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“Shoot,” Darby replied.
Castillo had not quite finished when his cellular vibrated.
“¿Hola?”
“Christopher Columbus, Confucius, and the pilgrims have sailed for the New World,” Yung reported.
“Give me a call when you get to Plymouth Rock.”
He put the cellular in his pocket and gave Alfredo Munz a thumbs-up.
Munz nodded and silently mouthed, “Mucho gracias.”
“Two things, Charley,” Alex Darby began. “One, it’s a reasonable scenario. My gut feeling is that if you’re not right on the money, you’re not far off. Two, if number one is on the money then you’re in trouble. For one thing, you’re going up against the conventional wisdom at the agency and you know how popular you are in Langley. And for another…”
Alex Darby gently shook Castillo’s shoulder.
“Charley, why don’t you go to the Four Seasons and get some sleep?”
“Jesus, what did I do, fall asleep?”
“You were asleep with your eyes open for the last five minutes and then a minute ago you closed them.”
“You’re right. All I’m doing here is spinning my wheels.” He tried to stifle a yawn. “Can we pick up where I dropped off in the morning? In Mayerling?”
“I’ll pick you up at nine?”
“Fine. How do Jake, Fernando, and I get to the hotel?”
“The Cubans may be watching this building. If they are, they know our cars. So, instead, if you walked down the hill to Libertador and caught a cab, all they would learn—even if they followed it—was that three people left the building…”
“Including the one whose dog took a dump on their sidewalk,” Castillo interrupted.
“…and went to the Four Seasons,” Darby finished. “Let’s do it,” Castillo said and pushed himself away from the table.
[FOUR]
The Buquebus Terminal
Montevideo, Uruguay
0115 9 August 2005
The Juan Patricio, one of the Buquebus ferries that ply the river Plate between downtown Buenos Aires and downtown Montevideo, is an enormous Australian-built aluminum catamaran with space on the lower deck for about one hundred automobiles and light trucks. The main deck can seat, in comfortable airliner-type seating, about two hundred fifty passengers. There also is a duty-free shop and a snack bar. The first-class deck, up an interior stairway from the tourist deck, offers larger seats and its own s
nack bar.
There are bulkhead-mounted television sets in both classes that play motion picture DVDs. But on the late-night voyages, few people watch them, preferring to doze in their seats and wake up on arrival.
The only communication between the Munz family and either Yung or Artigas on the Juan Patricio’s voyage to Montevideo—aside from Yung’s half-dozen smiles that he hoped would be reassuring—had been a fifteen-second encounter between Artigas and Señora Munz when the lights of Montevideo appeared.
Standing at the snack bar, Artigas had caught Señora Munz’s eye and nodded toward the port leading to the ladies’ restrooms. She had joined him there a moment later.
“When people start going to their cars, take the girls and go down the stairs to the car deck. Señor Yung will be waiting for you there, to take you to our car. It’s a dark blue BMW with diplomatic license plates.”
Señora Munz had nodded her understanding, then gone into the ladies’ room. Artigas saw Yung get out of his chair and walk to the stairwell. Then Artigas returned to his seat.
As Yung had discreetly followed the Munz family as they walked onto the ferry, Artigas had driven the embassy BMW onto the ferry’s car deck. But then Artigas had forgotten to tell Yung where he had parked it. Luckily, Yung had had only a little trouble finding it halfway back on the starboard side.
