The Hostage Part 24

"Sir, that's a Beretta Model 92 semiautomatic pistol, caliber nine millimeter."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"Yes, sir. It will fire fifteen rounds just as fast as you can pull the trigger."

"This one won't."

"Sir?"

"There's no whatchacallems? 'Bullets'?"

"Sir, the cartridges cartridges are held in a magazine." are held in a magazine."

He held up a full magazine for Castillo's edification, and only then began to understand his chain was being pulled.

"What is it, 'Sergeant'?" Castillo asked, reaching for the magazine.

"Staff Sergeant, sir."

He more than reluctantly let go of the magazine. Castillo took it, checked to see there was no round chambered in the pistol, and then slid the magazine into its place in the handle.

"I don't want this to get any further than it has to, Sergeant, which means that was the last time you call me 'sir,' but the cold and unvarnished truth is that I'm a soldier."

"Sir, the amba.s.sador didn't say anything-"

"What part of don't-call-me-'sir' didn't you understand?"

"Sorry, s-"

"I don't think the amba.s.sador knows I'm a soldier. Actually-the reason I can give you orders-I'm a major."

"Yes, s-" the sergeant said, and then, "Major, it comes automatically. I say 'sir' to civilians all the time."

"Well, try not to say it to me, okay?"

"Yes, sir. Oh, s.h.i.t."

"I'm sorry I brought the subject up," Castillo said, chuckling. "Let's go, Sergeant."

[FOUR].

Room 677 The German Hospital Avenida Pueyrredon Buenos Aires, Argentina 0940 23 July 2005 There were half a dozen uniformed Policia Federal in the lobby of the hospital, and when Castillo asked for Mrs. Masterson, one of them, a sergeant, walked up to him somewhat menacingly.

"Senor," he began.

A tall, well-dressed man walked up.

"Senor Castillo?"

Charley nodded.

"Come with me, please, senor."

"Get yourself a cup of coffee," Castillo said to the Marine.

"The amba.s.sador said I'm not to let you out of my sight."

"Good, no 'sir,'" Charley said. "Tell the amba.s.sador I was difficult. Not to worry."

Almost biting his lip not to say "sir," the Marine said, "I'll be right here."

The tall man waved Castillo onto an elevator, nodding at another well-dressed man already on it as they entered. The man pushed the b.u.t.ton for the sixth floor.

There was a sign saying Seimens had built the elevator.

And the lobby was spotless, waxed, and shiny. And that RAUCHEN VERBOTEN! RAUCHEN VERBOTEN! sign in black and red! sign in black and red!

When they say "German Hospital," they mean German hospital.

When the door opened, Castillo saw more uniformed police and several other well-dressed men who he decided were almost certainly SIDE agents.

The tall man led him down a corridor to a door, opened it, and waved Castillo in.

Colonel Munz was in the room, which was some sort of monitoring center. There was a row of television sets-all of German manufacture-on the wall.

"I thought it would be best if Senor Darby and Senor Lowery spoke with Mrs. Masterson," Munz greeted him, "as I don't think she feels kindly about anything Argentine right now."

He dismissed the tall man with a wave of his hand, and then pointed to the television monitors. On two of them Castillo could see Mrs. Masterson. She was in a hospital gown, sitting up in a bed. Lowery was on one side of her and Darby on the other. Something from a limp plastic bottle was dripping into her arm. He could hear Darby talking to her, but he couldn't make out what he was saying.

"How long has she been out of it?" Castillo asked.

"About ten minutes," Munz replied. "They found a drug in her blood. They're giving her something to neutralize it. It's obviously working."

"I can't hear what they're saying."

Munz walked to one of the monitors and increased the volume.

Darby was a.s.suring her that the children were all right, that they were under the protection of both Argentine police and security people from the emba.s.sy.

Castillo got the feeling that Darby was repeating his a.s.surances, meaning she had not yet completely come out from under the effects of the narcotic.

He heard Munz's cellular buzz.

Munz said, "Hola?" "Hola?" but then switched to German. but then switched to German.

It soon became obvious that he was speaking with someone who was not overly impressed with Colonel Munz of SIDE, or more likely not impressed at all. His explanations that something had happened that had kept him from coming home as promised, and from at least calling, apparently were not falling on appreciative ears. The odds were that El Coronel Munz was speaking with Senora Munz.

He turned his attention back to Darby's gentle interrogation of Mrs. Masterson.

She didn't have much to tell him. From the time she was grabbed and felt what was the p.r.i.c.k of a hypodermic needle in her b.u.t.tocks, she remembered practically nothing until she had woken up in the taxicab sitting beside her dead husband.

She did not get a good look at her abductors; she didn't even know how many of them there had been. She had no idea where she had been taken. She could not describe the room in which she had been held.

Castillo had just had an uncomfortable thought, one that shamed him-Jesus, she's still probably full of that drug-when Munz spoke to him, in German.

"Why do I suspect you speak German, Herr Castillo?"

Castillo turned to look at him.

"While I was talking to my wife, in a thick Hessian accent, I saw your reflection on one of the monitors. You were smiling."

Why the h.e.l.l is she lying? And to Darby, who is an old and close friend?

"Guilty," Castillo said, speaking German. "My mother was German. A Hessian, as a matter of fact."

And I've got to get an e-mail off to the Tages Zeitung, Tages Zeitung, which I don't think I'll mention to Munz. which I don't think I'll mention to Munz.

And I want to call Pevsner.

I should have gotten his phone number; all I have is Kennedy's cellular number.

Well, he can either give me the number or have Pevsner call me.

Maybe she's just scared. She has every right to be.

She must know that Darby's the resident spook, and that she is now safely in his hands.

"Really?" Munz said. "Where in Hesse was your mother from?"

Jesus, is he onto something? Has he connected me with Gossinger at the Four Seasons? Both Santini and Darby said SIDE is good.

"A little town called Bad Hersfeld."

"I know it. My father's family was from Giessen, and my wife's family from Ka.s.sel."

"How'd you wind up here?"

"I was born here. One day, maybe, I'll tell you how my mother and father got here. And my wife's parents."

"Okay."

She's not drugged. She's making decisions. She's lying.

Munz changed his mind.

"You ever hear of the Gehlen Organization?"

Castillo nodded.

Immediately after World War II, a German general staff officer, Reinhardt Gehlen, who had been in charge of "Eastern Intelligence," had gone to the Americans and offered to turn over not only his files, but his entire intelligence network-which included, among other things of great intelligence value, in-place spies in the Soviet Army and in Moscow.

His price was that none of his officers be tried as n.a.z.is, and that the Americans arrange to get their families out of Germany to somewhere safe-like South America, Argentina being preferred-with their husbands to join them later.

The deal was struck.

When Castillo had first heard the story, as a West Point cadet, he had been fascinated. He had wondered then who had made the decision to deal with Gehlen; it had to have been someone really senior. If the story had gotten out, there would have been a political eruption.

He had been trying ever since-and for years he had held security clearances that gave him access to a great deal of heavily cla.s.sified files-to find out more. He hadn't learned much. The conclusion he had drawn, without any proof whatsoever, was that the decision to deal with Gehlen had been made by President Harry S Truman himself, probably at the recommendation of General Eisenhower, who at the time was commander in chief in Europe. Almost as soon as Roosevelt had died, and Truman had started dealing with the Soviet Union, he had recognized the Soviet threat.

"My mother came here in 1946, and my father in 1950," Munz went on. "He became one of the few civilian instructors at the military academy. When he died several years ago, he was buried here quite close to a man named Hans von Langsdorff. That name ring a bell?"

"The Graf Spee Graf Spee captain," Castillo said. captain," Castillo said.

Why is he telling me this?

To let me know he's one of the good guys?

Maybe Darby has him in his pocket, and he wants me to know?

Or maybe he wants me to think that he's muy simpatico, muy simpatico, and I will thereafter regard him as a pal and tell him things I shouldn't. and I will thereafter regard him as a pal and tell him things I shouldn't.

Well, I don't have time to stay here and play games with him.

"When Mr. Darby comes out of there, would you ask him to give me a call? I don't see any point in hanging around here."

"Certainly," Munz said.

[FIVE].

Room 1550 The Four Seasons Hotel Cerrito 1433 Buenos Aires, Argentina 1035 23 July 2005 "Why don't we go in the bar and get you a cup of coffee while you're waiting for me?" Castillo said to the sergeant as they entered the hotel lobby.

"We're back to the amba.s.sador saying I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight."

"I need thirty minutes out of your sight," Castillo said. "If you think you have to, Sergeant, call the amba.s.sador and tell him I said that. Otherwise, your waiting in the bar will be our little secret."

"I would say, 'Yes, sir,' but you told me not to. Just don't take off on me, please? That would put my a.s.s in a crack."

"I'll be down in thirty minutes, maybe a little less," Castillo said.

He walked the sergeant into the bar, got a bar tab, signed it-making sure the sergeant didn't see the Gossinger signature-and then rode the elevator to his room.

There was no fax press release from the emba.s.sy for Herr Gossinger waiting in his room; nor, when he called, was it waiting downstairs to be delivered. He wondered if Ms. Sylvia Grunblatt had overlooked sending it, or had intentionally not done so. Castillo knew that that didn't matter right now. He got out his laptop computer, and, working from his memory of the press release, wrote the story of the murdered diplomat, and then e-mailed it to Otto Goerner at the Tages Zeitung. Tages Zeitung. He thought about calling him immediately, but decided that he might not read it right away, and that he would call him after he talked to Pevsner. He thought about calling him immediately, but decided that he might not read it right away, and that he would call him after he talked to Pevsner.

Alex Pevsner answered Kennedy's cellular on the second buzz.

"Hola?"

"That you, Alex?"