is some sort of a communications problem,” Castillo said. “Before we go any further with this, why don’t we go next door to the embassy, get on a secure line to the director of national intelligence, and clear this up?”
“It’s half past one in the morning in Washington,” Delchamps said.
“I know. But I don’t have time to waste playing the classified game with you, Mr. Delchamps.”
“Maybe later,” Delchamps said. “I was told you were interested in a man named Jean-Paul Lorimer. What do you want to know about him?”
“Everything you know about him.”
“The phrase used was ‘tell him anything you think you should,’” Delchamps said.
“Then there is a communications problem between Ambassador Montvale and whoever you spoke with,” Castillo said. “What he was supposed to tell you was to tell me whatever I wanted to know, and what I want to know is everything.”
“It was Montvale who called me,” Delchamps said.
“And the phraseology he used was you were to tell me what ‘you think you should’?”
“That’s what he said.”
“In that case, Mr. Delchamps, when we go next door and get on the secure phone, we’re going to talk to the President, and you are going to tell him what Ambassador Montvale told you.”
Delchamps didn’t reply.
“For what it’s worth, Mr. Delchamps,” Colonel Torine said, “I was with Mr. Castillo—on Air Force One—when the President told Ambassador Montvale that Mr. Castillo was to have anything he asked for.”
“Why should I believe that?” Delchamps asked.
“No reason,” Torine said. “Except it’s the truth.”
Delchamps considered that for a moment, then said, “Fuck it.”
“Excuse me?” Castillo said.
“I said ‘fuck it.’ Don’t tell me you never heard that phrase before. Montvale said you’re really an Army officer. A major.”
“Guilty.”
“Who was given more authority than he clearly will be able to handle, and won’t have it long.”
“That sonofabitch!” Torine exploded.
“Yeah,” Delchamps said.
“You’re going to have to go to the President, Charley,” Torine said.
“Before you do that, let me tell you where I’m coming from,” Delchamps said. “And we’ll see how this plays out.”
“Go ahead,” Castillo said.
“I’ve been in this business a long time,” Delchamps said. “Long enough to be able to retire tomorrow, if I want to. I have been around long enough to see a lot of hard work blown—and, for that matter, people killed— because some hotshot with political power and a personal agenda stuck his nose in what was being developed and blew it. I’ve been working on this scum Lorimer for a long time, years. And it hasn’t been easy.”
“How so?” Castillo asked.
“Have you got any clue what he’s been up to?”
“Yeah,” Castillo said, “he’s a bagman, maybe the most important bagman, in the Iraqi oil-for-food scheme.”
Castillo saw the surprise on Torine’s and Fernando’s faces. He had not told them what Kennedy had told him, only that they had met and Kennedy didn’t know where Lorimer was.
“The skinny is, as you know,” Castillo said, “that the French wanted to ease the sanctions on Hussein but the United States—and the Brits—said hell no. So in its infinite wisdom, the UN security council, in 1996, stepped in with Oil for Food, saying it would keep the Iraqi people alive. It in fact provided Saddam a way to reward his friendly Frogs and Russians and other crooks. Oil allocations totaled some sixty-five billion dollars by the time the United States bagged Baghdad—and with it the program—in 2003. There’s plenty to skim off sixty-five thousand million dollars, and Lorimer was there holding the bag and taking names.”
“You want to tell me where you got that about Lorimer being the bagman?” Delchamps asked. It was close to a challenge.
“No.”
“I’ll ask you again, later,” Delchamps said. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Anything is possible,” Castillo said.
“Okay, for the sake of argument, he’s been the most important bagman. He knows maybe fifty percent of the people—maybe more—who’ve been paid off, how much they’ve been paid off, how, and when. And what for. Some of these people are in the UN, high up in the UN. Therefore, the UN is not interested in having this come out.
“Some of those paid off are French. The French have an interesting law that says the President of France cannot be investigated while he’s holding that office. And the Deuxième Bureau—you know what that is?”
Castillo nodded.
“They regard the agency as a greater threat to La Belle France than the Schutzstaffel ever was, and cooperate accordingly. That’s made looking into this difficult.”
“I can see where it would,” Castillo said.
“Same thing for the Germans,” Delchamps went on. “I’ve still