The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“Maybe you better tell Max to stay onboard,” Pevsner said. “Those people are liable to shoot first and ask questions later.”

The best defense is usually a good offense.

“Maybe I should get off first,” Castillo said, and reached for the opening mechanism.

When the stair door dropped in place, he jumped to the ground.

The men with the Uzis moved toward the airplane.

“Good afternoon,” Castillo said in Spanish. “My dog is about to get off the airplane. If anyone looks like he’s even thinking about pointing a weapon at him, I’ll stick it up his ass, before I kill him.”

The men stopped moving toward him.

He snapped his fingers and Max jumped easily to the ground. Castillo pointed to the nose gear. Max headed for it. He would have anyway, but the men with the Uzis didn’t know that, and they were as much impressed with the obedient, well-trained dog as they were with his size.

“Okay, Alek,” Castillo called. “You’re next. This is your show.”

János came down the doorstairs, followed by Pevsner, then Tom Barlow, and finally Svetlana.

The men’s faces made it clear that she surprised them even more than the dog.

“El Señor García-Romero is presumably here?” Pevsner asked, more than a little arrogantly.

There was a faint flash from Castillo’s memory bank: I know that name.

Héctor García-Romero headed a law firm which maintained offices in Mexico City, San Antonio, and New York.

Among its clients was Lopez Fruit and Vegetables Mexico, a wholly owned subsidiary of Castillo Agriculture, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas, whose honorary chairman of the board was Doña Alicia Castillo, whose president and chief executive officer was Fernando Lopez, Charley’s cousin, and whose officers included Carlos Castillo.

This can’t be my Tío Héctor. What the hell would he be doing here at a thug-guarded secret airfield that might as well have a sign reading WELCOME TO DRUG CARTEL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT?

And there are probably two hundred ninety-seven thousand and six Mexicans named García-Romero.

“Sí, señor. In the house.”

“Then what are we standing around here for?”

“Excuse me, señor, but we must check to see if you are armed.”

“That’s none of your business,” Pevsner snapped. “Now, get on the telephone and tell Señor García-Romero that I am here with a pistol in each hand.”

One of the men considered that briefly, then turned, and walked quickly deeper into the cave. The remaining three men eyed everyone, except for Svetlana, warily. In Svetlana’s case, the adjective was “lustfully.”

In under a minute, the man who had walked away came back.

“If you will be good enough to come with me, señor?”

In the back of the cave, incongruously modern and high-tech against the gray stone into which it had been cut, was a stainless-steel-framed elevator door.

Carefully staying out of Max’s way, the men ushered them onto the elevator, but did not get on it. The door closed and just as Pevsner reached for a button with an UP arrow on it, the elevator began to rise.

A Haydn string quartet came over speakers.

The door opened.

Four people were waiting for them, three of them much better dressed than the guards in the cave, but just as obviously guards. The fourth was a superbly tailored, portly, silver-haired man in his sixties.

I will be goddamned.