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"At the embassy, sir. I want to get the ETAs of the airplanes."
"Then I'll see you there." [EIGHT] The United States Embassy Avenida Colombia 4300 Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1450 23 July 2005 It was a frustrating forty-five minutes on the telephone.
Even getting the number of the United Nations European directorate of interagency coordination was frustrating. The Buenos Aires international operator had trouble first connecting to and then communicating with the Paris information operator.
Silvio gave up on that and called the American embassy in Paris. The political attache had somewhat reluctantly-and only after Silvio had proven to him who he was-provided a listing for the directorate, but said he had neither an address nor a number for a Jean-Paul Lorimer.
A somewhat nasal-voiced French woman at the directorate told Silvio-whose French was fluent-that M'sieu Lorimer was out of the office, that she had no number at which he could be reached, and that any further inquiries should be directed to the director of information. She was unmoved by Silvio's announcement that he was the United States ambassador to Argentina, and was trying to contact Lorimer because there had been a death in the family.
The only address and telephone number the State Department in Washington and the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York City had for Lorimer was his office.
"Let me see what the Secret Service can do, sir," Castillo said, finally, and started to punch in Isaacson's number in Washington on his cell phone.
"You don't want to get a secure line?"
"What's classified?" Castillo said, and immediately added, "I didn't mean to sound flip, sir. Sorry."
"I didn't think you were being flip," Silvio said. "It was a dumb question."
"Isaacson."
"Charley, Joel."
"I see we're being telepathic again," Isaacson replied. "I was just about to call you about the FBI plane-on which, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to hear, Casanova, is the beauteous Agent Schneider-and the C-17."
"You didn't say something allegedly witty to her, did you, Joel?"
"No, but I was sorely tempted. She really is a delight to the eyes, and I felt duty-bound to warn her about you."
"Tell me about the airplanes."
"She and Jack Britton are on a Gulfstream Five, which left here at eleven-oh-five local time. They make about four hundred sixty knots, and it's about fifty-two hundred miles from here to there, so you figure it out."
Without asking permission, Castillo snatched a pencil from a mug on Silvio's desk. Silvio quickly handed him a yellow lined pad.
"The call sign is Air Force Zero-Four-Seven-Seven. They're bound for an airport called Jorge Newbery, which I presume is somewhere near Buenos Aires. Also on the plane are six somewhat annoyed FBI agents, pissed not only because they were told to report to you-as Secret Service, not Presidential Hotshot-but because two of their number got bumped because Schneider and Britton got on."
"Jorge Newbery is the downtown airport in Buenos Aires."
"The C-17-tail number Air Force Zero-Three-Eight-One-left Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, an hour earlier, but it's going to-probably already has-made a stop at Hurlburt, where it picked up a dozen Air Commandos ready to go to war, and a ten-man spit-and-polish detail from the Old Guard under a lieutenant for the burial party, who were conveniently in Florida burying some retired general."
"Jesus."
"I think you can guess where that order originated," Isaacson added. "Anyway, the C-17 will be landing at an airfield called Ezeiza-"
"That's the main international field."
"I guess they couldn't get that big airplane into the little airport."
"You can sit a Globemaster down in your backyard, Joel."
"No kidding. Well, for some reason, that's where it's going. And it will take however long after it leaves Hurlburt to go forty-two hundred nautical miles at four hundred fifty knots."
Castillo scribbled down those numbers.
"Okay. Got it. Now I need something from you."
"Shoot."
