The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

Castillo nodded.

"Anything that comes into your mind, Eddie. My data bank is pretty empty."

"Typical Third World airport," Lorimer went on. "It used to be called the Presidente General Stroessner Airport, and you can still see signs with his name on them. He was the president, read dictator, for thirty-five years. Apparently a world-class sonofabitch-"

"Presidente General Alfredo Stroessner," Castillo interrupted, "was exiled to Brazil in 1989 after a coup by General Andres Rodriguez. I don't know where the hell I got that, but the data bank apparently isn't completely empty. And, I just remembered, he was cozy with the Nazis, the ones who fled to South America after World War Two. Interesting."

"Why? Is that important?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. And the next time we have a little chat like this, I'll have to remember to bring the laptop so I can write all this down. I tend to forget things I hear when I'm drinking. Go on, please, Eddie."

"The embassy car was parked against the fence across the field from the terminal. The driver was on the floor of the backseat choked to death."

"Strangled, you mean?"

"I don't know if that's the word. He had a gizmo around his neck, like those plastic handcuffs the cops use, but metal."

"With a handle?" Castillo asked, quietly, and mimed how the handle would be used.

Lorimer nodded.

"It's called a garrote," Castillo said. "One of them was used to take out a friend of mine, Sergeant First Class Sy Kranz, who was a damned good special operator, when the Ninjas jumped us at Estancia Shangri-La."

"I never heard that you lost anybody."

"We lost Sy Kranz," Castillo said. "And taking him out wasn't easy, which told us right off that the Ninjas we took out were pros."

"How much about that operation are you going to tell me, Colonel?"

"We later found out that one of the people we took out was Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia. We think the others were probably either ex-Stasi or ex-AVO or ex-AVH, probably being run by the FSB."

"Colonel, except for the FSB, I don't know what you're talking about. Who was the FSB running? Jesus, what was going on at that farm?"

"Estancia," Castillo corrected him without thinking. "Estancia Shangri-La. This much we know: Jean-Paul Lorimer, an American who worked for the UN, was a-probably the-bagman in that Iraqi Oil for Food cesspool. We know he set himself up with a phony identification and name on the estancia. We know he had sixteen million dollars. Whether he earned that as the bagman or stole it, we don't know. We know that a team of pros was sent to the estancia. We think their basic mission was to whack him to shut his mouth. They may have been after the money, too. And we're pretty sure the others were ex-Stasi…"

He stopped when he remembered Lorimer didn't know what he was talking about.

"Stasi, Eddie, was the East German Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit-Ministry for State Security. AVO-Allamvedelmi Osztaly-and later AVH-Allamvedelmi Hatosag-did about the same thing when Hungary was still under the communists."

"And they were involved in that oil-for-food business?"

"They were hired guns, we think, for people who were involved in it," Castillo said.

"Like who?"

Castillo ignored the question.

"The one thing the Stasi and the Hungarians had in common, Eddie-aside from being some very unpleasant people very good at what they did-was using the garrote as the silent whacking weapon of choice."

"You're saying you think these people are involved with what happened to Timmons?"

"I'm saying it's very interesting that Timmons's driver was garroted with the same kind of garrote they used on Sergeant Kranz, and tried to use on Eric Kocian."

Lorimer considered what he'd heard, then said, "I don't think anyone in Asuncion thinks we're dealing with anything but drug dealers."

"And maybe we're not," Castillo said. "But to finish filling you in on what happened at Shangri-La, the official version-the Uruguayan government version-is that it was a drug deal gone wrong. They know better, but apparently have decided it's best for them to sweep what really happened under the rug. This is made somewhat easier for them by our ambassador, who can't believe that a special operation could happen without his knowing about it. He decided that Lorimer was shipping cocaine in antique vases and a deal went wrong. The Uruguayans decided to let it go at that."

"So you came out clean?"