W Griffin - Hunters

"Carlos, that's an awful thing to say!" a familiar voice said from the open doorway behind him, in English.

Then the voice switched to Spanish.

"I'm Alicia Castillo. This terrible young man is my grandson. Welcome to our home!"

Castillo turned. As his grandmother pushed past him to get at the Munz family, he saw a heavyset man, obviously a Secret Service agent, standing just inside the door.

The heavyset man shrugged and held up both hands.

The meaning was clear: I didn't know how to stop her.

[ONE] Lehigh Valley International Airport Allentown, Pennsylvania 1035 10 August 2005 As he taxied the Gulfstream to the Lehigh Valley Aviation Services' tarmac, Castillo saw United States Secret Service Special Agent John M. Britton-brightly attired in a pink seersucker jacket, a yellow polo shirt, light blue trousers, and highly polished tassel loafers-leaning against the front fender of one of two black Yukons whose darkened windows identified them to Castillo as almost certainly Secret Service vehicles.

With Britton were three men-more sedately dressed-who Castillo thought were probably the local Secret Service.

Castillo parked the aircraft.

"You go deal with the welcoming committee," Torine said. "I'll do the paperwork and get us some fuel. Speaking of which, you want to give me your credit card?"

Castillo unstrapped himself, worked his way out of the pilot's seat, gave Torine an American Express card, then went into the empty passenger compartment and opened the door and went down the stairs.

"Nice airplane," Britton greeted him. "This is the first time I've seen it."

"How are you, Jack?" Castillo said as they shook hands.

Britton made the introductions: "These are special agents Harry Larsen and Bob Davis, and their boss, Supervisory Special Agent Fred Swanson. They're out of Philadelphia."

"I'm an old pal of Isaacson and McGuire," Swanson said as they shook hands.

"Then I guess you heard that my Secret Service credentials are a little questionable?"

"Yeah, and I also heard getting them for you was Joel's idea," Swanson said. "So you're among friends, Colonel."

"Call me Charley," Castillo said. "I made light colonel so recently that when someone says it, I look around to see who they're talking to."

Swanson chuckled.

"And you know that Jack can hardly be called a grizzled veteran of the Secret Service?" Castillo went on.

"He told me. He also told me Joel recruited him, which makes him okay in my book-I know what Jack did in Philly, too. Isaacson told me that just when he was going to see if he would fit in the protection detail you grabbed him for whatever it is you do."

"What did he-or anybody-tell you about that?"

"Joel was pretty vague. Britton has been a clam. And when I asked McGuire, he said you were the only guy who could decide we had the Need to Know."

Castillo considered that, then nodded. "Okay. You do. The classification is Top Secret Presidential. But let's wait until we're out of here."

"Where are we headed? The farm? There's not much to see," Britton said.

"I better see what there is," Castillo said. "But first, Jake and I need a shower and a shave. And then breakfast. It's been a long flight."

"Where'd you come from?" Swanson asked.

"Buenos Aires and that's classified."

Swanson's eyebrows went up, but he didn't say anything.

"We're in the Hotel Bethlehem in Bethlehem," Britton said. "It's not the Four Seasons-no marble walls in the bathrooms-but there's plenty of hot water and towels, and a nice restaurant, and it's near where we're going."

"Fine."

"I suppose this is also classified," Britton said. "Yung called Miller from Washington, and Miller called me. Yung was in Miami about to load Lorimer's body on a plane to New Orleans. He's really anxious to talk to you."

"And vice versa," Castillo said.

"'Lorimer's body'?" Swanson parroted. "Can I ask who Yung is?"

"David Yung is an FBI agent who now works for me," Castillo said. "Jean-Paul Lorimer-an American, a UN diplomat, up to his eyeballs in the Iraq oil-for-food scam-was whacked by parties unknown at his estancia in Uruguay."

"This is starting to get interesting," Swanson said.

"The Secret Service is involved," Castillo said. "I asked Tom McGuire to send people to watch the Lorimer family, the funeral home, the funeral, etcetera, to see if they can make any of the mourners. And to keep an eye on Yung. These bastards have already tried to kidnap and/or whack him."

"Really interesting," Swanson said. "Neither Tom or Joel mentioned anything about that, either."

"I told you they couldn't," Castillo said. "And what I said just now about parties unknown wasn't entirely accurate." He looked at Britton. "Jack, we now know who one of the Ninjas was. He was positively identified-fingerprints-by a Uruguayan cop as Major Alejandro Vincenzo of the Cuban Direccion General de Inteligencia."

"No shit?" Britton said, in great surprise.

"I suppose you realize, Colonel, that you're really whetting my curiosity?" Swanson said.

"Let's get in one of the Yukons," Castillo said. "We can start clueing you in while Torine's dealing with the airplane. I don't think we can finish, but we can start." Fifteen minutes later, Jake Torine handed Castillo's American Express card to the Lehigh Aviation Services' fuel truck driver, who took it without question, ran it through his machine, then handed it back with the sales slip for his signature. Torine signed the slip-using his own signature, but it would have taken the expert eye of a forensic document examiner to determine that the scribble read "Torine" and not "Castillo"-then walked across the blazing-hot tarmac to the black Yukon that Castillo and the others had climbed in.

Special Agent Bob Davis of the Secret Service had to get out of the truck, fold down the middle-row seat he had been occupying, and get in the back, third row of seats so Torine could get in.

"If you weren't such a paragon of virtue and honesty, Charley," Torine said, after the introductions were made and as he handed Castillo his credit card, "you probably wouldn't have to pay for the fuel and the landing fee. I signed the bill 'Abraham Lincoln.'"

When Torine didn't get the laugh he expected, he added: "Somehow I sense I'm interrupting something."

"I have been regaling these gentlemen with the plot of the mystery," Castillo said.

"How far did you get?"

"Dropping the Munzes at the ranch in Midland," Castillo said. "I told them everything, Jake. We need all the help we can get."

"Any of this make any sense to you, Mr. Swanson?" Torine asked.

"No, Colonel, it doesn't. And I am about to be overwhelmed with curiosity as to how these Rambo operations of yours are connected with these home-grown Muslims we're watching 'as a highest priority.'"

"Tell them, Jack," Castillo ordered.

"Okay," Britton said, and took a moment to form his thoughts. "You know, Fred, that when I was on the Philly cops, I was undercover for a long time in the Aari-Teg mosque."

"That must have been fun," Special Agent Davis commented from the backseat. "How long did you get away with that before they made you?"

"Three and a half years-and they never made me."

"I'm impressed," Davis said in genuine admiration.

"Yeah, me, too," Castillo said.

"Right after we came back from Uruguay," Britton said, "I heard that another undercover cop in the Aari-Teg mosque, a pal of mine named Sy Fillmore, had gone over the edge-the cops found him wandering around babbling in North Philly. Once they learned, several days later, he was a fellow cop, they had him put in the loony tunes ward in Friends Hospital. So I went to see him.

"And he told me that AALs had bought a hundred-twenty-acre farm in Bucks County on which-or in which-were some pre-Revolutionary War iron mines that they were stocking with food and water, and in which they are going to take cover when a briefcase-sized nuclear bomb is detonated in Philly."