Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

The lieutenant colonel, recognizing the card immediately, smiled, then did a double take and examined it carefully.

"I was about to tell you, Colonel," he said, "as tactfully as I could, that I just can't talk about the mission of this aircraft. But since you are the mission . . ."

"Excuse me?"

". . . I will tell you, out of school, that you're probably in the deep shit."

"How's that?"

"Ambassador Montvale just blew his top at the ambassador. You didn't miss them by five minutes. Ambassador Montvale said, and this is almost verbatim, 'I just flew five thousand goddamned miles down here to see Lieutenant Colonel Goddamn Charley Castillo, and you're telling me you not only don't know where the sonofabitch is, but that you didn't even know the crazy bastard is in Argentina?' "

He turned to the captain and asked, "Is that about what the ambassador said, Sam?"

"Almost verbatim, sir," the captain said. "I somehow got the idea, sir, that Ambassador Montvale doesn't like Colonel Castillo very much."

"I always knew that Ambassador Montvale doesn't like anybody very much, but I don't ever remember him being as pissed as he was just a couple of minutes ago," the lieutenant colonel said. "What the hell did you do, Colonel?"

"I guess I have been a very bad boy," Castillo said. "And we never had this conversation, Colonel."

Fully aware that rendering the hand salute while not in uniform is proscribed by Army regulations, Castillo saluted.

The lieutenant colonel and the captain returned the salute.

Castillo turned to the Aero Commander, intending to wave.

He changed his mind and blew a kiss.

Then he said, "Come on, Max," and walked to where Jack Davidson was waiting for him.

"You just missed Ambassador Montvale," Davidson said as they shook hands.

"Did he see you?" Castillo asked.

"No. The gendarmeria had a heads-up that an Air Force Gulfstream was coming in, so I erred on the side of caution and waited in Darby's car." He pointed to a BMW with darkened windows and Argentine license plates. "The Mercedes SUV next to it used to be Duffy's. Unless you look close, you can't see where all the bullet holes were."

"You're sure Montvale didn't see you?"

Davidson nodded. "Moot point, though. He doesn't know who I am, much less what I look like."

"Never underestimate Montvale. Was he alone?"

"Three guys with him. Two of them probably his Secret Service . . ."

"Who just might have recognized you."

"If they had seen me, which they didn't, since I had erred on the side of caution, Colonel, sir."

"Sorry, Jack. I'm tired. And the third guy?"

"Six-two, maybe six-three, one eighty, forty-odd, GI haircut, Sears, Roebuck suit. I'd guess he was military. Probably Army."

"Why?"

"Officers of our brother services in civvies tend to look like civilians. Our officers in civvies tend to look like Army officers in civvies."

Castillo chuckled.

"I wonder who he is," Castillo said rhetorically. "What happened?"