"I'd like a brief word with you, Artigas," Monahan said, then added for Howell, "It'll take just a couple of seconds, Bob."
"Certainly," Howell said, smiling, and walked out of Monahan's office. Yung followed him.
Both heard Monahan say, "Close the door, Jim," and exchanged glances.
"I suspect Monahan just told him to report everything we do," Howell said. "Does that make me paranoid?" [FOUR] Office of the Cultural Attache The Embassy of the United States of America Lauro Miller 1776 Montevideo, Republica Oriental del Uruguay 1055 6 August 2005 There was no reason for Julio Artigas to report the substance of his conversation with Chief Inspector Ordonez to Howell and Yung. Howell had punched the speakerphone button on his telephone and they had heard the entire conversation.
Howell spoke first: "Chief Inspector Ordonez is certainly obliging, isn't he?"
"Uruguayan courtesy," Yung said. "Or professional courtesy. Maybe-probably-both."
"I thought his offer of a Huey to fly us to the estancia was more than generous," Howell said.
"And volunteering to go with us. That was rather nice of him," Yung said.
"My cousin Jose is a very charming man," Artigas said. "But what I think you two have to keep in mind is that he's one smart cop."
"Why do you think we should we keep that in mind, Julio?" Howell asked.
"Oh, come on," Artigas said.
"Oh, come on what?" Howell replied.
"Something is going on here. I have no idea what. But you two do."
"Really?" Howell asked. "What do you think is going on, Julio?"
"What I don't think is that Lorimer was a drug dealer who got himself killed when a deal went wrong. And neither does Jose Ordonez."
"He told you that?" Yung asked.
"He didn't have to. I know him pretty well."
"What does he think, do you know? Or can you guess?" Howell asked.
"I know he's fascinated with several things," Artigas said. "First, that he can't identify the Ninjas at the estancia. If they were Uruguayans, Argentines, or Brazilians, by now he would have. Second, that National Match cartridge case. And the cleaning out of Lorimer's bank accounts. He's trying to tie those unknowns together. If he can, he'll know what really happened at Estancia Shangri-La."
"What do you know about Presidential Findings, Julio?" Howell asked.
"Jesus," Yung muttered.
Howell looked at him and shrugged, as if to say, What choice do we have?
"Not much," Artigas admitted. "I've heard the term."
"Well-just talking, you understand-what I've heard about Presidential Findings is that they are classified Top Secret Presidential. The only persons cleared to know any details of a Presidential Finding are those cleared by the President himself or by the officer the President has named to do whatever the Presidential Finding calls for."
"You've got my attention," Artigas said.
"So hypothetically speaking, of course," Howell went on, obviously choosing his words carefully, "if there were people privy to a Presidential Finding and it happened that a professional associate of theirs-an FBI agent, for example, or an ambassador for that matter, someone with all the standard security clearances-became interested in something touching on the details of the Finding and went to one of these people and asked them about it, they just couldn't tell him no matter how much they might like to, not even if telling that person would facilitate their execution of their assignment."
"That would apply to an ambassador, too? I mean, there's the rule that nothing is supposed to happen in a foreign country that the ambassador doesn't know about and approves of."
"That's my understanding," Howell said. "Is that your understanding, too, of how a Presidential Finding works, Yung?"
"From what I've heard," Yung said.
"And from what I understand," Howell went on, "it would be a serious breach of security for someone privy to a Presidential Finding to even admit his knowledge of any detail of a Presidential Finding. He couldn't say, for example, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Ambassador, but that touches on a Presidential Finding for which you are not cleared.' He would have to completely deny any knowledge of even knowing there was a Presidential Finding."
"Fascinating," Artigas said. "Can I ask a question?"
"You can ask anything you want," Yung said.
"But I may not get an answer? Is that it?"
"Ask your question," Howell said.
"Just between us, hypothetically speaking, where do you suppose Lorimer got sixteen million dollars?"
"The ambassador thinks it was from drugs. I'm not about to question the ambassador's judgment," Howell said. "But, hypothetically speaking of course, it could have come from somewhere else. Embezzlement comes to mind. It could even, I suppose, have something to do with the oil-for-food scandal. I heard somewhere there was really a lot of money involved in that."
"You know, that thought occurred to me, too."
"Did it?" Howell asked.
"One more question?" Artigas asked.
"Shoot."
"Monahan just now told me I was to tell him everywhere Yung went, who he talked to, what he said-everything."
"How interesting," Howell said. "The ambassador told me to do exactly that about Yung."
"I'm wondering whether that would mean I should tell him about this little discussion of ours."
"What discussion was that?"
"About Presidential Findings."
"I don't remember any discussion of Presidential Findings, do you, Yung?" Howell asked.
"No, I don't remember any discussion like that."
Artigas stood up.
"We'd better be getting over to the British Hospital," he said. "We wouldn't want to keep Ordonez waiting, would we? Since he's being so helpful?" [FIVE] Camp Mackall, North Carolina 0930 6 August 2005 Sergeant Major John K. Davidson's job description said he was the Operations Sergeant of the Special Forces training facility. He was, but he actually had two other functions, both unwritten and both more or less secret. It was not much of a secret that he was the judge of the noncommissioned officers going through the basic qualification course-the "Q course." He was the man who, with the advice of others, decided which trainee was going to go on to further, specialized training and ultimately earn the right to wear the blaze of a fully qualified Special Forces soldier on his green beret and which trainee would go back to other duties in the Army.
Far more of a secret was that he was also the judge of the commissioned officers going through the Q course.
Jack Davidson had not wanted the job-for one thing, Mackall was in the boonies and a long drive from his quarters on the post, and, for another, he thought of himself as an urban special operator-as opposed to an out in the boonies eating monkeys and snakes and rolling around in the mud field special operator-and running Mackall meant spending most of his time in the boonies.
But two people for whom he had enormous respect-he had been around the block with both of them: Vic D'Allessando, now retired and running the Stockade, and Bruce J. "Scotty" McNab, whom Davidson had known as a major and who was now the XVIII Airborne Corps commander and a three-star general-had almost shamelessly appealed to his sense of duty.
"Jack, you know better than anybody else what it takes," Scotty McNab had told him. "Somebody else is likely to pass some character who can't hack it and people will get killed. You want that on your conscience?" Sergeant Major Davidson was not surprised when he heard the peculiar fluckata-fluckata sound the rotor blades of MH-6H helicopters make as they came in for a landing. And he was reasonably sure that it was either D'Allessando or the general, who often dropped in unannounced once a week or so, and neither had been at Mackall recently.
But when he pushed himself out of his chair and walked outside the small, wood-frame operations building just as the Little Bird touched down, he was surprised to see that the chopper held both of them. That seldom happened.
He waited safely outside the rotor cone as first General McNab-a small, muscular ruddy-faced man sporting a flowing red mustache-and then Vic D'Allessando ducked under the blades.