The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Lowe almost immediately went to sleep and began to snore.

[ONE]

Penthouse B

The Grand Cozumel Beach & Golf Resort

Cozumel

Quintana Roo, Mexico

2215 7 February 2007

Castillo was standing at the railing of the patio, taking an occasional pull at the neck of a Dos Equis bottle and somewhat inhospitably wishing that the fish-eaters would get the hell out of the penthouse—which would leave him alone with Sweaty—when Edgar Delchamps joined him.

“Got a minute, Ace?” Delchamps asked.

“Always,” Castillo said.

Delchamps pointed to a far corner of the patio surrounding the swimming pool. As they started walking toward it, Castillo saw that Alex Darby and Dick Miller were also headed in that direction.

And he knew that he had fucked up somehow and was about to learn how the moment Edgar Delchamps began the chat by saying, “We know that even though you have a lot on your mind, you probably have thought about this ...”

“But?” Castillo interrupted.

“I recognize that tone of voice, so I’ll cut to the chase,” Delchamps said. “We just got word from one of the dinosaurs that the tapes and the narrative are in that building at Langley in a position where Frank Lammelle can’t help but find them when he goes to work in the morning.”

“That was quick!” Castillo said, genuinely surprised.

“Real dinosaurs move much more quickly than the ones you saw in the Jurassic Park movies, Ace. You might want to write that down.”

“If you say so.”

“And when Lammelle and Company finish authenticating the tapes, someone is going to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ll bet this came from Charley Castillo.’”

“What was I supposed to do, not send it?”

“What you were supposed to do—what we were all supposed to do—was fall off the face of the earth and never be seen again.”

“Same question: What were we supposed to do once we came up with this? Keep it to ourselves?”

Delchamps didn’t respond directly. He looked between Darby and Miller, then back at Castillo, and went on: “And even if Lammelle or one of his guys doesn’t attach you to the tapes, Casey is going to send the tapes to the DCI himself, and Casey is going to say something like, ‘You can rely on this; I got it from Castillo.’ So the President will know you didn’t fall off the face of the earth as ordered.”

“And you don’t think he’ll be happy I didn’t? According to Casey, they don’t have a clue about what’s going on with the Congo-X. All I’m guilty of is lending a helping hand.”

“You really have no idea how much the agency—everybody in the quote unquote intelligence community—hated the Office of Organizational Analysis, and in particular Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, do you? And how overcome with bureaucratic joy they were when the President cut your throat and told you to disappear, taking OOA and all its wicked members with you?”

“I did have some small inkling that I wouldn’t have won any popularity contests,” Castillo said. “Actually, Edgar, I thought about that when I sent the tapes. I would have preferred they would have come from an unknown source. But there were two things wrong with that, starting with I don’t think it would have been possible, because of Casey’s connection with somebody—probably, but not certainly, the DCI—at the agency. But say I had managed to convincingly send them from Mr. Unknown Source. I don’t trust unknown sources, and I don’t think Lammelle would have either. So let him know the tapes came from me. I didn’t expect a letter from Lammelle—or Jack Powell—like the one Sweaty and Tom got. ‘Come home. All is forgiven. We love you.’”

“Let me try this on you: If our late President—who was a really good guy, and for whom you did everything he asked you to, including coming up with the Fish Farm—was willing to cut your throat to cover his ass, what do you think Joshua Ezekiel Clendennen, who is the master not only of covering his own ass, but also of throwing people who have done him a service under the bus so he can take the credit, will be willing to do to you?”

“For example?”

“Turning Tom and your girlfriend—and maybe you—over to the Russians, for one thing.”

“Where the hell did you get that?”

Delchamps and Darby exchanged glances, then Edgar said, “That’s the scenario Alex and I have come up with for what’s behind this whole Congo-X operation. If they wanted to hurt us with that stuff, they would have. They haven’t hurt us, just let us know they can. Why? They want something. What do they want? They want Tom and Sweaty back. Clendennen gives them to the Russians, they give Clendennen the Congo-X, the problem is done. If he also gives them you, that solves that problem.”