W. Griffin - The Hostage

"Yeah," Castillo said, "he's a bagman, maybe the most important bagman, in the Iraqi oil-for-food scheme."

Castillo saw the surprise on Torine's and Fernando's faces. He had not told them what Kennedy had told him, only that they had met and Kennedy didn't know where Lorimer was.

"The skinny is, as you know," Castillo said, "that the French wanted to ease the sanctions on Hussein but the United States-and the Brits-said hell no. So in its infinite wisdom, the UN security council, in 1996, stepped in with Oil for Food, saying it would keep the Iraqi people alive. It in fact provided Saddam a way to reward his friendly Frogs and Russians and other crooks. Oil allocations totaled some sixty-five billion dollars by the time the United States bagged Baghdad-and with it the program-in 2003. There's plenty to skim off sixty-five thousand million dollars, and Lorimer was there holding the bag and taking names."

"You want to tell me where you got that about Lorimer being the bagman?" Delchamps asked. It was close to a challenge.

"No."

"I'll ask you again, later," Delchamps said. "Maybe you'll change your mind."

"Anything is possible," Castillo said.

"Okay, for the sake of argument, he's been the most important bagman. He knows maybe fifty percent of the people-maybe more-who've been paid off, how much they've been paid off, how, and when. And what for. Some of these people are in the UN, high up in the UN. Therefore, the UN is not interested in having this come out.

"Some of those paid off are French. The French have an interesting law that says the President of France cannot be investigated while he's holding that office. And the Deuxieme Bureau-you know what that is?"

Castillo nodded.

"They regard the agency as a greater threat to La Belle France than the Schutzstaffel ever was, and cooperate accordingly. That's made looking into this difficult."

"I can see where it would," Castillo said.

"Same thing for the Germans," Delchamps went on. "I've still got some friends on the other side of the Rhine-I did some time in Berlin and Vienna in the good old days of the Cold War-and they've fed me some stuff, together with the friendly advice to watch my back as some very important Germans were involved and don't want it to come out.

"There were a lot of Russians involved, too. A lot of the cash we found in Saddam Hussein's closets got there on airplanes owned by a legendary Russian businessman by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner. You ever hear that name?"

"I've heard it," Castillo said.

"He runs sort of a covert FedEx courier service for people who want to ship things around the world without anybody knowing about it. Going off on a tangent with Pevsner, about a month ago I was told-all the station chiefs were told-not to look into anything that sonofabitch was doing without the specific approval of Langley in each case."

"Pevsner was involved with the oil-for-food business?" Castillo asked.

"Not directly, as far as I've been able to figure out. What he did was move the money around-like so much freight-and I suspect that a lot of stuff Saddam Hussein wasn't supposed to get got to Baghdad on his airplanes."

Torine's eyes met Castillo's for a moment.

"Which brings us to the Americans," Delchamps went on. "We had several enterprising businessmen in Houston who were in the oil-for-food racket up to their eyeballs. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but it has been my experience that when rich oil guys make large contributions to politicians, the politicians lend sympathetic ears to them when, for example, they want the agency and the FBI, etcetera, to lay off another businessman, like, for example, this guy Pevsner."

Delchamps paused.

"Can I change my mind about the coffee?"

"Absolutely," Castillo said, and picked up the coffee pitcher.

Delchamps took the cup, added sugar, and stirred it for a moment.

"So there I was, a couple of days ago, when this Lorimer business came up."

"I don't think I follow you," Castillo said.

"The Secret Service guy here is a pal of mine. You know, two old dinosaurs in a forest of young, politically correct State Department flits. Some pal of his called him up and asked him to find Lorimer, and he came to me because he knew I was working on him."

He took a sip of coffee, and then went on: "I knew it was going to go bad, even before the ambassador called me in and asked about Lorimer. He'd had a call from… Whatsername, Cohen, the secretary of state herself."

"Natalie Cohen," Castillo furnished.

"Feisty little broad," Delchamps said. "I like her. Anyway, there I was, about to really bag the little bastard, when somebody blows the whistle on the whole thing."

"You want to explain that?"

"My somewhat cynical makeup made me suspect that somebody in Langley had a big mouth and told somebody in Foggy Bottom that I was about to finish my report on Lorimer. There are people in Foggy Bottom who deeply regret the current feelings of ill will between the Frogs and the United States-and between some senators investigating the oil-for-food scam and the UN-and think it would be just dreadful if we exacerbated those unfortunate situations by suggesting we had information that the Frogs-all the way up to Chirac, and maybe him, too-were involved, and that the bagman was a UN diplomat."

"You thought they were going to kill your report?" Castillo asked.

"Bury it," Delchamps said. "The way Lorimer was buried. If he was lucky."

"Excuse me?" Castillo said.

"It's possible, of course, that he's in Moscow, or maybe Berlin, telling all he knows about who got paid off besides the Russians or Germans. Knowing where the other guys' bodies are buried is a very useful diplomatic tool. It keeps them from talking about where yours are."

"You're suggesting that Lorimer has been killed?" Castillo asked.

"He was lucky if he was killed quick-in other words, just to shut him up. If somebody wanted to know what he knew… They did a real job on his pal, a Lebanese named Henri Douchon, in Vienna. To encourage him to answer questions, they pulled two of his fingernails, and half a dozen of his teeth. Then they cut his throat."

"When was this?" Castillo asked.

"A couple of weeks ago."

"When was the last time anybody saw Lorimer?" Castillo asked.

"Going by his American Express charges, he flew to Vienna on the twelfth of this month. The same day, he bought-or somebody bought using his AmEx card-a train ticket from Vienna here. I don't know if he ever used it; it might be something to throw off anybody looking for him. But he might have come back here. Just don't know. A scenario that occurs to me is that he was grabbed when he went to see his pal Douchon. Then they took him somewhere to ask him questions, or didn't. Following either possibility, they cut him up in little pieces and dropped him into the beautiful Blue Danube. Or he came back here, where they grabbed him, and after he answered their questions, what was left of him was dropped into the Seine."

"Have you considered he might be in hiding?" Castillo asked.

"Sure. Don't think so. My guess is that he's dead. These are very nasty people who wouldn't think twice before they took him out."

"I heard he might have been skimming from the payoff money," Castillo said.

"Could be. I doubt it. He was paid well, of course, but I can't find any trace of big money."

"And you think you would have been able to?"

Delchamps nodded confidently.

"I even got into his apartment," he said. "He had some really nice stuff, antiques, paintings, etcetera. More than he could afford on what the UN paid him, but a lot less, I think, than he would have had had he been stupid enough to try to steal from these guys."

"Okay," Castillo said. "Thanks. But one more question: If, for the sake of argument, he were hiding, where would you guess that would be?"