The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Sanchez, what did you think of the new avionics in that old bird?” Castillo asked, switching to Spanish, and smiling at the pilot.

“Fantastic!” the pilot replied. “All I had to do was take it off and land it. The navigation was entirely automatic, and when I dropped out of the cloud cover, I was lined up with the runway.”

“We’re working on that,” Castillo said. “The idea is to eliminate pilots like you and me.”

“I’m not sure I’d like that, señor.”

“As I was just telling my friend here, one has to adjust to changed circumstances. I’m sorry there’s no time to offer you a drink, but Aerolíneas Argentinas waits for no man, and if you don’t get to the San Martín de los Andes airport in the next forty-five minutes ...”

“I understand, señor,” the pilot said, and then came to attention. “With your permission, mí comandante?”

Duffy nodded. The pilot saluted and Duffy returned it.

“Sanchez,” Castillo said, “don’t tell anyone about the avionics.”

“El comandante made that clear on the way here, señor.”

Delchamps waited until the pilot had left the hangar, and then said, “Tell me about the changed circumstances, Ace.”

“I hardly know where to start,” Castillo said.

“Try starting with telling me whether or not Pevsner has seen Solomatin’s letter.”

“Gladly,” Castillo said. “Okay, starting at the beginning: Alek’s man went on the net as scheduled at oh-four-twenty hundred Zulu.”

“‘Alek’s man went on the net’? Our net?”

“I thought you knew that all of us are retired and have fallen off the face of the earth. We now have people to do things like going on the net at one-twenty in the morning.”

Delchamps and Darby both shook their heads. This was unexpected.

“So Alek’s guy,” Castillo went on, “went on the net at oh-one-twenty local time. At oh-one-twenty-two, Colonel V. N. Solomatin’s letter came through, five by five. At oh-one-twenty-five, Alek telephoned me here, waking me from the sleep of the innocent, to tell me he had a letter from Cousin Vladlen and that he wanted me to see it as soon as possible.”

“Paul Sieno told me Kocian wanted to get the letter to you without anyone else seeing it.”

“Don’t anyone let Alek know you’re surprised that he has seen it. We now have no secrets from Alek.”

“Jesus Christ!” Delchamps said.

“So I told him that I’d fire up”—Castillo pointed to the Bell Ranger—“at first light, go pick him up, and he could show me Cousin Vladlen’s letter. Or, better yet, bring him back here and he could have breakfast with Sweaty and me, we’d all read Cousin Vladlen’s letter, and then go fishing to kill the time until you, Darby, and Duffy got here. Since that was the best idea he’d heard so far this week, Alek said that was fine, and he’d bring Tom Barlow along, since the letter was addressed to him in the first place.”

“So Colonel Berezovsky is here, too?” Darby asked. “I wondered where he was.”

“Aside from my belief that Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky has also fallen off the face of the earth,” Castillo said, “I have no idea where he might be. Tom Barlow, however, is at the San Joaquín Lodge.”

“And Sweaty has seen the letter, no doubt?”

“Certainly, Sweaty has seen it. How could I possibly not show it to her? Alek would have anyway.”

Delchamps shook his head in resignation.

“Okay. Can we go now?”

“You don’t want to know what else has happened?” Castillo asked.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Well, we had another offer of employment from those people in Las Vegas,” Castillo said.