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"Now I have to lie on my side."
They looked at each other curiously.
"How did you know who Bradley was?" Castillo asked.
"Edgar Delchamps described him to me as a choirboy with a.45 who is seldom far from your side."
Castillo smiled but didn't say anything.
"Delchamps came to see me, and the DCI, immediately after he came from Saint Albans Hospital," Lammelle said.
Castillo said nothing.
"You didn't know he planned to do that?"
"No. But now that I think about it, I'm not surprised."
"He told us an incredible, unsupportable, unbelievable tale about several members of the CIA having, so to speak, sold out."
"Well, you don't have to believe Delchamps if you don't want to, Mr. Lammelle," Castillo said, coldly and softly, "but I'm going to tell the President about those two bastards just as soon as I can get to Washington. I suspect he'll believe me." His voice changed tenor. "Jesus Christ, did Montvale send you down here to talk me into going along with a whitewash of those two traitorous sonsofbitches?"
"My mother always taught me it was bad form to speak ill of the dead," Lammelle said.
"Excuse me?"
"We are both referring to Mr. Milton Weiss and Mr. Jonathon Crawford, are we not, Colonel?"
"I think of them as miserable CIA sonofabitch one and miserable CIA sonofabitch two."
"I'm afraid that I'm the bearer of bad news, Colonel. Mr. Crawford and Mr. Weiss are no longer with us."
"What did they do, catch a plane to the former Soviet Union?"
"They are deceased," Lammelle said. "Mr. Crawford was found three days ago in his apartment in Asuncion. He had apparently been strangled to death during a robbery. With a garrote, actually. A blue steel garrote."
"And Weiss?"
"Mr. Weiss was found in his car in the parking lot at Langley yesterday morning. He died of a drug overdose. The needle was still in his arm-no, actually, it was in his neck-when his body was discovered."
"How interesting."
"Well, naturally, since Mr. Delchamps had raised these awful allegations against Mr. Weiss, our investigators had some questions for him."
"And?"
"Apparently, Mr. Delchamps had been involved in a marathon poker game at the house he shares with you in Alexandria during the time the coroner tells us Mr. Weiss got his fatal injection. With some other CIA veterans, now mostly retired. They have a small informal organization; they call themselves The Dinosaurs."
"So I've heard."
"Well, the CIA certainly is willing to take the word of such a group regarding who was where and when."
"That's probably a good idea."
"Some of those Cold War warriors, The Dinosaurs, tell fascinating stories-they can't be believed, of course-about what happened to traitors in their day."
"Such as?"
"I really don't like to get into this sort of thing, so let me just say it's rumored they acted as judge, jury, and executioner when they were sure one of their number had sold out. Just a legend, I'm sure."
