with a resealable plastic bag. Munz took it and then extended it to Castillo.
It held a Glock semiautomatic pistol. The inside of the bag was heavily smeared with blood that had come off the pistol.
“Your agent got one shot off,” Munz said.
“She’s not my fucking agent.” He handled the weapon through the bag with disbelief. “She’s my . . . my . . . my love.”
“I know, Karl,” Munz said. “I saw your eyes.”
There was the sound of rotor blades and Castillo looked in the direction in time to see an Alouette III, the SA 316A, the one with the weak main and tail rotors, struggling for altitude.
“I’ll go with you to the hospital, Karl,” El Coronel Munz said.
IX
[ONE]
Autopista Del Sol Accesso Norte San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1850 24 July 2005
El Coronel Alfredo Munz leaned forward, tapped the driver of the Jeep Grand Cherokee on the shoulder, and told him to slow down, turn off the siren, and take the flashing blue light from the roof.
Castillo looked at him in surprise, then anger, then horror as it occurred to him the probable reason it was no longer necessary to speed.
Jesus Christ, did somebody call him to tell him she’s dead, and I missed it?
Munz read his mind.
“If you and I wind up in hospital beds beside Fräulein Schneider because we ran into a gasoline truck, that won’t do her any good, will it, Karl?”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“What will happen at the hospital is that they will check her vital signs, type her blood—”
“Her blood type’s on her credentials,” Castillo interrupted.
“If they were in her purse, that’s on the way to my laboratory. I don’t think they’ll find any prints of use on it, but I don’t want to omit anything.”
Munz waited until that had sunk in, then went on: “And even if the hospital had something alleging to give her blood type, they would make their own examination unless her condition was really critical. Giving transfusions of the wrong type of blood can be fatal.”
“Not critical? Christ, Alfredo, there was blood all over the backseat!”
“Not all of it, I don’t think, was hers,” Munz said. “And you know how heavily any wound to the head bleeds.”
Yeah, I do. I’m a soldier.
So start thinking like one, Charley, for Christ’s sake!
This damn situation is my fault, no question about that, but it’s done.
Evaluate the damage, and decide on a course of action!
Fighting to keep control of his voice, Castillo said, “You didn’t tell me where she was hit.”
Munz tapped his right cheek, just above his mouth.
“And in the body, the upper leg, and here in the side. That’s all I saw.” He pointed to both locations.
“Three wounds from . . . what was that Madsen firing?”
“I don’t know; I saw some nine-millimeter casings.”
“Well, maybe we got lucky and it wasn’t one of the Madsen .45s.”
“I don’t think it was .45 ACP,” Munz said, noting that Castillo knew of the Brazilian-made model. “And we may be even luckier.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t see an exit wound on her face. That makes me think maybe it was bounced bullets.”
“What?”
“Bounced bullets.”
“You mean ricochets?”
“Exactly. Those marvelous windshields on that armored BMW, designed to keep bullets out, in this case may unfortunately have kept them in as well.”
“Jesus, I didn’t think about that.”
“We’ll find out when we get to the hospital.”
And there’s something else I didn’t think about, either!
He took out his cellular and punched an autodial button.
Alex Darby answered on the second buzz.
“Darby.”
“Castillo. There’s been an ambush. My car, at the Sante Fe Circle in San Isidro. They got Sergeant Markham, and Betty Schneider is in a chopper on the way to the German Hospital.”
“Are you all right, Charley?”
“I don’t know if ‘all right’ is the phrase, but I wasn’t in the car. I was drinking wine in a bar.”
“Where are you now?”
“In Colonel Munz’s car, on the Accesso Norte, on the way to the hospital.”
“So the Argentines know.”
“They told me . . . me, the guy who’s supposed to be on top of things.”
“Charley, you can’t blame yourself for not being in the car.”
“Who do you think these bastards were trying to hit? Me, or a female Secret Service agent and a Marine driver?”
“I’ll have people at the hospital in ten minutes. Don’t move from there until they get there.”
“If you have anybody to spare, send them to the Masterson house. Tell them not to let Mrs. Masterson hear what happened.”
“Charley, it’ll be all over the television and the radio.”
“Then make sure she doesn’t