"Then Pevsner doesn't know about the letter?"
"Charley," Liam Duffy interrupted, nodding at the pilot. "We're going to have to get Primer Alferez Sanchez to the airport."
Primer Alferez, Alferez Sanchez, who had piloted the Aero Commander, was the equivalent of first lieutenant in the gendarmeria. And Castillo saw his unhappy look.
He's thinking, "I'm being gotten rid of so I won't learn what's going on here."
And he's right to be pissed. Liam could have handled that better; the last thing we want is a pilot who knows more than he should harboring a grudge.
Duffy's sometimes the sort of commander whose officers loathe him.
"Sanchez, what did you think of the new avionics in that old bird?" Castillo asked, switching to Spanish, and smiling at the pilot.
"Fantastic!" the pilot replied. "All I had to do was take it off and land it. The navigation was entirely automatic, and when I dropped out of the cloud cover, I was lined up with the runway."
"We're working on that," Castillo said. "The idea is to eliminate pilots like you and me."
"I'm not sure I'd like that, senor."
"As I was just telling my friend here, one has to adjust to changed circumstances. I'm sorry there's no time to offer you a drink, but Aerolineas Argentinas waits for no man, and if you don't get to the San Martin de los Andes airport in the next forty-five minutes…"
"I understand, senor," the pilot said, and then came to attention. "With your permission, mi comandante?"
Duffy nodded. The pilot saluted and Duffy returned it.
"Sanchez," Castillo said, "don't tell anyone about the avionics."
"El comandante made that clear on the way here, senor."
Delchamps waited until the pilot had left the hangar, and then said, "Tell me about the changed circumstances, Ace."
"I hardly know where to start," Castillo said.
"Try starting with telling me whether or not Pevsner has seen Solomatin's letter."
"Gladly," Castillo said. "Okay, starting at the beginning: Alek's man went on the net as scheduled at oh-four-twenty hundred Zulu."
"'Alek's man went on the net'? Our net?"
"I thought you knew that all of us are retired and have fallen off the face of the earth. We now have people to do things like going on the net at one-twenty in the morning."
Delchamps and Darby both shook their heads. This was unexpected.
"So Alek's guy," Castillo went on, "went on the net at oh-one-twenty local time. At oh-one-twenty-two, Colonel V. N. Solomatin's letter came through, five by five. At oh-one-twenty-five, Alek telephoned me here, waking me from the sleep of the innocent, to tell me he had a letter from Cousin Vladlen and that he wanted me to see it as soon as possible."
"Paul Sieno told me Kocian wanted to get the letter to you without anyone else seeing it."
"Don't anyone let Alek know you're surprised that he has seen it. We now have no secrets from Alek."
"Jesus Christ!" Delchamps said.
"So I told him that I'd fire up"-Castillo pointed to the Bell Ranger-"at first light, go pick him up, and he could show me Cousin Vladlen's letter. Or, better yet, bring him back here and he could have breakfast with Sweaty and me, we'd all read Cousin Vladlen's letter, and then go fishing to kill the time until you, Darby, and Duffy got here. Since that was the best idea he'd heard so far this week, Alek said that was fine, and he'd bring Tom Barlow along, since the letter was addressed to him in the first place."
"So Colonel Berezovsky is here, too?" Darby asked. "I wondered where he was."
"Aside from my belief that Colonel Dmitri Berezovsky has also fallen off the face of the earth," Castillo said, "I have no idea where he might be. Tom Barlow, however, is at the San Joaquin Lodge."
"And Sweaty has seen the letter, no doubt?"
"Certainly, Sweaty has seen it. How could I possibly not show it to her? Alek would have anyway."
Delchamps shook his head in resignation.
"Okay. Can we go now?"
"You don't want to know what else has happened?" Castillo asked.
"I'm afraid to ask."
"Well, we had another offer of employment from those people in Las Vegas," Castillo said.
"To do what?"
"It seems that someone sent Colonel Hamilton a rubber beer barrel full of whatever it was Hamilton brought out of the Congo…"
"Jesus H. Christ!" Darby exclaimed.
"… and they wanted us to find out who did it and why."
"And?" Delchamps asked.
"I told them, sorry, we have all fallen off the face of the earth."
"What the hell is that all about?" Darby asked.
"It's none of our business," Castillo said.
"They were supposed to have destroyed everything in a twenty-mile area around that place in the Congo," Darby said.
"So they said," Castillo said.
"You think there's some sort of connection between that and Solomatin's letter?" Darby asked.
"I don't know, but you can count on Alek asking you that question."
He gestured toward an open rear door of the hangar. Two shiny olive-drab Land Rovers sat there.
"I think we can all get in one of those, can't we?" Castillo asked. [TWO] The Lodge at Estancia San Joaquin was a single-story stone masonry building on a small rise perhaps fifty feet above and one hundred yards from the Chimehuin River.
It had been designed to comfortably house, feed, and entertain trout fishermen from all over the world, never more than eight at a time, usually four or five, who were charged three thousand dollars a day. The furniture was simple and massive. The chairs and armchairs were generously padded with foam-filled leather cushions.
The wide windows of the great room offered a view of the Chimehuin River and the snow-capped Andes mountains. There was a well-stocked bar, a deer head with an enormous rack above the fireplace, a billiards table, a full bookcase, and two fifty-six-inch flat-screen televisions mounted so one of them was visible from anywhere in the room.
There were four people in the great room-plus a bartender and a maid-when Castillo and the others walked in: Tom Barlow, his sister Susan, and Aleksandr Pevsner, a tall, dark-haired man-like Castillo and Barlow in his late thirties-whose eyes were large, blue, and extraordinarily bright. The fourth man was Janos, Pevsner's hulking bodyguard, of whom it was said that he was never farther away from Pevsner than was Max from Castillo.
There were fourteen Interpol warrants out for the arrest of Pevsner under his own name and the seven other identities he was known to use.
Barlow was dressed like Castillo, in khaki trousers and a polo shirt. Pevsner was similarly clothed, except that his polo shirt was silk and his trousers were fine linen. The men were at the billiards table.
Susan, who was leaning over a coffee table, fork poised to spear an oyster, was dressed like Castillo and her brother, except her polo shirt was linen and her khakis were shorts. Short shorts. Her clothing and posture left virtually nothing to the imagination about her bosom, legs, and the contours of her derriere.
"Funny," Edgar Delchamps said, "I would never have taken Sweaty for a fisherman."
Susan/Sweaty looked up from the platter of oysters, popped one in her mouth, smiled at Delchamps, and gave him the finger.
It was a gesture she had learned from Castillo and subsequently had used, with relish, frequently.
Pevsner carefully laid his cue on the billiards table, then walked to Delchamps, Darby, and Duffy, and wordlessly shook their hands. Tom Barlow waved at them.
"I'm sure you're hungry," Pevsner said. "I can have them prepare supper for you now. Or, if you'd rather, there's oysters and cold lobster to-what is it Charley says?-munch on to hold you until dinner."
"How the hell do you get oysters and lobster in the middle of Patagonia?" Darby said as he walked to the coffee table to examine what was on display.