“Yes, sir,” Castillo replied, not taking his point. “Me and my team.”
The ambassador remained silent and glanced at the others as he considered his reply.
Then he looked at Castillo and said: “First of all, my dear friend, if you were found anywhere near Stanleyville—and found you would be, with that rosy complexion—you would be killed and possibly cannibalized. The liver of a white man is considered good juju against bullets.
“As to what anyone else might find, if they were foolish enough to go to that area, it would be the sad remnants of a European attempt to superimpose their culture on the Congo. The Europeans, if I have to say this, are long gone. The airport—which used to have daily flights of Boeing 707 aircraft to and from Brussels—has been closed for years. There is rampant disease. And little or no electricity because little or no oil makes it up the Congo to power generators small or large. They would find stacks of decomposing bodies in the bush not unlike what the Khmer Rouge scattered around Cambodia. Need I go on?”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“The only way you could destroy that factory would be by air,” Lorimer said.
“We don’t even know where it is, within a hundred miles,” Castillo said.
“Oh, we can find it,” DeWitt said.
“ ‘We,’ DeWitt?” Castillo asked sarcastically.
“I thought this was an employment interview,” DeWitt said straight-faced. “You mean it wasn’t?”
“Charley,” Leverette said, “we could HALO a team, maybe just four, five shooters. Find the sonofabitch, paint it, and call in the Air Force.”
“You’d have to—” Castillo began. He stopped when a bell rang loudly, and then a telephone buzzed.
Lorimer picked up the telephone, listened, said, “Thank you,” and hung up.
“Someone else just happened to be in the neighborhood and is dropping in. Chief Inspector Ordóñez.”
“Oh, shit!” Castillo said.
“May I suggest that Dmitri and Svetlana might be more comfortable if DeWitt took them for a ride around the estancia?”
“How about just putting them in another room?” Castillo asked. “This could just be a coincidence.”
Or . . . he could be waving that Interpol warrant.
“If you’d like to come with me, Svetlana, Dmitri?” Ambassador Lorimer asked politely.
“No rush. It’ll take him five, six minutes to get here from the highway,” DeWitt said professionally.
XIV
[ONE]
Estancia Shangri-La
Tacuarembó Province
República Oriental del Uruguay
1505 4 January 2006
Chief Inspector José Ordóñez of the Interior Police Division of the Uruguayan Policía Nacional—an olive-skinned, dark-eyed man in his late thirties who was well-tailored—walked into the interior patio five minutes later.
“The door was open, Mr. Ambassador,” he greeted Lorimer politely. “I just came in.”
“You’re always welcome here, José. I’d hoped that I had made that clear when you last visited.” He gestured toward the table. “We’re just finishing lunch, but there’s more than enough—”
“That’s very kind, Mr. Ambassador. My day has been extraordinary, and I haven’t had my lunch.” He looked around the table, nodding.
“Good to see you, José,” Munz said. “Extraordinary, you say?”
Ordóñez took an open seat at the table. “Quite. I began the day very early.”
“Is that so?” Castillo said.
“Someone rang my doorbell at an unholy hour,” Ordóñez said. “But when I got out of bed, no one was there. This, however, had been slipped under my door.”
He handed Castillo a plain white letter-size envelope. It was unsealed.
Ordóñez nodded at it. “Please. Have a look.”
Castillo opened the envelope, took out a single sheet of paper, and read it.
Castillo handed it to Alfredo Munz, who read it, then handed it to Edgar Delchamps, who read it, than passed it to Alex Darby, who read it:
REFERENCE INTERPOL WARRANTS EUR/RU 2005-6777 FOR BEREZOVSKY, DMITRI AND EUR/RU 2005-6778 FOR ALEKSEEVA, SVETLANA
RELIABLE SOURCES SUGGEST BEREZOVSKY AND ALEKSEEVA MAY BE IN THE COMPANY OF C.G. CASTILLO. LTCOL CASTILLO IS A US ARMY INTELLIGENCE OFFICER WHO ALSO POSSESSES OTHER IDENTIFICATION, INCLUDING THAT OF A SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT OF THE US SECRET SERVICE. HE WAS SEEN IN BUENOS AIRES 2 JANUARY 2006
IT ALSO HAS BEEN LEARNED THAT THE RUSSIAN OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE BEREZOVSKY/ALEKSEEVA CASE, COLONEL EVGENY ALEKSEEVA, OF THE SVR, IS EITHER IN BUENOS AIRES OR EN ROUTE. HE IS TRAVELING ON A DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT.
Darby folded it and handed it back to Ordóñez, then said: “If I didn’t know better—no member of the FBI would ever do something like this, as we all know—I’d say that somebody has slipped a confidential FBI backgrounder to a member of the local law-enforcement community.”
Ordóñez did not respond to that. Instead, he said: “So, Colonel, before I had my breakfast, I made a couple of calls—these reports would have been on my desk anyway when I went to work, you understand—and learned both that your beautiful airplane had landed at Punta the previous afternoon and that Mr. Darby had taken the Buquebus to Montevideo.
“I then called the Conrad, thinking maybe you might be there playing a little Vingt et Un or something like that. And, sure enough, they told me you were there, in the company of what the manager told me was a truly striking red-haired lady.
“I asked myself, ‘Since I made it so clear that I personally and the government of Uruguay semi-officially have stated that we would prefer that you take your tourist business elsewhere, why are you unable to resist the temptation to return to Punta?’ ”
Ambassador Lorimer placed a plate heaped with slices of beef tenderloin on the table before him.
Castillo avoided the question. He gestured at Ordóñez’s lomo. “There are some lovely grilled peppers to go with that, José. Won’t you try some? And some really nice Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ll get you a glass. Unless, of course, you’re on duty and not drinking?”
Castillo got up from the table, and returned with a bottle and held it up.
“It’s called Bodegones del Sur, and it’s from the Bodega Juanicó. The label says it has a complex aroma, whatever that means, with notes of mature fruits—which calls to my mind a mental image of a cologne-soaked elderly gentleman of exquisite grace. . . .”
Ordóñez shook his head. “Pour the wine, please, Colonel. But, for the record, I’m always on duty.”
Castillo half-filled the large glass before Ordóñez, then helped himself to one.
“I’ll join you, so there will be two of us always on duty giving in to Demon Rum. Or Demon Cabernet.”
They touched glasses.
Ordóñez put some beef in his mouth and chewed.
When he had finished, he said, “Very nice, Mr. Ambassador,” and then turned to Castillo.
“So I hopped into my car and drove to Punta. I thought I might be able to have breakfast with you, Colonel, to chat about this.
“When I got there, I heard that you had rented a car and gone for an early-morning drive. But, as you can certainly understand, Colonel, my professional curiosity was piqued.”
Ordóñez took a sip of his wine, then went on: “So I showed the picture on the warrant of Miss—or is it Mrs.?—Alekseeva to the manager. He said that it sure looked like the lady who was sharing 1730 with you.