The FOLLOW ME pickup truck led them between lines of private aircraft—mostly Beechcraft turboprops, but there were two Gulfstreams, one with Brazilian tail numbers and the other with American.
“What is this place, anyhow?” Miller asked.
“Where the rich of South America come in the summer to rest up from counting their money. In the winter, it’s just about deserted. The last time I was here, it was winter and it looked like a science fiction movie. Lots of plush apartment houses, multimillion-dollar beachfront houses—and just about no people.”
“What were you doing here?”
“Trying to grab Howard Kennedy.” He paused and made a question of the statement: “The renegade FBI agent who went to work for Pevsner?”
Miller nodded his understanding.
“Well, Kennedy sold Pevsner out. He tried to have him whacked, and in the process damned near got me. Would have gotten me if Lester hadn’t been there. My payback plan was to take Mr. Kennedy home so the FBI could arrange for him to be sent to the Federal ADMAX prison in Florence, Colorado, thereby earning me the profound gratitude of the FBI. For some reason, the FBI doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
“I’ve heard that,” Miller said. “Jesus, look at all these airplanes!”
“The last time I was here, it was just little ol’ me.”
“Somebody had already whacked Kennedy when you got here, right?”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Pevsner decided that being raped on a regularly scheduled basis was not sufficient punishment for Howard having taken Pevsner’s money and then betrayed him. When we got to the Conrad, which essentially is the Caesars Palace of Punta del Este, it looked like every cop in Uruguay was there.
“There’s a Uruguayan cop—the chief inspector of the Uruguayan Policía Nacional, one José Ordóñez—who also doesn’t like me, by the way. I hope not to see him—”
“Charley, I’ve never been able to understand why so few people actually do like you.”
Miller then pointed out the cockpit window.
The FOLLOW ME truck had stopped, and the driver and another man were getting out.
“Finally,” Castillo said. “I thought he was taxiing us back to Montevideo.”
They were wanded into a parking space, and they shut down the aircraft. Miller unfastened his harness.
“Hold it a second. Let me finish,” Castillo said.
“Okay.”
“Ordóñez was in the lobby of the Conrad when we walked in. He took us to one of the better suites, where taped to two chairs were the bodies of Howard Kennedy and a guy who Delchamps recognized as Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Zhdankov of Putin’s Service for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight Against Terrorism. Taped because they had been beaten to death. Slowly, with what in Chief Inspector Ordóñez’s professional opinion was an angle iron. They started by smashing fingers and toes, then worked up to the larger parts. It was pretty gruesome.”
“I wonder what your good buddy Pevsner would do to some guy who didn’t do right by his cousin?” Miller asked lightly.
Castillo shook his head. “Not a problem, my friend, because that’s not going to happen.”
“I remember you telling me something in those exact words before. Actually, on several occasions. The first was years ago in that motel in Daleville, when you were contemplating nailing the deputy post commander’s daughter. . . .”
Where the hell did that come from? Castillo thought.
He said: “That’s a long time ago. This is now.”
Miller shrugged.
“Cutting this short,” Castillo went on, “Ordóñez has twice told me I’m not welcome in Uruguay. The day we found Kennedy and Zhdankov, he told me to get out and stay out. And he told me again the time I used Shangri-La as a refueling point when we flew those black choppers off the Gipper. He sees me causing trouble for Uruguay.”
“But he took the helicopters, right, when you were through with them?”
“Not the way you make it sound, Dick. He’s a good guy, ethical, but not bribable.”
“Really?” Miller replied sarcastically.
“Yeah, really,” Castillo said angrily. “The point of this little lecture is that I want to pass through Punta del Este as quietly as possible. I do not want to have Ordóñez adding to our problems.”
“As quietly and inconspicuously as possible, right?”
“Right.”
“That may be just a little difficult, the inconspicuous part.”
He pointed out the cockpit window again.
A glistening white Lincoln stretch limousine had driven up beside the Gulfstream.
“That’s a mistake; that can’t be for us,” Castillo said. “What that looks like is the Conrad Resort & Casino meeting a Brazilian high-roller.”
Miller chuckled.
The liveried chauffeur got from behind the limousine wheel and opened the passenger door. An elegantly dressed man got out and with a welcoming smile waved at the airplane.
There was the electrical whine as the stair door unfolded.
“I hope Edgar has got Max on the leash,” Castillo said.
Edgar did not.
Max came down the stairs, trotted to the limousine—causing the smiling man to lose his smile—stuck his big furry head into the open rear door of the limousine, and then, curiosity satisfied, headed for the nose gear.
Castillo unstrapped himself and went into the passenger compartment.
“Terribly sorry, my fault, old chap,” Cedric Lee-Watson greeted him. “I should have known something like this would happen.”
“What the hell is going on?” Castillo demanded angrily.
“The thing is, you see, is that I have something of a vice.”
“No!” Miller said in mock horror.
Castillo could not restrain a smile.
Lee-Watson mimed throwing dice.
“You’re a crapshooter?” Miller asked. “Shame on you!”
“The car is from the Conrad,” Lee-Watson said. “When I called to ask about accommodations for all of us, they must have assumed I was bringing friends.”
“High-rolling friends?” Miller asked.
Lee-Watson nodded.
“And so you have,” Miller went on. “Sometimes, when I’ve known that Lady Luck was smiling at me, I have been known to wager as much as two dollars on the turn of a card.”
Castillo chuckled. Then he said, “Well, what the hell do we do?”
“One option, Ace,” Edgar Delchamps called, “would be to get in the limousine and go to the hotel. It’s getting hot as hell in here.”
Castillo saw a Chrysler Town & Country van pull up behind the limousine, then a Chrysler Stratus behind the van. Two large men wearing wide-brimmed straw hats, sunglasses, and flowered Hawaiian-style shirts—which failed to conceal the outline of holstered pistols under them—got out of the front passenger seat of each and stood looking at the airplane.
“Let me deal with this,” Lee-Watson said, and went down the stair door.
Max appeared at the foot of the steps and started barking.
Castillo turned to look at Svetlana.
“Didn’t you hear Max, Cinderella? Your pumpkin is here.”
[THREE]
Restaurant Lo de Tere
Rambla Artigas and Calle 8
Punta del Este, Maldonado Province
República Oriental del Uruguay
2025 3 January 2006
Charley held Svetlana’s hand as they waited for her to judge if the Uruguayan caviar—as the waiter had promised them with a straight face—was really as good as that from the Caspian Sea.