Part 85 (1/2)

Unless they spray the room with a submachine gun.

What the h.e.l.l!

He jerked on the cord and a lamp on Lorimer's desk crashed to the floor. But didn't go out.

Sonofab.i.t.c.h!

There was the sound of another 7.62mm round going off, and of voices shouting something unintelligible, and then several more bursts from Car 4s.

Castillo reeled in the lamp, finally found the switch, and turned it off. The room was now dark.

Castillo got to his knees, then took a running dive from behind the desk toward the corner. No one shot at him. He found the wall with his hands and pushed himself into the corner. He waited for a moment to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. To turn the lamp off, he had had to find the switch, which was a push device in the bulb socket, which meant that he'd had the light from a clear-gla.s.s sixty-watt bulb right in his eyes.

Finally, he could make out the outline of the windows, and raised the Beretta in both hands to aim at it.

”Alfredo?” he called.

”I'm hit,” Munz called back. ”I don't know how bad. I have Lorimer's brains all over me.”

There was another burst of Car 4 fire, this one farther away.

And then Sergeant Kensington's voice. ”Anybody alive in there?”

”Only the good guys,” Castillo called back.

There was the sound of a door being kicked open. And then a hand holding a flashlight appeared in the door and the light swept the room.

Then Kensington came into the room with Corporal Lester Bradley on his heels, sniper rifle at the ready.

”Get that G.o.dd.a.m.n light out of my eyes,” Castillo ordered. ”There's a lamp on the floor behind the desk.”

Kensington found the light and turned it on, and then walked to where Castillo was getting to his feet. He waited until Castillo was fully up, then said, ”These c.o.c.ksuckers, whoever the f.u.c.k they were, got past Kranz. Can you believe that?”

”Is he all right?”

”They garroted him, Major,” Kensington said.

”Oh, s.h.i.+t!”

Castillo walked to the desk again, looked at the exploded head of Jean-Paul Lorimer, and then at the blood oozing from the chest of El Coronel Alfredo Munz, and said, ”Oh, s.h.i.+t!” again.

[FOUR].

Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembo Province Republica Oriental del Uruguay 2225 31 July 2005 ”You're going to be all right, Colonel,” Sergeant Robert Kensington said to Munz, who rested just about where he had fallen behind Lorimer's desk. ”There's some muscle damage that's going to take some time to heal, and you're going to hurt like h.e.l.l for a long time every time you move-for that matter, breathe. I can take the bullet out now, if you'd like.”

”I think I'll wait until I get to a hospital,” Munz said.

”Your call, Alfredo,” Castillo said. ”But how are you going to explain the wound? And if Kensington says he can get it out, he can.”

”No offense, but that looks to me like a job for a surgeon.”

”Kensington has removed more bullets and other projectiles than most surgeons,” Castillo said. ”Before he decided he'd rather shoot people than treat them for social disease, he was an A-Team medic. Which meant . . . what's that line, Kensington?”

”That I was 'qualified to perform any medical procedure other than opening the cranial cavity,'” Kensington quoted. ”I can numb that, give you a happy pill, and clean it up and get the bullet out. It would be better for you than waiting-the sooner you clean up a wound like that, the better-and that'd keep you from answering questions at a hospital. But what are you going to tell your wife?”

”Lie, Alfredo,” Castillo said. ”Tell her you were shot by a jealous husband.”

”What she's going to think is that I was cleaning my pistol and it went off, and I'm embarra.s.sed,” Munz said. ”But I'd rather deal with that than answer official questions. How long will I be out?”

”You won't be out long, but you'll be in la-la land for a couple of hours.”

”Okay, do it,” Munz said.

”Well, let's get you to your feet and onto something flat where there's some light,” Kensington said. He looked at Castillo, and between them they got Munz to his feet.

”There's a big table in the dining room that ought to work,” Kensington said. ”It looks like everybody got here just in time for dinner. There's a plate of good-looking roast beef on it. And a bottle of wine.”

”Okay on the beef,” Castillo said. ”Nix on the wine. We have to figure out what to do next and get out of here.”

”Major, who the f.u.c.k are these bad guys?” Kensington asked.

”I really don't know. Yung is searching the bodies to see what he can find out. I don't even know what happened.”

”Well, they're pros, whoever they are. Maybe Russians? Krantz was no amateur, and they got him. With a f.u.c.king garrote. That means they had to (a) spot him, and (b) sneak up on him. A lot of people have tried that on Seymour and never got away with it.”

”Spetsnaz?” Castillo said. ”If this were anywhere in Europe, I'd say maybe, even probably. But here? I just don't know. We'll take the garrote and whatever else Yung comes up with and see if we can learn something.”

When they got to the dining room, Kensington held Munz up while Castillo moved the Chateaubriand, the sauce pitcher, the bread tray, and the wine to a sideboard. Then he sat him down on the table.

”Tell me, physician,” Munz said. ”What would the effect of wine be on this happy pill you're about to give me?”

Kensington went to the sideboard and picked it up. ”Cabernet sauvignon,” he said. ”There is a strong body of medical opinion which suggests this is indicated in a procedure of this nature. You want a gla.s.s?”

”Yes, please,” Munz said.

Kensington poured wine in the gla.s.s and handed it to Munz.

”Take these with it,” he said, putting two white gel capsules on the table. ”And when you start to feel a little woozy-it usually takes about a minute-just lie down. I'm a little surprised you're not in pain.”

”What makes you think I'm not?” Munz asked as he tossed the capsules into his mouth and then picked up the winegla.s.s.

”You won't be out for long,” Kensington said.

”What happened out there, physician?” Munz asked.

”The first thing I knew that anything was wrong was when I heard the Remington go off. And G.o.d forgive me, what I thought then was that the G.o.dd.a.m.n kid was playing with the rifle and it went off. So I ran around the side of the building to chew him a new a.s.shole. And that's when I saw the two guys. One of them was on the ground and the other was pointing a Madsen at me-”

”A Madsen?” Castillo asked.

”Yeah. That mean something?”