"Mud in your eye, Seymour," Castillo said, and took a swallow.
The others followed suit.
Castillo put his glass on the table and exhaled audibly.
"You look beat, Charley," Torine said.
Castillo nodded.
"So beat," he said, "that I forgot that I have to call the secretary of State and tell her I couldn't talk Lorimer-Ambassador Lorimer-out of riding out the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Uruguay. I should have done that before I had this."
He held up the Sazerac glass.
Torine shrugged. "Well, what the hell, you tried. Miller told me you went to Mississippi just to see him."
"What's bad about it, Jake, is that I'm going to have to lie to her, or at least not tell her the truth, the whole truth, etcetera. And I don't like lying to her."
"Lie to her about what?" Delchamps asked.
"Did Miller tell you I went to see General McNab?"
Delchamps nodded. "But he didn't say why."
"We're going to send two A-Teams-one of them Colin's-to Argentina, a couple of shooters at a time. Then we're going to put four H-model Hueys into Argentina black. Can you guess where we're going to refuel them after they fly off the USS Ronald Reagan a hundred miles off the Uruguayan coast before they fly on to I-don't-yet-know-where Argentina?"
"Boy, you have been the busy special operator, haven't you?" Delchamps said. "Does Montvale know about this?"
"No. Not about the Ronald Reagan. That idea came from a bird colonel who works for McNab…Kingston?"
Delchamps shook his head. Torine and Davidson nodded.
"Tom Kingston," Torine said. "Good guy, Edgar."
"Amen," Leverette said.
"And McNab said he would set that up. If it's possible."
"It's possible," Torine said. "After some admiral tells him not only no, but hell no, he will be told to ask the secretary of the Navy, who will tell him that he's been told by the secretary of Defense that the President told him you're to have whatever you think you need. They call that the chain of command."
Castillo chuckled.
"With that in mind," Castillo said, "and since I couldn't talk him out of going down there, I confided in the ambassador what we want to do with his estancia. He's on board. Good guy. That raised the question of an advance party at Shangri-La, which we damn sure need. One that might have a chance of escaping the attention of Chief Inspector Ordonez."
"How are you going to handle that? With Two-Gun?" Delchamps asked.
"What Two-Gun is going to do is show up at the embassy in Montevideo and introduce Ambassador Lorimer's butler…"
"I wondered what that Colin-the-Butler business was all about," Torine said, smiling and shaking his head.
"…to Ambassador McGrory," Castillo went on. "Explaining that Colin came down to see what has to be done to Shangri-La before Ambassador and Mrs. Lorimer can use it-which he has decided against advice to do-because his home in New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina."
"That just might work, Charley," Torine said.
"Edgar?"
"Why not?" Delchamps said.
"David?" Castillo asked.
"McGrory, like most stupid men in positions of power, is dangerous," Yung said.
"I agree with that, too," Delchamps interjected. "I presume he's to be kept in the dark?"
Castillo nodded. "As is Secretary Cohen, who certainly is not stupid. But there are people around her who might find out, and might tip off McGrory. That's what I meant about having to lie to her. I'm going to tell her Lorimer's going, period."
"She's liable to cable or telephone McGrory and tell him to take care of Lorimer," Yung said.
"I thought about asking her to do just that," Castillo said. "But since I'm not going to tell her about Colin, that would really be lying to her, deceiving her. And I don't want to do that."
"And you're not going to tell Montvale either?" Yung asked.
"More smoke and mirrors, David," Castillo said. "I'm going to tell him that two A-Teams and the Hueys are being sent-but no other details-and that as soon as I firm up the operation, I'll tell him all about it."
The reaction of just about everybody to that was almost identicaclass="underline" Their faces wrinkled in thought, and then there were shrugs.
"Speaking of the director of National Intelligence," Torine said, "or at least his Number Two, I had an interesting chat yesterday with Truman Ellsworth. He even bought me a drink."
Delchamps raised an eyebrow and offered: "And I had one with the DCI, who didn't buy me a drink, but about which we have to talk."
"Ellsworth called you, Jake?" Castillo said.
"I called him."
"Why?"
"What did you think of the crew on Montvale's Gulfstream?"
"'He asked, going off at a tangent,'" Castillo said.
Torine said reasonably: "I'd really like you to answer the question, Charley."
Castillo grinned. "Well, they were Air Force, so I was pleasantly surprised when they got it up and down three times in a row without bending it."
Delchamps chuckled.
"Screw you, Colonel," Torine said. "What about the copilot?"
"Nice young man. Academy type. I had the feeling he'd rather be flying a fighter."
"Cutting to the chase, that nice young man was naturally curious what a doggie light bird was doing running around in Montvale's personal Gulfstream V. Diligent snooping around revealed that the doggie light bird was doing something clandestine for that Air Force Legend in His Own Time, Colonel Jacob Torine. He found that interesting, because said Colonel Torine was the ring knocker who talked him out of turning in his suit and going to fly airliners. So he called OOA at the Nebraska Complex, finally got Miller on the horn, and Miller transferred the call here."
"What did he want?" Castillo said.
"A transfer to do anything at all for his mentor," Torine said, "so long as it gets him out of flying the right seat in Montvale's Gulfstream."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I'd get back to him. That's when I called Ellsworth to ask him how the ambassador would feel about letting us have him."
"Jesus, Jake, we could really use-we really need-another Gulfstream pilot," Castillo said.
"Especially since one of three we have has gone home to wife and kiddies, and the second can count his Gulfstream landings on his fingers."
"Really? I thought you had more landings than that," Castillo said, as if genuinely surprised.
Leverette smiled and shook his head.
Torine gave Castillo the finger.
"So what did Ellsworth say?" Castillo asked.
"He was charm personified. He said he really couldn't talk to me then because he had to meet someone at the Willard, that that would take about an hour, and would I be free to meet him in the Round Robin after his meeting, as he would really like to buy me a drink?"
The Round Robin is the ground-floor bar of the Willard InterContinental Hotel. It usually has two or more lobbyists in it feeding expensive intoxicants to members of Congress as an expression of their admiration.
"And you went?" Castillo asked.
"I even put on a clean shirt and tie. I was prepared to make any sacrifice for the OOA. In the end, I was glad I went. Mr. Ellsworth said all kinds of nice things to me."
"Such as?"
"He told me-in confidence, of course-how happy Ambassador Montvale and he are that I'm in OOA, where I can serve as a wise and calming influence on the brilliant but somewhat impetuous C. Castillo. After all, he said, we all have the same responsibility to make sure the President is never embarrassed."
"That sonofabitch!" Castillo grunted, but there was more admiration in his voice than anger.
"I did admit to having concerns about your impetuousness," Torine said. "And then he told me-as if the thought had just come to him-that 'if something like that came up,' perhaps if he and the ambassador knew about it…"
"And you of course agreed to call him?"
"I was reluctant at first. He didn't push. What he did say was that he thought OOA was going to not only be around for a while, but grow in size and importance. And that being true, it would need someone more senior than a junior lieutenant colonel…"