The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

Castillo had glanced at Ellsworth several times during Mr. Seacroft's discourse. Castillo had seen from Ellsworth's look of utter contempt that he, too, knew that the French criminal investigation philosophy was Cherchez la femme-though their seeking of femme meant "women," not "money."

Milton Weiss of the CIA said that he had to confess being a little surprised at the attention the kidnapping of Special Agent Timmons was getting. He had heard-unofficially, of course-that it was a not-uncommon occurrence-perhaps even common-and that in the end the drug thugs usually turned the kidnappee free.

He implied that the agency had far more important things to do than worry about one DEA agent, who, it could be reasonably assumed, had some idea of what he was getting himself into when he first became a DEA agent and subsequently went to Paraguay. The CIA would, however, Weiss said, keep its ear to the ground and promptly inform everybody if it came up with something.

It was Castillo's turn next.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know nothing about this. I'm just here to listen and learn."

And the truth here, if I'm to believe what I've heard from these people, is that I know more about this than anyone else.

Except, of course, Weiss, and he's lying through his teeth.

Making at least two of us here who are doing that.

Colonel DeBois was next, and he immediately began to prove that he had come to the meeting prepared to share whatever knowledge the DIA had with the rest of the intelligence community.

"I think I-the DIA-has more knowledge of the situation down there than maybe we should," he began. "The background to that is that our people there, the defense attache and his assistants, are encouraged to report informally on matters that come to their attention that are not entirely defense related but which they feel may be of interest to the DIA.

"Lieutenant Lorimer, to whom I referred earlier, became friends with Special Agent Timmons, and from him learned a good deal about the DEA operations there, which Lorimer passed on to us. Timmons may well have crossed the 'need to know' line there, telling Lorimer what he did, but I think that area's a little fuzzy. If we're here to share intelligence, what's really wrong with our people in the field doing the same thing?"

"It's against the law, for one thing," Milton Weiss said.

"Oh, come on, Weiss," John Walsh of the DEA said. "They all do it, and we all know they do it, and you know as well as I do that there's nothing really wrong with it."

Good for you, Walsh. I think I like you.

"If I'm getting into something here that perhaps I shouldn't?" DeBois said.

"Whatever you heard from your people couldn't really be called reliable intelligence, could it?" Ellsworth said. "It would be, in legal terms, 'hearsay,' would it not?"

"I'd like to hear the hearsay," Castillo said.

Ellsworth flashed Castillo an icy look.

Is that because he doesn't like me challenging him?

Or because he doesn't want DeBois to report what Lorimer told him?

"Please go on, sir," Castillo said.

"I thought you were chairing this meeting, Mr. Ellsworth?" Weiss demanded.

"We're supposed to be sharing intel, so let's share it," Castillo said.

Careful, Charley, you don't want to lose your temper.

After a moment's hesitation, Ellsworth said, "I think if Colonel Castillo wants to hear what Colonel DeBois has to say, then we should. With my caveat that it really is hearsay."

"Actually, rather than hard intelligence," DeBois said, "what Lieutenant Lorimer provided might be called background-his informal assessment of the problems down there, his own opinions, plus what he heard from Special Agent Timmons and others."

"Why don't you get on with it, Colonel?" Weiss said impatiently. "So the rest of us can get out of here?"

"Very well," DeBois said. "Lorimer reported that Timmons said, and he agreed, that the drug operations in Paraguay are more sophisticated than might be expected."

"Sophisticated?" Weiss parroted incredulously.

"The drug people in Paraguay seemed to be taking unusual steps to keep from calling attention to themselves," DeBois said.