The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Mr. Lorimer had a photo album, sir. One of the photographs was of Mr. Masterson’s wedding. The wedding party is standing in front of a church—”

“Cathedral,” Masterson corrected him. “Saint Louis Cathedral, on Jackson Square in New Orleans. Jack and Betsy were married there.”

“The whole family—including Mr. Lorimer—is in the photo, sir. I’m almost sure that a senior police officer from Montevideo will recognize Mr. Masterson. Maybe even one of the local cops will. Mr. Masterson’s murder was big news down there. It’s what the police call a ‘lead.’ I can’t believe they won’t follow it up, and that will result in the identification of Mr. Bertrand. If they somehow get the photo to the embassy in Buenos Aires, a man there—actually, the CIA station chief who was in on the operation—is prepared to identify the man in the photo as Mr. Lorimer. He knew him in Paris.”

“If the police are as inept as you suggest—and you’re probably right—what makes you think they’ll find, much less leaf through, Jean-Paul’s photo album?”

“Because I left it open on Mr. Lorimer’s desk, sir.”

“You’re very good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?” Masterson said.

“No, sir, I’m not. There is a vulgar saying in the Army that really applies.”

“And that is?”

Castillo hesitated a moment, then said: “‘I’m up way over my ears in the deep shit and I don’t know how to swim.’”

“Oh, horseshit, Charley,” D’Allessando said. “You and I go back a long way. I know better.”

“I agree that it’s vulgar,” Masterson said. “But I don’t agree at all that it applies. You seem to have been born for duties like these and Mr. D’Allessando obviously agrees with me.”

“Mr. Masterson, when I went to West Point what I wanted to do with my life was be what my father was, an Army aviator. At least twice a day, I curse the fickle finger of fate that kept me from doing that.”

D’Allessando said, “The fickle finger’s name, Charley, as you damned well know, is Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab.”

Masterson looked between them.

“The first time I ever saw Charley, Mr. Masterson, he was a bushy-tailed second lieutenant fresh from West Point. It was during the first desert war. General McNab—that was just before he got his first star, right, Charley?”

Castillo nodded.

“Colonel McNab, who was running Special Ops in that war, had spotted Charley, recognized him as a kindred soul, rescued him from what he was doing—probably flying cargo missions in a Huey; he wasn’t old enough to be out of flight school long enough to fly anything else—and put him to work as his personal pilot.”

“If we’ve reached the end of memory lane, Vic,” Castillo said, “I would like to get on with this.”

D’Allessando held up both hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Well, as a father,” Masterson said, “I’m sure that your father is proud of what you do. He does know?”

“No, sir. My father died in Vietnam.”

“I’m sorry, Charley,” Masterson said. “I had no way of knowing.”

“Thank you, sir. If I may go on?”

“Please.”

“Once Mr. Lorimer is identified, there’s a number of possibilities. For one thing, he was both an American citizen and a UN diplomat. God only knows what the UN will do when they find out he was murdered in Uruguay. We don’t know what the UN knows about Mr. Lorimer’s involvement with the oil-for-food business, but I’m damned sure a number of people in the UN do.

“They will obviously want to sweep this under the diplomatic rug. By slightly bending the facts—they can say Lorimer was on leave, somehow the paperwork got lost when we were looking for him to tell him about his sister getting kidnapped, and then about Mr. Masterson being murdered—they can issue a statement of shock and regret that he was killed by robbers on his estancia.”

“Yeah,” D’Allessando said, thoughtfully.

“Once it is established that Bertrand is, in fact, Lorimer, an American citizen, our embassy in Montevideo can get in the act. For repatriation of the remains, for one thing, and to take control of his property temporarily, pending the designation of someone—kin or somebody else—to do that. Which brings me to that.

“Do you think Ambassador Lorimer would be willing to designate someone to do that? The someone I have in mind is an FBI agent in Montevideo, who was in on the operation. Give him what would amount to power of attorney, in other words? I’d really like to really go through the estancia and see what can be found.”

“I don’t think he would have any problem with that. I don’t think he would want to—in his condition—go there himself, nor do I think his wife or physician would permit it.”