Ordonez raised his glass.
"May I impose on your hospitality for another of these, my friend David?" He smiled. "This glass seems to have a hole in it."
"Of course."
While Yung put ice then Famous Grouse into Ordonez's glass, he thought, I really should not have another of these. I'm out of my depth with Ordonez and I have no idea where this is leading-but then poured another two inches of scotch into his own glass.
"Here you go, Jose," Yung said, handing him the drink.
"Thank you. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. As I said, it was impossible for me-because of the massacre investigation-to personally go to Buenos Aires to see what I could do to help Alfredo, or even to get him on the phone, so I did the only thing I could think of to help: I put a watch on the immigration computers."
"Excuse me?"
"I instructed our immigration service to notify me personally and immediately should the Munz name appear. I already had issued such a watch for two U.S. diplomats, Julio Artigas and David W. Yung, Jr."
"How interesting."
"Aren't you at all curious why I am curious about the movements out of and into Uruguay of you and my cousin Julio?"
"I figure if you want me to know, you'll tell me."
"Actually, there have been two interesting developments in the Shangri-La massacre that I wanted to ask you both about," Ordonez said. "We know-or at least are reasonably sure-where the helicopter out there came from, and we have positively identified one of the men who died out there from a 7.62mm rifle bullet in his head."
Oh, shit! I don't think that's a bluff!
"You going to tell me about that?"
"In due time," Ordonez said. "Well, tonight, shortly after the parties for whom I'd issued a watch passed through immigration at the Buquebus terminal in Buenos Aires, immigration called me at my home to tell me that not only were the two American diplomats on the ferry, but so were Senora Munz and her two daughters."
Shit!
"And here I owe both you, David, and my cousin Julio an apology. I have to confess that I suspected an unpleasant connection between you two and the family of my dear friend Alfredo. I should have known better and I'm more than a little ashamed.
What the hell is this?
"So what I did was call my man on the Buquebus-as you can imagine, it's handy to have your men on the ferry. In civilian clothing, of course. We normally have two, one with a charming Labrador that has a fantastic nose."
He smiled, took a healthy swallow of scotch, then continued.
"Anyway, I called him, and told him to take the Munz family under their protection, and to be especially watchful of the two American diplomats.
"He called back in half an hour to report that all parties were on the first-class deck, sitting separated from each other. He also said that the Chinese American diplomat had smiled at one of the Munz girls as he watched and that rather than being frightened-or even offended-she smiled back.
"That, of course, confused me. As did the next call from the ferry, shortly before it docked. The Chinese American diplomat was on his back on the car deck, as if looking for drugs-or, less likely, an explosive device-hidden under the car. That's probably where you soiled your bandage, David."
Yung did not reply.
"The final call from the ferry," Ordonez went on, "reported that the Munz family had willingly gotten into the BMW bearing diplomatic plates with the two American diplomats and were about to drive off the ferry.
"You didn't see me in the port, but I saw you, and I saw how Senora Munz and the girls smiled at you in the Belmont House. So, here I am, David, looking for an explanation."
"Of what?"
"Who are you protecting the Munz family from? And why? And what are they doing here? And what's your connection with El Coronel Munz, whom you say you don't know."
"I didn't say I didn't know him; I said that was a question I didn't choose to answer."
"Are you going to tell me now?"
"Are you going to tell me about the interesting developments about the Shangri-La massacre?"
Ordonez took a long moment before he replied.
"Do the names Vasily Respin and Aleksandr Pevsner ring a bell with you, David?"
"It's one man," Yung said. "I'm not sure which is his real name, and there are other aliases. There's a dozen, maybe more, Interpol warrants out for him. For all sorts of things."
"He's in Argentina, using the name Pevsner," Ordonez said.
"How do you know that?"
"Alfredo Munz told me."
"Why hasn't he been arrested?"
Ordonez shrugged. "Obviously, it is not in the best interests of the Argentine government to arrest him."
"He's paid somebody off?"
Ordonez shrugged. "That could be. He has all kinds of money. Enough, for example, to own a Bell Ranger helicopter."
Jesus Christ! Is that where Castillo got the Ranger? From an international mafioso?
"It's not like fingerprints, of course, but the skids of helicopters make skid-marks in mud-like the mud near Estancia Shangri-La-that are identifiable. I mean, it's not too hard to determine what type of helicopter made the marks in the mud. The helicopter at Estancia Shangri-La was a Bell Ranger."
"You think it was Pevsner's?"
"I don't know. I do know there aren't very many of them around Buenos Aires. I do know that after being at Jorge Newbery airport, early on the night of the Shangri-La massacre, Pevsner's Bell Ranger took off, visual flight rules, for Pilar. It closed out its flight plan over Pilar. Since there is no airport in Pilar, there is no record of it landing there. Very early in the morning on the day of the massacre, Pevsner's helicopter returned to Jorge Newbery, again flying under visual flight rules from Pilar. And again, since it had not landed at an airport, there is no record of it having taken off from one. It stayed there until late in the day, when it again returned to Pilar under visual flight rules.
"There is enough time between Pevsner's Bell Ranger closing out its flight plan over Pilar the night of the massacre and its return to Jorge Newbery early the next morning for it to have been flown to Tacuarembo Province and back. By flying very low, it would not have appeared on radar either here or in Argentina."
"You think Pevsner was involved in the business at the estancia?"
"I don't know, David. But Pevsner is not one of those people I dismiss from suspicion because of his lily-white reputation. Now I will tell you what else I have learned, with the caveat that when I finish you will tell me what you know about any of this."
"If that was the offer of a deal, it wasn't accepted."
"That's an admission, you realize, that you know something."
"No, it isn't. I had no idea, for example, until just now that this Russian mafioso was in South America or that he owns a helicopter. I said 'No deal' because, after you tell me what else you know and ask me what I know and I tell you nothing, you can't say I'm breaking our deal."
Ordonez looked at Yung intensely for a moment but did not respond directly. Instead, he said, "You remember me telling you that, among other things we did together, we worked on the protection of foreign dignitaries, such as Fidel Castro?"
Yung nodded.
"And that one of the things that really puzzled me about the massacre was that two of the Ninjas were shot with a special rifle bullet issued only to your competitive marksmen and Special Forces soldiers?"
"I remember."
"An additional puzzling factor here was the reaction of Ambassador McGrory when Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez very circuitously asked him if there was any possibility that your Special Forces were in any way involved. I was watching his face. His surprise was genuine, as was his anger at the question. If your Special Forces were involved, Ambassador McGrory didn't know about it. That leaves two possibilities-that they were not involved or that they were on a mission of such secrecy that the American ambassador was not told."