The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

Ordonez ignored the greeting.

"Would you be surprised to hear that your secretary of State has evinced an interest in the welfare of Ambassador Lorimer and his wife?"

"No. I wouldn't."

"I thought so."

"'I thought so' what?"

"That you were behind what has happened. What's it all about? I don't like being pressured."

"Would you be surprised to hear I have no idea what you're talking about?"

Max exited the airplane and made for the nose gear. Delchamps, Yung, and Bradley got out and looked at Ordonez.

"I'd heard you'd left the estancia," Ordonez said to Yung. "By car, in the middle of the night, and had gone to Argentina."

Which means he has people watching Shangri-La.

Why not?

Is that what's got him pissed off?

"I wasn't aware he needed your permission to do anything," Castillo said.

"It was not in connection with your secretary of State? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, it was not."

"Then what?"

"In my experience, Ordonez," Castillo said, "when someone in your frame of mind-to use the Norteamericano phrase, 'highly pissed off'-asks a question, he usually thinks he has the answer and is not interested in yours, even if yours happens to be the truth. Would I be wasting my breath, in other words?"

"I suggest you try answering and we'll find out," Ordonez said.

Okay, bluff called.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

"Okay," Castillo said. "We have reason to believe-Yung found out-that the CIA station chief in Asuncion is dirty. Ninety percent certainty. He went to Argentina to tell Delchamps and me, if he could find me."

Ordonez looked at him very closely.

Somehow, I don't think that's what you expected to hear, is it, Jose?

"Wrong answer, Jose?" Castillo said, smiling at him.

"N

ot what I expected," Ordonez said. "Is that true, David?"

Yung nodded.

"Then I apologize," Ordonez said. "I had decided that you were entirely capable of doing something like that, and probably had. But I couldn't figure out why."

"Done something like what?"

"At eleven o'clock this morning, I was summoned-together with the minister of the interior-to the Foreign Ministry. The President was there. They had just been on a conference call with our ambassador to Washington. He reported that your secretary of State had requested a, quote, personal service, unquote, from him, and requested that he receive her at his earliest convenience. Half an hour later, she was at our embassy. She told him that she was very deeply concerned about the welfare of Ambassador Lorimer and his wife, who-against her advice and wishes-were already on their way to Estancia Shangri-La. She said the ambassador has a serious heart condition, which had been almost certainly exacerbated by the loss first of his son and then of his home in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.