W Griffin - Hunters

"He had two things," McGrory said. "One was a-I don't know what you call it-what's left, what comes out of a gun after you shoot it?"

"A bullet?" Silvio asked.

"No, the other part. Brass. About this big."

He held his fingers apart to indicate the size of a cartridge case.

"I think they call that the 'cartridge case,'" Silvio said.

"That's it."

"What was special about the cartridge case?"

"It was a special kind, issued only to U.S. Army snipers. And the reason he knew that was because he called the Uruguayan ambassador in Washington, who called the Pentagon, who obligingly told them. They didn't go through me. And when a foreign government wants something from the U.S. government, they're supposed to go through the ambassador."

"On the basis of this one cartridge case, they have concluded that our Green Berets were involved? That doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"They also found out that a helicopter was involved. People heard one flying around and there were tracks from the skids-those pipes on the bottom?-in a nearby field, where it had apparently been refueled. You don't have a helicopter, do you?"

"I have an airplane-the Army attache does, an Army King Air-out at Campo Mayo, but no helicopter. The King Air is so expensive to fly that most of the time it just sits out there."

How come Silvio's Army attache gets an airplane, McGrory thought, and mine doesn't? he said, "Well, according to them, whoever left all the bodies had a helicopter. And they think it was a Green Beret helicopter."

"Maybe they're just shooting in the dark," Silvio said. "They must be getting pretty impatient. Seven people killed and they apparently don't know why or by whom."

"Do you have any idea what that massacre was all about?"

Silvio shook his head, took a sip of wine, then said, "What I'd like to know is what this Lorimer fellow was doing with a false identity in Uruguay. Do you have any idea?"

McGrory shook his head. "No, I-oh, I forgot to mention that. Lorimer had a fortune-sixteen million dollars-in Uruguayan banks. It was withdrawn-actually, transferred to some bank in the Cayman Islands-the day after he was killed. By someone using the Riggs National Bank in Washington."

"Really? Where did Lorimer get that kind of money?"

"Most of the time, when large sums of money like that are involved, it's drug money," McGrory confided.

"Do they know who withdrew it?"

"Transferred it. No, they don't."

"Well, if you're right, Mike, and I suspect you are, that would explain a good deal, wouldn't it? Murder is a way of life with the drug cartels. What very easily could have happened at that estancia is that a drug deal went wrong. The more I think about it…"

"A fortune in drug money, a false identity…" McGrory thought aloud. "Bertrand, the phony name he was using, was an antiques dealer. God knows, being an established antiques dealer would be an easy way to move a lot of cocaine. Who would look in some really valuable old vase, or something, for drugs?"

"I suppose that's true," Silvio agreed.

"I'm thinking it's entirely possible Lorimer had a room full of old vases stuffed with cocaine," McGrory went on, warming to his new theory. "He had already been paid for it. That would explain all the money. When his customers came to get it, some other drug people-keeping a secret like that is hard-went out there to steal it. And got themselves killed. Or maybe they did steal it themselves. May be there were more than six guys in black overalls. The ones that weren't killed loaded the drugs on their helicopter and left, leaving their dead behind. They don't care much about human life, you know. They're savages. Animals."

"So I've heard."

Ambassador McGrory sat thoughtfully for a long moment before going on: "If you were me, Juan, would you take the insult to the department?"

Silvio paused thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

"That's a tough call, Mike," he said. "If I may speak freely?"

"Absolutely," McGrory said.

"Alvarez's behavior was inexcusable," Silvio said. "Both in not going through you to get to the Pentagon and then by coming to your office to as much as accuse you of lying."

"Yes, It was."

"Incidents like that in the past have been considered more than cause enough to recall an ambassador for consultation, leaving an embassy without an ambassador for an extended period."

"Yes, I know. Insult the ambassador of the United States of America at your peril!"

McGrory heard himself raising his voice and immediately put his wineglass to his lips and discreetly scanned the restaurant to see if anyone had overhead his indiscretion.

"The question is," Silvio said, reasonably, "you have to make the decision whether what happened is worth, in the long haul, having you recalled for consultation. Or if there is some other way you can let them know you're justifiably angry."

"They left my office, Juan, let me tell you, knowing that I was pretty damned angry."

"Oh?"

"Yes, they did. I told Alvarez in no uncertain terms that what they had done was tantamount to accusing me, and thus the government of the United States, of not only conducting an illegal operation but of lying about it and that I was personally and officially insulted, and then I said, 'Good morning, gentlemen, this visit is terminated.'"

"Well, that certainly let them know how you felt," Silvio said.

"And they're really going to be embarrassed when they finally realize that what happened out there was drug connected and their idea that Green Berets were involved was simply preposterous."

"If that's what happened, Mike, you're right."

"And if I take this to Washington," McGrory said, "by the time they actually get around to recalling me for consultation Alvarez more than likely will come to me with his tail between his legs to apologize. I'll accept it, of course, but I'll be one up on him, that's for damned sure. There's no sense bothering the secretary with this."

"I agree," Silvio said and picked up the bottle of Tempus and poured wine into both their glasses.

When they tapped glasses again, McGrory said, "I really appreciate your advice, Juan. Thank you." [SIX] Office of the Ambassador The Embassy of the United States of America Avenida Colombia 4300 Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1605 5 August 2005 "That's essentially what Howell told me, sir," Alex Darby said to Ambassador Silvio, "that Ordonez found the cartridge casing, put it together with the chopper's skid marks and all those bodies, and decided it was something more than a robbery."

"Ambassador McGrory is now just about convinced it was a drug shoot-out," Silvio said. "I sowed the seed of that scenario and he really took it to heart. Between you and me, Alex, I felt more than a little guilty-ashamed of myself."

"Sir, you didn't have much of an option," Darby said. "Castillo was operating with the authority of a Presidential Finding. He had the authority to do what we did and not tell McGrory about it."

"Granting that," Silvio said, "I still felt very uncomfortable."

"You shouldn't feel that way, sir. With all due respect to Ambassador McGrory, can you imagine how out of control things would get if he knew? Or worse, if Castillo had gone by the book and asked his permission?"

Silvio didn't respond to that. Instead, he asked, "Where in the world did Castillo get that helicopter? I asked him, but he evaded the question."

"So did I and he wouldn't tell me, either. I didn't know about the money either."

"You don't think that it will be traceable?"

"The money or the helicopter?"

Silvio chuckled and shook his head. "Both. Neither."

"The helicopter, no. Castillo filed a local flight plan from Jorge Newbery to Pilar, closed it out over Pilar, and then flew over there about five feet off the water. He came back the same way, then got on the horn over Pilar and filed a local flight plan to Jorge Newbery. Nothing suspicious about that."