"Three of us, Ur Kocian," Sandor Tor said.
When Castillo looked at Tor, he went on: "I suspected after the incident on the Szabadsag hid that your assailants were ex-Stasi-"
"What incident on the Szabadsag hid?" Sieno asked.
"You've been to Budapest, too, Paul?" Castillo asked. "You do get around, don't you? These bastards tried to snatch Billy on the Freedom Bridge-"
"Franz Josef Byucke, Karlchen," Kocian interrupted.
"…And when Sandor interrupted that, they shot Billy," Castillo finished. He then said, "Please go on, Sandor."
"I suspected ex-Stasi made the attack on Ur Kocian. The one Max bit and allowed us to catch said that he was from Dresden. That attack was professional. The proof came with the attack on you."
"What proof?"
"We took fingerprints from the bodies of the men you shot," Tor said. "They did not match the fingerprints of former members of the AVH or AVO. And both of the men you had to deal with had garrotes. Only three services used the garrote-the Hungarian Allamvedelmi Osztaly and Allamvedelmi Hatosag and the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic. Since they weren't ex-AVO or ex-AVH, only ex-Stasi is left. And who is running all three? The KSB."
Castillo started to say something but stopped when the door chimes went off.
Sieno got up and walked to a wall-mounted telephone by the door. he said, "Si, por favor," hung the phone up, and turned to the others in the room.
"There's another nice Italian boy in the lobby. He says he has our supper. I told the doorman to send him up." [THREE] Everyone was seated around the table in the Sieno dining room, ready for their meal from Rio Alba. When Jack Davidson-who was slicing individual portions from the enormous bife lomo with what looked like a huge dagger-sensed Sieno's eyes on him, he looked up and said, "Nice knife, Paul."
"It's a gaucho knife," Sieno said. "I bought it to hang on the wall of my vine-covered retirement cottage by the side of the road. Then I started to use it."
"You Jewish, Davidson?" Santini asked.
Davidson looked at him curiously. "Yeah. Why?"
"Then you will be fascinated to learn that there are forty thousand Jewish cowboys -gauchos- here."
He stopped slicing. "You're kidding!"
"Absolutely not. Mostly East Europeans. When they got off the boat in the 1890s, what Argentina needed was cowboys, so off to the pampas they got shipped. They wear the boots and the baggy pants, and stick knives like that under their belts in the back, but when they take off their cowboy hats there's the yarmulke."
"I have to see that."
"Keep slicing, Jack," Castillo ordered. "Some of us are hungry."
Davidson made a mock bow. "I humbly beg the colonel's pardon, sir."
Castillo's cellular vibrated.
"?Hola?"
"Congratulations," Alex Darby announced, "you are now the proud lessee of a ten-room villa in Mayerling. They finally left, just now."
"Susanna Sieno and Bradley are in the shopping center in Pilar, buying sheets, blankets, and food."
"And lightbulbs," Sieno said. "Don't forget the lightbulbs."
"And lightbulbs," Castillo said.
"I told my maid to bring lightbulbs and food. I didn't think about sheets and blankets."
"You're bringing your maid out there?"
"And her daughter," Darby said. "This place will not run itself."
Castillo, remembering who Darby was, stopped himself just in time from asking if that was smart. Instead, he asked, "Can you call her cellular and tell her she can bring the stuff to the house?"
"Yeah. I'll do it, and I'll call the gate and tell the guards to let them in. It might be a good idea if she spent the night here, Charley, to get things organized. Or would you rather that I stayed?"
"No. I want you here, to pick your brain. If you hurry, there just may be a little steak from Rio Alba leftover."
"Remind Paul that a hungry boss is a difficult superior," Darby said and the connection went dead.
Before he could lay the cellular down by the charger again, it vibrated.
"?Hola?"
"They're on their way to the bus terminal," Yung reported. "I'm sure they didn't meet anyone they knew here."
"Good. They're expected. Let me know when you get there."
"Got it," Yung said and broke the connection.
Castillo reported the exchange to Munz, who nodded but didn't say anything.
"Paul, Susanna will spend the night out there," Castillo said.
Sieno nodded.
"I was going to recommend that," he said.
Davidson handed Castillo a plate. It held thick, pink-in-the-middle slices of filet mignon, slices of vine-ripened tomato, and a stack of papas Provencal.
"This isn't the haute cuisine we got used to in Afghanistan, Charley, but maybe you can wash it down with enough wine to make it edible." As a monitor showed Alex Darby parking his car in the basement garage, Yung called to report that everyone was safely at the terminal, had their tickets, and would soon be able to get on the bus.
"Let me know when that happens," Castillo ordered. "And when the bus leaves the parking lot."
"Got it," Yung said and the connection went dead. "Alex," Castillo said as Darby helped himself to slices of steak, "what we're going to do now is I'm going to recap what we've been talking about and then you're going to tell us what you think."
"Shoot," Darby replied. Castillo had not quite finished when his cellular vibrated.
"?Hola?"
"Christopher Columbus, Confucius, and the pilgrims have sailed for the New World," Yung reported.
"Give me a call when you get to Plymouth Rock."
He put the cellular in his pocket and gave Alfredo Munz a thumbs-up.
Munz nodded and silently mouthed, "Mucho gracias." "Two things, Charley," Alex Darby began. "One, it's a reasonable scenario. My gut feeling is that if you're not right on the money, you're not far off. Two, if number one is on the money then you're in trouble. For one thing, you're going up against the conventional wisdom at the agency and you know how popular you are in Langley. And for another…" Alex Darby gently shook Castillo's shoulder.
"Charley, why don't you go to the Four Seasons and get some sleep?"
"Jesus, what did I do, fall asleep?"
"You were asleep with your eyes open for the last five minutes and then a minute ago you closed them."
"You're right. All I'm doing here is spinning my wheels." He tried to stifle a yawn. "Can we pick up where I dropped off in the morning? In Mayerling?"
"I'll pick you up at nine?"
"Fine. How do Jake, Fernando, and I get to the hotel?"
"The Cubans may be watching this building. If they are, they know our cars. So, instead, if you walked down the hill to Libertador and caught a cab, all they would learn-even if they followed it-was that three people left the building…"
"Including the one whose dog took a dump on their sidewalk," Castillo interrupted.
"…and went to the Four Seasons," Darby finished. "Let's do it," Castillo said and pushed himself away from the table. [FOUR] The Buquebus Terminal Montevideo, Uruguay 0115 9 August 2005 The Juan Patricio, one of the Buquebus ferries that ply the river Plate between downtown Buenos Aires and downtown Montevideo, is an enormous Australian-built aluminum catamaran with space on the lower deck for about one hundred automobiles and light trucks. The main deck can seat, in comfortable airliner-type seating, about two hundred fifty passengers. There also is a duty-free shop and a snack bar. The first-class deck, up an interior stairway from the tourist deck, offers larger seats and its own snack bar.
There are bulkhead-mounted television sets in both classes that play motion picture DVDs. But on the late-night voyages, few people watch them, preferring to doze in their seats and wake up on arrival.
The only communication between the Munz family and either Yung or Artigas on the Juan Patricio's voyage to Montevideo-aside from Yung's half-dozen smiles that he hoped would be reassuring-had been a fifteen-second encounter between Artigas and Senora Munz when the lights of Montevideo appeared.