“Marvelous! Bon voyage!”
“And when we get to Málaga, what do I do with the GPS transmitter?”
“I expect the battery will go dead before you’re halfway across the Atlantic. Just put that gadget in a life raft, check it a couple of times a day, and after a week, toss it over the side.”
[FIVE]
En route to Cancún International Airport
Cancún
Quintana Roo, Mexico
0915 11 February 2007
They were traveling in the same kind of minibus sent the night before to bring them from Cancún International Airport to El Dorado Royale Resort. It was manufactured in Mexico on a Mercedes-Benz chassis, and could hold fourteen passengers and their luggage in air-conditioned comfort.
This morning it held General Naylor, Colonel Brewer, Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Naylor, Mr. Lammelle, Mr. D’Allessando, and two rather massive white-jacketed members of the El Dorado Royale’s staff, one driving the bus and the other sitting in a jump seat beside him to handle the luggage and an enormous insulated container that held their lunches.
“Where are we going?” Frank Lammelle suddenly demanded to know. He was sitting alone on the row of seats at the back of the bus.
“We’re off to see the Wizard, Frank,” Vic D’Allessando said. “I told you where we’re going: Where Charley told me to take you.”
“Not good enough, D’Allessando. I want to know where.”
“Pull to the side of the road, please,” Vic called in Russian.
The bus pulled off to the side and stopped.
“That was Russian!” Lammelle challenged.
“God! You could tell?”
“What the hell is going on here?” Lammelle demanded. “I want you to tell me where we’re going!”
“Or what? You’ll stamp your foot?”
Lammelle’s face showed that he understood, but he said nothing.
“Wouldn’t do you any good, anyway, Frank,” D’Allessando said. “Charley’s not anywhere close.”
“I know that. Castillo’s in Budapest.”
“Your computer tell you that, Frank?”
“You know fucking well it did. So what’s going on here?”
“A
llan—Allan Junior—did you ever see Ol’ Frank’s computer? He thinks—he’s wrong, but that’s what he thinks—it shows where Charley is. Why don’t you let Allan Junior see your computer, Frank?”
“Fuck you, D’Allessando,” Lammelle said.
“That’s not nice!”
“Get out of the aisle, you sonofabitch. I’m getting off the bus.”
“Sorry. Not permitted. When you go off to see the Wizard, you’ve got to go all the way.”