Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“I gather these people aren’t planning to hang your head from an Acapulco bridge?” Castillo said.

“Why should they?” Pena said.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Castillo looked at Roscoe J. Danton, who looked sick.

“You have a question, Roscoe?” Castillo asked.

“He’s serious, isn’t he?” Danton asked. “If they catch you, these cartel people are going to… do what he said?”

“That would seem to be Comandante Pena’s professional opinion,” Castillo said.

“I investigated the incident—” Pena began.

“Incident?” Danton blurted. “A massacre is what you just described.”

“. . . at KM 125.5,” Pena went on ignoring him. “And I turned in my report to the procurador general de la república, who is something like the attorney general in the United States. My report stated that the murders had been committed by parties unknown, most probably in connection with the drug trade. I further stated that since my investigation had turned up no suspects, the crime would most probably go unsolved.

“Shortly afterward, Señor Pedro Dagada, an attorney who has several times represented members of both the Zambada and Sinaloa cartels in their brushes with the law, happened upon me while I was having lunch in the Diamond.”

He paused and then went on, “For your general edification, Señor Danton, ‘the Diamond’ is what we call the five-star Camino Real Acapulco Diamante hotel in Acapulco. In English, that’s the Royal Road Acapulco Diamond. Got it?”

Roscoe nodded uncomfortably.

“As I was saying, there I was in the Diamond, having lunch, when Señor Dagada appeared, greeted me warmly—which I found a little surprising, as I have sent a number of his clients to prison—and insisted on buying me a drink.

“Thirty minutes and three drinks later, Señor Dagada asked me, just between old pals, not to go any further, if I had any ideas about what had happened at KM 125.5 that I had not put in my report to the procurador general. He also confided in me that the procurador general, an old pal, had shown him my report.

“So I said, ‘Pedro, I wouldn’t tell even you this, old pal, if you hadn’t told me the procurador general had shown you my report. Just between us, the procurador general knows as well as I do what really happened out there at KM 125.5.’

“To which he replied, ‘Well, what was that?’

“To which I replied, ‘The Americans sent us a message. Don’t kidnap our diplomats who are also Special Forces. Special Forces doesn’t like that, and we can’t control our Special Forces any more than you can control your cartels. They got their guy back and left the bodies on the road at KM 125.5 as a polite suggestion not to kidnap anybody from Special Forces again.’

“And then Pedro asked, ‘You got a name?’

“And I said, ‘Well, there was a guy named Costello down here.’

“And then Pedro asked, ‘Costello or Castillo?’

“And I said I didn’t know for sure, but there was a guy down here named one or the other and I heard he was Special Forces looking for Ferris. He disappeared just about the time what happened at KM 125.5 happened—as did Ferris. ‘So draw your own conclusions, Pedro.’”

“You gave him Charley’s name?” Roscoe asked, horrified.

“You’re not listening. He already had Charley’s name. And I suspect he knew a good deal about Charley,” Pena said drily. He turned to Castillo. “So, what’s on your agenda now, John Wayne, in whatever little time you have left before they cut off—among other parts—your head?”

“I thought I’d take Roscoe here to Drug Cartel International Airport and let him take some pictures to show the President how hard we’re working.”

“I’ve already seen Drug Cartel International, thank you just the same,” Danton said.

“But the President, Roscoe, knows very little about it,” Castillo said. “And we want to keep him abreast of things, don’t we?” He turned to Juan Carlos Pena. “Keep in mind the idea is to stall the President until he tires of this nutty idea and moves on to another. So, what we’re going to do is take Roscoe with us to Drug Cartel International and then let him write his news story, together with pictures of the Outlaws suitably garbed and heavily armed, putting their lives on the line going about the President’s business by going, so to speak, literally into the mouth of the Drug Cartel dragon.

“We will send Roscoe’s story to the President with my report. My report won’t say much except that we are gathering intelligence, and are about to go to Budapest, from where I will report again.”

“What are you going to do in Budapest?” Juan Carlos asked.

“I haven’t figured that out yet, but whatever it is, it will be something that will keep the Commander in Chief thinking I’m really working hard for him. Getting the picture?”