The Hostage Part 30

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Sir?"

"What are your immediate plans? For the next forty-five minutes or an hour?"

"I don't have any, sir. I thought I might go have a look at the Masterson house."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"No, sir."

"Neither have I, and it's now after three. Fortunately, right around the corner from here is a restaurant-the Rio Alba-that serves what I believe are the finest steaks in the world. Why don't we go have one while we wait to hear from your friend in the Secret Service?"

"I think that's a splendid idea, sir."

VII.

[ONE].

The Four Seasons Hotel Cerrito 1433 Buenos Aires, Argentina 2105 23 July 2005

The Marine guard-who Castillo had learned was Staff Sergeant Roger Markham, twenty years old, of Des Moines, Iowa, who had been a seventeen-year-old fresh from Parris Island when he had been on the Marine March to Baghdad before being a.s.signed to the Marine Emba.s.sy Guard battalion-pulled the emba.s.sy BMW 545i to a smooth stop in front of the Four Seasons and started to open his door.

Castillo caught his arm.

"If you try to rush around and open my door, Roger, I swear to G.o.d you'll regret it."

Markham looked at him sheepishly.

"It's now a little after nine," Castillo said. "The plane's due at eleven-thirty, give or take, which means we should leave here around eleven. What are your plans for those two hours?"

"Wait."

"Here?"

"Right here."

"Can you leave the car here?"

"Dip plates. I can leave it anywhere."

"What you are going to do, Roger, is park it. The driveway is right there." Castillo pointed to the entrance of the hotel's bas.e.m.e.nt garage. "And then you're going to come to my room, where we will try to get a little shut-eye."

"Whatever you say, s-"

"There you go again," Castillo said. "What do they do to you at Parris Island, give you fifty push-ups every time you to forget to say 'sir'?"

"Fifty, sometimes a hundred. Sorry."

"Not really a problem, but try, huh?"

Markham nodded.

"Go park the car," Castillo said, and got out.

As he walked through the lobby Castillo remembered that he had not gotten rooms for Betty Schneider and Jack Britton.

That proved to be more of a problem than he antic.i.p.ated.

The house was nearly full, the a.s.sistant manager on duty told him. After ten minutes of consulting the computer, it was decided that Herr Gossinger would move from his suite-1550-into 1500. Fifteen hundred was far grander than Castillo needed, and consequently far more expensive.

He toyed with the idea of putting Betty into 1500, but decided against it.

She would almost certainly decide that I was plying her with luxurious accommodation as part of my wicked and devious plan to get into her pants.

If I thought that would work, I'd rent the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n floor.

Vacating 1550 made it available to someone else, and somehow that freed up 1510 and 1518, both very nice single rooms with views of Avenida 9 Julio and the port. Both were equipped with two queen-sized beds. Castillo asked the a.s.sistant manager which was farthest from 1500 and was told 1518.

"Put Senorita Schneider in fifteen-eighteen, please."

"Would you like to have a bottle of champagne and some flowers-roses, perhaps?-waiting for the young lady, Senor Gossinger?"

"I don't think that would be a very good idea, thank you."

As far as the young lady is concerned, our relationship is-and will remain-professional and platonic.

There wasn't much that had to be moved from 1550 to 1500, and there were two bellmen and Sergeant Markham to help him, but it was after nine-thirty before the process was completed.

"I am now going to drink one of these," Castillo said, holding up two bottles of Quilmes beer from the in-room bar, "and then make a valiant attempt to catch a few winks." He extended a bottle to Markham, and added, "I suggest you do the same."

"I'm not sure I should be drinking," Markham said.

"Trust me, Roger, you should drink that beer."

With Sergeant Markham stretched out on the couch in the sitting room of suite 1500, Castillo lay down on the super-king-sized bed in the bedroom. The first thing that came to mind were mental images, not all of which could honestly be deemed lewd and obscene, of Special Agent Schneider.

He finally chased them away with images of Jack the Stack Masterson in the taxicab.

Jesus, was that only this morning?

When his cellular telephone buzzed, he was dreaming. In his dream, Sergeant Schneider was being much, much more affectionate than she had ever been in his waking hours.

He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for fifteen minutes.

"Castillo."

"I really hope I either woke you up or interrupted something really indecent," Major H. Richard Miller's very familiar voice announced.

You have no idea, you sonofab.i.t.c.h!

How did he get this number?

"How's the knee?"

"How do you think it is? After every sonofab.i.t.c.h and his brother has been digging around in it for a month with the very latest in shiny sharp instruments of torture?"

"What's up, d.i.c.k?"

"We can't find this Lorimer guy in Paris, and G.o.d knows I've tried. You are going to have one h.e.l.l of a phone bill, old pal."

"You sound as if you're not calling from your Walter Reed bed of pain."

"Actually, having accepted your kind invitation to share your pad," Miller said, "I'm lying on your couch in the Mayflower as we speak. In the morning they will roll me into your office at the Nebraska complex, where I will lie on your couch there."

"What about Lorimer?"

"Well, we finally got an address for him, seven Rue Monsieur, and a phone number. No answer on the phone. Isaacson called some Secret Service guy he knows in Paris. The guy went there. The concierge said she had no idea where Lorimer was, but that he was often gone for a week or two. His car is in the garage. Isaacson said that he's going to ask Secretary Hall to ask Secretary Cohen to lean on the UN to find out where he is. And Isaacson said for me to call you and bring you up to speed."

"Thanks, d.i.c.k. Are you sure you're all right to work?"

"I'm fine. I presume the love of your life has not yet arrived?"

"Screw you. And if you're referring to Betty Schneider, the ETA is twenty-three-thirty local."

"An hour difference between here and there, huh?"

"It's almost ten here."

"As a friendly word of advice I'm almost positive you will ignore, try to think with your upper brain for a change, before you do something stupid with that woman."

"Jesus Christ!" Castillo heard himself flare. "She's no longer a cop that I can make a pa.s.s at. She's now in the Secret Service and she works for me. I still like to think of myself as an officer and a gentleman. So f.u.c.k you, d.i.c.k!"

There was a moment's silence, and then Miller said, "Charley, ol' buddy, you have no idea how happy that outburst made me. I'll be in touch."

The line went dead.

Castillo sat up in the bed and turned the light on.

I don't know where that outburst came from, either, but it was right on the money. I can't make a pa.s.s at Special Agent Schneider. I shouldn't even be fantasizing about her.

Moot point. She has made it as clear as humanly possible that she has no interest in me at all.

But I'm glad d.i.c.k brought it up.

I am entirely capable of doing the wrong thing, and probably would have.

What the h.e.l.l is the matter with me?

In one movement, he laid the cellular on the bedside table and fell back on the bed.

Then, a moment later, he sat up again, picked up the phone, and punched the autodial b.u.t.ton for Howard Kennedy.

Kennedy answered on the third ring.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Did I wake you up, Howard?"

"As a matter of fact, no."

"Are you in the hotel?"

"Why?"

"I thought we might have a drink. There's a jazz quartet in the bar."

"Very kind of you, but what I'm doing is standing in the rain at Ezeiza watching ground handlers in whom I have no confidence whatsoever loading very expensive- and very nervous-horses onto an airplane. I'll take a rain check, though."

"Are you going with the horses wherever they're going?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"But you'll be coming back soon?"

Kennedy's silence indicated he wasn't going to answer the question.

"Pity," Castillo went on, "some old friends of yours are coming to town."

There was another silence long enough to make Castillo think Kennedy was not going to respond when he did: "The major crime investigation team from Quantico?"

"I don't know where they're from, but they're coming from Washington."

"Have you got their names?"

This time Castillo hesitated before replying.

Why the h.e.l.l not get him the names? What harm can it do?