"This is Colonel Castillo," Charley said to the telephone. "I'm in Fulda, Germany, and I-and one other-have to get to Budapest as soon as possible. How's the best way to do that?"
Thirty seconds later, he put down the phone.
"Our taxi will be at Leipzig-Halle in ninety minutes," he said. [TWO] Office of the Ambassador The Embassy of the United States of America Lauro Miller 1776 Montevideo, Republica Oriental del Uruguay 1005 6 August 2005 "There's something going on around here, Robert," Ambassador McGrory said to Robert Howell, "that has the smell of rotten eggs and you and I are going to get to the bottom of it."
"I'm not sure that I know what you mean, Mr. Ambassador."
"I really would have thought, Robert, that someone in your line of business would be curious about Mr. Yung. His being suddenly called to the States and then coming back here to handle the Lorimer matter."
"I admit I wondered about that," Howell said.
"It could, of course, have just happened. But I don't think so."
"What do you think it is, Mr. Ambassador?"
"That, I don't know. That is what you and I are going to find out," McGrory said.
"What is it you would like me to do, sir?"
"So long as he's here, I want you to keep a very close eye on him. I want to know where he goes, who he talks to, etcetera. I suspect he has some connection with what happened at that estancia and I want to know what that connection is."
"Is there some reason you think he has…'some connection'…with what happened at Estancia Shangri-La?"
"Intuition," McGrory said. "When you have been in this game as long as I have, you develop an intuition."
"I'm sure that's true, Mr. Ambassador."
"So I want you to watch him very closely."
Howell nodded. I think I have just become the fox placed in charge of the chicken coop.
"Yung will be here in few minutes," McGrory said. "I want you to be here when I talk to him."
"Yes, sir." "Mr. Yung just came onto the compound, Mr. Ambassador," Senora Susanna Obregon reported from Ambassador McGrory's office door.
"When he gets up here, make him wait five minutes and then show him in," McGrory replied, and then added: "And don't give him any coffee."
He looked significantly at Howell.
"Making Special Agent Yung twiddle his thumbs for a while, Robert, will make the point that his being on the personal staff of the secretary or not, I am the senior officer of the United States government here."
"I understand, sir." Fifteen minutes later, when Yung had not appeared, McGrory was about to reach for his telephone to find out where the hell he was when Senora Obregon stepped into his office, closed the door behind her, and asked, "Mr. Yung just came in. What shall I do with him?"
"Ask him to wait, please," Ambassador McGrory replied and held up his hand, fingers and thumb extended, to remind her of how many minutes he wanted Yung to wait.
He then punched a button on his chronometer wristwatch, starting the timer. "The ambassador will see you now, Mr. Yung," McGrory's secretary announced.
Yung got up off the chrome-and-plastic couch, laid on the coffee table the Buenos Aires Herald he had been reading, and walked to McGrory's door.
"Good morning, Mr. Ambassador."
"Welcome back to Uruguay, Yung," the ambassador said, waving him first into the room, then into one of the chairs facing his desk. "You know Mr. Howell, of course?"
"Yes, sir. Good to see you, Mr. Howell."
"May I offer you some coffee?" McGrory asked.
"Thank you, sir."
McGrory flipped the switch on his intercom and ordered coffee.
"Long flight?" McGrory inquired as they waited.
"It didn't seem as long, sir, as the ride from Ezeiza to Jorge Newbery. The piqueteros had the highway blocked. It took the taxi two hours to get downtown, moving five meters at a time."
That was more information than McGrory wanted or needed.
"Well, you know the pickets," he said. "Closing highways and bridges gives them something to do."
"Yes, sir. I suppose that's so."
Senora Obregon served the coffee. McGrory waited until she had left the office, then asked, "I understand, Yung, that when you were here before you weren't doing exactly what everyone-including Mr. Howell and I-thought you were doing."
Yung didn't reply.
"What, exactly, were you doing?" McGrory said, pointedly.
"With the exception, sir, that I was responding to specific requests for information from the State Department and answering those queries directly to the department rather than through the embassy, I was looking into money laundering like every other FBI agent here."
"Why do you suppose that was necessary? And that I was not informed?"
"Sir, I have no idea. I'm pretty low on the totem pole. That's what I was told to do and I did it."
"Who told you to do it?"
"Mr. Quiglette," Yung said, simply.
"You're referring to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Quiglette?"
Yung nodded. "Nice lady."
"It was Mr. Quiglette who told you to tell me nothing of your special orders?"
"What special orders is that, sir?"
"The ones to keep me in the dark about what you were actually doing down here?"
"Yes, sir. But it wasn't a question of not telling you specifically, sir. I was told that no one was to know what I was doing."
"But you were aware that was highly extraordinary?"
"No, sir. I didn't think anything about it. I've had other assignments where no one knew what I was really doing."
"such `as?"
"Sir, I really can't discuss anything like that."
"And can you discuss why you were suddenly ordered out of here?"
"No, sir," Yung said.
"Deputy Assistant Secretary Quiglette messaged me that you were coming back here, to take over the late Mr. Lorimer's body, his assets, etcetera. Are you aware of that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then, presumably, you are aware of the circumstances of Mr. Lorimer's death?"
Yung looked at the ambassador. Now, here's where I'm going to have to start being deceptive and dishonest. Goddamn Castillo for getting me into this!
"I know he was murdered, sir, and that he was Mr. Masterson's brother-in-law, but that's about all."
"I'm curious why the State Department felt it necessary to send someone down here to do what we're perfectly capable of doing ourselves?" McGrory asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.
Yung answered it anyway: "I was given the impression, sir, that that came from the secretary herself."
"You didn't deal with the secretary herself?"
"No, sir. But I was led to believe that it was personal courtesy-maybe professional courtesy-probably both-on her part to Mr. Lorimer's father, who is a retired ambassador."
"But why you, Yung?"
"Because I was here, I suppose. I know Uruguay and the banks and people at the embassy."
McGrory appeared to think that over, then nodded.
"That may well put you in a very delicate situation, Yung," McGrory said.
"Sir?"
"As it does me, frankly, Yung," McGrory said. "Could we go off the record a moment, do you think?"
"Yes, sir. Of course."
"Not that you're really keeping a record, of course. Just as a manner of speaking."
"Yes, sir."
"Now-bearing in mind that I don't know this for sure, but I've been in this diplomatic game for many years now, and believe me you acquire a certain insight into things…"
"I'm sure you have, sir."
"One of the things you learn is that people who would have you think they have a certain influence with the upper echelons of something-like the State Department, for example-don't really have much influence at all."
"I suppose that's true," Yung said.
"And ying yong," McGrory said, significantly.
"Excuse me?"
"Ying yong," McGrory repeated, and then when he saw on Yung's face that he didn't understand went on: "I thought, as an Oriental, you would understand. That's Korean, I believe."