The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“They seem to feel the villain is an Army officer named Castillo. Major Charley Castillo.”

“His Christian name is Carlos.”

“You know him?”

She nodded, and said, “If he’s the same man. He was sent down here when our consul general, J. Winslow Masterson, was kidnapped.”

“Sent by who—whom?”

“Our late President. Who then, after Jack Masterson was killed, put him in charge of getting Masterson’s family safely home.”

“Tell me about Major Castillo,” Danton said.

“Tell you what, Roscoe. You tell me what you think you know about Castillo and if I can, I’ll tell you if you’re right.”

“Nice try, Sylvia.”

“Excuse me?”

“If I tell you what I know about this guy, then you will know how close I am to learning what you don’t want to tell me about him.”

“Roscoe, I am a public affairs officer. It is my duty to answer any questions you might pose to the best of my ability. Providing of course that my answers would not include anything that is classified.”

“You ever hear what C. Harry Whelan has to say about public affairs officers such as yourself?”

She shook her head.

“Quote: Their function is not the dissemination of information but rather the containment thereof. They really should be called ‘misinformation officers.’ End quote.”

“Oh, God! He’s onto us! There is nothing left for me to do but to go home and slit my wrists.”

He chuckled.

Sylvia made the time out signal with her hands.

“Can we go off the record, Roscoe?”

“Briefly.”

“What exactly did Eleanor tell you?”

“I presume that ‘off the record’ means that you’re not going to send an urgent message to Foggy Bottom telling Natalie Cohen what Eleanor told me.”

“Girl Scout’s honor.”

“Okay. Actually, she didn’t tell me much. She said I wouldn’t believe what an evil man this guy Castillo is unless I found out myself. What she did was suggest that Castillo had stolen two Russian defectors from her when she was in Vienna. And then pointed me at Alexander Darby.”

Sylvia looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, “Eleanor and I go back a long time—”

“Meaning you have taken Darby’s place as the resident spook?”

She shook her head and raised her right arm as if swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God.

“Meaning we go back a long time,” she said. “Eleanor is very good at what she’s done for all those years. If she says Charley Castillo stole two heavy Russian spooks from under her nose, that means there were two Russian spooks, and she believes Charley Castillo stole them.”

“She said that it cost her her job.”

“Stories like that are circulating, and I’ve heard them,” Sylvia said. “What I can’t figure is why Charley would do something like that unless someone—maybe even our late President—told him to. And I can’t imagine why he brought them here.”