W Griffin - Hunters

"A lot of the cash went to Iraq. In one of the palaces of one of Saddam's sons, they found a billion-a billion-dollars in brand-new American one-hundred dollar bills, still in the plastic wrappers in which they had come from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

"I suspect most of the money-the cash-was carried into Iraq on one of Pevsner's airplanes, although others were probably involved. But Pevsner has the reputation for being reliable in the quiet hauling of large amounts of cash."

"Is there a Russian or a Cuban connection?" Castillo asked.

"Karlchen, I already told you Putin is involved in this up to his skinny little buttocks," Kocian said. "I just don't have enough proof to print it."

"Which Putin is he talking about, Castillo?" Doherty asked. "Your mafiosipal or the president of the Russian Federation?"

Castillo hesitated just perceptibly before replying, "He's not talking about Pevsner."

"Jesus Christ!" Doherty said.

"They're no longer useful," Edgar Delchamps said, softly and thoughtfully. "But the hook's been set so why not reel them in as necessary?"

"Excuse me?" Castillo said.

Delchamps raised his voice.

"Thank you, Ur Kocian," he said, in Hungarian. "We'll get back to you. I really want to hear more of this."

"Who is that?" Kocian demanded.

"My name is Delchamps, Ur Kocian. I'm a friend of Karlchen's."

"Well, that makes two," Kocian said. "May I presume I may now take my breakfast?"

"Bon appetit," Delchamps said, then turned to Castillo and, switching to English, said, "I really want to talk to your friend, Karlchen."

"Break it down, Neidermeyer," Castillo ordered and then turned to Delchamps. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Edgar."

Delchamps smiled. "I've been trying to make sense of Doherty's mystic symbols for two days and getting nowhere, and then, the moment I hear about the generous small-time Texas oilman, eureka!"

Everybody waited for him to go on.

"Why the hell would a small-time Texas oilman-presumably, a patriotic Texas oilman-suddenly donate two million dollars to a bunch of lunatic wannabe Muslims in Philadelphia? Answer: He's been converted. Unlikely. Answer: He did not do so willingly. So why would he? Because he's been turned, the hook is already set in him."

"What do you mean turned?" Miller asked.

Delchamps didn't reply directly.

"I also asked myself, What's with the suitcase nukes?" he went on. "Where did that come from?"

"I have no goddamned idea where you're going with this, Edgar," Doherty said.

Delchamps ignored him.

"According to Karlchen here…"

"Uncle Billy can call me that, Edgar, but you can't," Castillo said, evenly.

"My most profound apologies, Ace," Delchamps said, insincerely, "according to Ace here, the Ninjas he took down at the Never-Never Land hacienda-"

"Estancia Shangri-La," Castillo corrected him without thinking.

"Whatever," Delchamps went on, "in far-off Uruguay were professionals. And we have since learned that one of them was a heavy hitter Cuban spook. And Ace tells us the people who tried to snatch Uncle Billy on the Franz Josef Bridge in romantic Budapest also were pros. As were the two you took down in the Gellert, right, Ace?"

Castillo nodded. "And they all had garrotes."

"They all had what?" Doherty asked.

"It's a device-these were stainless steel-not unlike the plastic handcuffs the cops are now using. They put it around your neck and choke you to death," Castillo said.

"And what was that about you taking someone down in the Gellert? What's the Gellert?"

"It's a hotel, Jack, on the banks of the Danube," Delchamps said. "You should take the little woman there sometime. Very romantic."

"The man I lost in the Uruguayan operation was killed with a garrote," Castillo said, softly. "The men who attempted to snatch Eric Kocian on the bridge in Budapest had both garrotes and a hypodermic needle full of a tranquilizer. The two men who went to Kocian's hotel room in Budapest had garrotes. When Mr. Masterson was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, she was knocked out with a shot in her buttocks…"

"You had to kill two people in Budapest?" Doherty persisted.

Castillo nodded and went on: "The garrote was used routinely by only the East German Stasi and the Hungarian Allamvedelmi Osztaly and Allamvedelmi Hatosag…"

"Which are?" Doherty asked.

"They were the Hungarian version of the Stasi. Sandor Tor, Kocian's bodyguard, told his people to find out if the two in the hotel were ex-AVO or ex-AVH. They were to call Dick here if that connection could be made. They haven't called, which strongly suggests they were not AVO or AVH, leaving only Stasi. It fits, Edgar."

"What fits?" Doherty asked.

"Off the top of your head, Jack," Delchamps asked, sarcastically, "who-besides the Israelis and Ace here's intrepid band of special operators-could mount, at just about the same time, professional snatch operations in Argentina, Uruguay, and Hungary?"

"You're saying you think the KGB is involved in this?" Doherty asked, incredulously.

"No, Jack, not the KGB," Delchamps said. "If we are to believe Mr. Putin, the bad old KGB, which he once led, is dead. It was replaced by the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, commonly called the FSB. And, yes, that thought has been running through my head."

"It fits, Edgar," Castillo repeated.

"Let's see if great minds really run down the same path, Ace," Delchamps said. "What's your scenario?"

"Putin's afraid his role in this is going to come out," Castillo began. "So get rid of the witnesses. Starting with Lorimer."

"Starting with Lorimer's number two, the guy who got whacked in Vienna," Delchamps said.

"Right," Castillo agreed. "And Lorimer, who suspected he was about to be whacked, put his Plan A into effect the moment he learned his pal was gone."

"'Plan A'?" Miller parroted.

"Get the hell out of Dodge," Castillo said. "He already had his alter ego set up in Uruguay. And his nest egg. Plan A was to stay out of sight until they stopped looking for him."

"Okay," Miller said, agreeing.

"So when he disappeared, how to find him?" Castillo said. "Through his sister."

"You don't really think the FSB keeps dossiers on UN diplomats, do you?" Delchamps said. "Listing next of kin, things like that?"

Castillo nodded. "Why wouldn't they?"

When Delchamps didn't respond, he went on: "So they snatched his sister and told her they would kill her children if she didn't locate her brother for them and then murdered her husband to show how serious they were."

"So who is they?" Delchamps said. "The KSB? I don't think so. But just for the sake of argument, let's say that Putin, out of the goodness of his heart, found some sort of employment for a group of deserving Stasi types who had lost their jobs when the Berlin Wall came down. You never know when you're going to need a good assassin."

"And if something went wrong, no connection with these guys to the KSB," Miller said. "Clever."

"And they were probably very useful when the oil-for-food scam was running," Delchamps said. "Both in moving money around and removing witnesses to any connection with Putin and Company."

"And no paper trail," Miller said. "Whatever money they were spending was oil-for-food money."

"That, too," Delchamps agreed. "Okay, Ace, then what?"

"I got lucky," Castillo said. "Otto Gorner heard that some West Germans were moving oil-for-food money to Argentina and Uruguay and told me about it. He also warned me that people who had been curious about this had died and to butt out."

"Which of course you were congenitally unable to do," Miller said, "and you went to Eric Kocian. He pointed you toward South America and then you got lucky with Confucius. He had a file on…what's the alter ego?"