Castillo nodded.
"What's the operation?"
"We're going to try to get a DEA agent back from the drug dealers who kidnapped him."
"That sounds like a splendid idea," Lorimer said. "It also sounds like the DEA agent is not an ordinary DEA agent. We lose a lot of DEA agents in Mexico and all we do is wring our hands. We certainly don't send Special Forces teams in unmarked helicopters to get them back."
"This one's grandfather is a friend of the mayor of Chicago."
"That would make him special, wouldn't it? Okay, you can use the estancia, and I will forget that money you offered. If I remembered it, it would make me angry."
Castillo looked him in the eyes a long moment and said, "Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome. And now you can tell me the best way to get from the airport in Montevideo to Shangri-La. Rent a car? Buy one? How's the roads?"
Oh, shit!
I totally misread him…he's still determined to go.
"I can't talk you out of going down there, sir?"
"You didn't really expect that you could, did you?"
"I really hoped that I could."
Lorimer held up his hands in a gesture of mock sympathy.
"Look at it this way, Colonel," he said. "If I'm there-Jean-Paul's father, come to look after his inheritance-far fewer questions will be asked than if two or three men of military age showed up there by themselves and started hauling barrels of helicopter fuel onto the place."
Castillo didn't say anything.
"Don't look so worried. I didn't spend all my diplomatic career on the cocktail-party circuit."
"I'm sure you didn't, Mr. Ambassador."
"You ever hear of Stanleyville, in the ex-Belgian Congo?"
"Yes, sir."
"When the Belgians finally jumped their paratroops on it-out of USAF airplanes-to stop the cannibalism on the town square, we did things differently back then. We paid less attention to the sensitive nationalist feelings of the natives than to Americans in trouble. There I was on the airfield with two sergeants from the Army Security Agency who'd been running a radio station for me in the bush. We were waving American flags with one hand and.45s in the other."
Castillo shook his head in disbelief.
"I don't lie, Colonel," Lorimer said. "At my age, I don't have to."
"I wasn't doubting your word, Mr. Ambassador."
"I hope not. Until just now I was starting to like you."
"It was not, sir, what I expected to hear from an ambassador."
"There are ambassadors and ambassadors, Colonel. For example, my daughter tells me we have a very good one in Buenos Aires."
"Yes, sir, we do."
"Are we through here? Can we go deal with her now? She's going to have a fit when she hears you have failed in your noble mission to save the old man from himself."
"Sir, about getting to Shangri-La from the airport. I think I can arrange for several Spanish-speaking Americans to meet you and take you there. Maybe they could stay around and help you get organized."