A dot-head with two bawling children was ahead of the blond Italian. As far as Sully was concerned, her kind couldn't leave the country fast enough. Chicken vindaloo was going to end up being the national dish at the rate the goddamn dot-heads were immigrating. The Muslims were worse, of course, but the dot-heads with their unpronounceable names were pretty awful. Last year, when he'd dislocated his arm, the Indian doctor at the clinic had flatly refused to give him a real painkiller. Like maybe he was supposed to do some fakir-style mind control. If his arm wasn't half out of its socket, he would have punched the guy.
Sully glanced at the woman's passport without interest and waved her and her sniveling brood through. The dot-head whore even smelled like saffron.
A young Russian with acne. Last name was German, so probably a Jew. Mafiya? Not his problem just now.
An honest-to-goodness Frenchman and his wife, off to a vacation.
Another goddamn dot-head in a said. Gayatri was the name, and then something unpronounceable. Curry cut.
None of the other men fit the profile: too old, too fat, too young, too short.
Too bad. Maybe it wasn't going to be his lucky day after all.
Anna settled into her coach-class seat, adjusting her said and mentally repeating her name: Gayatri Chandragupta. It wouldn't do to stumble over it if anyone were to ask. She was wearing her long black hair straight back, and when she'd caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window, she hardly recognized herself.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Buenos Aires
Anna looked anxiously through the plate glass of the American Express office at sedate, tree-lined Plaza Libertador General San Martin. The park, once a bull ring, once a slave market, was now dominated by the great bronze statue of General Jose de San Martin astride his horse. The sun blazed fiercely. Inside it was air-conditioned, ice-cold, and quiet.
"Senorita Acampo?"
She turned to see a slender man in a close-fitting blue blazer, stylish heavy black-framed glasses. "I am very sorry, senorita, but we cannot locate this package."
"I don't understand." She switched to Spanish so there would be no mistake: "Esta registrado que lo recibio?"
"We received it, yes, madam, but it cannot be found."
Maddening, but this at least was progress. The last employee had adamantly denied a package had ever been received in her name.
"Are you saying it's lost?"
A quick reflexive shrug like a nervous tic. "Our computers show it was sent from Washington, D.C." and received here yesterday, but after that, I cannot say. If you'll fill out this form, we'll begin a search throughout our system. If it's not located, you're entitled to full replacement value."
Damn it! It seemed unlikely to her that the envelope had been lost. More likely it had been stolen. But by whom? And why? Who knew what was inside? Who knew to look? Had Denneen given her up? She could scarcely credit it. Possibly his phone was tapped, unknown to him. In truth, there were too many potential explanations, and none of them changed the basic fact: if it had been stolen, whoever had done it now knew who she was-and why she was here.
The office of Interpol Argentina is located within the headquarters of the Policia Federal Argentina on Suipacha. Interpol's man in Buenos Aires was Miguel Antonio Peralta, the Jefe Secaon Operaaones. A plaque on his door read subcomisario departamento interpol. He was a round shouldered, bulky man with a large, round head. Strands of black hair matted across the top of his pate advertised his baldness instead of disguising it.
His wood-veneered office was jammed with tributes to Interpol's work. Plaques and commemorative plates from grateful police forces around the world crowded the walls, along with crucifixes and diplomas and images of saints and a framed apostolic benediction on his family from the Pope himself. An antique silver-framed sepia photograph of his policeman father was almost as prominent.
Peralta's lizard eyes were sleepy behind his perfectly round tortoiseshell glasses. A holstered pistol sat atop his gleaming bare desk, the leather holster old but lovingly cared for. He was genial and flawlessly courteous. "You know we are always eager to help in the cause of justice," he said.
"And as my assistant explained, we at CBS find ourselves in a rather competitive situation right now," Anna said. "The people at Dateline are apparently on the verge of locating and exposing this man. If they reach him first, so be it. But I didn't get where I am today by being a pushover. I'm working