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Wyskowski, I admire your balls for being here. That has to be tough.
"And this is the mayor," Captain Timmons said.
Jesus H. Christ! I thought he was another cop-relative.
"The President speaks very highly of you, Colonel," the mayor said as he shook Castillo's hand. "I'm happy to meet you, and that you are here."
"An honor, sir," Castillo said. "I'm sorry I have to be here under these circumstances."
"Well, Colonel, I've always found the way to deal with a problem is get it out in the open and then start working on it."
"Yes, sir," Castillo said.
"And this," Captain Timmons said, moving to the third man on the couch. "is…"
Castillo shook that man's hand, but his name-or those of the others-failed to register in his memory.
His mind was busy thinking of something else…
The mayor, who the President has made perfectly clear is to get whatever he wants from me, is not just doing a friend of the family a favor.
He's part of this family.
"And that's about it, I guess," Lorimer said when he had finished telling everybody what he knew of the situation.
He did that about as well as it could be done, Castillo thought.
"Would it be all right if I called you 'Eddie'?" Captain Timmons asked.
"Yes, sir, of course."
"That was a good job, Eddie," Captain Timmons said. "I don't have any questions. Anybody else?"
"I got a couple," Big Frank said.
"Sir?" Lorimer asked politely.
"That Irish Argentine cop, Duffy, Junior was on his way to see when these slimeballs grabbed him. Are there a lot of Irish cops down there? And is this one of the good ones? And what's the Gendarmeria Nacional?"
Lorimer glanced at Castillo, who nodded just perceptibly.
"I know Byron trusted Comandante Duffy, sir," Lorimer said. "But maybe Colonel Munz can speak to that?"
"I know Comandante Duffy," Munz said. "Not well, but well enough to know that he's a good man. I haven't spoken to him since this happened, but he's about the first man I'm going to talk to when we get down there. I'm sure he's almost as upset about Agent Timmons as you are."
Big Frank nodded.
Munz went on: "So far as Irish people in Argentina, the ethnic mix in Argentina-and Uruguay and Chile, but not Paraguay-is much like that in the States. My family came from Germany, for example. There are more people from Italy than from Spain. And many Irish. There are many Irish police, especially in the Gendarmeria Nacional."
"Which is what?" Big Frank said.
"A police force with authority all over Argentina," Munz said. "They are a paramilitary force, more heavily armed than the Federal Police. They wear brown rather than blue uniforms, and enjoy the trust of the Argentine people."
"What does that mean?" Big Frank asked. "The other cops aren't trusted?"
"Can we agree, Captain, that dishonest police are an international problem?" Munz asked reasonably. "And that the problem is made worse by all the cash available to drug people? Or, for that matter, the criminal community generally?"
"I'd have to agree with that," the mayor said.
