Castillo pushed himself away from the wall and gestured toward the door.
The battered coffee table in the living room now held a bottle of Famous Grouse, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, and a cheap plastic water pitcher, telling Castillo the odds were that he now was entertaining everybody with his liquor stock from his vacated suite in the Mayflower Hotel.
"Keep your seats, gentlemen," Montvale ordered somewhat grandly and entirely unnecessarily, as nobody in the room showed the slightest indication of wanting to stand up for any reason.
They all looked at him, however, as he scanned the room and finally selected the fireplace as his podium. He was tall enough so that he could rest his elbow on the mantel. He was seeking to establish an informal, friendly ambience. He failed. Everyone knew what his relationship with Castillo was.
"The situation is this, gentlemen," Montvale began. "Senator Johns has an inkling of what went on in Uruguay and Argentina. Colonel Castillo tells me that he doesn't think the operation has been compromised. I'm concerned about a possible serious embarrassment to the President, and therefore I'd like to be sure that it's not going to blow up in our faces."
No one responded.
"Mr. Delchamps? Would you care to comment?"
Delchamps took a healthy swallow of his drink.
"I vote with Charley," he said simply. "Thirty minutes after the kid marched Lorimer into the living room, Charley ordered the shutdown, and we were out of Argentina within hours. Charley ordered what I thought were exactly the right actions to shut the mouths of anyone else who might be theorizing. But shit happens. This may get compromised. I just don't think it will."
Delchamps looked at the others in the room, who nodded their agreement.
Montvale chuckled.
"Did I say something funny?" Delchamps challenged.
"Oh, no. Not at all," Montvale said quickly. "What I was thinking was it's really a rather amusing situation. What we have in this room are very skilled, highly experienced intelligence officers, enjoying the confidence of the President, who were nonetheless forced to shut down their operation-what did you say, you were 'out of Argentina within hours'?-because of one unimportant little lieutenant who had no idea what he was sticking his nose into. You'll have to admit, that is rather amusing."
No one else seemed to find it amusing.
Delchamps took another swallow of his drink, looked thoughtful-if not annoyed-for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
"Let me tell you about that unimportant little lieutenant, Mr. Montvale," he said, an edge to his tone.
"Please do," Montvale said sarcastically.
"Jack Doherty and I had a long talk with him on the trip from B.A.," Delchamps said. "It's not that he was running at the mouth…even willing to talk. What it was, Mr. Montvale, is that Jack and I, between us, have more experience pulling things from reluctant people than you are old."
Montvale's face showed no response to that.
"We started out to learn who he'd been running his mouth to," Delchamps went on, "and what he'd said. The first impression we got was that he had been listening, not running his mouth, and that was the impression we had when we finished. Right, Jack?"
"That's it," Doherty agreed. "He's one hell of a young man, Mr. Ambassador."
"Who talks too much," Montvale said, "and has come close to compromising your operation."
"Listen to what I'm saying, for Christ's sake!" Delchamps said.
"Just who do you think you're talking to?" Montvale demanded.
"Your name, I understand, is Montvale. Do you know who you're talking to?"
"I'll wager you're about to tell me," Montvale said, icily. "Something more, I mean, than that you're a midlevel officer of the CIA."
"I wondered how long it would take you to get around to that," Delchamps said. "Christ, you're all alike."
"Who's all alike?" Montvale challenged.
"What the good guys in the clandestine service call the 'Washington assholes,'" Delchamps said, matter-of-factly.
"I will not be talked to like that," Montvale flared. "'Washington asshole' or not, I'm the director of National Intelligence."
Delchamps smiled. "You won't be DNI long if this Presidential Finding blows up in your face. The President will feed you to Senator Johns. The term for that is 'sacrificial lamb.' You, Montvale, not Charley. Charley is not fat enough to be fed as a sacrificial lamb to the Senate committee on intelligence. They like large, well-known sacrificial lambs for the headlines and sound bites with their names."
They locked eyes for a moment, then Delchamps went on, calmly, "As I was saying, it is my professional assessment, and that of Inspector Doherty, that Lieutenant Lorimer did not, at any time, share with anyone anything that he suspected might be classified.
"What he did, as I said before, Mr. Montvale, was listen. And, with a skill belying his youth and experience, put together a rather complete picture of what Colonel Castillo has done in compliance with the Presidential Finding.
"And then he made a mistake, which, considering his youth and inexperience, is perfectly understandable. He's naive, in other words. He believed that there had to be someone in the system somewhere who would really care about his pal Timmons and do the right thing."
"The right thing?" Montvale repeated, drily.
"Do something but wring their hands."
"Such as?"
Delchamps ignored the question.
Instead, he said, "Let me paint the picture for you, Mr. Montvale. The Paraguayan authorities notified our ambassador that an embassy vehicle had been found parked against the fence surrounding Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, directly across the field from the terminal building.
"In the backseat of the SUV, on the floor, was the body of one Franco Julio Cesar, thirty-nine years old, a Paraguayan national, employed as a chauffeur by the U.S. embassy. El Senor Cesar was dead of asphyxiation, caused by a metallic garrote having been placed around his neck by party or parties unknown-"
"This guy had been garroted?" Castillo interrupted. "A metal garrote?"
"Yeah, Ace, that's what the Paraguayan cops reported," Delchamps said.
"Is that of some significance?" Montvale asked.
Delchamps ignored him again.
"A check of embassy records revealed that Senor Cesar had been dispatched to drive Special Agent Byron J. Timmons, Jr., of the DEA to the airport. Nothing was known of Agent Timmons at that time.
"Late the next morning, however, a motorcycle messenger delivered an envelope to the embassy, which contained a color photograph of Special Agent Timmons. It showed him sitting in a chair, holding a copy of that day's Ultima Hora, one of the local newspapers. There were four men, their faces concealed by balaclava masks, standing with Special Agent Timmons. One of them held the tag end of a metallic garrote which was around Timmons's neck-one yank on that, and he'd wind up like el Senor Cesar."
"Sonofabitch!" Castillo muttered.
"There was no message of any kind," Delchamps went on. "At this point, the senior DEA agent in charge summoned Lieutenant Lorimer to his office. When Lorimer got there he found the consul general, who Lorimer suspected was in fact the CIA station chief, and the legal attache.
"They asked Lieutenant Lorimer, who was known to be Timmons's friend and who occupied an apartment immediately next to Timmons's, if he had any idea who might have kidnapped Special Agent Timmons.
"To which Lorimer replied, 'Gypsies? You know-blasphemy omitted-well who kidnapped him,' or words to that effect, and then asked, 'So what are we going to do about getting him back?' "To which the CIA station chief replied, 'The matter is, of course, being handled by the Paraguayan Capital Police Force, which has promised to notify us promptly of any developments, and there is every reason to believe that Timmons will be ultimately freed.' Or words to that effect.
"To which Lieutenant Lorimer replied, 'As a-blasphemy deleted-junkie you mean, providing we don't do our-blasphemy deleted-job.' At which point, after being admonished to get his emotions under control and ordered not to discuss the kidnapping with anyone, Lorimer was dismissed. And so he went looking for Colonel Costello, in the belief that this Costello was not your typical candy-ass."