“Friend of yours, Roscoe?” Truman Ellsworth asked as he looked around the bar until he found a man sitting at one of the tables drinking a Coke while trying hard and almost succeeding in pretending he had not heard Danton calling, or seen Danton pointing at Montvale and Ellsworth.
“Not exactly.”
“We’ll have what our friend is having,” Montvale said. “And give him another.”
“And maybe one for your not-exactly-a-friend?” Ellsworth asked.
“I’m sure he’d love one, but he’s on duty, and from what I’ve observed, plainclothes officers of the Gendarmería Nacional do not drink while on duty.”
“You’re suggesting that you’re being surveilled by the Argentines?” Montvale asked.
“It was more a statement than a suggestion, Mr. Ambassador,” Danton said. “Either that guy, or one of his cousins, has been with me from the moment I tried to buy a used car.”
“You what?”
“A man named Alexander Darby—of whom you may have heard ... No. Of whom I’m sure you have heard; he was in the Clandestine Service of the CIA, like the guy I suspect you sent in here a couple of minutes ago—was retiring from government service ...”
“You saw Alex, did you, Roscoe?” Ellsworth asked.
Danton nodded, then went on: “... and had put his car up for sale. Clever journalist that I am, I got from the offer of sale his address, which the embassy press officer, Mizz Sylvia Grunblatt, wouldn’t give me, citing federal rules vis-à-vis privacy.”
“So you saw him?” Ellsworth asked.
“Why did you want to see Darby, Roscoe?” Montvale asked.
The conversation was interrupted by the bartender, who delivered three trays with the proper glasses and other accessories for the whisky-pouring, and a whisky bottle.
“You may have cause to regret your impulsive generosity, Mr. Montvale,” Danton said. He pointed to the whisky bottle. “That is The Macallan eighteen-year-old Highland single malt Scotch whisky. Were I not on the expense account—or for your generosity—I would shudder to think of the cost.”
“My privilege, Roscoe,” Montvale said.
“While he’s going through that absolutely marvelous pouring routine, Roscoe, you were about to tell us why you wanted to see Alex Darby,” Ellsworth said.
“So I was,” Danton said. “So I went to his apartment. He and his wife were there—”
“And how is Julia?” Ellsworth asked.
“Well, now that you mention it, she seemed a little pissed with her husband. But I digress. He was there with another CIA dinosaur, a guy named Delchamps. And, and, and ... an Irishman named Duffy, who had with him three guys. Pedro over there was one of them.”
Danton waved at Pedro, who did not respond.
“No sooner did I begin to mention that I wanted to ask Darby about a rumor going around—”
?
?What kind of a rumor?”
“Why do I think you know what kind of rumor?”
“Because, by your own admission, you are a clever journalist,” Montvale said. “But tell me anyway.”
“Our late, and not too mourned, President had a Special Operations hotshot working for him. Directly for him. An Army guy, a lieutenant colonel named Castillo. Said Special Operations hotshot ... I have this from a source I almost believe ... is said to have snatched two defecting Russians, big ones—from your CIA station chief in Vienna, Mr. Ambassador—just as she was about to load them on a CIA airplane and ship them to the States. He and they then disappeared.
“I also have heard a rumor that the Russian defectors told this hotshot that the Russians, the Iranians, and other people had a biological warfare factory in the Congo, and that he told the President, whereupon we went immediately to DefConTwo, and shortly thereafter a chunk of the Congo was hit by everything in the arsenal of democracy except nukes.”
“You told Alex ... and this Irish fellow, Duffy ... all that?” Ellsworth asked.
“I didn’t get two words beyond mentioning Costello’s ... Castillo’s ... name when suddenly I was being asked for my identification and being patted down by Pedro over there.”