The Hostage Part 51

The lieutenant didn't reply.

"And possibly even be in a position to contribute to the defense of Mrs. Masterson and her children should that situation arise?"

The lieutenant colored but did not reply.

"To answer the unspoken question in your eyes, Lieutenant-to wit, 'Who the f.u.c.k is this civilian questioning the behavior of a professional officer such as myself?'- 'Who the f.u.c.k is this civilian questioning the behavior of a professional officer such as myself?'-I'm Major C. G. Castillo, U.S. Army, charged with the security of this operation."

"Permission to speak, sir?"

"Granted."

"Sir, I have been taking my direction from the defense attache."

"And?"

"Sir, I can only presume that if he wanted my men to have live ammunition, he would have issued live ammunition."

"Lieutenant, I was a Boy Scout. Therefore, even before I was told by my tactical officer at that school on the Hudson River of which we are both graduates that the second great commandment for any officer-right after Take Care of Your Men-is that he be prepared for the unexpected, I knew that Be Prepared is a commendable philosophy to follow. Since you were apparently asleep when your tac officer tried to impart that philosophy to you, I suggest you write it down so you won't forget it."

"Yes, sir."

Castillo heard the door to the alcove open, and turned.

Amba.s.sador Silvio and Alex Darby came through the door.

Jesus! Castillo suddenly thought. Castillo suddenly thought. What was that all about? What was that all about?

Why did I jump all over that guy?

Not that he didn't deserve it.

Because you're angry with the world, and want to vent it on somebody and he was there.

But it wasn't smart.

"Good morning, sir," Castillo said. "Alex."

"The Mastersons are three minutes out," the amba.s.sador said. "We just got a call from Mr. Santini."

"Yes, sir."

"What I would like to do," Silvio went on, "if it's all right with you, is stay behind when the Mastersons go to Ezeiza, then go out there with the casket."

"Anything you want to do, sir, is fine with me."

"Tony needs to know, Charley, if you're going to go out there with the Mastersons," Darby said.

"Tony has more experience than I do," Castillo said. "I don't want to get in his way."

"Then I'll go with the family," Darby said, "my wife and I will."

"Fine. And I'll go out there with the amba.s.sador."

"Okay," the amba.s.sador said. "Let's go find our seats, Alex."

A moment after they had left, Castillo decided he should be outside when the Mastersons arrived, and walked out of the alcove. Corporal Lester Bradley followed on his heels.

They found themselves standing alone in the narrow street outside the church.

I wonder where the h.e.l.l the gendarmes are?

Then he saw. There were gendarmes at either end of the street. Some were blocking the street where it entered Plaza de Mayo. At the other end, a gendarme was making policeman-like traffic-control gestures, and a moment later a Peugeot sedan started backing into the street. An emba.s.sy BMW followed, then a GMC Yukon XL.

"I guess they're backing the convoy in so they can get out quick," Lester said.

"My thoughts exactly, Corporal Bradley."

"Permission to speak, sir?"

"Granted."

"You really ate that lieutenant a new a.s.shole, didn't you, sir?" Bradley said, admiringly.

"You weren't supposed to hear that, Corporal."

"Hear what, sir?"

Castillo smiled at him and shook his head.

Bradley pointed up the street.

Tony Santini and two other Americans whose faces Castillo recognized but whose names he didn't know were walking quickly down the street to them. Both were wearing topcoats Castillo knew concealed submachine guns.

"How's Schneider?" Santini greeted him.

"Awake and hurting. She was really unhappy that she didn't hit one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with the one shot she got off. Britton and a DEA agent named Ricardo Solez are with her."

"You checked inside?" Santini asked, nodding toward the cathedral.

Two emba.s.sy Yukons had now backed down the street to where they were standing. One of them discharged six Americans, three armed with M-16 rifles, two with Uzi submachine guns, and one with a Madsen. Santini motioned one of the men with an Uzi to them, and then looked at Castillo.

"You checked inside?" he repeated.

Castillo nodded. "Argentine VIPs, but neither the President nor the foreign minister is across the aisle."

"They probably want to come in last, for the show," Santini said.

"The amba.s.sador and Darby and wives are here," Castillo went on. "Darby and his wife want to go to Ezeiza with you and the Mastersons. The amba.s.sador wants to go with the casket."

"And you?"

"I thought that's what I'd do."

Santini nodded. "Scenario," he said, "Masterson family convoy leaves. We head for Ezeiza via Avenida 9 Julio and the autopista. As soon as the street is clear, the amba.s.sador's car, the emba.s.sy Yukons-three, one for the casket, two for the honor guard-plus a bus for the Argentine soldiers, back in here with the SIDE tail vehicles. Ma.s.s is over, honor guard moves casket to Yukons, that convoy takes same route to Ezeiza. Okay with you?"

"Fine."

"Where's your car?"

"Around the corner," Castillo said, gesturing. "With two SIDE cars."

"I'd say go with the amba.s.sador, but these SIDE people are not going to like it if they're not in the parade. Your call."

"I'd say screw them, but they're liable to insist and cause trouble."

"I agree. I'll have your car and theirs lined up back there," Santini said, pointing to the rear of the cathedral. "When the SIDE and emba.s.sy lead cars pull out of the street, the amba.s.sador's car will get in the line, and then after the Yukon with the casket pa.s.ses, you'll get in the line with your SIDE cars, then everybody else. Okay?"

"Tony, you know what you're doing. We'll do whatever you think we should."

Santini nodded, then turned to the man with the Uzi. "You heard that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Set it up."

"Yes, sir."

Santini raised his voice for the benefit of those out of earshot: "I'm going to check inside. If everything looks all right, we take the Mastersons in."

"You want me to go inside with you?" Castillo asked.

"Your call, Charley."

"I'll follow the Mastersons in," Castillo said.

Santini nodded and entered the cathedral. Ninety seconds later, he came out again.

"Okay, we move them!" he ordered, and walked quickly to the closest Yukon and opened the rear side door.

A very tall slim girl of thirteen or so got out first. Santini smiled at her, then showed her the door to the cathedral. Then a ten-year-old boy got out and followed his sister into the cathedral, and then Mrs. Masterson climbed down from the Yukon. She looked at Castillo, and then turned back to the truck.

"Just climb over the seat, Jim," she ordered, and then a six-year-old appeared in the open door.

Mrs. Masterson put her arm around his shoulders and led him toward the door in the cathedral wall.

As she pa.s.sed Castillo, she said: "I can't tell you how sorry I am about Betty and the Marine."

Castillo didn't reply.

The only difference between the Masterson kids and Pevsner's kids is the color of their skin. Same s.e.xes, same ages, same intelligent eyes.

Wrong. There's one more difference: Some sonofab.i.t.c.h shot the Masterson kids' daddy.

Castillo followed Mrs. Masterson and the six-year-old into the cathedral.

The President of the Republic of Argentina, whose face Castillo recognized, was now sitting across the nave of the cathedral with another man and two women, who Castillo guessed were the foreign minister and the appropriate wives. Colonel Gellini stood behind the President.

The organ, which had been playing softly, suddenly changed pitch and volume, and Castillo heard the scuffling of feet as people stood up.

Thirty seconds later a crucifer appeared in the nave, carrying an enormous golden cross and leading a long procession of richly garbed clergy, in two parallel columns, which split to go around the flag-draped casket of the late J. Winslow Masterson.

[TWO].

Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembo Province Republica Oriental del Uruguay 1045 25 July 2005 Jean-Paul Bertrand had been sitting in his silk Sulka dressing robe before the wide, flat-screen Sony television in his bedroom since nine o'clock, watching the ceremonies marking the departure of J. Winslow Masterson from Argentina, first on Argentina's Channel Nine, and then on BBC, CNN, and Deutsche Welle, and now on Channel Nine again.

Jean-Paul Lorimer had acquired a Uruguayan immigration stamp on Jean-Paul Bertrand's Lebanese pa.s.sport indicating Bertrand had legally entered Uruguay on July fourth, and another doc.u.ment dated the next day attesting to his legal residence in that country as an immigrant.

July fourth, of course, predated by nine days Jean-PaulLorimer's having gone missing from his apartment in Paris. It was unlikely that any party attempting to find Lorimer would be interested in anyone crossing any border on a date prior to a date Lorimer was known to have been in Paris.

He could, of course, have picked any date to be placed on the pa.s.sport-the immigration stamp and the Certificate of Legal Residence had cost him ten thousand U.S. dollars in cash-but he had picked, as a fey notion, July fourth because it was now his, as well as the United States', independence day.

Once Jean-Paul Bertrand had the doc.u.ments in his safe at Shangri-La, Jean-Paul Lorimer had ceased to exist, and Jean-Paul Bertrand could-after a suitable period, of course, of at least eighteen months, probably two years during which he would be very discreet-get on with his life.

Bertrand had been a little surprised at the amount of attention Jack Masterson's murder had caused around the world. He would not have thought the BBC or Deutsche Welle would have had nearly the interest in the murder of a relatively unimportant American diplomat that they showed. Jack had been the chief of mission, not the amba.s.sador, and Buenos Aires was not really a major capital city of the world, although, in honesty, it had to be admitted that its restaurants did approach the level of those in Paris.

He was not surprised by the attention being paid by Argentine and American television. Jack had been shot in Argentina, which explained the Argentine interest. In all the time Jean-Paul had been coming to Uruguay, and especiallysince satellite television had become available, he had seen, with mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and disgust, that Argentine television was even more devoted to mindless game shows and gore than American television, which was really saying something.

The coverage of the murder-and today's events-by American television seemed to be based more on Jack's fame as the basketball player who had been paid sixty million dollars for getting himself run over by a beer truck than on his status as a diplomat. They had even sought out and placed the driver of the truck on the screen, asking his opinion of the murder of the man obviously destined for basketball greatness before the unfortunate accident.

And of course his fellow players, both from Notre Dame and the Boston Celtics, had been asked for their opinions of what had happened to Jack the Stack and what effect it would have on basketball and the nation generally. Jean-Paul had always been amused and a little disgusted that a basketball team whose name proclaimed Celtic heritage had been willing to pay an obscene amount of money to an obvious descendant of the Tutsi tribes of Rwanda and Burundi for his skill in being able to put an inflated leather sphere through a hoop.

From the comments of some of Jack's former play-mates, Jean-Paul was forced to conclude that many of them had no idea where Argentina was or what Jack the Stack was doing there at the time of his demise. One of them, who had apparently heard that Jack was "chief of mission," extrapolated this to conclude that Jack was a missionary bringing Christianity to the savage pagans of Argentina and expressed his happiness that Jack had found Jesus before going to meet his maker.

Jean-Paul had also been surprised by the long lines of Argentines who had filed into the Catedral Metropolitana to pa.s.s by Jack's casket. He wondered if it was idle curiosity, or had something to do with the funeral of Pope John Paul-also splendidly covered on television- or had been arranged by the Argentine government. He suspected it was a combination of all three factors.

He had hoped to see more of Betsy and the children-they were, after all, his sister and niece and nephews, and G.o.d alone knew when, or if, he would see them again. He didn't see them at all at the cathedral. There had been a shot from a helicopter of a convoy of vehicles racing on the autopista toward the Ezeiza airport that was described as the one carrying the Masterson family, but that might have been journalistic license, and anyway, nothing could be seen of the inside of the three large sport utility trucks in the convoy.

There was a very quick glimpse of them at the airfield, obviously taken with a camera kept some distance from the huge U.S. Air Force transport onto which they were rushed, surrounded by perhaps a dozen, probably more, heavily armed U.S. soldiers.

That whole scene offended, but did not surprise, Jean-Paul Bertrand. It was another manifestation of American arrogance. The thing to do diplomatically- using the term correctly-would be for the U.S. government to have sent a civilian airliner to transport Jack's body and his family home, not a menacing military transport painted in camouflage colors that more than likely had landed in Iraq or Afghanistan-or some other place where the United States was flexing its military muscles in flagrant disregard of the wishes of the United Nations-within the past week. And if it was necessary to "provide security"-which in itself was insulting to Argentina-to do it with some discretion. Guards in civilian clothing, with their weapons concealed, would have been appropriate. Soldiers armed with machine guns were not.

Jean-Paul corrected himself. Those aren't soldiers. They're something else: Air Force special operators wearing those funny hats with one side pinned up, like the Australians. They're-what do they call them?-Air Commandos. Those aren't soldiers. They're something else: Air Force special operators wearing those funny hats with one side pinned up, like the Australians. They're-what do they call them?-Air Commandos.

That distinction is almost certainly lost on the Argentines.

What they see is heavily armed norteamericanos norteamericanos and a North American warplane sitting on their soil as if they own it. and a North American warplane sitting on their soil as if they own it.

Will the Americans ever learn?