[ONE]
Ferihegy International Airport
Budapest, Hungary
1655 6 August 2005
Hungary is not a member of the European Union. It was therefore necessary for Otto Görner and Karl W. von und zu Gossinger to pass through immigration and customs when the Eurojet Taxi deposited them before the small civil-aviation building.
But it was just the briefest of formalities. Not only were their passports quickly stamped by the officer who came aboard the twin-engine jet aircraft but he volunteered the information, “Your driver is waiting, Úr Görner.”
Then he left without even looking at the luggage the pilot and copilot had carried down the stair door.
“Thanks for the ride and the cockpit tour,” Castillo said, in English, offering his hand to the pilot.
“My pleasure, Colonel,” the pilot replied, also in English—American English.
“Maybe we can do it again.”
“Any time. You’ve got our number.”
There had been no other passengers on the flight from Leipzig, which made Castillo wonder if that was coincidence or whether the Cessna Citation III had been sent to pick him up because there would be no smaller aircraft available for some time and Montvale had ordered them to put him at the head of the line.
Just after they had gone wheels-up, he had made his way to the cockpit and asked, in English, “How’s chances of sitting in the right seat and having you explain the panel to me?”
The copilot had exchanged glances with the pilot, who nodded, and then wordlessly got up.
“Thanks,” Castillo said to the pilot as he sat down and strapped himself in.
“Anything special you want to see, Colonel?” the pilot had asked, in English, making it clear that there was no reason to pretend he was anything but an employee of the agency or that Castillo was a German businessman named Gossinger availing himself of Eurojet Taxi’s services.
“How long do you think it would take to show a pilot—several hundred hours in smaller business jets—enough to make him safe to sit in the right seat?”
“These are nice airplanes,” the pilot said. “They come in a little hot, and sometimes, close to max gross, they take a long time to get off the ground, but aside from that they’re not hard to fly. How long it would take would depend on the IP and the student. But not long.”
“I’d really be grateful to be able to sit here and watch until you get it on the ground in Budapest. Is that possible?”
“You know how to work the radios?” the pilot asked and when Castillo nodded the pilot motioned for him to pick up the copilot’s headset and, when Castillo had them on, pointed out on the GPS screen where they were—over the Dresden–Nürnberg Autobahn, near Chemnitz.
I think Montvale will learn that I wanted to sit in the cockpit, but I don’t think he’ll think it’s anything but my boyish enthusiasm for everything connected with flying.
“Good afternoon, Úr Görner,” Sándor Tor greeted them inside the civil-aviation building. “The car’s right outside.”
“Sándor, this is Herr von und zu Gossinger,” Görner said. “And this, Úr von und zu Gossinger, is Sándor Tor, who was supposed to keep Kocian from falling over his goddamned dog and down the stairs.”
“Úr Görner…” Tor began, painfully embarrassed.
“And also, incidentally, to telephone me immediately, at any time, if anything at all out of the ordinary happened to Úr Kocian.”
“Úr Görner…” Tor began again, only to be interrupted again by Görner.
“Why don’t we wait until we’re on our way to the hospital?” Görner said. “Then you can tell us everything.”
“I wish God had put me in that hospital bed instead of Úr Kocian,” Tor said, emotionally.
I think I like you, Sándor Tor, Castillo thought.
In 2002, Otto Görner had reluctantly concluded Eric Kocian, in his eighties, needed protection—protection from himself.
The old man was fond of American whiskey—Jack Daniel’s Black Label in particular—and driving fast Mercedes-Benz automobiles. A combination of the former and his age-reduced reflexes and night vision had seen him in half a dozen accidents, the last two of them spectacular. The final one had put him in hospital and caused the government to cancel his driver’s license.
Otto Görner had come to Budapest and sought out Sándor Tor right after he’d been to Kocian’s hospital room.
“We’re going to have to do something or he’s going to kill himself,” Görner had announced. “It won’t take him long to get his driving license back—he knows where all the politicians keep their mistresses. We have to get this fixed before that happens.”
“You mean get him a chauffeur?”
Görner nodded.
“Good luck, Úr Görner,” Tor had said. “I’m glad I’m not the one who’s going to have to tell him that.”
Görner had smiled and, obviously thinking about what he was going to say, didn’t reply for a moment.
Then he said, “Let me tell you what he said in the hospital just now. Not for the first time, he was way ahead of me.”
Tor waited for Görner to go on.
“‘Before you say anything, Otto,’ he said, the moment I walked in the door, ‘let me tell you how I’m going to deal with this.’”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Tor said.
“‘Sándor Tor will now drive me around,’” Görner quoted.
“No,” Tor said, quickly and firmly, not embracing the idea at all.
“I told him you were the director of security, not a chauffeur,” Görner said.
“And?”
“‘Did you think I don’t know that?’” Görner quoted. “‘As director of security, he carries a gun. I’m getting too old to do that anymore, too. Further-more, Sándor can be trusted to keep his mouth shut about where I go and who I talk to. I don’t want some taxi driver privy to that or listening to my conversations. And, finally, Sándor’s a widower. Driving me around may interfere with his sex life, but at least he won’t go home and regale his wife with tales of what Kocian did today and with whom.’”
“No, Úr Görner,” Tor repeated, adamantly.
“I told him you would say that,” Görner said. “To which he replied, ‘I’ll handle Tor.’”
“No. Sorry, but absolutely not.”
“Do you know, Sándor, how far back Eric Kocian goes with Gossinger, G.m.b.H.?”
“Not exactly. A long time, I know that.”
“He was with Oberstleutnant Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger at Stalingrad,” Görner said. “They met on the ice-encrusted basement floor of a building being used as a hospital. Both were very seriously wounded.”
“I’ve heard that the Herr Oberst had been at Stalingrad…”
“Eric was an eighteen-year-old Gefreite,” Görner went on. “He and the colonel were flown out on one of the very last flights. The colonel was released from hospital first and placed on convalescent leave. He went to visit a friend in the Army hospital in Giessen and ran into Kocian there. Eric had apparently done something for the colonel in Stalingrad—I have no idea what, but the colonel was grateful—so the colonel arranged for him to be assigned to the POW camp he was going to command. The alternative for Kocian was being sent back to the Eastern Front.
“They ended the war in the POW camp and became prisoners themselves. Kocian was released first. He went home to Vienna and learned that the American bombs that had reduced St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Opera to rubble had done the same to his family’s apartment. All of his family, and their friends, were dead.”
“Jesus!” Tor exclaimed, softly.
“His only friend in the world was the colonel. So he made his way back to Germany and Fulda. The presses of the Fulda Tages Zeitung were in the basement of what had been the building. Eric arrived there a day or so after the colonel had been given permission by the Americans to resume publishing. They had found his name on a list the SS had of people they were going to execute for being anti-Nazi and defeatist and he was thus the man they were looking for to run a German newspaper.
“The problem was the presses were at the bottom of a huge pile of rubble that had been the Fulda Tages Zeitung building. Eric Kocian began his journalistic career making one whole Mergenthaler Linotype machine from parts salvaged from the dozen under the rubble.
“A year later, when the Wiener Tages Zeitung got permission from the Americans to resume publishing, Eric was named editor in chief primarily because he had already been cleared by the de-Nazification courts and also because their Linotype machines had to be rescued from the rubble of the Wiener Tages Zeitung building. It was understood that Eric was to be publisher and editor in chief only and that older, wiser, bonafide professional journalists would really run things.
“When the colonel went to Vienna for the ceremonies marking the first edition, he found that Eric had fired the older, wiser, etcetera people, hired his own, and was sitting at the editor in chief’s desk himself.”
“That sounds like him,” Tor said, chuckling.
“Well, he kept the job and now he’s the oldest employee of Gossinger, G.m.b.H. Further, I learned that when the colonel and his brother were killed it was Eric who went to the colonel’s daughter and got her to give me the job of running the business. So I think I owe him.”
“I understand.”
“I realize you don’t owe him a thing—”
Tor held up his hand.
“When my wife was dying, he held my hand, and, later, he got me off the bottle,” Tor said. “Okay, until I can get somebody he can live with, and vice versa—but only until then, understand—I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Somebody Eric Kocian could live with had never appeared. And Tor learned some what to his surprise that he actually had time to both serve as director of security for the Tages Zeitung and keep an eye on the old man.
The job now was more than keeping Kocian from behind the wheel of his Mercedes. A year before, Kocian had begun investigating Hungarian/ Czech/German involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. It personally outraged him.
And when those who had been engaged in it learned of Kocian’s interest in them, they were enraged. There had been a number of threats by e-mail, postal mail, and telephone. Eric Kocian grandly dismissed them.
“Only a fool would kill a journalist,” he said. “The slime of the world need darkness. Killing a journalist would turn a spotlight into their holes and they know it.”
Sándor Tor didn’t believe this for a minute, but he knew that arguing with the old man would be futile. Instead, he had gone to Otto Görner with his fears.
Tor had said, “I think we had better have someone keeping an eye on him around the clock.”
“Do it,” Görner had replied.
“That’s going to be expensive, Úr Görner. I’m talking about at least one man—probably two—in addition to myself, plus cars, around the clock.”
“The cost be damned, Tor. And, for God’s sake, don’t let the old man know he’s being protected. Otherwise, we’ll have to find him to protect him.”
I’m pleased to meet you,” Castillo said, in Hungarian, as he offered his hand. “And you should consider that Úr Görner is even more fond of Billy Kocian than I know you are and is therefore even more upset than you or I about what’s happened.”
“Before God, no one is more sorry than me,” Sándor Tor said. “I love that old man.”
Now I know I like you.
[TWO]
Room 24
Telki Private Hospital
2089 Telki Kórház Fasor 1
Budapest, Hungary
1730 6 August 2005
There was a heavyset man in his fifties sitting in a heavy well-worn captain’s chair in the corridor beside the closed door to room 24. He watched as Görner and Castillo walked down the corridor, and then, when it became clear that Castillo was going to knock at the door, announced, “No visitors.”
That’s a cop, Castillo thought, or my name really is Ignatz Glutz.
“It’s all right,” Otto said. “We’re from the Tages Zeitung.”
He took a business card from the breast pocket of his suit and handed it to the man. The man read it.
“He said, ‘No visitors,’ Úr Görner.”
“Why don’t I tell him I’m here?” Görner said and reached for the door handle.
“He’s got his dog in there,” the man said.
Görner opened the door just a crack and called, “Eric, get your goddamned dog under control. It’s Otto.”
“Go away, Otto Görner!” Kocian called out.
“Not a chance!” Otto called back. “Put that Gottverdammthund on a chain. I’m coming in.”
The response to that was animal—a deep, not too loud but nevertheless frightening growl.
“Got a little cough, have you, Oncle Erik?” Castillo called.
“Goddamn, the plagiarist!” Kocian said.
Görner pushed open the door to room 24.
Eric Kocian was sitting against the raised back of a hospital bed. A large, long black cigar was clamped in his jaw. A roll-up tray was in front of him. It held a laptop computer, a large ashtray, several newspapers, a cellular telephone, a pot of coffee, and a heavy mug. Kocian’s some what florid face, topped with a luxuriant head of naturally curling silver hair, made him at first look younger than he was, but his body—he was naked above the waist—gave him away.
What could be seen of his arms and chest—his left arm was bandaged and in a sling and there was another bloodstained bandage on his upper right chest—was all sagging flesh. There were angry old scars on his upper shoulder and on his abdomen.
Görner had two thoughts, one after the other, in the few seconds before Max, now growling a mouthful of teeth, caught his attention.
My God, he’s nearly eighty-two.
God, even the damned dog is bandaged.
Görner, who usually liked dogs, hated this one and was afraid of him.
Castillo was not.
He squatted just inside the door, smiled, and said, conversationally in Hungarian, “You’re an ugly old bastard, aren’t you? Stop that growling. Not only don’t you scare me but that old man in the bed is really glad to see us.”
The dog stopped growling, sat on its haunches, and cocked his head.
“Come here, Fatso, and I’ll scratch your ears.”
“His name is Max,” Kocian said.
“Come, Max,” Castillo said.
Max got off his haunches and, head still cocked, looked at Castillo.
“Watch out for him, Karl!” Görner exclaimed.
“Come, dammit!” Castillo ordered.
Max took five tentative steps toward Castillo.
Castillo held out his left hand to him.
Max sniffed it, then licked it.
Castillo scratched Max’s ears, close to the bandage. Max sat down again, pressing his massive head against Castillo’s leg, and licked his hand again.
“Max, you sonofabitch,” Kocian said. “You’re supposed to take his hand off, not lick it like a Kartnerstrasse whore!”
“He knows who his friends are,” Castillo said. “So who shot you, Eric? More important, who shot Max?”
“He wasn’t shot,” Kocian said. “One of the bastards clipped him with his pistol.”
“One of your readers, disgruntled with your pro-American editorials?”
“That from a shameless plagiarist?” Kocian asked.
“Am I never to be forgiven?” Castillo asked.
The reference was to Castillo’s habit—to lend authenticity to his alter ego, Karl W. von and zu Gossinger, Washington correspondent for the Tages Zeitung newspapers—of paraphrasing articles from The American Conservative magazine and sending them to Fulda to be published under his byline in the Tages Zeitung newspapers. Kocian had caught him at it.
“Not in this life,” Kocian said, looking incredulously at Castillo and Max, who was now on his back getting his chest scratched.
“Where did you come from, Max?” Castillo asked. “An illicit dalliance between a boar and a really horny dachshund?”
“That’s a Bouvier des Flandres,” Kocian said.
“‘Bouvier’ was Jacqueline Kennedy’s maiden name,” Castillo said.
“I don’t think so! Jesus Christ!” Kocian said.
“I could be wrong,” Castillo said.
“One Bouvier des Flandres bit Corporal Adolf Schickelgruber when he was in Flanders,” Kocian said.
“I told you, he’s a marvelous judge of character,” Castillo said. “What do you mean, one of them bit Hitler?”
“One of them bit Hitler in Flanders in the First World War,” Kocian repeated. “I’ve always wondered if that’s what really happened to Der Führer’s missing testicle. Anyway, Adolf was really annoyed. When the Germans took Belgium in 1940, one of the first things he did was order the breed wiped out.”
“Why do I believe that?” Castillo asked.
“Because I’m telling you,” Kocian said. “I’m not a plagiarist. I can be trusted.”
“Particularly when you’re telling me how you came to be in hospital,” Görner said. “Falling over the dog and down the stairs! Jesus, Eric!”
“It was the best I could think of at the time,” Kocian said, completely un-embarrassed, and then returned to the subject at hand. “I heard the story of the Bouvier taking a piece out of Adolf in Russia and, when I had the chance, I checked it out and I knew I had to have one. So I went to Belgium and bought one. That’s Max VI. Maxes I through V never betrayed me the way that one’s doing.”
“They didn’t know me,” Castillo said.
“So aside from corrupting my dog, what brings you to Budapest, Karlchen?”
“That’s Herr Oberstleutnant Karlchen,” Görner said.
“God, the Herr Oberst must be spinning in his grave!”
“If he is, it’s from pride,” Görner said, sharply.
Kocian considered that and nodded.
“I shouldn’t have said that. The Herr Oberst would have been proud of his grandson being Oberstleutnant, Karlchen.”
“Thank you,” Castillo said.
“You were about to tell me what brings you to Budapest,” Kocian said.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me—the truth—about what happened to you.”
“Okay,” Kocian said after a moment. “You first.”
“I want to be released from my promise to keep the list of names you gave me to myself.”
Kocian didn’t reply directly. Instead, he asked, “By now, I assume you’ve heard that they got to your man Lorimer? In Uruguay, of all places?”
“I was there when he was shot,” Castillo said.
Kocian pursed his lips thoughtfully, then asked, “Who done it?”
“One of the six guys in dark blue coveralls who went to Lorimer’s estancia to do it.”
“How come they didn’t get you, too, if you were there?”
“I couldn’t ask them. They were all dead.”
“Not identifiable?”
“No.”
“Sounds like the people who got me,” Kocian said. “Max and I were taking a midnight stroll on the Franz Joséf Bridge—”
“The where?” Görner asked.
“They now call it the Szabadság híd, Freedom Bridge. I don’t. Freedom has many meanings. Franz Joséf means Franz Joséf. I remain one of his admirers.”
“Going off at a tangent,” Castillo said. “There’s a country club called Mayerling outside Buenos Aires.”
“Really?” Kocian asked.
“Yeah, really.”
“Well, I’ll have to have a look at it when I go to Argentina,” Kocian said.
“What are you two talking about? What’s Mayerling?” Görner asked. “What do you mean, when you go to Argentina?”
“Mayerling was the Imperial Hunting Lodge outside Vienna,” Castillo said, “where Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, on being told he had to give up his sixteen-year-old tootsie, shot her and then shot himself.”
“According to my father, it’s where Franz Joséf had him shot on learning he had been talking to people about becoming king of Hungary,” Kocian said.
“My aunt Olga told me that version, too,” Castillo said.
“A great lady,” Kocian said. “And you remember? I’m impressed. You were only a kid—seven, eight, maybe nine—when she died.”
“And what do you mean, when you go to Argentina?” Castillo said.
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m telling you what happened to me,” Kocian said. “Max and I were coming back from taking a midnight snack across the river. We were about halfway across the Franz Joséf Bridge when I sensed there were people approaching us from behind. That happens often. You’d be surprised how many young Hungarians think robbing old men out walking late at night is a lot more fun than getting a job. Max loves it. He gets to growl a little, show them his teeth, and after they wet their pants, drop their knives or whatever they had planned to hit me in the head with, he gets to chase them off the bridge.”
Castillo chuckled.
“This time, it wasn’t young men. This time, it’s two full-grown men, with a third man driving a Mercedes. And the guy who got pretty close before Max grabbed him wasn’t carrying a knife. He had a hypodermic needle in his slimy little hand. Had had. By the time I saw it, Max was chewing on his arm and he’d dropped it.”
“My God!” Görner exclaimed.
“The second thug pulled out a pistol and started beating Max on the head with it. I jumped on him and then the Mercedes pulled up and the second guy got away from me and got in it. Off they drove. They stopped ten meters away, maybe a little more, and started shooting at me through an open window. And then they drove off for good. The license plates, it turned out, they’d stolen off a Ford Taurus.”
“What happened to the guy with the hypo?” Castillo asked.
“He was begging—in German—for me to get Max off him.”
“What happened to the needle?” Castillo asked.
“The cops have it.”
“By any wild coincidence was it loaded with bupivacaine? Or something similar?”
“This one was loaded with phenothiazine,” Kocian said. “I have been told they use it on lunatics. What’s the wild coincidence you were hoping to find?”
“When Masterson’s wife—”
“Masterson being your murdered diplomat in Buenos Aires?” Kocian interrupted.
Castillo nodded. He went on: “When she was kidnapped in a restaurant parking lot, they jabbed her in the buttocks with a hypo full of bupivacaine.”
“Very interesting,” Kocian said. “But, sorry. No match.”
“What about the guy this adorable puppy almost ate?”
“He’s in jail. His story, which I think he may get away with, is that he’s a vacationing housepainter from Dresden who was walking on the bridge when I made an indecent proposal to him, attempted to fondle his private parts, and when he resisted and pushed me away my dog attacked him.”
“How did he explain the hypo?”
“He never saw it before; therefore, it probably belongs to the old pervert.” He paused and looked at Otto. “That’s why I told you I fell over Max, Otto. I knew you’d be delighted to accept the old pervert story.”
“My God, Eric!”
“What’s going to happen to this guy?”
“I told the cops—in particular, the police commissioner, who is an old pal of mine—to see if he can connect him with Stasi…”
“They’re out of business, aren’t they?”
“You can ask a question like that and still get promoted as an intelligence officer?”
“You have all the answers, you tell me,” Castillo said.
“Did you ever think about it, Karlchen?” the old man asked and Castillo had a sudden insight: From now on, when he calls me Karlchen it will be because he has decided I am either impossibly ignorant or have done something monumentally stupid.
“Think about what?”
“What happened to the better agents of the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic, commonly known as Stasi, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and peace and loving-kindness descended on our beloved Germany?”
“Frankly, I never gave it much thought.”
“Maybe you should have, Karlchen,” Kocian said. “Well, I’ll tell you this, very few of them became bakers, cobblers, or took Holy Orders.”
“Okay, so what are they doing? For whom? Who’s paying them?”
“If you have to ask that, you must believe that once democracy came to the former Soviet Union, Russia really became the ‘friendly bear’ your President Roosevelt always thought it was. While you’re here in Budapest you should go over to Andrassy Ut 60. Broaden your professional horizons.”
“I’ll bite. What’s at Andrassy Ut 60?”
“Now it’s a museum. It used to be the headquarters of the AVO, and then the AVH. The Allamvedelmi Osztaly and the Allamvedelmi Hatosag. I don’t suppose you have any idea what that means.”
“I didn’t know the address,” Castillo said, “or that they had turned it into amuseum.”
“Great museum. They not only have a ZIS-110 in the lobby…”
“What’s a ZIS-110?” Görner asked.
“…Formerly the limousine of the head of the AVH…” Kocian continued, only to be interrupted again.
“A Russian copy of the 1942 Packard Super Eight,” Castillo said. “Stalin showed up in Yalta in one. Reserved for really big shots.”
“Maybe the plagiarist isn’t as ignorant as he sometimes sounds,” Kocian said. “And the walls are covered with pictures of people the bastards garroted in the basement. The garrote gallows is also in the basement.”
“Now, that’s interesting,” Castillo said. “I’d forgotten that.”
“You forgot what?” Görner asked.
“The NKVD’s preferred method of execution was a pistol bullet in the back of the head,” Castillo explained. “The People’s Court found you guilty and then they marched you straight into a room in the basement and shot you in the base of the skull. Stasi and the Hungarian State Security Bureau—AVO and AVH—weren’t that nice. They…”
My God, Görner thought, he’s lecturing me like a schoolboy. But, it would seem that my little Karlchen really is knowledgeable. I’m a journalist, I’m supposed to know these things. And I didn’t. More than that, he sounds like, acts like, an intelligence officer who knows his profession.
“…took you into the basement,” Castillo went on, “stood you on a stool under the garrote gallows, put the rope around your neck, and then kicked the stool away.”
“You mean to say they hung their…prisoners?” Görner asked.
“No. Hanging is when they drop the…executee…through a trap in a gallows. The rope around the neck usually has a special knot designed to break the executee’s neck with the force of the fall.”
He mimed a knot forcing his head to one side.
“That usually causes instant death as the spinal cord is cut,” Castillo went on. “Garrote executees don’t fall far enough to break their neck. The rope is just a loop around their neck, so they die of strangulation. It takes sometime.”
“And you find this fascinating, Karlchen?” Görner asked, more than a little horrified.
“They also had the habit, when taking out people they didn’t like, and wanted it known that Stasi or the AVO/AVH had done it, to garrote them. Sort of a trademark.”
“Fascinating!” Görner said, sarcastically.
“What’s fascinating is that one of the men with me at Estancia Shangri-La, who had been around the block a lot of times, was garroted.”
“Estancia Shangri-La?” Kocian asked. “How picturesque!”
“Lorimer’s farm in Uruguay,” Castillo explained. “They took out my guy by garroting him and they used…”
He stopped in midsentence as the door opened.
A small, slight man in his middle fifties, wearing a white hospital tunic, came into the room followed by a younger man—also a doctor, Castillo decided—and a nurse.
“You’re not supposed to be smoking,” the first doctor announced. “And you promised to get that dog out of here.”
“Four people have tried to take Max out of here,” Kocian replied. “He took small nips out of each of them. You’re welcome to try. And I have been smoking longer than you’re old and I am not about to stop now. Say hello to my boss.”
The doctor put out his hand to Görner.
“No. The young one,” Kocian said, switching to German. “Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. The fat one’s another of his flunkies.”
“I never know when to believe him,” the doctor confessed, putting out his hand to first Görner and then Castillo. “I’m Dr. Czerny. I’m the chief of staff.”
“If you’re treating him, Doctor, you have my sympathy,” Castillo said, in Hungarian.
“You’re Hungarian?” Dr. Czerny asked, surprised.
“I had a Hungarian aunt.”
“He’s mostly German and Hungarian, with a little Mexican thrown in,” Kocian said. “Tell us about…what was the name of that drug in Argentina, Karlchen?”
“Bupivacaine,” Castillo furnished.
“Tell us about bupivacaine, please, Doctor,” Kocian said.
The doctor shook his head.
“What do you want to know about bupivacaine? And why?”
“I’m an old man. Indulge me. What would have happened if the housepainter’s hypodermic had been loaded with bupivacaine and he had succeeded in sticking it into my rump?”
Dr. Czerny smiled.
“You’re amused?” Kocian demanded, indignantly.
Dr. Czerny nodded, then explained: “Your rump would have gone numb for, oh, two hours or so. Bupivacaine is a drug commonly used by dentists to numb the gums.”
“You’re sure, Doctor?” Castillo asked.
Czerny nodded.
“If you’re ever going to be a decent journalist, Karlchen, you’re going to have to start checking your facts,” Kocian said, triumphantly. “And, of course, stop plagiarizing.”
“The doctor in the German hospital in Buenos Aires,” Castillo said as much to himself as to them, “told me it was bupivacaine.”
“That’s something else you should keep in mind, Karlchen. Never trust what a doctor tells you. They only tell you what they think you should know. Isn’t that right, Czerny?”
“My father used to say you were the most difficult person he had ever known,” Dr. Czerny said, smiling.
“How long are you going to have to put up with him, Doctor?” Castillo asked.
“Well, once he regains his sanity, there’s no reason he couldn’t leave here in a day or two.”
“His general sanity? Or is there something specific?” Görner asked.
“When I walked in here this morning, I thought he was having a heart attack,” the doctor said. “But what it was, he was on the telephone and Air France had just told him they would not carry that animal to Buenos Aires.”
“Aerolineas Argentina will be happy to accommodate Max,” Kocian said. “But I’ll have to take the damned train to Madrid. They don’t fly into Budapest. And Max doesn’t like trains.”
“I have no idea why he wants to go to Argentina,” Dr. Czerny said. The implication was that it was one of the reasons he doubted Kocian’s sanity. “And he won’t tell me.”
“That’s because it’s none of your damned business,” Kocian explained.
“What is my business, Eric, personal and professional, is that you’re getting pretty long in the tooth and you have just been shot—twice—and I’m not going to stand idly by while you go halfway around the world, alone and in bandages. And with that damned dog.”
“Your father, may his soul rest in peace, Fredric, could call me by my Christian name. I don’t recall giving you that privilege,” Kocian said. “And don’t call Max ‘that damned dog.’”
“I beg your pardon,” Dr. Czerny said.
“Doctor, for the sake of argument, supposing he could get someone to go with him to Argentina,” Castillo asked, carefully, “and stay with him while he’s there, would that be all right? I mean, could he stand the strain?”
“In a couple of days, why not?” Dr. Czerny said.
It was clear that Dr. Czerny had concluded that Castillo had come up with a way to calm Kocian down and that Otto Görner had concluded that Castillo had lost his mind.
“Well, let’s have a look at you, Úr Kocian,” Dr. Czerny said. “Will you excuse us a moment, please?”
He started to draw a curtain around the bed. Max stood up, showed his teeth, and growled softly but deeply.
“Come on, Max,” Castillo said. “Let’s go terrorize people in the corridor.”
Max looked doubtful for a moment, then followed Castillo out of the room.
As soon as he had closed the door to room 24, Otto Görner grabbed Castillo’s arm.
“You’re not actually thinking about taking him to Argentina, are you, Karl?”
“For one thing, do you think we’d be able to stop him from going to Argentina?” Castillo replied, and then went on without giving Görner a chance to reply: “The people who tried to kill him—the needle full of phenothiazine makes me think they were going to question him, which means torture him, to see what he knew before killing him—are almost certainly going to have another try at him. I can protect him a lot better in Argentina than I can here. And if I take him on the Gulfstream, there will be no record of him having bought a ticket to go anywhere. That’ll take them off his trail for at least a few days.”
Görner considered that for thirty seconds, then asked: “When will your airplane be here?”
Castillo thought out loud: “It was probably ten, Washington time, by the time Dick had the cashier’s check from the Riggs Bank. Torine said twelve hours from then. That would make it ten tonight, and how far ahead of Washington is Budapest? Five hours this time of year?”
“Six,” Görner furnished.
“That’ll put them into Ferihegy at four tomorrow morning. Figure an hour—maybe a little more—to clear customs and get to the Gellért. Five o’clock. I think we’d better spend a day here, both to give Billy a chance to get his stuff together and for Torine and Fernando to get some rest.”
Görner nodded.
“You can protect him in Argentina?” he asked.
Castillo nodded. “But I’m a little worried about here. That one cop doesn’t look like much protection. Can you do something about that?”
Görner took his cellular telephone from his pocket and punched an autodial button.
Thirty seconds later, he said, “As soon as someone wakes up long enough to answer the goddamned telephone at the Budapester Tages Zeitung, there will be people from the security service here within fifteen minutes.”
“Can they be trusted?”
“Eric trusts them,” Görner said and then turned his attention to his cellular telephone: “Hier ist Generaldirektor Görner…”
[THREE]
Room 24
Telki Private Hospital
2089 Telki Kórház Fasor 1
Budapest, Hungary
1750 6 August 2005
Doctor Fredric Czerny put his head into the corridor and, shaking his head in what was obviously resignation, signaled for Castillo and Görner to come into Eric Kocian’s room.
“Úr Kocian and I are negotiating his release from the hospital,” he said. “He wishes you to participate.”
Max trotted after them, sat on his haunches by the bed, and offered Kocian his paw.
“Traitor!” Kocian said but took the paw and then caressed Max’s massive head.
“What are the points in dispute?” Castillo asked.
“I told him I would release him probably tomorrow afternoon, as I think he needs another day of bed rest,” Czerny explained.
“And I said if I have to spend another day in bed, I would prefer to do so in my own bed instead of on this Indian bed of nails,” Kocian said. “Starting right now.”
“My counteroffer was to release him after breakfast tomorrow, with the caveat he will actually go to his bed and stay there for twenty-four hours. he said that whether he stays in bed depends on when you plan to leave for Argentina.”
“Very early in the morning, the day after tomorrow,” Castillo said.
“Why then?” Kocian asked.
“Because that’s when the plane leaves,” Castillo said.
“You understand Max is going?”
“I understand Max is going,” Castillo said. “I couldn’t leave him; we’re pals.”
Kocian snorted, then said: “You see, Fredric? We have reached agreement. I will leave your charnel house in the morning. Before breakfast, as the food you serve in here would poison an oxen.”
“You will leave after breakfast and after I have another look at you in the morning, and then only if Úr Gossinger will guarantee that you will go directly from here to your apartment and get in bed and stay there.”
“Will I be paroled, Karlchen, to have a bath and attend to necessary bodily functions?”
“As long as you’re quick about it and the bath is in your bathroom,” Castillo said. “Doctor, I’ll see that he stays in bed if I have to chain him to it.”
“You may well find yourself doing just that,” Dr. Czerny said, quickly shook Castillo’s and Görner’s hands, and walked out of the room.
“There will be security people from the Tages Zeitung here in a couple of minutes,” Otto Görner announced. “And I will arrange with them to take you from here to your apartment in the morning.”
“Do you ever think before you act, Otto?” Kocian asked.
“Something’s wrong?” Görner said.
“Max dislikes security people,” Kocian explained. “They apparently have a special smell. Max tends to bite people he dislikes and the security people know it. They may go on strike.”
Castillo said, “I want you alive, so you can talk to me. These people will keep you alive until I can get you on the airplane.” He paused. “What about the cop at the door? Max has no problem with him.”
“There is an exception to every rule,” Kocian said. “And I suspect the cop—his name is Kádár—has been feeding Max leberwurst. Max likes leberwurst.”
“So we will get the security people a supply of leberwurst,” Castillo said.
Kocian considered this a moment.
“No. Hanging around my bed of pain is no fun for Max,” he said, finally. “And the cop at the door has already been there too long. So when my security people arrive, I will send him away. And you will take Max to my apartment. You may stay with him, providing you take him for a late-night walk.”
“Two questions,” Castillo said. “Where is your apartment? And will they let me into it?”
“On the top floor of the Hotel Gellért,” Kocian replied, the expression on his face making it obvious he thought Castillo should have known where he lived. “And if you’re with Max, of course they will. You will find dog food in the kitchen, and there will be some beef bones in the refrigerator. He gets one large, or two small, only after he eats his dog food.”
“Yes, sir. And what does he like for dessert?”
“There is a dish of chocolates beside my chair. He gets two only.”
“Okay.”
“For reasons I can’t imagine, chocolate is supposed to be bad for dogs. In Max’s case, too much chocolate causes flatulence—and he can clear a room with it—so be wise and strong when he begs for more. He’s a very appealing beggar.”
“I’ll remember.”
“There’s a leash hanging from the door handle,” Kocian said. “You’d better put him on it. Unless I am there, Max tends to go pretty much where he wants to.”
Two minutes later, there was a knock at the door and two burly men—obviously armed under their suits—came into the room, saw Max, and stayed close to the door. Max growled softly but deeply and showed a thin but impressive row of teeth.
“What did I tell you?” Kocian asked.
“How many of you are there?” Castillo asked.
They looked at him but didn’t answer, looking instead at Görner.
“You can tell him,” Kocian said. “That’s Herr Karl von und zu Gossinger.”
“There are three of us, Herr Gossinger,” one of the men said, in German.
“You heard what happened to Mr. Kocian?” Castillo asked, in Hungarian.
Both nodded. The same man said, “Mr. Kocian was assaulted on the Szabadság híd.”
“It was not a robbery. It was far more serious and it may well happen again,” Castillo said.
They both nodded again.
“I want two men outside this door at all times,” Castillo ordered. “And I want at least two more close by.”
“I can have another man—as many men as you would like, sir—here in fifteen minutes.”
“Get two,” Castillo ordered. “Do you know how to use your pistols?”
“They’re all retired policemen, Úr Gossinger,” Kocian answered for them.
“Everyone has cellular telephones?” Castillo asked.
They nodded.
“If anything at all suspicious happens, you notify first the police and then me. That means you will have to give me one of your telephones. I will be in Úr Kocian’s apartment.”
The man who had spoken gestured for the other to give Castillo his cellular telephone.
“Thank you,” Castillo said, examining it. “And how do I call you with this?”
The man showed him.
“In the morning, we are going to move Úr Kocian from here to his apartment. We don’t want anyone to know we’re doing that, which means we don’t want anyone to see him leaving the hospital or entering the hotel. He will be in a wheelchair. Suggestions, please?”
“I will not be in a wheelchair,” Kocian announced.
“Úr Kocian will be in a wheelchair,” Castillo repeated.
“We could get a van from the Tages Zeitung, sir. Back it up to the loading dock in the basement of the hospital and then do the same thing at the Gellért.”
“I want one of you to drive the van,” Castillo ordered. “And when you are prepared to leave, I want you to call me. You will say, ‘Úr Kocian is having his breakfast and waiting for the doctor.’”
The man nodded and smiled.
“Did I say something amusing?” Castillo asked. “You’re smiling.”
“Excuse me, sir. I was just thinking you sound more like a policeman than a newspaper publisher.”
“Think what you like about me, but don’t repeat what you’re thinking.”
“No offense intended, sir.”
“None taken,” Castillo said.
“Sir,” the man said. “We will take good care of Úr Kocian and get him safely and discreetly to the Gellért in the morning.”
“Good,” Castillo said.
He meant that. Obviously, he really likes Eric. Why should that surprise me?
“There is one thing, sir…”
“Which is?”
“The dog, sir. Sometimes he can be difficult…”
“What it is,” Kocian said, “is that you smell like leberwurst.”
“I’m taking Max with me,” Castillo said.
The man’s face registered both surprise and relief.
“I think that would be best, sir.”
Sándor Tor was waiting with the silver Mercedes-Benz S500 when Görner and Castillo walked out of the hospital door. Max lunged toward it, towing Castillo after him.
“I called the office and had them send other security people over,” Görner said.
“I saw them,” Tor said. “He ran off the people I had placed in the corridor.” He paused, then asked, “How is he?”
“He’s all right,” Görner said. “The hospital will never be the same, but Úr Kocian is fine.”
“He also ran me off,” Tor said. “He said I made him nervous.”
“Having you around would be like admitting he needed your protection,” Castillo said.
“After you drop us at the Gellért, you can come back here and go see him. Your excuse will be that Úr Gossinger”—he nodded at Castillo—“suggested you drive the van in the morning.”
“The van in the morning?”
“We’re going to move him, very quietly, to the Gellért in the morning,” Castillo said. “Tell him I just put you in charge of the movement.”
“Thank you very much, Úr Gossinger.”
Tor opened a rear door of the Mercedes.
Max, nearly knocking Castillo off his feet, jumped in and sat up on the seat.
“Jesus,” Castillo said, letting go of the leash and tossing it into the car. “Go ahead, Otto. I’ll get in front.”
Görner started to get in the back. Max announced he didn’t think that was the way things should be by showing a thin row of teeth and growling.
“Damn that dog!” Görner said and got in the front passenger’s seat.
Castillo got in the back. Max showed he thought that was a very good idea by leaning over and lapping Castillo’s face.
“The Gellért, right, Úr Görner?” Tor asked when he was behind the wheel.
“No,” Castillo said. “Take us to the American embassy, please.”
Görner looked at him in surprise but didn’t say anything.
[FOUR]
The Embassy of the United States of America
Szabadság tér 12
Budapest, Hungary
1825 6 August 2005
There was a Marine sergeant on guard behind a bulletproof-glass window in the lobby of the seven-story century-old mansion housing the United States embassy.
“Sir, you can’t bring a dog in here,” the sergeant said.
“Think of him as a friend of man, like a Seeing Eye dog,” Castillo replied.
The sergeant smiled, but said, “Sir, that’s the rules.”
Otto Görner watched as C. G. Castillo slid his Secret Service credentials through the slot under the glass. The sergeant examined them carefully, then returned them.
“Why don’t we get the ambassador on the horn and see if he won’t make an exception for my puppy?” Castillo asked.
“Sir, the ambassador’s not in the embassy.”
“Well, then get the duty officer down here,” Castillo said. “And I’m going to have to speak to the ambassador, so why don’t you, one, call the duty officer and, two, get the ambassador on that phone for me?”
He pointed to a telephone on the counter.
The Marine guard picked up the change of tenor in Castillo’s voice—from We’re joking with each other to That’s a command.
“One moment, sir,” he said and picked up his telephone.
The ambassador came on the line very quickly.
“And how are you, Mr. Castillo?” he asked. “Actually, I’ve been expecting you.”
“A little bird named Montvale told you I was coming?”
“And that he wants to speak to you.”
“I need a secure line, sir, to do just that,” Castillo said.
“Not a problem. Tell the Marine guard to pick up.”
“And I need a waiver, sir, of your no-canines-on-the-property rule.”
“You’ve got a dog with you?”
“Yes, sir. A sweet puppy who whines piteously when I tie him to a fence or something and leave him.”
The ambassador laughed. “Okay. The Marine can handle that, too.”
“And I need to see the man who gets his pay from Langley.”
“That’s not a problem at all. He’s probably with my duty officer, waiting for you to show up so he can tell you personally that Ambassador Montvale wishes to speak with you.”
Two men came into the lobby through the metal-detector arch. They were both in their forties and both were wearing dark gray summer-weight suits that Castillo suspected had come from Brooks Brothers.
“I think they have both just walked into the lobby, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Hand the phone to one of them,” the ambassador said.
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Happy to be of service,” the ambassador said.
Castillo handed the phone to the nearest of the two Americans.
“The ambassador,” he said.
The second man said, “Sir, the embassy has a rule about dogs.”
Max growled. The second man looked very uncomfortable.
“I have just been granted a waiver,” Castillo said.
The man holding the telephone said “Yes, sir” into it a half dozen or so times, then handed the phone to Castillo. “The ambassador wishes to speak with you, Mr. Castillo.”
“Yes, sir?” Castillo said into the handset.
“If there’s anything else you need, Mr. Castillo, just call me.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“Get the Marine guard on the line, please. If I tell him you’re to have the keys to the kingdom, it’ll be easier.”
“Thanks again, sir,” Castillo said and motioned for the guard to pick up his telephone.
“Why don’t we go inside?” the man who had been talking to the ambassador asked, gesturing to the metal-detector arch.
Otto Görner asked with his eyes what he was supposed to do. Castillo, making no effort to hide the gesture, motioned for him to go through the metal detector.
“And this gentleman is, Mr. Castillo?” the man who had talked with the ambassador asked, looking at Görner.
“This is Mr. Smith. He’s with me.”
“I really have to have a name, Mr. Castillo.”
“You’d really like to have a name, so that you can tell Ambassador Montvale who I had with me. That’s not quite the same thing.”
“And this gentleman is, Mr. Castillo?” the man repeated.
Okay, so you’re the resident spook. I sort of thought you might be.
“Sergeant, will you get the ambassador on the horn again?” Castillo said, raising his voice.
The two locked eyes for a moment. Then the man said, “That won’t be necessary, Sergeant. If you’ll follow me, gentlemen, please?”
They passed through the metal-detector arch. As the man Castillo had decided was the CIA station chief went through it, the device buzzed and a red light began to flash.
Why does that make me think you’re carrying a gun?
So thank you, metal detector, for bringing that to mind.
An elevator took them all to the basement, where the second man walked ahead of them to a heavy steel door and opened it with a key.
Inside was a bare room, with four unmarked doors leading off it.
“Mr. Castillo,” the CIA man announced, “I have been instructed to tell you that Ambassador Montvale wants to talk with you as soon as possible.”
“And behind one of these doors is a secure phone?” Castillo asked.
The CIA man nodded.
“Okay,” Castillo said. “And while I’m talking to Montvale, please get me a weapon. Black. Preferably an Uzi, with a spare magazine.”
Görner’s eyes widened for an instant.
“I’m not sure that I can do that, Mr. Castillo,” the CIA man said.
“You don’t have a Uzi?”
“Provide you with a weapon.”
“You can either check that out with the ambassador or wait until I have Ambassador Montvale on the line and he will tell you that you can.”
“May I ask why you need a weapon?”
“No,” Castillo said, simply.
The two locked eyes again for a moment, then the CIA man took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked one of the steel doors. It opened on a small room furnished with a table and a secretary’s chair. On the table were two telephones—one of them with a very heavy cord—a legal tablet, a water glass holding half a dozen pencils, and an ashtray. Hanging from a nail driven into a leg of the table were a dozen or more plastic bags of the sort used by grocery stores. BURN was printed all over them in large red letters.
The CIA man waved Castillo into the room and, when Castillo had sat down, picked up the telephone with the heavy cord.
“This is Franklin,” he said. “I am about to hand the phone to Mr. Castillo, who has been cleared to call anywhere.”
He handed the telephone to Castillo.
“Thank you,” Castillo said. “Please close the door.”
“Certainly.”
And don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass.
If I were this guy, I would now go into the commo room, which is certainly behind one of those other doors, put on a set of earphones, turn on a recorder, and listen to what this Castillo character is going to talk to Montvale about.
Fuck him. Let him listen. The only thing he’s going to learn from this conversation is that I don’t work for Ambassador Charles W. Montvale.
Castillo waited fifteen seconds and then put the handset to his ear.
“You on there, Franklin?” he asked, conversationally.
There was no reply. Castillo hadn’t expected one.
But he was doing more than giving Franklin a hard time. If Franklin was listening and recording the conversation—and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Franklin would be—he was almost certainly using one of the recorders in the commo room. Castillo was familiar with most of the recorders used. They shared one characteristic. The recordings were date and time-stamped, down to one-tenth of a second. That data could not be changed or deleted.
Franklin, therefore, could not pretend if he played the recording for someone—or, more likely, sent it to Langley, or, even more likely, to Montvale himself—that he had not been asked if he was listening. The embassy was U.S. soil; therefore, the laws of the United States applied. Without a wiretap authorization issued by a federal judge, it is a felonious violation of the United States Code to record a conversation unless one of the parties to the conversation is aware that the conversation is being recorded.
He could of course make a written transcript of the conversation, leaving out the “You on there, Franklin?” That not only would look odd but he would be asked, “What happened to the recording itself?”
“If you are on there, Franklin,” Castillo said, still conversationally, “you should not be. You are advised that this communication is classified Top Secret Presidential and you do not have that clearance.”
“Sir?” a male voice came on the line.
Castillo knew it had to be whoever was in charge of the communications room.
“My name is C. G. Castillo. Get me the White House switchboard on a secure line, please.”
“One moment, sir.”
“White House.”
“This is the U.S. embassy, Budapest,” the male voice said. “Please confirm we are on a secure line.”
“Confirm line is secure.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Castillo,” the communications room man said.
“C. G. Castillo. Can you patch me through to Ambassador Montvale, please?”
“Colonel, Secretary Hall wishes to speak with you.”
Colonel? Boy, that news got around quick, didn’t it?
“Secretary Hall first, please. On a secure line, please.”
“One moment, sir.”
“Secretary Hall’s secure line. Isaacson.”
“Hey, Joel. Charley. Is the boss around?”
“Oh, he is indeed, Colonel,” Isaacson said. “Hold on.”
Charley faintly heard “Charley for you, boss,” then Hall’s reply, also faint, “Finally.”
And then the Honorable Matthew Hall, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, came clearly on the line.
“Hello, Charley. Where are you?”
“Budapest, sir.”
“You didn’t go to Berlin, I gather?”
He knows about that?
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
Oh, I don’t want to answer that.
How the hell can I say “Because I didn’t want Montvale ordering me around” without sounding as if I am very impressed with myself?
Hall, sensing Castillo’s hesitation, added: “I understand you had a couple of sips at the Army-Navy Club to celebrate your promotion.”
Obviously, Naylor told Hall about that.
Thank God!
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“He’s been on the phone several times…”
He who? Naylor or Montvale?
“…the first time to tell me the two of you had come to an understanding…”
Okay, he means Montvale.
“…and that you were going to keep him in your loop. The last several calls, he wondered where you were, since you told somebody you wouldn’t be going to Berlin.”
“I think by now he knows where I am, sir.”
“You’ve spoken to him?”
“I used an air taxi with which he has a connection.”
There was a pause. After a moment, Hall said, “Okay. I get it. And the last several times, he’s been very interested in explosive briefcases. Asked me if I had heard about them. I told him I hadn’t.”
“There’s nothing to tell, sir.”
“Later, Joel told me Tom McGuire had told him about it. I understand. But our mutual friend seemed very surprised that you hadn’t passed this information on to him or me.”
“Dick Miller told him about the briefcases. I told him to tell him.”
Why are we talking in verbal code on a secure line?
Because Hall thinks it’s entirely possible that “our mutual friend” has told the friendly NSA folks at Fort Meade that it might be a good idea to scan Hall’s calls for names like “Montvale.” And he could easily do that. The National Security Agency works for him. No problem, either, with decrypting a White House secure line. NSA provides the encryption code to the White House.
“Dick told me. Just consider that a heads-up, Charley.”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
“What are you doing in Budapest?”
“I’m trying to get a source to relieve me from a promise that I wouldn’t pass a list of names he gave me to anyone else,” Castillo said. “I’m going to tell our mutual friend that when I talk to him. Which I will do as soon as we’re finished.”
“And where do you go from Budapest?”
“Sir, do you really want to know?”
Hall perceptibly thought that over before replying: “No, I don’t. You don’t work for me anymore. There’s no reason you should tell me. But, Charley, I suspect our mutual friend is going to ask you the same question.”
“I don’t work for our mutual friend, either, sir.”
There was another pause before Hall responded: “Charley, can you handle your arrangement with our mutual friend?”
“I really hope so, sir.”
“Another of our mutual friends, an old friend of yours…”
That has to be General Naylor.
“…doesn’t think so. The way he put it was he always thought David got awful lucky with that slingshot.”
What the hell does that mean?
Oh! David, as in David and Goliath.
“Sir, I’m not going to try to bring Goliath down. All I want him to do is leave me alone.”
“That was Jefferson Davis’s philosophy in the Civil War. He didn’t want to defeat the North. All he wanted was for the North to leave the South alone. You know how that turned out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s one more option, Charley,” Hall said.
“Prayer?”
Hall chuckled, then said, “I’ll have a word with the President, get him to get him off your back.”
When Castillo didn’t immediately reply, Hall added: “That’s my idea, Charley. Not our friend’s.”
After a long moment, Castillo said, “Why don’t we wait and see how it goes?”
Hall didn’t respond directly. Instead, he said, “His tactic is going to be damning you by faint praise. He’s already started. ‘You’re a fine young man but inexperienced. You need a wise, guiding hand on your shoulder, to keep you from doing something impulsive and unwise.’ He’s going to keep repeating that—or something like it—until one day you’re going to do something impulsive and unwise. And then the President will tell you something like, ‘Before you do something like that again, you’d better check that with Mon…our friend.’ And that will put you in our friend’s pocket.”
“When I worked for you, I had one,” Castillo replied. “A wise hand on my shoulder.”
“That’s not true but thank you.”
“I guess I’m going to have to be careful not to act unwisely on an impulse.”
“That’s an open offer, Charley. Nonexpiring, in other words.”
“Thank you,” Castillo said, very seriously, and then chuckled.
“Speaking of the Civil War, sir, you remember what Lee said at Appomattox Court House? ‘I would rather face a thousand deaths, but now I must go to treat with General Grant.’ I would rather face a thousand deaths, but now I have to get our friend on the horn.”
That made Hall chuckle and then he said, “There’s a big difference, Charley. You’re not going there with the intention of handing him your sword, are you?”
“No. But, on the other hand, I was never very good with a slingshot, either.”
Hall laughed.
“Keep in touch, Charley.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Castillo tapped the telephone switch several times.
“White House.”
“Will you get me Ambassador Montvale, please? And verify that the line is secure, please.”
“One moment, please.”
Director Montvale’s secure line. Truman Ellsworth speaking.”
“Colonel Castillo on a secure line for Director Montvale,” the White House operator said.
“I’ll take it.”
Like hell you will, Castillo thought.
he said, “Mr. Ellsworth?”
“How are you, Colonel? We’ve been expecting to hear from you.”
“Would you take a message to Ambassador Montvale for me?”
“Certainly.”
“Please tell him that I’ll be in the U.S. embassy in Budapest for the next fifteen minutes if he wants to talk to me.”
“I’m not sure the ambassador will be available within that time frame, Colonel.”
“That’s all the time frame I have available.”
“You understand, I hope, Colonel, that anything you’d like to say to the ambassador you can say to me.”
“I’m calling because I understand the ambassador has a message for me.”
“You’re talking about the message sent to Berlin?”
“I know there was a message sent to Berlin for me, but I haven’t seen it. The man who called me was unwilling to tell me what the message said, only that there was a message I could have only if I went to Berlin. I didn’t have time to do that. Can you give it to me?”
“I see. Well, Colonel, the idea was that you would go to Berlin and, once you’d received the ambassador’s message, get on a secure line at the embassy there.”
“Okay. Well, that’s moot. When I walked in the embassy here, Mr. Franklin gave me a similar message. Which is the reason I placed the call. I’ll be available here if the ambassador becomes available in the next”—he paused and checked his watch—“fourteen minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Ellsworth.”
Castillo tapped the switch of the telephone several times, said, “Break it down, please,” and hung up.
Castillo exhaled audibly, then took a cigar from his briefcase and very carefully unwrapped it, carefully nipped one end with a cutter, and carefully lit the other end.
He tried to blow a smoke ring but failed.
That’s funny. This room is sealed, and if the air conditioner is working I can’t feel it. I should have been able to blow a nice ring.
Possibly, Colonel, that is because you’re just a little nervous.
David obviously managed to hit Goliath Junior just now. Probably right between the eyes. But the projectile didn’t blow him away—it just bounced off, making Goliath Junior mad.
And when Goliath Junior reports what just happened to Goliath Senior, Goliath Senior is going to be even angrier.
Which is probably happening at this very moment.
Goliath Senior, like everyone else on the White House secure circuit, is never supposed to be more than ninety seconds from picking up the phone—and fifteen seconds is preferred.
It is of course possible that Goliath Senior was taking a leak. It is far more likely that he was in his office all the time. He has Ellsworth answer his phone to make the point that he is too important to answer his own phone, even when the President might be calling.
And he especially wanted to make that point to me. He was going to make me wait.
And if I hadn’t hung up when I did, it’s more than likely that Ellsworth—when signaled to do so, of course—would have cheerfully announced, “Well, the ambassador just walked in,” and Goliath Senior would have come on the line.
Castillo took several puffs on his cigar, held the last one for a moment, then very carefully tried to blow a smoke ring.
This time it worked.
He watched it until it bounced off the wall and disintegrated.
Fuck it! One of two things is going to happen. Goliath Senior is going to call back. Or he isn’t.
If he does call back, let him wait for me.
He stood up, put the cigar in his mouth, opened the door, and left the room.
“Why don’t we go have a look at your arsenal, Mr. Franklin?” Castillo said.
Franklin obviously didn’t like the suggestion very much, but he nodded and said, “It’s one floor down. Are you through here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Colonel, smoking is forbidden in the embassy,” the second man said.
Colonel? How did you know that?
What did they do, put my conversation on speakers while they were eavesdropping?
“Is it?” Castillo replied and took another puff.
He looked at Franklin, who hesitated a moment and then said, “This way, Mr. Castillo.”
“Why don’t you wait here with this gentleman,” Castillo said to Otto Görner, in English. “I’ll come back and fetch you.”
Görner nodded.
The weapons locker was a gray metal two-door cabinet in a small narrow room that also held rows of gray filing cabinets, each of them securely locked with steel bars and padlocks. Castillo idly wondered how much of the obviously classified material they held would be of real intelligence value.
Franklin took the padlock from the door and swung the double doors open for Castillo.
There wasn’t much in it, and most of what was there were ordinary American weapons, ranging from M-16 rifles to an assortment of handguns, both revolvers and semiautomatics. There were some odd pistols, including two Russian Makarovs and four German Walther PPs.
Castillo was familiar with both of the Makarov semiautomatics and liked neither. The Russians had basically copied the Walther when they had replaced their Tokarev pistol. The basic difference was a larger trigger guard on the Makarov to accommodate a heavily gloved trigger finger.
The Walthers fired a 9mm Kurz cartridge, virtually unchanged since Colt had introduced it as the .380 ACP cartridge for their sort of scaled-down version of the Colt 1911 .45 ACP. The cartridge had never been successful in the United States but had enjoyed wide popularity in Europe.
The reason it had not been very successful was the reason Castillo disliked it. It didn’t have anywhere near the knockdown power of the .45 ACP.
There were a half dozen cardboard cartons on the floor of the locker, one long rather thin one and two larger thick ones. Castillo picked up the long thin one and one of the thick ones and laid them atop one of the filing cabinets. He opened the long thin one first.
It held what looked like a target pistol, and, indeed, that’s what it had been before Special Forces armorers had worked their magic on it years before. Their version of the target pistol, chambered for the .22 Long Rifle round, was now known as the Ruger Mk II Suppressed.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” he said.
Franklin did not seem to share Castillo’s enthusiasm.
There really is no such thing as a “silenced” weapon for a number of reasons, heavy among them the fact that almost all bullets exit the barrel at greater than the speed of sound and it is impossible to silence the noise they make when they do. There are “suppressed” weapons, the best of which make no more sound than a BB gun. Of these, Castillo thought the Ruger Mk II to be among the very best.
The one before him looked brand-new, and it looked as if it was a “manufactured” weapon rather than one modified by the weapons wizards at Bragg.
Castillo examined the weapon carefully and liked what he found.
“I’ll take this,” he announced.
“Colonel…”
There goes “Colonel” again. The sonofabitch did listen.
“…I’m going to have to get authority to let you take that,” Franklin said.
“As soon as we see what else you have, we’ll get on the horn to the ambassador,” Castillo replied and then opened the larger box.
I got lucky again.
The box held a Micro Uzi submachine gun, the smallest and, as far as Castillo was concerned, the most desirable of the three variants of the Uzi.
Seeing the Uzi triggered a series of connects in his brain:
The Uzi is named after its designer, Lieutenant Colonel Uziel Gal, of the Israeli Army…CONNECT…My God, now I’m a lieutenant colonel!…CONNECT…Gal retired and lived in Philadelphia until he died a couple of years ago…CONNECT…Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer of the Philly P.D. Counterterrorism Bureau told me that…CONNECT…Betty Schneider used to work for Kramer…CONNECT…No, she worked for Captain Frank O’Brien in Intelligence and Organized Crime…CONNECT…And I didn’t call her before I came over here. Or since…
What the hell’s the matter with me?
Well, it’s not as if I’ve been sprawled in a chair watching TV and sucking on a beer.
I’ll call her the first chance I get and explain. As soon as I get to the hotel. She’ll understand.
He turned his attention to the Micro Uzi and took it from its box. It looked almost brand-new.
Castillo had had a lot of experience with the Uzi in the three common variants—Standard, Mini, and Micro—which all fired the 9mm Luger Parabellum cartridge, which was a much better cartridge than the 9mm Kurz .380 ACP.
The Standard Uzi, with a full magazine, weighed about eight pounds, just about what the standard M-16 rifle weighed. The Mini Uzi weighed just under six pounds, about half a pound more than the Car-4 version of the M-16. The Micro weighed about three and a half pounds. There was no equivalent version of the M-16.
Which was one of the reasons why the Micro was a favored weapon of special operators. Another was that it had a much higher rate of fire, 1,250 rounds per minute, double that of the Standard and 300 rpm more than the Micro. In Castillo’s mind, using the Micro was like having a shotgun in your hand, with nowhere near the bulk, weight, or recoil of a 12-gauge shotgun.
“At the risk of repeating myself,” Castillo said, “just what the doctor ordered.”
Franklin looked at him uncomfortably but didn’t say anything.
“Let’s go get you off hook and get the ambassador on the horn,” Castillo said.
“Why don’t we?” Franklin said, and added, “Let me carry those for you, Mr. Castillo.”
Does he think I’m going to grab them and run out of the embassy?
“Thank you,” Castillo said. “And I’ll need ammunition. A couple of boxes of 9mm Parabellum and a box of .22 Long Rifle, please.”
Franklin nodded, went into a cabinet inside the locker, and came out with the ammunition.
A fat man in a white shirt limp with sweat was coming heavily down the stairwell as they went up.
“There’s a call from the White House switchboard for Colonel Castillo, Mr. Franklin,” he announced in awe.
“Come into the phone room with me, please, Mr. Franklin,” Castillo said. “If that’s who I think it is, maybe we won’t have to bother the ambassador.”
“We have Colonel Castillo on a secure line for you, Director Montvale,” the White House operator announced.
“Director Montvale is ready for the colonel,” Montvale said.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Castillo said.
“I’m glad I caught you, Colonel. We seem to be having communications problems.”
“It seems that way, sir. Sir, before we get into this, I have Mr. Franklin with me…”
“Who?”
“He’s the CIA station chief, sir.”
“What’s that about?”
“I need a weapon—weapons—sir, and he seems uncomfortable giving them to me.”
“Why do you need a weapon?”
Castillo didn’t reply. After ten seconds, which seemed much longer, Ambassador Montvale said, a touch of resignation in his voice, “‘Put him on the line.”
“Is there a speakerphone on this?” Castillo asked Franklin.
“There’s a switch on the wall,” Franklin said, then went to it and pushed a button.
“Nathaniel Franklin, sir,” he announced.
“Do you know who I am?” Montvale asked.
“Yes, sir. We’ve spoken before. You’re Ambassador Montvale, the director—”
“‘Yes, sir’ would have been sufficient,” Montvale interrupted him. “Now, there’s two ways we can deal with Colonel Castillo’s request. You can give him whatever he asks for. Or I will call the DCI and in a couple of minutes he will call you and tell you to give the colonel whatever he asks for. What would you like to do?”
“Your permission is all I need, Mr. Ambassador,” Franklin said.
“Thank you, Mr. Franklin. Nice to talk to you.”
Castillo looked at Franklin and then waited until Franklin had left the small room and closed the door before going on.
“Elvis has left the theater, Mr. Ambassador,” he said.
He had just enough time to decide That was a dumb thing to say when he heard Montvale laugh.
“I told you, Charley, I can be useful,” he said. “If I had had to call John Powell, then the DCI would want to know why you wanted his weapons.”
“I told you I was going to Budapest to see if I can get my source to release me from my promise not to pass along to anyone what he gave me. When I got here, I learned that an attempt to kidnap him had been made. I want to keep him alive. I can’t do that without a weapon.”
“You can protect him yourself, you think?”
“I’ve already started getting help. Local help.”
“How long is this going to take? Getting your source to release you—or refuse to release you—from your promise?”
“Several days, probably.”
“You want me to tell Mr. Franklin to help you protect this chap?”
“I think that would draw attention I’d rather not have to my source. But thank you.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
“Yes, sir, I will. Thank you.”
“Tell me about explosive suitcases in Pennsylvania.”
“I told Major Miller to tell you about that. Didn’t he?”
“He didn’t seem to think that a possible nuclear device in a briefcase was very important.”
“Sir, he didn’t think it was credible. Neither did the chief of counterterrorism of the Philadelphia Police Department. That’s not the same thing as saying they don’t think the threat of a small nuclear device is important.”
“You sent people up there to look into it,” Montvale challenged.
“The reason I sent them up there was to see where the AALs got the money to buy a farm…”
“The what?”
“AALs. That’s what the Philly cops call the Muslim brothers of the Aari-Teg mosque. It stands for ‘African American Lunatics.’”
“Not only is that politically incorrect but, as I recall, those lunatics were involved in the theft of the 727.”
“Yes, sir, they were, and that’s why the Philly cops and the Secret Service—the Secret Service at my request—are keeping an eye on them. I’d like to find out what their connection with the people who stole the 727 was—is.”
“And you think you can investigate this matter better than the FBI?”
“I think the Secret Service agent I sent up there—he was an undercover cop in the mosque for several years—can. Yes, sir. I think that all FBI involvement would do is tip them off that we’re watching them. I hope you don’t feel compelled to bring the FBI in.”
“You realize what a spot that puts me in, Castillo? If it turns out there’s something to this, and I heard there was, and didn’t tell the FBI what I’d heard…”
“This is what I was afraid of when we struck our deal, sir. If we hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have told you and the problem wouldn’t have come up.”
There was a perceptible pause before Montvale replied.
“On the other hand, Charley, if we hadn’t come to an accommodation you’d have had to take the train to Budapest, not gotten to fly that airplane, and you wouldn’t have the weapons Whatshisname is about to give you, right?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t argue with that.”
“Okay. Let me think about it. I won’t get the FBI involved…”
“Thank you. All they would do right now is get in the way…”
“…at this time. If I do decide they have to know, I’ll tell you before I tell them.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“And I want to talk to the cop who was undercover in the mosque as soon as that can be arranged. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No, sir. Just as soon as he gets back to Washington, I’ll have Miller set up a meeting.”
“Good enough. Good luck with your source. Keep me posted.”
Charley said, “Yes, sir,” but suspected that Montvale had hung up before he had spoken the two words.
“White House. Are you through?”
“See if you can get Major Miller at Homeland Secur—at my office, please. On a secure line.”
“Colonel Castillo’s secure line,” Miller said a moment later.
“Is it smart to say ‘Colonel’?” Castillo greeted him.
“I don’t know about smart, but, frankly, I find it a little humiliating. Anyway, it’s hardly a secret. All kinds of people have called obviously hoping to hear you getting promoted was just a ridiculous rumor.”
“Shit.”
“What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“I just told Montvale that I would have you set up a meeting with Jack Britton the minute he got back to Washington. Therefore, get in touch with Jack and tell him he is to stay away from Washington until I get back.”
“Got it. And when will that be?”
“The day after tomorrow—presuming Jake arrives tomorrow morning with the Gulfstream—I’m going to Buenos Aires. Get on the horn to Alex Darby at the embassy and tell him I will need a safe house—the one we used would be fine, but anything will do—to house an important witness. A safe house and people to keep it that way. I’ll also need a black car. Actually, a couple of them.”
“This important witness have a name?”
“Let me sit on that awhile. And tell Darby to find Yung and have him at the safe house.”
“Yung tried to call you here.”
“What did he want?”
“To tell you the ambassador in Montevideo thinks Lorimer was a drug dealer.”
“Isn’t that interesting?”
“Yeah. And not only that, the ambassador in Uruguay wants Yung to pass this on to the secretary of state. In confidence. What do I tell him about that?”
“Tell him it will hold until I see him there.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“As soon as I get things organized in Buenos Aires—maybe two days, tops—I’ll come home.”
“That’s it?”
“Can’t think of anything. How’s the leg?”
“Improved. It only hurts now ninety percent of the time. Watch your back, buddy.”