Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

“He’s your bodyguard?” he said, incredulously. “Come on, Carlos! You don’t really expect me to believe that.”

“You’d better. If we were keeping score, it would be Lester six, SVR zero.”

“I’m dying to know why you’re trying to lay all this bullshit on me,” Pena said.

“I’m hoping that now that I’m telling the truth, you’ll tell me the truth.”

“First, why don’t you tell me the truth about you? What the fuck is this all about?”

“Well, first why don’t you tell me the truth about yourself? Think carefully before replying, Juan Carlos. When you came here the first time and told me to get the hell out of Dodge before I got hurt by the drug cartels, what was that all about?”

“Meaning what?”

“Okay. Did they send you? Or maybe you’re part of—maybe even running—one of the cartels, and decided it would be smarter to get me out of town than to kill me, which would cause all sorts of public-relations problems?”

“Fuck you!” Pena exploded.

“You expect me to believe that you’re one of the two honest cops in Mexico?” Castillo pursued.

“Goddamn you! We’ve been friends since we were twelve,” Pena said, coldly furious. “How could you even ask me something like that?”

“Héctor García-Romero”—Castillo paused until Pena acknowledged the name—“he’s been Doña Alicia’s lawyer for thirty years, maybe longer, and he’s in the drug business up to his ears. Why not you?”

Pena met Castillo’s eyes and was quiet a long moment.

“How the hell did you learn that about García-Romero?” Pena then demanded.

Castillo shrugged, signaling that Pena was not going to get an answer.

“Okay, you sonofabitch,” Pena said. “I came here the first time to keep you alive. I didn’t think—I still don’t—that you knew what the hell you were getting yourself into.”

“I take that as meaning: ‘Yeah, I’m one of the two honest cops in Mexico.’ ”

“There’s a few more than two of us. Now you tell me what the hell’s really going on around here.”

“Take a look at this, Juan Carlos,” Castillo said, and handed him a copy of El Diario de El Paso. It was folded so that page 5 was exposed.

“What am I looking at?”

“What do you see?”

“A picture of some guy who laid a bunch of money on the Magoffin Home,” Pena said, then looked at Castillo. “Is that what you mean?”

“You didn’t recognize Félix Abrego?”

“I’ll be goddamned,” Pena said after a second look.

“The other guy is the FBI SAC in El Paso,” Castillo said. “The people who whacked the DEA agents and my friend Danny Salazar and kidnapped Colonel Ferris . . .”

“Your friend Danny Salazar?”

Castillo nodded. “We went back a long way.”

“So you were Special Forces, too? Not a military attaché?

“You said, ‘too,’ ” Castillo said, smiling. He shook his head, then asked, “How did you know Danny was Special Forces?”

“After we became friends, he told me.”