"I don't lie, Colonel," Lorimer said. "At my age, I don't have to."
"I wasn't doubting your word, Mr. Ambassador."
"I hope not. Until just now I was starting to like you."
"It was not, sir, what I expected to hear from an ambassador."
"There are ambassadors and ambassadors, Colonel. For example, my daughter tells me we have a very good one in Buenos Aires."
"Yes, sir, we do."
"Are we through here? Can we go deal with her now? She's going to have a fit when she hears you have failed in your noble mission to save the old man from himself."
"Sir, about getting to Shangri-La from the airport. I think I can arrange for several Spanish-speaking Americans to meet you and take you there. Maybe they could stay around and help you get organized."
"These Good Samaritans just happen to be in Montevideo, right?"
Castillo laughed.
"No, sir. They'd actually be shooters from Fort Bragg…"
"That's a very politically incorrect term, 'shooters,'" the ambassador said. "I like it."
"They would have a satellite radio with them. That would be useful. And they would provide you and Mrs. Lorimer with a little security."
"I would be delighted to have your friends stay with us as long as necessary and be very grateful for their assistance."
"Thank you, sir."
Ambassador Lorimer stood up, picked up his now empty cognac snifter, returned to the bottles on the credenza, and poured a half inch of Remy Martin into it. He raised the glass to Castillo.
"Since you're on the wagon, Coloneclass="underline" Mud in your eye."
"I suspect there will be another time, sir."
"I hope so."
Lorimer looked at him intently for a moment, so intently that Castillo asked, "Sir, is there something else?"
"I always look into a man's eyes when I'm negotiating with him," Lorimer said. "I did so just now. And while I was doing that, I had the odd feeling I'd recently seen eyes very much like yours before."
"Had you, sir?"
"Yes. I just remembered where. On that nice boy you brought with you. The general's grandson. He has eyes just like yours."
I've seen eyes very much like yours, too.
On Aleksandr Pevsner.
"I didn't notice," Castillo said.
The ambassador drained the snifter, then waved Castillo ahead of him out of the library.
J. Winslow Masterson III and Randolph Richardson IV were kicking a soccer ball on the lawn for Max. The adults and the younger Masterson children were sitting in white wicker rockers on the porch.
Just as Castillo was about to warn them that Max was likely to take a bite from the ball, Max did. There was a whistling hiss, which caused Max to drop the ball, push it tentatively with his paw, and then take it into his mouth and give it a good bite.
"Awesome!" Masterson III cried. "Did you see that?"
"I owe you a soccer ball," Castillo said.
"Don't be silly, Charley," Betsy Masterson said, then turned to her father. "How'd your little chat go?"
"Splendidly," the ambassador said. "Colonel Castillo and I are agreed there's absolutely no reason your mother and I can't go to Uruguay."
"Dad, that's absurd," Betsy Masterson said. "Worse than absurd. Insane."
"That's not exactly what I said, Mr. Ambassador," Charley protested.
"Be that as it may," Ambassador Lorimer said, "for the next several months, Betsy, your mother and I will be using Jean-Paul's home in Uruguay in lieu of our own, which is now, as you may have heard, the dikes having been overwhelmed, under twenty feet of water and Mississippi River mud."
Betsy Masterson looked at him in exasperation, as if gathering her thoughts.
"I am reliably informed," Lorimer went on reasonably, "that the house is quite comfortable, that there is a staff to take care of your mother and myself more than adequately-if not quite at the level of Winslow and Dianne's hospitality, for which we will be forever grateful-"
"You know what happened there, Dad!" she interrupted.
"-and your mother and I both speak, as a result of our service in Madrid, quite passable Spanish."
Betsy Masterson looked at Castillo. "Charley, you didn't encourage him to go down there, did you?
"No, ma'am. More the opposite."
"Can't you stop him?"
"I don't see how," Castillo said.
"I'll call the secretary of State myself!"
"Secretary Cohen has already taken her best shot, sweetheart. She sent Colonel Castillo to dissuade me. He failed."
"You're in no condition to fly all the way down there, Dad," Betsy argued. "You're in no condition to go through the security hassle at an airport, much less get on an airplane and fly that far."
"I have survived going through the security hassles at a number of Third World airports," he said. "The one in Addis Ababa comes to mind as the worst."
Despite herself, she smiled.
General Wilson stood up.
"I think I'll take a little walk," he said.
"Please keep your seat, General," Winslow Masterson said. "This is not a family argument. Philippe doesn't have family arguments. He politely listens to whatever anyone wishes to say, then does what he had planned to do in the first place."
"My wife does much the same thing," General Wilson said.
"Thanks for the support, Father Masterson," Betsy said, then turned to her father.
"I'm not talking about down there, Dad, and you know it. I'm talking about here. New Orleans is closed. You'd have to go to Miami. And how are you going to get to Miami?"
"We'll manage. May I suggest we change the subject?"
"Mrs. Masterson…" Castillo began.
"I've asked you to call me Betsy, Charley," she snapped.
"Sorry. Betsy, since the ambassador is determined to go down there, what I can do is arrange to fly your parents down there in a Gulfstream. I could arrange to have them picked up in New Orleans, and if customs and immigration's not functioning there, stop at Tampa or Miami on the way down."
"I don't know whether to say 'that would be fine, thank you very much' or 'for God's sake, don't enable him!'"
"You could do that, Charley?" Winslow Masterson said.
Castillo nodded.
"And I'll arrange to have some friends keep an eye on your parents."
"The same kind of friends who've been keeping an eye on Betsy and the kids here?" Winslow Masterson asked.
Castillo nodded.
"Darling Betsy," Masterson said. "I agree with you. If I had my way, Philippe and your mother would stay here with us until they can have their house repaired-"
"Winslow, it's under water," Lorimer said. "Everything in it has been destroyed. And you know what they say when someone goes to the hereafter-'I want to remember him as he was, not lying in the coffin.' I want to remember the house as it was. I'm not foolish enough to try to resurrect it."
"-as I was saying, darling Betsy, until they can have their house repaired and a new one can be built for them. Here or in New Orleans-"
"That would be the prudent thing to do," Betsy said. "The intelligent thing. The only thing."
"But he's determined to go to Uruguay, and nothing you or I or anyone else has to say will deter him. Just be grateful that Charley can arrange to carry him there in comfort, and that Charley's friends will be available to provide security."
"Can I offer you a taste of Winslow's whiskey, General?" the ambassador asked. "I'm not a drinking man, myself, but a little belt in the morning is medically indicated for someone my age. Our age."
"I've heard that," General Wilson said. He looked at Castillo. "I think one would be in order, Mr. Ambassador, thank you."
Max trotted up on the porch with the now deflated soccer ball in his mouth and dropped it at Castillo's feet.
[FIVE]
Ozark Municipal Airport
Ozark, Alabama 1710 5 September 2005 When they walked up to General Wilson's Buick, they found an envelope jammed under the windshield wiper.
General Wilson opened it.
"From Beth," he said. "'Please call Randy as soon as you land. Charley's friends from Fort Campbell are waiting for him at the Magnolia House.'"