W Griffin - Hunters

He met Castillo's eyes for a long moment.

"Okay, I'm in. No caveats. Your rules."

"And no mental reservations?" Castillo asked, softly.

"I said I'm in, Colonel. That means I'm in."

"Welcome aboard," Castillo said.

There were no smiles between them.

"Okay, Agnes, where are we going to set up?" Castillo asked.

"I figured the conference room," she said. "It's about as big as a basketball court, and there's already phones, etcetera. And, of course, a coffeemaker."

"Why don't you take Mr. Delchamps and Inspector Doherty in there and let them see it? I need a word with Major Miller and then we'll both have a look." "Well?" Castillo asked the moment the door had closed after Mr. Forbison and the others.

"I don't think Inspector Doherty likes you very much," Miller said.

"I don't give a damn whether he does or not. The question is, is he going to get on the phone the first time he has a chance? 'Hey, guys, you won't believe what this loose cannon Castillo is up to.'"

"I think I would trust him as far as you trust Yung."

"Going off at a tangent, Yung has now seen the light and is really on board."

"Did he see the light before or after these bastards tried to kill him?"

"Britton asked almost exactly the same question," Castillo said, chuckling.

"You know, great minds tread similar paths," Miller replied. "Well?"

"I heard about it after they tried to kidnap him," Castillo said. "But I have the feeling he'd made up his mind before."

"Your charismatic leadership?"

"I think it's more likely that he thought about what I said about spending the rest of his FBI career investigating parking meter fraud in South Dakota and realized that would happen anyway if he ever did get to go back the FBI. With going back then not an attractive option, working for us didn't seem so bad. I don't know. I'm not looking the gift horse in the mouth. Yung is smart and we need him."

"Before you sent him down south, you said you trusted him because he was moral," Miller said.

Castillo nodded. "And I think Doherty is moral. The difference between them is that Doherty's a heavy hitter in the bureau."

"But he knows (a) he's here because the President set it up and (b) that if anything leaks to the FBI and we hear about it, we'll know he's the leaker because he's the only FBI guy who's being clued in."

"Except Yung, of course," Castillo said. "What did you think of Edgar Delchamps?"

"I think he likes you," Miller said. "I think the reason he was really pissed-and really pissed he was-was because he thought his friend Castillo had stabbed him in the back."

"You think he still thinks that?"

"I think he's giving you a second chance," Miller said.

Castillo nodded. "I really like him. And a dinosaur like him is just what we need."

"I wonder how he and the inspector are going to get along?"

"Jesus, I didn't even think about that," Castillo said. "And there's one more guy coming. A heavy hitter from NSA. He won't work for us, but he will get us whatever we want from NSA."

"When's he coming?"

"He should be here now," Castillo said. "Let's go look at what Agnes has set up." The conference room wasn't nearly as large as a basketball court, as Agnes had described it, but it was enormous. There was an oval table with more than a dozen spaces around it, each furnished with a desk pad, a telephone, a small monitor, and a leather-upholstered armchair. And there was room for more. One narrow end of the room had a roll-down projection screen and flat-screen television monitors were mounted in a grid on the walls. Two wheel-mounted "blackboards"-the writing surfaces were actually blue and they came with yellow felt-tip markers instead of chalk-were against one wall, and there was room for a half dozen more.

"This place looks as if we're going to try to land someone on the moon," Miller quipped.

Castillo and Agnes chuckled.

Delchamps and Doherty didn't even smile.

"Colonel," Doherty asked, "are you open for suggestions on how to do this?"

"Your call, Inspector."

"Okay, first the basics. If this room hasn't been swept sweep it, and sweep it daily."

"NSA is supposed to send a man here to get us what we need from NSA," Castillo replied. "I presume that means technicians. That sound okay?"

Doherty nodded, then went on, "And seal this room. Never leave it empty, and make sure nobody gets in here who shouldn't be. If it gets so we can't walk through the clutter on the floor, we'll shut down for an hour or so, turn the blackboards around, and have it cleaned."

"Not a problem, Inspector," Agnes Forbison said.

"And speaking of blackboards," Doherty said, "two's not half enough. Get another four-better, six-in here."

"When do you want them?" Agnes said.

"Now."

"The first will be here in five minutes," Agnes said. "It'll probably take a couple of hours to get another five."

"The sooner, the better," Doherty said.

"What's with all the blackboards?" Castillo asked.

"Inspector Doherty shares with me," Delchamps said, "the philosophy that if you're going to use a computer, use the best one."

"What about computers, Agnes?" Castillo asked.

"I can set up pretty quickly whatever you and the inspector tell me you need."

"We are referring, Colonel," Delchamps said, "to the computers between our ears."

"Then you've lost everybody except you and the inspector," Castillo said.

"Computers, Colonel, are only as good as the data they contain," Doherty said. "You know what GIGO means?"

Castillo nodded. "Garbage in, garbage out."

"Right. So anything we put into our computers, the kind you plug in the wall-and I'll get with you shortly, Mr. Forbison, about what we're going to need: nothing fancy-has to be a fact, not a supposition, not a possibility. The possibilities and the suppositions and the theories go on the blackboards. With me so far?"

"I think I understand," Castillo said.

"We'll probably save time if you watch to see how it's done," Doherty said.

"Let's try that, then," Castillo said.

"Okay. Off the top of your head, Colonel, tell me the one name you think is at the center of your problem."

Castillo thought a moment, then said, "Jean-Paul Lorimer, aka Jean-Paul Bertrand…"

"Just one, just one," Doherty said. "How do you spell that?"

Doherty went to one of the blackboards and wrote JEAN-PAUL LORIMER in the center of it.

"This is the player's board," he said. "This guy had an alias?"

"Bertrand," Castillo said and spelled it for him.

On the board Doherty wrote AKA BERTRAND. he said, "We know that for sure? The names?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, when we get a typist and a computer in here we can start a file called 'Lorimer' and put those facts in it in a folder called 'Lorimer.' When do we get the typist and the computer?"

"Agnes?"

"You want to clear Juliet Knowles for this, Charley?"

"Okay, but her and a typist. You got somebody?"

Agnes nodded.

"Go get them, Agnes. Tell them what's involved."

"And start on the other blackboards," Doherty ordered. He turned to Castillo. "So what about this Lorimer? What do we know for sure?"

"For sure, that he's dead," Castillo said. "We also believe that he was the head bagman for the maggots involved in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal."

"Facts first. He's dead. When did he die? Where? What of?"

"He died at approximately 2125 hours 31 July at Estancia Shangri-La, Tacuarembo Province, Uruguay, of two 9mm gunshot wounds from a Madsen to the head."

"Okay, those are all facts, right?"

"Facts," Castillo confirmed.

"Okay," Doherty replied, matter-of-factly, showing no reaction at all to the manner of Lorimer's death, "that gives us the first facts in two new folders. One folder is the 'Time Line,' the other 'Events.' Spell all that for me, Colonel, please."