The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“To do what?”

“It seems that someone sent Colonel Hamilton a rubber beer barrel full of whatever it was Hamilton brought out of the Congo ...”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Darby exclaimed.

“... and they wanted us to find out who did it and why.”

“And?” Delchamps asked.

“I told them, sorry, we have all fallen off the face of the earth.”

“What the hell is that all about?” Darby asked.

“It’s none of our business,” Castillo said.

“They were supposed to have destroyed everything in a twenty-mile area around that place in the Congo,” Darby said.

“So they said,” Castillo said.

“You think there’s some sort of connection between that and Solomatin’s letter?” Darby asked.

“I don’t know, but you can count on Alek asking you that question.”

He gestured toward an open rear door of the hangar. Two shiny olive-drab Land Rovers sat there.

“I think we can all get in one of those, can’t we?” Castillo asked.

[TWO]

The Lodge at Estancia San Joaquín was a single-story stone masonry building on a small rise perhaps fifty feet above and one hundred yards from the Chimehuín River.

It had been designed to comfortably house, feed, and entertain trout fishermen from all over the world, never more than eight at a time, usually four or five, who were charged three thousand dollars a day. The furniture was simple and massive. The chairs and armchairs were generously padded with foam-filled leather cushions.

The wide windows of the great room offered a view of the Chimehuín River and the snow-capped Andes mountains. There was a well-stocked bar, a deer head with an enormous rack above the fireplace, a billiards table, a full bookcase, and two fifty-six-inch flat-screen televisions mounted so one of them was visible from anywhere in the room.

There were four people in the great room—plus a bartender and a maid—when Castillo and the others walked in: Tom Barlow, his sister Susan, and Aleksandr Pevsner, a tall, dark-haired man—like Castillo and Barlow in his late thirties—whose eyes were large, blue, and extraordinarily bright. The fourth man was János, Pevsner’s hulking bodyguard, of whom it was said that he was never farther away from Pevsner than was Max from Castillo.

There were fourteen Interpol warrants out for the arrest of Pevsner under his own name and the seven other identities he was known to use.

Barlow was dressed like Castillo, in khaki trous

ers and a polo shirt. Pevsner was similarly clothed, except that his polo shirt was silk and his trousers were fine linen. The men were at the billiards table.

Susan, who was leaning over a coffee table, fork poised to spear an oyster, was dressed like Castillo and her brother, except her polo shirt was linen and her khakis were shorts. Short shorts. Her clothing and posture left virtually nothing to the imagination about her bosom, legs, and the contours of her derriere.

“Funny,” Edgar Delchamps said, “I would never have taken Sweaty for a fisherman.”

Susan/Sweaty looked up from the platter of oysters, popped one in her mouth, smiled at Delchamps, and gave him the finger.

It was a gesture she had learned from Castillo and subsequently had used, with relish, frequently.

Pevsner carefully laid his cue on the billiards table, then walked to Delchamps, Darby, and Duffy, and wordlessly shook their hands. Tom Barlow waved at them.

“I’m sure you’re hungry,” Pevsner said. “I can have them prepare supper for you now. Or, if you’d rather, there’s oysters and cold lobster to—what is it Charley says?—munch on to hold you until dinner.”

“How the hell do you get oysters and lobster in the middle of Patagonia?” Darby said as he walked to the coffee table to examine what was on display.

“I have a small seafood business in Chile,” Pevsner said.