W. Griffin - The shooters

Agnes's tour of the house ended in a small study. Bookcases lined three of its walls. A stuffed mallard and two stuffed fish-a trout and a king mackerel-were mounted on the remaining wall. There were a few books scattered on the shelves, mostly ten-year-old and older novels. Windows opened to the left and rear. Through it, Castillo saw that floodlights around a decent-sized swimming pool had been turned on. Max was happily paddling about in the pool while Madchen stood on the side and barked at him.

The study was furnished with a small desk, a well-worn blue leather judge's chair, and a soiled, well-worn chaise lounge, none of which had obviously struck the heirs as worth taking.

There was a telephone on the desk, but Castillo didn't pay much attention to it until it buzzed and a red light began to flash on its base. Then he saw the thick cord that identified it as a secure telephone.

Agnes picked it up.

"C. G. Castillo's line," she said, then, "Yes, the colonel is available for Ambassador Montvale," and handed him the phone.

"Castillo."

"Charles Montvale, Colonel. We will be at your door in approximately five minutes."

"I'm looking forward to it, sir," Castillo replied, and then, when a click told him that Montvale had hung up, added, "about as much as I would visiting an Afghan dentist with a foot-powered drill."

Agnes looked at him.

"I gather you're speaking from experience?"

"Painful experience," Castillo said. "With both."

"How do you want to handle this?"

"I will receive the ambassador in here, where he will find me carefully studying my computer, which I will close when he enters. Have everybody but Kocian, Tor, Bradley, and, of course, Lieutenant Lorimer in the living room. We'll have to bring chairs from the kitchen or someplace else for them, I guess."

The living room had a beamed ceiling, a brick fireplace, and hardwood floors. There were two small and rather battered carpets that the children of the former owner also had apparently decided were not of value to them. Marks on the floor showed where the valuable carpets had lain, and marks on the wall showed where picture frames had hung.

There were four red leather armchairs and a matching couch that also had apparently missed the cut, although they looked fine to Castillo. Another stuffed trout was mounted above the fireplace, and there was some kind of animal hoof-maybe an elk's, Castillo guessed-converted into an ashtray that sat on a heavy and battered coffee table scarred with whiskey glass rings and cigarette burns.

Castillo had decided he probably would have liked the former owners. He was already feeling comfortable in their house.

"Ambassador Montvale, Colonel," Agnes announced from the study door five minutes later.

Castillo closed the lid of his laptop and stood up.

"Please come in, Mr. Ambassador," he said.

Montvale wordlessly shook his hand.

"I haven't had a chance to make this place homey," Castillo said. "The chaise lounge all right? Or would you rather sit in that?"

He pointed to the judge's chair.

"This'll be fine, thank you," Montvale said, and sat at the foot of the chaise lounge.

It was a very low chaise lounge. Montvale's knees were now higher than his buttocks.

"Getting right to it, Charley," Montvale said. "How bad is the compromise situation?"

"I think it's under control."

"I'd be happier if you said you're confident it's under control."

"Think is the best I can do for now. Sorry."

"Tell me what's happened, and then I'll tell you why it's so dangerous."

"We were all watching Hurricane Katrina on the television when Corporal Bradley marched in with a guy at gunpoint, a guy Max had caught coming through the fence-"

"Max?" Montvale interrupted. "Who the hell is Max?"

Castillo walked to the window and pointed.

Less than gracefully, Montvale got to his feet, joined him at the window, and looked out.

Max had tired of his swim, climbed out of the pool, and in the moment Montvale looked out, was shaking himself dry.

"You could have said, 'Our watchdog,' Charley," Montvale said disapprovingly. Then curiosity overwhelmed him. "God, he's enormous! What is he?"

"They are Bouvier des Flandres. There's a pretty credible story that Hitler lost one of his testicles to one of them when he was Corporal Schickelgruber in Flanders. It is a fact that when he went back to Flanders as Der Fuhrer he ordered the breed eliminated."

"Fascinating," Montvale said as he walked to the judge's leather chair and sat down. "It is also a fact that when Hitler was a corporal he was Corporal Hitler. That Schickelgruber business was something the OSS came up with during World War Two. It's known as ridiculing your enemy."

"Really?" Castillo said, then thought: You sonofabitch, you grabbed my chair!

Well, I'll be goddamned if I'm going to sit on that chaise lounge and look up at you.

Castillo leaned on the wall beside the window and folded his arms over his chest.

"Trust me," Montvale said. "It's a fact. Now, getting back to what happened after that outsized dog caught the guy…"

"He turned out to be an assistant military attache in our embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay. First Lieutenant Edmund Lorimer. Formerly of Special Forces, now of Intelligence. One of his pals, a DEA agent-"

"Name?"

"I can get it from Lorimer, if it's important to you."

"Lorimer? Any connection with our Lorimers?"

"Just a coincidence."

"Where is this chap?"

"Upstairs."

"Go on."

"Well, Lorimer is clever. He put together all the gossip, and when the drug guys kidnapped his DEA agent pal, he decided that Colonel Costello-getting my name wrong was about the only mistake he made-was just the man who could play James Bond and get back his pal. And he came looking for me. And found me."

"Charley, how would you go about getting this DEA agent back?"

"I don't know how-or if-that could be done. And I haven't given it any thought because it's none of my business."

"You have no idea how pleased I am that you realize that," Montvale said. "It is none of your business, and I strongly recommend you don't forget that."

Castillo didn't reply, but his face clearly showed that Montvale's comment interested him.

Montvale nodded in reply, indicating that he was about to explain himself.

"Senator Homer Johns came to see me several days ago," Montvale said. "The junior senator from New Hampshire? Of the Senate Intelligence Committee?"

Castillo nodded to show that he knew of Johns.

"He told me that the day before he had spoken with his brother-in-law…" Montvale paused for dramatic effect, then went on. "…who is the President's envoy plenipotentiary and extraordinary to the Republic of Uruguay, Ambassador Michael A. McGrory."

He paused again.

"I think I now have your full attention, Charley, don't I?"

Castillo chuckled and nodded.

"This is not a laughing matter," Montvale said, waited for that to register, and then went on: "There are those who think McGrory owes his present job to the senator. His career in the State Department had been, kindly, mediocre before he was named ambassador to Uruguay.

"The senator said he was calling to send his sister best wishes on her birthday. In the course of their conversation, however, the ambassador just happened to mention-possibly to make the point that there he was on the front line of international diplomacy, proving he indeed was worthy of the influence the senator had exercised on his behalf-the trouble he was having with the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry.

"Specifically, he said that shortly after a drug dealer, one Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, an American employed by the UN, had been assassinated on his estancia, the deputy foreign minister had made an unofficial call on him, during which he as much as accused the ambassador of concealing from him that the assassins were American Special Forces troops."