said.
“Pleased to meet you, too,” Britton said cheerfully, with a broad smile. “It’s always a pleasure to work with the FBI.”
Castillo and Santini smiled. Yung didn’t.
“Where would you like to go, Mr. Castillo?” Yung asked.
“Where are your files?”
“I have some in my office in the embassy and some in my apartment,” Yung said. “I don’t know what you’re after.”
“I’m looking for an American. He works for the UN. His name is Jean-Paul Lorimer.”
Yung shook his head, indicating he’d never heard of him.
Or doesn’t want to give me what he has.
“Which is closer? Your apartment or the embassy?”
“My apartment.”
“Then why don’t we go there? After we stop someplace for breakfast?”
“You didn’t eat before you came over?”
“Yeah, sure I did. But it was so long a flight, I’m hungry again.”
“My car’s out here,” Yung said, and walked out of the terminal.
He walked so quickly he was soon out of earshot.
“Charley,” Britton asked, “why do I think that guy doesn’t like you?”
“You’re perceptive?”
They found an open restaurant not far from the beach.
“Why is the Atlantic Ocean so dirty?” Britton asked.
“That’s not the Atlantic Ocean, that’s the Río de la Plata,” Castillo told him.
“That’s a river?”
“The mouth of the ‘River of Silver’ is a hundred-plus miles wide. The Blue Danube isn’t blue, and the River of Silver is muddy. The Atlantic starts about sixty miles north of here. There’s a resort there called Punta del Este. Point of the East. Pretty classy. The water there is blue.”
“Very handy to launder money,” Santini said.
“Yeah,” Castillo said, thoughtfully.
“How do they do that, launder money?” Britton asked.
“One way is through the casinos,” Santini said. “There’s a bunch of them there. Hell, there’s one right here in Carrasco, a Marriott, and a couple more downtown. The biggest one in Punta del Este is the Conrad, named after, and I think owned by, Hilton. The way it works is that you slip the casino a bunch of cash. Then they let you win, say, ninety percent of it. You declare your gambling winnings, pay taxes on it, and your money is now laundered.”
“You’re telling me that Marriott and Hilton are laundering money?” Britton asked, incredulously.
“Marriott and Hilton, no,” Santini said. “There’s generally at least one legal attaché—which is what they call FBI agents in the diplomatic world—on their premises. Marriott and Hilton are thus reminded of their patriotic duty not to launder money. The locally owned casinos are where it’s done. Isn’t that so, Yung?”
“If you say so,” Special Agent Yung said. He turned to Castillo. “When do you want to see Ambassador McGrory?”
“I don’t need to see him,” Castillo said.
“He wants to see you.”
“I don’t need to see him, at least not today.”
“He wants to see you.”
“So you said.”
“You are aware, aren’t you, Mr. Castillo, that the ambassador is the man in charge of all U.S. government activities in the country to which he is accredited?”
“So I’ve heard,” Castillo said. “We’ll talk about this when we have some privacy.”
Yung didn’t reply.
Yung had a spacious, top-floor apartment in a three-story building on the Rambla, the waterfront highway between Carrasco and Montevideo, to the south.
Yung waved them, not very graciously, into chairs in the living room.
“All right, Mr. Castillo, what can I do for you? I’m sure you’ll understand that I am obliged to report to Ambassador McGrory what may be discussed.”
“Special Agent Yung,” Castillo said icily, “I am now going to show you my credentials identifying me as a supervisory agent of the United States Secret Service.”
He got out of his chair and held his credentials in front of Yung, who examined them and then nodded.
“Are you satisfied that I am Supervisory Special Agent Carlos G. Castillo of the United States Secret Service, Special Agent Yung?”
“I’m satisfied,” Yung said.
“These gentlemen, Special Agents Anthony J. Santini and John M. Britton of the Secret Service, will now show you their credentials. When you are satisfied they are who I am telling you they are, please say so.”
Santini and then Britton got out of their chairs, walked to Yung, showed him their credentials, waited until he nodded, and then went back to their chairs.
“Are you satisfied, Special Agent Yung, that we are all who I am telling you we are?”
“I’m satisfied. Are you going to tell me what—”
“Gentlemen,” Castillo interrupted him. “I want you to make note that at zero-eight-one-zero hours, local time, 29 July 2005, in his residence in Carrasco, Uruguay, we identified ourselves to Special Agent Yung as members of the U.S. Secret Service by showing him our credentials, and