The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

[THREE]

Office of the Director

The Central Intelligence Agency

Langley, Virginia

1625 10 February 2007

“What are you going to do, Frank? Send the Gulfstream down to Cancún ahead of you?” Jack Powell asked.

“No. I think what I’ll do is move it to the Lauderdale airport now, and then have it follow the Aeromexico flight once they’re sure we’re actually on it. Castillo may be up to something clever, like actually being in Disney World, or someplace, and this whole Mexican thing may be a diversion.”

“Well, wherever you go, the people in the Gulfstream will know. Keep me posted, Frank.”

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency hung up.

“Have a nice wild-goose chase, Frank,” he said aloud, although there was no one to hear him.

Then he said, slowly, savoring each syllable, “John J. Powell, the director of National Intelligence.”

He thought it had a certain ring to it, a certain je ne sais quoi.

[FOUR]

Room B-120

El Dorado Royale Spa Resort

Kilometer Forty-five, Carretera Cancún-Tulum

Riviera Maya

Quintana Roo, Mexico

0230 11 February 2007

Vic D’Allessando had almost wished, as he crawled across the floor of Frank Lammelle’s room toward the bed, that the sonofabitch would wake up. He would have loved an excuse to pop the bastard with one of the darts in the Glock-like air pistol he held in his hand.

But luck—at least, that kind of luck—had not been with him.

Frank Lammelle hadn’t stirred as D’Allessando first pried the heels off Lammelle’s shoes, removed the GPS transmitter from the right heel, and then replaced both. Not even when D’Allessando had grunted with the effort.

Neither had he stirred when D’Allessando went into Lammelle’s briefcase, found Lammelle’s Glock-like dart gun, removed the gas cylinder from the stock, and replaced it with a gas cylinder he had exhausted earlier shooting darts at the pineapple atop the tray of fruit that the El Dorado management had sent to his room as a welcoming gift.

Once he was back in his room, one floor up and directly above B-120—it might have been necessary, had Lammelle fastened the mechanical door lock, to gain entrance to his room by climbing down from the balcony—Vic checked his watch. The entire operation had taken twelve minutes, thirty seconds.

“Here,” D’Allessando said in Russian, handing the GPS transmitter to a tall blond man in a nautical uniform. “Tell me, Captain, on the Queen of the Caribbean, are there lifeboats on an upper deck exposed to the sky?”

“Lifeboats, no,” the blond man said. “Life rafts, yes.”

“Then please put it someplace on one of the life rafts where it will not be seen, not get wet, and is in the best position to send a clear signal.”

“I know just the place.”

“And what time do you sail?”

“At half past eight.”