Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

“What do I need my passport for?” Parker said. “I don’t want to go to Cozumel. I don’t even know where that is.”

“Not far from Cancún on the Yucatán Peninsula,” Yung furnished.

“What’s going on there?” Parker asked.

“Your call, Mr. Parker,” Delchamps said. “We’ll drop you anywhere you want on our way to the airport.”

“John,” Danton suggested, reasonably, “going to Cozumel would get you out of sight for a couple of days.”

Parker considered that for a moment and then shrugged.

“Why not?” he said finally. “I don’t have any other clever ideas at the moment.”

Danton nodded, and thought, Great! For a couple of days, I’ll have you all to myself.

“Back to Mr. Parker’s passport problem,” Yung said.

“Where do you live, Mr. Parker?” the elderly lady asked.

“The Verizon, it’s at 777 Seventh, Northwest—”

“I know where it is,” she said. “No problem, Two-Gun. You take your friends to BWI. By the time Gimpy has the rubber bands on the Citation wound up, we’ll meet you with Mr. Parker’s passport and a quick change of linen.”

“How are you going to get into my apartment? Past the press?”

“Getting into your apartment would be easier, Mr. Parker, if you gave me the keys,” she said. “As far as the press is concerned, it’s been my experience that they pay very little attention to little old ladies who use a walker, especially little old ladies being helped into a building by a kindly member of the clergy—and accompanied by a snarling hundred-twenty-pound dog.”

“Where are you going to get the kindly clergyman?” Roscoe asked.

Tom Sanders stood.

He motioned with his right hand to form a cross, then said, “Bless you, my children. Go and sin no more. And just as soon as I get my clerical collar on and load one of the dogs into a Yukon, we can get this show on the road.”

[THREE]

The Tahitian Suite

Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort

Cozumel, Mexico

1710 12 April 2007

Vic D???Alessandro, whose barrel chest and upper arms strained his short-sleeved floral-print Hawaiian shirt, walked onto the balcony of the penthouse suite and announced, “Jesus, it must be nice to be rich!”

“It’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place, Vic,” Fernando Lopez said agreeably. “Write that down.”

Lopez, a very large man with a dark complexion, was sprawled on a chaise longue with a bottle of Dos Equis on his chest. He raised his right arm over his head without turning, and offered his hand. D’Alessandro walked to him and shook it.

Castillo got off his chaise longue and walked to D’Alessandro. They wordlessly embraced. Max sat on his haunches and thrust his paw repeatedly at D’Alessandro until D’Alessandro shook it. Lester Bradley stood behind Castillo.

“Hey, Dead Eye,” D’Alessandro said.

“It’s good to see you, sir,” Bradley said.

Aleksandr Pevsner, Tom Barlow, and Stefan Koussevitzky, sitting on chaise longues in the shade of a striped awning, stood. D’Alessandro nodded to them, then went over and offered his hand.

“Good to see you, Mr. Pevsner,” D’Alessandro said.