"Names and addresses-and photographs, if that can be done discreetly-to feed to our database," Castillo said. "Anything. Right now all we have is the database."
"I'll get on the horn," Santini said.
"After that, Dave," Castillo said, "if you still want to come back here, we'll see what can be worked out."
He saw that Yung was pleased with that.
Congratulations, Second Lieutenant Castillo. You remembered that from Leadership 101: "If at all possible, do not discourage enthusiasm."
"Okay, so where does that leave us?" Santini said. "The passports and what else?"
"The pancake flour and maple syrup," Castillo said.
Artigas thought, The what?
"I got it," Santini said. "What's that all about?"
"Where is it right now?" Castillo asked.
"In the trunk of the embassy BMW," Solez said.
"It's for Putin," Castillo said. "I promised it to him."
Artigas thought, incredulously: He promised pancake flour and maple syrup to Aleksandr Pevsner, international thug?
"I'd love to know what that's all about, Charley," Santini said.
"Alfredo," Castillo said, "is there any way you can communicate with your wife without using your home phone?"
Munz nodded. "I can call her and give her a message, something innocuous, that tells her to go to the phone in the kiosk around the corner from the house."
"How is she about taking orders without question?"
"Ordinarily, not good at all," Munz said, smiling. "But under these circumstances…" He paused. "She knows I didn't shoot myself cleaning my pistol. And she's seen the cars."
"What about your daughters?"
"They'll do what their mother tells them to do."
"How do you think this would work?" Castillo began. "You get her on the kiosk phone and tell her to pick up your daughters and their passports-and nothing else, that's important-and take a taxi to Unicenter. Is there a place you could meet her there?"
"In the food court," Munz said. "Or, for that matter, the garage."
"The food court would probably be better," Castillo said. "I'll drive you back there and we'll sneak you in the way we sneaked you out. You will meet them in the food court. I'll follow you up there and so will Ricardo, Yung, and Artigas. You will point us all out to them so they understand we're the good guys. You get the passports…"
Munz held up his hand and Castillo stopped.
Munz thought for a long moment, then said, "Okay so far, Karl. Go on."
"You tell them to go shopping," Castillo continued. "Underwear, maybe dresses, whatever else they'll need for two, three days. No luggage. Shopping bags only."
"They won't be going back to the apartment?" Munz asked.
"No. They'll take a cab to the Buquebus terminal, arriving no more than ten minutes before they have to…"
"There's a ferry leaving at nine-thirty," Munz said. "It gets to Montevideo about one in the morning. Which means they would have to be there at nine-fifteen. Considering the traffic, they'd have to leave Unicenter no later than eight-thirty." He looked at his watch. "It's now ten to six. It'll be tight but that much can be done. What's the rest?"
"Artigas will have taken a cab to Buquebus right after you point out him and Yung to your family. That's (a) so he can buy the tickets and (b) in case Yung, who will stay in Unicenter with your family-and follow them in another taxi to Buquebus-somehow gets separated from them. In other words, Artigas'll be at the terminal with their tickets and passports when your family gets there. That should reassure them a little. And they'll stay with them as long as they're in Uruguay."
"I'm not going to drive them?" Ricardo Solez asked.
"You're going to take the passports, bring them here, have them stamped, and then take them to Artigas at the Buquebus terminal."
"Got it."
Castillo went on: "Alfredo is going to get in his car-he left it in the Unicenter parking lot-and take Putin the pancake flour and maple syrup…"
Artigas decided, Pancake flour and maple syrup have to be code names for something-something they don't want me to know about. But what?
"…And he's going to tell Putin that I called him, had him meet me at Unicenter, and gave him the flour and syrup, then asked him to take it to him. He will also cleverly drop into their conversation that I told him I was going to the States either tonight or tomorrow."
Munz nodded.
"I'm going to follow him out there-and I think I better have a weapon-Tony?"
"I just happen to have a spare Glock in my briefcase," Santini said.
"I'm going to wait for Alfredo in the supermarket parking lot near where Putin's holed up. You know where I mean, Alfredo?"
Munz nodded.
"When Munz comes back from delivering the flour and syrup to Putin, he will drive to his apartment with me following him. There he will put his car in the garage, go to his apartment, and turn on the lights, then turn them off again and go out of the apartment and to the kiosk around the corner. Somehow, during this time, he will get into the backseat of the Cherokee without being noticed and I'll take him to the apartment on Arribenos."
"What's that?" Munz asked.
"It's where you'll spend tonight," Castillo said. "Tomorrow, presuming nothing went wrong with renting it, you-and Eric Kocian, Max, and Kocian's bodyguard-will as quietly as possible be moved to a safe house in the Mayerling Country Club in Pilar."
"Who are those people?" Munz asked.
"One is a man named Eric Kocian. He's a journalist. He's got a lot of material I want you to go through to see if we can make a connection."
"I don't like journalists much myself," Munz said. "But he needs a bodyguard?"
Castillo nodded. "They tried to kill him twice in the last week. They also tried to stick a needle full of phenothiazine in him. You'll like the bodyguard. He used to be an inspector in the Budapest police department, and, before that, a hitch in the French Foreign Legion."
"They speak Spanish?"
"German and Hungarian."
"And the third one? Max Something, you said?"
"Max Bouvier," Castillo said. "He doesn't talk much."
"Another bodyguard, Karl?"
"Oh, yes," Castillo said.
"Jesus Christ, Charley!" Santini said, shaking his head. "Alfredo, he's pulling your leg. Max is a dog. An enormous dog."
Munz looked at Castillo.
"True," Castillo said. "Which just made me think of something. I was planning to move Kocian to the master bedroom in the suite in the Four Seasons. He's in his eighties, has two 9mm holes in him, and just flew from Budapest. But I can't do that, obviously, with Max. He's going to have to stay in that apartment. And won't like it."
"Leave the dog in the apartment," Solez said.
"Not an option. Where Kocian goes, so does Max. He even had him in his hospital room in Budapest."
"Which just made me think of something," Santini said. "What do we do with Familia Munz in Montevideo until you can pick them up with the Gulfstream?"
"Alfredo took me to a first-rate hotel in Carrasco…" Castillo began.
"I sent you there," Ambassador Silvio said. "The Belmont House. I'll call over, and get them a suite."
"No," Castillo said. "That would involve you personally. I don't want that. I'll call. We'll have to get them to hold the room anyway if that boat doesn't get over there until one o'clock in the morning."
"And where is Familia Munz going in the States?" Santini asked. "Washington?"
Jesus, I didn't even think about that! Castillo thought.
He then said, "Not at first. At first, we need something in the boonies."
"Carlos," Solez said. "The ranch?"
"My first thought just now was to take them to the plantation-there's people already there sitting on the Masterson family-but obviously that wasn't one of my brighter ideas."
"When Dona Alicia sent me the e-mail about you getting promoted, she said she had just been up to the ranch and it was so hot she wasn't going back until November."
Castillo chuckled. "It does get a bit warm in Midland in August, doesn't it? Okay, I'll give Abuela a call and ask her to stay away until further notice. Tony, can we get some Secret Service people to go to Midland until I can make better arrangements for Alfredo's family?"