Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Buenos Aires, Argentina

0845 30 December 2005

Castillo could see Comandante Liam Duffy, Sergeant Major Jack Davidson, and Corporal Lester Bradley--whom he expected to see--and Alfredo Munz and Captain Dick Sparkman, USAF--whom he did not expect to see--at the airport, standing around the nose of the trim, high-wing, twin-engine Aero Commander 560 when Darby's embassy BMW drove up to the tarmac fence.

"Keep her in the car until I see what's going on," Castillo ordered, and, holding the pup with one hand and the sanitary/sartorial newspaper in the other, got out of the car.

Max nimbly jumped from the backseat, went out Castillo's door, and raced toward Corporal Bradley, clearing the waist-high fence as if it wasn't there.

By the time Castillo reached the gate in the fence, and the airport policeman guarding it, two of the men in the Peugeot sedan that had been following them were out of the car and at the gate. One held it open for him, and the other one said, "I will take that newspaper from you, Colonel, and get rid of it."

Castillo handed it to him, marveling at both how soaked the newspaper had become on the way from Pilar--You little sonofabitch, he thought, scratching the pup's ears, you must be mostly bladder--and at the unaccustomed courtesy of the gendarmeria officers.

They usually stand around practicing how to look dour.

The reason became immediately apparent. Their commanding officer walked toward Castillo, then broke into a trot and, when he reached Castillo, wrapped him in a bear hug, pounded his back, and kissed him wetly on both cheeks.

"Oh, my friend Charley," he said. "It is so good to see you!"

What the hell is this all about?

"El Coronel Munz told me that you understand," El Comandante Liam Duffy said. "But that doesn't make it any better."

"There's nothing to be concerned about, Liam."

"I had three men killed and six wounded--in addition, of course, to the two men those bastards massacred as soon as we were"--he paused, smiled, and switched to English--"boots on the ground"--then back to Spanish--"and there were funerals and I had to deal with the families."

"I understand,

Liam."

"I just could not get to Uruguay right away, and when I did, you had already gone to the U.S. of A."

He grabbed Castillo's arms with both hands.

"I should have somehow arranged to go to Montevideo," he said. "You shed blood with us! You are one of us, Carlos!"

He got control of himself.

"You remember Segundo Comandante Martinez and Sargento Primero Perez, of course?" Duffy said, indicating the two gendarmes who'd opened the gate for Castillo and taken care of the sodden newspaper.

Why do I think the last time I saw these guys they were in camos and had black-and-brown grease all over their face and hands?

"How could I forget?" Castillo said, smiling broadly, offering his hand, and then--Oh, hell, when in Rome or Buenos Aires!--hugging them and kissing their coarse cheeks.

"You have luggage, mi coronel?" the younger one--Probably the sergeant, Castillo thought--asked.

"There's a couple of bags in the trunk," Castillo said.

"And is the Russian woman in the car?" Duffy asked.

Castillo nodded.

"I would like to introduce her to my wife and children," Duffy said, "and then kill her slowly and painfully."

And that, Castillo decided, is not what they call hyperbole.

"Liam, she was in Europe when that happened," Castillo said.