The Hostage Part 40

Castillo was out of the car before it stopped moving.

Munz was standing by the emba.s.sy car.

"Karl, I'm sorry!" Munz said.

Castillo started for the car. Munz tried to stop him. Castillo evaded him. Three other men rushed to stop him.

Munz ordered the men to let Castillo pa.s.s.

The front pa.s.senger window was gone.

Castillo stuck his head in.

Sergeant Roger Markham, USMC, was lying across the front seats. His head looked as if it had exploded.

Castillo couldn't see in the backseat, so he pulled open the rear door.

Where the h.e.l.l is Betty?

There was a lot of blood on the leather upholstery.

Castillo ran to Colonel Munz.

"Where is she?"

"I sent her by ambulance to the racetrack," Munz said. "A helicopter will take her to the German Hospital."

"How bad?" Castillo asked.

"Multiple gunshot wounds. At least one to the face."

"What the h.e.l.l happened?"

"First scenario, fragmentary witness reports," Munz said, professionally. "The car was making the circle. At that point it stopped. For some reason, the driver-"

"His name was Roger. He was twenty years old," Castillo blurted.

"Roger lowered the window. Then he apparently saw what was happening . . ." lowered the window. Then he apparently saw what was happening . . ."

"Which was?"

"A Madsen submachine gun," Munz said. "It's still in the window. Roger didn't get it closed in time, but the window closed. The Madsen's still there. . . ." He pointed.

Castillo looked. A Madsen's barrel was pinned between the driver's-side window and the window frame.

"They go all the way up automatically," Castillo said.

"And he put the car in reverse and tried to get away. Which is why the car is where it is."

Jesus H. Christ!

"So the villain held on to the trigger as long as he could," Munz said. "And then ran away."

"Did you catch him?"

Munz shook his head, and then made a gesture. One of his men walked up with a resealable plastic bag. Munz took it and then extended it to Castillo.

It held a Glock semiautomatic pistol. The inside of the bag was heavily smeared with blood that had come off the pistol.

"Your agent got one shot off," Munz said.

"She's not my f.u.c.king agent." He handled the weapon through the bag with disbelief. "She's my . . . my . . . my love."

"I know, Karl," Munz said. "I saw your eyes."

There was the sound of rotor blades and Castillo looked in the direction in time to see an Alouette III, the SA 316A, the one with the weak main and tail rotors, struggling for alt.i.tude.

"I'll go with you to the hospital, Karl," El Coronel Munz said.

IX.

[ONE].

Autopista Del Sol Accesso Norte San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1850 24 July 2005

El Coronel Alfredo Munz leaned forward, tapped the driver of the Jeep Grand Cherokee on the shoulder, and told him to slow down, turn off the siren, and take the flashing blue light from the roof.

Castillo looked at him in surprise, then anger, then horror as it occurred to him the probable reason it was no longer necessary to speed.

Jesus Christ, did somebody call him to tell him she's dead, and I missed it?

Munz read his mind.

"If you and I wind up in hospital beds beside Fraulein Fraulein Schneider because we ran into a gasoline truck, that won't do her any good, will it, Karl?" Schneider because we ran into a gasoline truck, that won't do her any good, will it, Karl?"

Castillo didn't reply.

"What will happen at the hospital is that they will check her vital signs, type her blood-"

"Her blood type's on her credentials," Castillo interrupted.

"If they were in her purse, that's on the way to my laboratory. I don't think they'll find any prints of use on it, but I don't want to omit anything."

Munz waited until that had sunk in, then went on: "And even if the hospital had something alleging to give her blood type, they would make their own examination unless her condition was really critical. Giving transfusions of the wrong type of blood can be fatal."

"Not critical? Christ, Alfredo, there was blood all over the backseat!"

"Not all of it, I don't think, was hers," Munz said. "And you know how heavily any wound to the head bleeds."

Yeah, I do. I'm a soldier.

So start thinking like one, Charley, for Christ's sake!

This d.a.m.n situation is my fault, no question about that, but it's done.

Evaluate the damage, and decide on a course of action!

Fighting to keep control of his voice, Castillo said, "You didn't tell me where she was. .h.i.t."

Munz tapped his right cheek, just above his mouth.

"And in the body, the upper leg, and here in the side. That's all I saw." He pointed to both locations.

"Three wounds from . . . what was that Madsen firing?"

"I don't know; I saw some nine-millimeter casings."

"Well, maybe we got lucky and it wasn't one of the Madsen .45s."

"I don't think it was .45 ACP," Munz said, noting that Castillo knew of the Brazilian-made model. "And we may be even luckier."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't see an exit wound on her face. That makes me think maybe it was bounced bullets."

"What?"

"Bounced bullets."

"You mean ricochets?"

"Exactly. Those marvelous windshields on that armored BMW, designed to keep bullets out, in this case may unfortunately have kept them in as well."

"Jesus, I didn't think about that."

"We'll find out when we get to the hospital."

And there's something else I didn't think about, either!

He took out his cellular and punched an autodial b.u.t.ton.

Alex Darby answered on the second buzz.

"Darby."

"Castillo. There's been an ambush. My car, at the Sante Fe Circle in San Isidro. They got Sergeant Markham, and Betty Schneider is in a chopper on the way to the German Hospital."

"Are you all right, Charley?"

"I don't know if 'all right' is the phrase, but I wasn't in the car. I was drinking wine in a bar."

"Where are you now?"

"In Colonel Munz's car, on the Accesso Norte, on the way to the hospital."

"So the Argentines know."

"They told me . . . me, the guy who's supposed to be on top of things."

"Charley, you can't blame yourself for not being in the car."

"Who do you think these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were trying to hit? Me, or a female Secret Service agent and a Marine driver?"

"I'll have people at the hospital in ten minutes. Don't move from there until they get there."

"If you have anybody to spare, send them to the Masterson house. Tell them not to let Mrs. Masterson hear what happened."

"Charley, it'll be all over the television and the radio."

"Then make sure she doesn't watch TV or listen to the radio. I want her to hear about this from the amba.s.sador. As soon as I get off this with you, I'm going to call him."

"Okay, Charley. Anything else?"

"Find Tony Santini, tell him to get Jack Britton something heavier than his Glock, then get him a car and send him to the hospital."

"Done."

"I'll be in touch, Alex," Castillo said, pushed the END key and then the autodial key for Amba.s.sador Silvio. Then he pushed the END key again and turned to Munz.

"Alfredo. Sergeant Markham's body. What's going to happen to it?"

"When my people have finished doing their work at the Sante Fe Circle, it will be taken to the German Hospital for an autopsy."

"Is an autopsy necessary? We know what killed him. 'At least one gunshot wound to the cranium, causing severe trauma to the brain.' "

"We will need the bullets in his body as evidence when we catch the villains and bring them to trial," Munz said, matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, right," Castillo said, and put his finger back on the autodial key that would connect him with Amba.s.sador Silvio.

"Is that about it, Charley?" Silvio asked. "I'll go to San Isidro and ask Mrs. Masterson what she wants to do about the ceremony tomorrow and call you and let you know."