The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

"Personally, sir, I don't know that I'd recognize the signs of someone on heroin, what they'd look like. And Ludwicz didn't say anything about seeing a needle, sir. Just that they looked stoned."

"Put the composite on the monitor, Jack," Castillo ordered.

"Why don't you have a look at this, Comandante?" Castillo said.

The composite appeared a second later.

Duffy's eyes widened.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Your compound look anything like this, Captain?" Castillo asked.

Urquila examined the composite very carefully and shook his

head.

"That's not it?" Castillo asked, incredulously.

"Oh, that's it," Urquila said. "I should have known you'd be way ahead of me. Colonel, I hope I haven't fucked anything up by sending Ludwicz in there…"

"Come here, Captain," Castillo said, gesturing with his hands for Urquila to move in very close. When he had, Castillo grabbed both of Urquila's ears and kissed him wetly on the forehead.

"Captain Urquila, I love you. I love Skinhead Ludwicz and I love you!"

Captain Urquila and Comandante Duffy both looked somewhat dazed.

"Corporal Bradley!" Castillo called.

"Sir?"

"There is a bottle of Famous Grouse single-malt in my room. I have been saving it for a special occasion. This is it! Go get it!"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Bradley and the Famous Grouse single-malt appeared three minutes later. But Bradley was not alone. Edgar Delchamps and David Yung followed him into the quincho.

"You really should let people know when you come home, Daddy," Delchamps greeted him. "Otherwise, Two-Gun and me will start to think you don't love us."

"Sorry, Ed. I just wanted to see what the satellite-"

"Is that why you're celebrating?" Delchamps asked, and crossed the room so that he could look at the monitors.

He moved quickly, but not as quickly as Sergeant Major Davidson's fingers on his laptop keyboard.

All four monitors now displayed images of provocatively posed naked young females.

Delchamps gave Davidson the finger.

"Me, too, Jack," Susanna Sieno said, disgustedly. "Really!"

Davidson hit more keys and the composite came back up on the center screen.

"What are we looking at?" Delchamps asked.

"That's where these people have Timmons and two gendarmes chained to a pole," Castillo said. "It's a couple of miles south of Asuncion. In Paraguay."

"Believed to be the location," Delchamps asked, "or confirmed to be?"