The Hostage Part 79

Castillo saw that another heavy steel barrier pole would keep people out of the country club until it was raised, and that a menacing-looking tire shredder would keep them from changing their minds about wanting to enter Buena Vista and backing out. The guard waited until Castillo had parked the Mercedes before he returned to the guard shack, and the moment the guard entered the shack, another came out, leaned against it, folded his arms on his chest, and stared at the car.

Castillo got out and waved and smiled at the guard, which seemed to confuse him. Castillo took out a small cigar and lit it.

Five minutes later, a Mercedes-Benz ML350 identical to Castillo's came through the gate, made a U-turn, and pulled in beside Castillo. Castillo had examined it carefully, but the windows were so heavily darkened that it wasn't until the door opened that Charley could see the driver, and then recognize him.

This doesn't give me a lot of time to figure out-even guess-what he's doing here.

"Alfredo! What a pleasant surprise!" Castillo said. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Mr. Pevsner had no idea that you were going to call, Karl," Colonel Alfredo Munz said. "You really should have called first."

"I will offer my apologies for my bad manners."

"I know he's going to be pleased to see you. Would you follow me, please?"

"How do you know that he'll be pleased to see me?"

"Because when I saw you puffing on your cigar, I called and told him who his friend from Vienna was, and he said, 'Wonderful. I really want to talk to him,'" Munz replied, snapped an order to the guards to raise the barrier, and got back in his Mercedes. By the time Castillo got behind the wheel, the barrier pole was already high in the air.

Aleksandr Pevsner, wearing riding breeches and boots and a heavy, red, turtleneck woolen sweater, was standing on the verandah of his house waiting for them.

"Charley, how good to see you!" he exclaimed, and embraced him in the Argentine manner.

"How are you, Alex?"

"If you had given the guards your name, I would have had them pa.s.s you in," he said. "All I heard was a 'friend from Vienna,' and I have many of those."

"I understand," Castillo said. "You thought it might be Henri Douchon, miraculously raised from the dead."

"Who? I have no idea what you're talking about, my friend."

"Okay," Castillo said, smiling.

"Come on in the house, we'll have a gla.s.s of wine. Have you had luncheon? Can I offer you something?"

"I had a small ham-and-cheese sandwich at the airport in Montevideo, and yes, you may offer me something. Thank you very much."

"Anna and the kids are at school. I have been at school. Horse school-"

"Equestrian, Alex," Castillo corrected him. "I keep telling you things, and you keep forgetting them."

"So you do. I was at equestrian equestrian school-I wonder, what's the etymology of that word? What's it got to do with horses?" school-I wonder, what's the etymology of that word? What's it got to do with horses?"

"It means horses, Alex. From the Latin equus equus," Castillo said.

"I keep forgetting how smart you are, Charley. At least most of the time."

"You mean you keep forgetting most of the time? Or that I'm smart only part of the time?"

"How about both? Anyway, I am just back from learning how to properly ride a horse, and I was about to have a lomo lomo sandwich. May I offer you the same, or would you prefer something . . ." sandwich. May I offer you the same, or would you prefer something . . ."

"A lomo lomo sandwich would be delightful, Alex." sandwich would be delightful, Alex."

"With wine or beer?"

"Beer, please. And coffee."

"Let's go in the breakfast room," Pevsner said, gesturing. "And would you mind if Alfredo joined us?"

"Not at all."

"I thought he would like to hear what you have come to tell me."

"What makes you think I've come to tell you anything?" Castillo asked.

Pevsner didn't answer. He gestured for them to sit at a round, gla.s.s-topped table, and then left, presumably to order their lunch.

"So how do you like working for Alex, Alfredo?"

"It pays much better than SIDE did," Munz replied. "How is your female agent?"

"Thank you for asking. She's a lot better than she could be. I saw her a few days ago in Philadelphia."

"And the Mastersons? Are they well? Safe?"

"They are being protected by twenty-four Delta Force shooters and half of the Mississippi gendarmeria."

"I saw your President on television," Munz said. "When he said 'this outrage will not go unpunished.'"

"I saw that, too."

"Would it be reasonable to a.s.sume that you're somehow involved with doing that for him?"

"Where would you get an idea like that?"

"Where would Alfredo get an idea like what?" Pevsner asked as he came back into the breakfast room.

"The U.S. President promised he would punish those responsible for what he called 'this outrage,' the murders of Masterson and the sergeant . . ."

"The sergeant's name was Markham," Castillo interrupted. "Sergeant Roger Markham."

". . . and I asked Karl if he was involved."

"And what did my friend Carlos say?"

"He asked me where I got an idea like that."

"Aha!" Pevsner said. "So if you're not involved in punishment, and you didn't come here to tell me something, to what do I owe the honor?"

"I came here to borrow your helicopter for a couple of days," Castillo said. "I just knew you'd be happy to loan it to me."

Pevsner's head snapped around to look at him.

After a moment, he said, "So he is alive and here."

"Who's alive and here?" Castillo asked.

"The man you asked Howard Kennedy to find for you."

"Did Howard find him?"

"You know he didn't, Carlos."

"The word on the street in Paris and elsewhere in the old country is that he's in either the Seine or the Danube.

Didn't Howard tell you that? What was his name again?"

"Jean-Paul Lorimer, as you d.a.m.ned well know," Pevsner said.

"You told me you'd never heard of him, when I asked you," Castillo said.

"Sometimes it's better not to know people's names," Pevsner replied. "I know who a lot of people are who do things. Sometimes I can't put a name to them. I just know what they do."

"That's interesting," Castillo said. "Can I take that as a 'Yes, I'll be happy to loan you my helicopter'?"

"Let me offer a hypothetical situation," Pevsner said. "Let's suppose someone came to you in Texas and said, 'I want to borrow a horse. I have an errand to run.' And you said, 'But it's raining and if I loan you my horse, you will get soaking wet, and maybe even get your death of cold and die. Why don't you let me run your errand for you?' Wouldn't that make more sense?"

"Not if your idea of an errand is to send someone to the beauty parlor to put an Indian beauty mark on his forehead. I told Howard, in Paris, to tell you I want this sonofab.i.t.c.h alive."

"To do what?"

"I want to hear him sing. You know, like a canary. I want him to tell me not only who he thinks whacked Masterson and Markham, but everything else he knows about who got what and when and what for in the . . . you know what, Alex. A series of business transactions involving food, medical supplies, and oil."

Pevsner stared at him coldly for a long moment.

"And just to satisfy my curiosity, how would you go about making the canary sing?" Pevsner asked.

"You mean in case pulling his teeth with pliers didn't work?"

"Or the Chinese water torture."

"Well, first I would appeal to his sense of honesty and fair play. If that didn't work, then I would tell him I understood completely. And since I knew people were worried about him not being in Paris, I was going to send him back there. And there would be nothing to worry about the trip either, because I was going to give him enough Gamma Hydroxybutane so that when he woke up he was going to be in the Place de la Concorde. Chained naked in a s.e.xually suggestive pose to one of the statues around the Obelisk of Luxor wearing lipstick and earrings and with a rose stuck up his a.s.s."

"Oh, Charley!" Pevsner laughed. "What a wonderful picture! Unfortunately, I can't permit it."

"I'm not asking you for permission, Alex. All I want to do is borrow your helicopter for a day or two."

"You're not listening to me, Charley. I said I can't permit it. I have too much to lose if the canary sings."

"And you're not listening to me, Alex. You tend to forget what I tell you."

"I really don't want this to become unpleasant, Charley. I really like you, and you know that. I would be very unhappy-"

"Let me tell you how things really are, Alex."

"Okay, my friend, tell me how things really are."

"Right now, the pressure is off you because I went to the President and got it taken off. As far as I know-I was about to say 'correct me if I'm wrong,' but I don't think you would-your only connection with Oil for Food was to move things around in your airplanes. You didn't buy ten dollars' worth of aspirin and sell it to the Iraqis for ten thousand, and then kick back half to Saddam. Or anything like that. Right so far?"

Pevsner nodded, just perceptibly. "I'm a businessman, Charley. If people want me to airlift something somewhere, I'll do it."

"I understand. The point is, right now we have an understanding. You don't break any American laws and we don't come looking for you. The problem is that you're about to break an American law."

"What law would that be?"

"Interfering with an official investigation; obstructing justice."

Pevsner smiled.

"You're not suggesting that I would actually be charged with something like that? Come on, Charley."

"Oh, you wouldn't be charged with anything. But the arrangement would be broken, and the President would be free to really start helping Interpol in their so-far not very successful attempts to put the cuffs on you."

"As much as it pains me to even think of something like this, have you thought of what might happen to you before you could tell anybody anything?"

"You mean, maybe getting my throat cut? Or getting a beauty mark?"

"Those things seem to happen, Charley, to people who threaten me or, more important, the happiness of my family."

"You don't think I just walked in here cold, do you? If I'm not back where I'm expected within an hour-and it's a ten-minute drive-or I don't make a telephone call and say the right things, Amba.s.sador Silvio will request an immediate meeting with the foreign minister. He will tell him he has just learned that Aleksandr Pevsner, who Interpol is searching so hard for, is living in the Buena Vista Country Club."

"What makes you so sure he doesn't already know?" Pevsner snapped.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that he does. But that's not the same thing as being told he does by the American amba.s.sador, is it? And the Argentines seem, at those levels of the government, to solve embarra.s.sing problems by throwing people to the wolves. Wouldn't you agree, Alfredo?"

Pevsner glared at him.

"Think it over, Alex," Castillo said. "Very carefully."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Charley," Pevsner said, more sadly than angrily.

"And f.u.c.k you, Alex. I say that in the friendliest possible way."

"What do you want to do with the helicopter?"

"You really don't want to know, do you?"

"Hypothetically?"