The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“I wonder what that’s all about?” he asked.

“Gambling? I never knew of his gambling.”

“Not with money,” Görner said. “The last I heard, when he was in Budapest with Eric and me, he was going—they were all going—to Argentina.”

“I wonder what we’re supposed to find on the South American wires?”

“He said ‘Uruguay’ wires.”

“I wonder what we’re supposed to find on the ‘Uruguay’ wires?”

Görner shrugged.

“Is there going to be any trouble with opening that account? Don’t we have some money in the Liechtensteinische Landesbank?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” she said. “I’ll send them a wire and have them open an account for him. Shouldn’t be any trouble at all.” She paused. “The question is, though, in whose name do I open it?”

“I think we’re supposed to cleverly deduce who he is right now.”

“Shall I try to get him back and ask him?”

Görner thought that over for a moment and then said, “No. Open it for Karl W. Gossinger. That’ll raise fewer questions than if we opened it for Carlos Castillo.”

[FIVE]

Penthouse C

The Belle Vista Casino and Resort

U.S. Highway 90 (“The Magic Mile”)

Biloxi, Mississippi

0835 2 August 2005

Vic D’Allessando, smiling and shaking his head, pointed to Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, who was sitting sound asleep in an armchair.

Castillo smiled and then motioned for D’Allessando to go into the bedroom. He followed him in and closed the door.

“Jesus Christ, he’s just a kid,” D’Allessando said. “You going to tell me what he’s doing here?”

“I didn’t know what else to do with him,” Castillo said.

“Meaning?”

“He’s seen too much, he’s heard too much, he’s done too much. He’s either eighteen or nineteen and I wonder if he can keep his mouth shut.”

“Oh,” D’Allessando said.

“I couldn’t leave him in Buenos Aires,” Castillo went on. “He’s in the Marine Guard detachment at the embassy. I think he was the clerk. The detachment is run by a gunnery sergeant—good guy—but a gunnery sergeant who’s going to ask, the moment he sees him, ‘Lester, my boy, where have you been and what have you been doing?’”

“Yeah,” D’Allessando agreed.

“As a rule of thumb, Marine corporals, when a gunny asks a question, answer it,” Castillo said.

“Even if some Army major has told them to keep their mouth shut,” D’Allessando said. “And since you can’t have the gunny knowing what went down…. You have a problem, Charley.”

“Yeah, compounded by the fact that Bradley not only saved my bacon but I really like him.”