over to a rich gringo. But as Castillo, holding Max's leash in one hand and his briefcase in his other, watched Munz discussing this with him, he knew that Munz was going to prevail.

And at the precise moment Castillo reached this conclusion, the problem of how to meet Aleksandr Pevsner at his home across the lake now that it was dark-really dark; there was no moon-solved itself.

"Mama!" a young female voice said enthusiastically in Russian. "Look at that dog!"

"Stay away from him!" a mother's voice warned.

Castillo turned.

Twenty or thirty feet down the wide, high-ceilinged, thickly carpeted lobby, there stood a tall, dark-haired, well-dressed man in his late thirties. With him was a striking blond woman-"Mama"-and a girl of thirteen or fourteen whose own blond hair hung down her back nearly to her waist-My God, Elena's about as old as Randy!-and two boys, one about age six, and the other maybe ten.

Behind them stood two burly men. One of them Castillo knew, but only by his first name, Janos. He was Pevsner's primary bodyguard. And Janos knew him, even if there was no sign of recognition on his face. Proof of that came when the other burly man put his hand under his suit jacket-and got a sharp elbow in the abdomen followed by the slashing motion of Janos's hand.

"It's all right, Anna," Castillo said to the mother in Russian. "Max only eats the fathers of pretty girls named Elena."

Simultaneously, Janos and Aleksandr Pevsner said, "It's all right."

Pevsner looked at Castillo and added: "I thought I saw you-I even asked Janos-but we decided, 'No. What would my friends Charley and Alfredo be doing in Patagonia with a dog the size of a horse?'"

"Can I pet him?" Elena asked. "Does he speak Russian?"

"He speaks dog, Elena," Castillo said, "but he understands Russian."

She giggled and went to Max, who sat down and offered his paw. She scratched his ears, and when he licked her face, she put her arms around his neck.