The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Says the Special Operations poster boy,” Castillo said.

“You always have had a cruel streak in you, Carlos,” D’Allessando lisped as he put his hand on his hip.

Bradley chuckled.

“I have an idea, Charley,” D’Allessando said. “Take it from the top.”

Castillo held up a wineglass to Bradley.

“No, thank you, sir. Is there any beer?”

“Half a dozen kinds. Come over here and help yourself.”

“And while you’re doing that, Major Castillo is going to take it from the top.”

“Okay,” Castillo said. “Vic, this is Top Secret Presidential.”

“Okay,” D’Allessando said, now very seriously.

“You remember I told you here that Masterson had been whacked to make the point to his wife that these bastards were willing to kill to get to her brother?”

D’Allessando nodded. “The UN guy in Paris.”

Castillo nodded. “What I didn’t tell you is that there is a Presidential Finding, in which an organization called the Office of Organizational Analysis is founded—”

“C and c?” D’Allessando interrupted.

Castillo nodded.

“Covert and clandestine,” he went on, “and charged with, quote, rendering harmless, end quote, those responsible for whacking Masterson, Sergeant Markham, kidnapping Mr. Masterson, and wounding Special Agent Schneider.”

“I figured there was something like that in the woodpile,” D’Allessando said. “Who’s running that?”

“I am.”

D’Allessando considered that and nodded, then asked, “And you found out who these people are, huh?”

“I don’t have a clue who they are.”

“You’re losing me, Charley.”

“I figured the best way to find these people was to find Lorimer first. So we went looking for him. We found him in Uruguay.”

“Uruguay?”

“Uruguay,” Castillo confirmed. “We also found out that Mr. Lorimer was the bagman—the bagman—for the guys who got rich on the Iraqi oil-for-food scam. He knew who got how much, and what for.”

“And they wanted to silence him,” D’Allessando said. “But what’s with Uruguay?”

“Uruguay and Argentina are now the safe havens of choice for ill-gotten gains.”

“I knew Argentina and Paraguay, but this is the first I’ve heard about Uruguay.”

“I really don’t know what I’m talking about here, Vic. I always heard Argentina and Paraguay, too. But Uruguay is where we found Lorimer. He had a new identity—Jean-Paul Bertrand—a Lebanese passport, a Uruguayan residence permit, and an estancia. Everybody thought he was in the antiquities business.”

“Clever,” D’Allessando said.

“He also ripped off nearly sixteen million from these people.”