The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Castillo didn’t respond for a moment, then looked at Darby.

“That’s the way I see it, Charley,” Darby said.

“What supports that scenario?”

“Nothing concrete yet, Ace, except the thing that I’ve developed—that Alex and I have developed—in our long service as spooks: a feeling in the gut that just won’t go away.”

“You talk to either Tom or Sweaty about this?” Castillo asked softly.

Both Delchamps and Darby shook their heads.

“You’ve got a solution?” Castillo asked.

“I’ve got a suggestion that may not be a solution, but it’s all I have.”

“All we have, Charley,” Darby said.

Castillo gestured for Delchamps to tell him.

“Disperse,” Delchamps said. “Fall off the face of the earth.”

Castillo looked thoughtful for a moment, then gestured again for Delchamps to continue.

“If Clendennen isn’t already looking for us—even though my gut tells me that he is—he’ll really start looking when Lammelle shows that tape to him. They’ll probably start in Argentina—”

“We know Roscoe J. Danton is down there looking for you,” Darby interjected. “So, they likely do, too.”

Delchamps went on: “A

nd when they don’t find you—us—down there, they’ll look elsewhere, and inevitably find us all gathered here getting sunburned and eating broiled fish in a penthouse.”

“I’m sure there’s already a satellite picture of the Gulfstream sitting here in somebody’s database,” Darby interjected again.

“Cut to the chase,” Castillo said.

“Darby flies to Washington, where he immediately goes to a bank and asks for a mortgage to buy the house in Alexandria, and then starts looking for a job suitable for his talents with one of those hire-a-spook companies. Blackwater, for example.

“Britton returns to Philadelphia, where Sandra goes back to the classroom, and Jack starts trying to get back in the police department. Peg-Leg goes back to Vegas, where Casey has already given him a job.” He looked at Dick Miller, then went on: “Dick, Jake, and Sparkman go to Panama City, Panama, where they immediately put the Gulfstream up for sale, start looking for a better airplane, and go into the private-jets-for-hire business. Two-Gun goes to Montevideo and opens a financial management—read money-laundering—business. Getting the picture?”

Darby added: “The Gulfstream has six—maybe seven—of Casey’s latest radios in the baggage compartment. We’d all be in contact.”

“What happens to Lester?” Castillo asked.

“He stays here—or around here—with you, Sweaty, Tom, and Uncle Remus. You own a farm here in Old Meh-hee-co, right?”

“And you?”

“I go to Budapest. Where I will find employment with Billy Kocian.”

Darby put in: “Everybody could be back here—or be anywhere else—in twenty-four hours, when you decide what we have to do about the Congo-X. And how to keep Sweaty and Tom from being loaded on an Aeroflot flight to Mother Russia.”

“And Pevsner?”

“He disappears once again into the wilds of Argentina.”

Castillo exhaled audibly.

“Apparently, you have given this some thought.”