The Hostage

XV

[ONE] Suite 301 Hotel de Crillon 10 Place de la Concorde Paris, France 0730 27 July 2005 There was a knock at the door, and Castillo, still chewing on a piece of toast, stood up from the breakfast table and went to open the door.

A nondescript man in his late fifties-maybe a little older-was standing there in a somewhat rumpled suit.

"Mr. Castillo?"

"Right. You're Mr. Delchamps?"

The man nodded.

"Come on in. Would you like some breakfast?"

"No, thanks."

"Maybe some coffee?"

Delchamps shook his head, and looked at Fernando and Torine.

"I wasn't told about anybody else," Delchamps said.

"This is Colonel Torine and Mr. Lopez," Castillo said. "And this is Mr. Edgar Delchamps, the CIA station chief."

"Not only wasn't I told about anyone else, but, Mr. Castillo, as you may or may not know, the identity of the CIA station chief, whoever that might be, is classified."

"Not a problem, Mr. Delchamps. Both the colonel and Mr. Lopez have the necessary clearances."

"How do I know that?"

"Someone from the office of the director of national intelligence was supposed to have given you a heads-up about what we're doing here."

"Someone did. But only your name was mentioned."

"It looks to me that there is some sort of a communications problem," Castillo said. "Before we go any further with this, why don't we go next door to the embassy, get on a secure line to the director of national intelligence, and clear this up?"

"It's half past one in the morning in Washington," Delchamps said.

"I know. But I don't have time to waste playing the classified game with you, Mr. Delchamps."

"Maybe later," Delchamps said. "I was told you were interested in a man named Jean-Paul Lorimer. What do you want to know about him?"

"Everything you know about him."

"The phrase used was 'tell him anything you think you should,'" Delchamps said.

"Then there is a communications problem between Ambassador Montvale and whoever you spoke with," Castillo said. "What he was supposed to tell you was to tell me whatever I wanted to know, and what I want to know is everything."

"It was Montvale who called me," Delchamps said.

"And the phraseology he used was you were to tell me what 'you think you should'?"

"That's what he said."

"In that case, Mr. Delchamps, when we go next door and get on the secure phone, we're going to talk to the President, and you are going to tell him what Ambassador Montvale told you."

Delchamps didn't reply.

"For what it's worth, Mr. Delchamps," Colonel Torine said, "I was with Mr. Castillo-on Air Force One-when the President told Ambassador Montvale that Mr. Castillo was to have anything he asked for."

"Why should I believe that?" Delchamps asked.

"No reason," Torine said. "Except it's the truth."

Delchamps considered that for a moment, then said, "Fuck it."

"Excuse me?" Castillo said.

"I said 'fuck it.' Don't tell me you never heard that phrase before. Montvale said you're really an Army officer. A major."

"Guilty."

"Who was given more authority than he clearly will be able to handle, and won't have it long."

"That sonofabitch!" Torine exploded.

"Yeah," Delchamps said.

"You're going to have to go to the President, Charley," Torine said.

"Before you do that, let me tell you where I'm coming from," Delchamps said. "And we'll see how this plays out."

"Go ahead," Castillo said.

"I've been in this business a long time," Delchamps said. "Long enough to be able to retire tomorrow, if I want to. I have been around long enough to see a lot of hard work blown-and, for that matter, people killed- because some hotshot with political power and a personal agenda stuck his nose in what was being developed and blew it. I've been working on this scum Lorimer for a long time, years. And it hasn't been easy."

"How so?" Castillo asked.

"Have you got any clue what he's been up to?"

"Yeah," Castillo said, "he's a bagman, maybe the most important bagman, in the Iraqi oil-for-food scheme."

Castillo saw the surprise on Torine's and Fernando's faces. He had not told them what Kennedy had told him, only that they had met and Kennedy didn't know where Lorimer was.

"The skinny is, as you know," Castillo said, "that the French wanted to ease the sanctions on Hussein but the United States-and the Brits-said hell no. So in its infinite wisdom, the UN security council, in 1996, stepped in with Oil for Food, saying it would keep the Iraqi people alive. It in fact provided Saddam a way to reward his friendly Frogs and Russians and other crooks. Oil allocations totaled some sixty-five billion dollars by the time the United States bagged Baghdad-and with it the program-in 2003. There's plenty to skim off sixty-five thousand million dollars, and Lorimer was there holding the bag and taking names."

"You want to tell me where you got that about Lorimer being the bagman?" Delchamps asked. It was close to a challenge.

"No."

"I'll ask you again, later," Delchamps said. "Maybe you'll change your mind."

"Anything is possible," Castillo said.

"Okay, for the sake of argument, he's been the most important bagman. He knows maybe fifty percent of the people-maybe more-who've been paid off, how much they've been paid off, how, and when. And what for. Some of these people are in the UN, high up in the UN. Therefore, the UN is not interested in having this come out.

"Some of those paid off are French. The French have an interesting law that says the President of France cannot be investigated while he's holding that office. And the Deuxieme Bureau-you know what that is?"

Castillo nodded.

"They regard the agency as a greater threat to La Belle France than the Schutzstaffel ever was, and cooperate accordingly. That's made looking into this difficult."

"I can see where it would," Castillo said.

"Same thing for the Germans," Delchamps went on. "I've still got some friends on the other side of the Rhine-I did some time in Berlin and Vienna in the good old days of the Cold War-and they've fed me some stuff, together with the friendly advice to watch my back as some very important Germans were involved and don't want it to come out.

"There were a lot of Russians involved, too. A lot of the cash we found in Saddam Hussein's closets got there on airplanes owned by a legendary Russian businessman by the name of Aleksandr Pevsner. You ever hear that name?"

"I've heard it," Castillo said.

"He runs sort of a covert FedEx courier service for people who want to ship things around the world without anybody knowing about it. Going off on a tangent with Pevsner, about a month ago I was told-all the station chiefs were told-not to look into anything that sonofabitch was doing without the specific approval of Langley in each case."

"Pevsner was involved with the oil-for-food business?" Castillo asked.

"Not directly, as far as I've been able to figure out. What he did was move the money around-like so much freight-and I suspect that a lot of stuff Saddam Hussein wasn't supposed to get got to Baghdad on his airplanes."

Torine's eyes met Castillo's for a moment.

"Which brings us to the Americans," Delchamps went on. "We had several enterprising businessmen in Houston who were in the oil-for-food racket up to their eyeballs. Forgive me if I sound cynical, but it has been my experience that when rich oil guys make large contributions to politicians, the politicians lend sympathetic ears to them when, for example, they want the agency and the FBI, etcetera, to lay off another businessman, like, for example, this guy Pevsner."

Delchamps paused.

"Can I change my mind about the coffee?"

"Absolutely," Castillo said, and picked up the coffee pitcher.

Delchamps took the cup, added sugar, and stirred it for a moment.

"So there I was, a couple of days ago, when this Lorimer business came up."

"I don't think I follow you," Castillo said.

"The Secret Service guy here is a pal of mine. You know, two old dinosaurs in a forest of young, politically correct State Department flits. Some pal of his called him up and asked him to find Lorimer, and he came to me because he knew I was working on him."

He took a sip of coffee, and then went on: "I knew it was going to go bad, even before the ambassador called me in and asked about Lorimer. He'd had a call from… Whatsername, Cohen, the secretary of state herself."

"Natalie Cohen," Castillo furnished.

"Feisty little broad," Delchamps said. "I like her. Anyway, there I was, about to really bag the little bastard, when somebody blows the whistle on the whole thing."

"You want to explain that?"

"My somewhat cynical makeup made me suspect that somebody in Langley had a big mouth and told somebody in Foggy Bottom that I was about to finish my report on Lorimer. There are people in Foggy Bottom who deeply regret the current feelings of ill will between the Frogs and the United States-and between some senators investigating the oil-for-food scam and the UN-and think it would be just dreadful if we exacerbated those unfortunate situations by suggesting we had information that the Frogs-all the way up to Chirac, and maybe him, too-were involved, and that the bagman was a UN diplomat."

"You thought they were going to kill your report?" Castillo asked.

"Bury it," Delchamps said. "The way Lorimer was buried. If he was lucky."

"Excuse me?" Castillo said.

"It's possible, of course, that he's in Moscow, or maybe Berlin, telling all he knows about who got paid off besides the Russians or Germans. Knowing where the other guys' bodies are buried is a very useful diplomatic tool. It keeps them from talking about where yours are."

"You're suggesting that Lorimer has been killed?" Castillo asked.

"He was lucky if he was killed quick-in other words, just to shut him up. If somebody wanted to know what he knew… They did a real job on his pal, a Lebanese named Henri Douchon, in Vienna. To encourage him to answer questions, they pulled two of his fingernails, and half a dozen of his teeth. Then they cut his throat."

"When was this?" Castillo asked.

"A couple of weeks ago."

"When was the last time anybody saw Lorimer?" Castillo asked.

"Going by his American Express charges, he flew to Vienna on the twelfth of this month. The same day, he bought-or somebody bought using his AmEx card-a train ticket from Vienna here. I don't know if he ever used it; it might be something to throw off anybody looking for him. But he might have come back here. Just don't know. A scenario that occurs to me is that he was grabbed when he went to see his pal Douchon. Then they took him somewhere to ask him questions, or didn't. Following either possibility, they cut him up in little pieces and dropped him into the beautiful Blue Danube. Or he came back here, where they grabbed him, and after he answered their questions, what was left of him was dropped into the Seine."

"Have you considered he might be in hiding?" Castillo asked.

"Sure. Don't think so. My guess is that he's dead. These are very nasty people who wouldn't think twice before they took him out."

"I heard he might have been skimming from the payoff money," Castillo said.

"Could be. I doubt it. He was paid well, of course, but I can't find any trace of big money."

"And you think you would have been able to?"

Delchamps nodded confidently.

"I even got into his apartment," he said. "He had some really nice stuff, antiques, paintings, etcetera. More than he could afford on what the UN paid him, but a lot less, I think, than he would have had had he been stupid enough to try to steal from these guys."

"Okay," Castillo said. "Thanks. But one more question: If, for the sake of argument, he were hiding, where would you guess that would be?"

"In a closet somewhere," Delchamps said. "Or under a bed. Jean-Paul Lorimer was a wimp. He didn't have the balls to be a criminal."

"You knew him?"

"I saw him around. I'm the cultural attache at the embassy. I can put the opera, et cetera, on the expense account.And I get invited to all the parties. The Corps Diplomatique loves to have Americans around so they can tell us how we're fucking up the world." He paused. "Okay, that's what I know. Anything you think I missed?"

"I'd like to see all your files on Lorimer," Castillo said.

"So they can disappear into the black hole?"

"Photocopies would do. That way you'd still have the originals."

"You're not asking for the originals?"

Castillo shook his head. "Photocopies would be fine. How long would it take you to make copies?"

"Which you would then turn over to Montvale-or somebody in the agency, maybe-so they could message me to 'immediately transfer by courier the originals of the documents listed below and certify destruction of any copies thereof'?"

"I don't have to give Montvale anything," Castillo said, "and right now I can't think of anything I want to give him. And as far as the agency is concerned, I am on Langley's Fuck the Bastard If Possible list. I want the copies for me."

Delchamps inclined his head, obviously in thought. Then he took another sip of his coffee. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and lit a small cigar.

"Odd that you should ask about photocopies of my files on Lorimer, Mr. Castillo. By a strange coincidence, I spent most of the afternoon and early evening yesterday, starting right after Ambassador Montvale called me, making photocopies of them. At the time, I was thinking of retiring and writing a book, What the CIA Didn't Want to Get Out About Oil for Food."

"What about the 'my lips are sealed forever plus three weeks' statement you signed? You could get your tail in a crack doing something like that."

"You ever run into a guy named Billy Waugh?"

Castillo nodded.

"I thought you might have," Delchamps said. "Billy wrote a book called I Had Osama bin Laden in My Sights and the Wimps at Langley Wouldn't Let Me Terminate Him-or something like that-and nothing ever happened to Billy."

"They were probably afraid that Billy would write another one, CIA Assholes I Have Known," Castillo said.

Delchamps chuckled. "I thought about that," he said. "And I figured they'd probably come to the same conclusion about me."

He pushed himself out of the chair and held his hand out with his thumb and index finger held wide apart. "It makes a stack about this big," he said. "I'll go next door and get them."

"Thanks," Castillo said. "One more question. Why did you change your mind? About telling me anything?"

"Straight answer?"

"Please."

"Like I said, I'm a dinosaur. I've been doing this a long time. When I was a kid, starting out in Berlin, we had guys there who had been in the second war, Jedburghs, people like that. I even knew Bill Colby. One of them told me if you couldn't look into a man's eyes and size him up you'd better find something else to do. He was right. You-the three of you-have all got the right look."

Delchamps nodded at Fernando and Torine and walked out of the room.

When the door had closed, Fernando said, "So Lorimer's dead. So now what, Gringo?"

"We don't know that he's dead," Castillo said. "From what Delchamps said, if Lorimer was grabbed, it was around the twelfth of this month. They didn't even abduct Mrs. Masterson until the twentieth, or blow Masterson away until the morning of the twenty-third. That's several days. I think they would have heard, in that time, if somebody had blown Lorimer away."

"Okay," Fernando said. "Same question. What now?"

"Go get Sergeant Kranz out of bed," Castillo said. "Tell him to get packed."

Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz, a Delta/Gray Fox communicator, had been one of the two communicators they'd picked up-together with their satellite communications equipment-at Fort Bragg. Colonel Torine had told Kranz he had been chosen to go with them to Europe, rather than the other communicator, who had set up at the Nebraska Avenue Complex, because Torine devoutly believed that when flying across an ocean every pound counted. Kranz was barely over the Army's height and weight minimums. The real reason was that Kranz had been with Torine and Castillo when they were searching for the stolen 727 and proved that you don't have to be six feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds to be a first-rate special operator.

"Where are we going?" Torine asked.

"We're going to see my uncle Otto," Castillo said, and walked to the couch and sat down and picked up the telephone on the coffee table in front of it. [TWO] Executive Offices Die Fulda Tages Zeitung Fulda, Hesse, Germany 0805 27 July 2005 Frau Gertrud Schroeder was a stocky-but by no means fat, or even chubby-sixty-year-old Hessian who wore her gray hair done up in a bun. She had been employed by the Tages Zeitung since she was twenty, and had always worked for the same man, Otto Goerner.

Otto Goerner had joined the firm shortly after he graduated from Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn, in part because he was Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's best friend. Wilhelm was the son and heir apparent to Herman Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, the managing director and just about sole stockholder in Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

When Gertrud joined the Gossinger firm, it had been a medium-sized corporation, not nearly as large as it had been before World War II, or was now. The firm's prewar holdings in Hungary and what had become East Germany-timber, farms, newspapers, breweries, and other businesses-had been confiscated by the communist East German and Hungarian governments.

By 1981, Otto Goerner had risen in the corporate hierarchy to become Herman Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's-the Old Man's-assistant. The title did not reflect his true importance. He was the de facto number two man. But clearly stating this would have been awkward. Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger was supposed to be number two in the family firm.

It had been Gertrud's very privately held opinion at the time that the issue would be resolved when Otto married Frau Erika von und zu Gossinger. Frau Erika had never married; she was called "frau" out of respect for the family's sensitivities. As a very young girl, Erika had made a mistake, with an American aviator of all people, the result of which was a boy, Christened Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. At the time, no one knew where the father was. Gertrud knew the Old Man could have found him if he wanted to, and concluded the Old Man had decided that no father at all was better, for the time being, than an American who might get his hands on Gossinger money.

The time being, in Gertrud's judgment, meant until the Old Man could arrange a marriage between his daughter and his assistant. He-everyone-knew that Otto Goerner was extraordinarily fond of Frau Erika and Little Karlchen, and that the Old Man thought Goerner would be both a good husband to Erika and a good father to his only grandson, whom he adored.

And once they were married, of course, it would be entirely appropriate for Otto Goerner, now a member of the family, to hold any position within the family firm.

The issue was resolved that year-but not in the way Gertrud hoped-when a tire blew on Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's Mercedes as he and his father were on their way home from Kassel. The police estimated the car was traveling in excess of 220 kilometers per hour when it crashed through the guardrails of a bridge on the A7 Autobahn and fell ninety meters into the ravine below.

That meant that Frau Erika became just about the sole stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. What shares she did not now own were in a trust fund the Old Man had set up for Karlchen, who was then twelve. As expected, Otto Goerner became the managing director of the firm. Frau Gertrud believed it was now simply a matter of waiting for an appropriate period of time of mourning-say, six months-to pass before Frau Erika married Otto.

That didn't happen, either. Frau Erika was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. She turned to the U.S. Army to find Little Karlchen's father. He was located in the National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, under a tombstone on which was carved a representation of the Medal of Honor.

His family was located, too, and to Frau Gertrud it seemed that the Gossinger empire was about to pass into the hands of a Texas family of Mexican extraction, and that Poor Little Karlchen was about to be moved from the family mansion-Haus im Wald-in Bad Hersfeld to an adobe shack on the Texas desert, where his newly found grandfather would doze in the sun with his sombrero over his eyes as flies buzzed around him.

That didn't happen, either. Less than twenty-four hours after she learned that her son had left a love child behind him in Germany, Dona Alicia Castillo was at the door of the House in Woods, where she told Frau Erika she had come to take care of her and the boy. She was shortly followed by Don Fernando Castillo, her husband, Little Karlchen's grandfather, and President and chief executive officer of Castillo Enterprises, Inc. When Gertrud turned to Standard amp; Poor's to see exactly what that was, she learned that Castillo Enterprises, Inc., was a privately held corporation with estimated assets worth approximately 2.3 times those of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

Two weeks before Frau Erika died, Don Fernando Castillo took Little Karlchen, now renamed Carlos Guillermo Castillo, to Texas, and left "for the time being, until I can get a handle on what's what" Otto Goerner as managing director of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

"For the time being" lasted until C. G. Castillo came into his inheritance at twenty-one-shortly before he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One of his first official acts in his role as sole stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., was to negotiate a lifelong contract with Otto Goerner to serve as managing director. It provided for an annual salary and a percentage of the profits. "Guten morgen, Gertrud," Otto Goerner said as he walked into his office. He was a tall, heavyset, ruddy-faced man who many people thought was a Bavarian.

"Karlchen just called," Frau Schroeder said.

"Why didn't you tell him to call me in the car?"

"He's coming here. Him and Fernando and two others."

"He say why?"

"He said he wants to show you-at the Haus im Wald-a new satellite phone he says you'll probably want to buy for all our foreign correspondents."

"Gott!"

"We got a charge for him and three others for last night at the Crillon," Frau Schroeder announced.

It was Frau Schroeder's custom, as her first or second order of business, to daily check the charges Karl W. Gossinger had made against his Tages Zeitung American Express card. It let the both of them know where he was.

"The one in Paris?"

She nodded. "And he still has rooms-maybe just one-in the Four Seasons in Buenos Aires."

"I wonder what our Karlchen is up to?"

"You could ask him."

"We've been over this before, Gertrud. If I ask him something, I'm likely to get an answer that I really don't want to hear."

Gertrud didn't reply.

"A new satellite phone? What the hell is that all about?" Goerner asked.

"Since you're not going to ask him, we'll probably never know," she said.

"Did he say when he's-when they are coming?"

"Today."

"He say what flight they'll be on? And can I make it to Rhine-Main in time to meet it?"

"He said they have Fernando's airplane, and are going to Leipzig-Halle."

"They flew across the Atlantic in that little jet?"

"Is that one of those questions you really don't want the answer to?"

"Another one is 'why Leipzig?' The last I heard, Frankfurt is much closer to Paris."

"We never know what our Karlchen is up to, do we?"

"Really up to," Goerner said. "As opposed to what he says he is. So when do they get to Leipzig?"

"He said it would probably take them an hour and a half to get out of Paris, and that it's a little more than an hour's flight to Leipzig-Halle. That was ten minutes ago, so they should arrive between ten-thirty and eleven."

"If I leave right now, and drive very dangerously, I might be able to meet them."

"Can you get them all in your car?" she asked.

"Probably not," he said. "If they have much luggage, no. We'll just have to rent a car at the airport."

"Or I could drive over there in my car."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"The last time he was in here, I had maybe two whole minutes alone with him."

"Don't let me forget to call my wife and tell her they're coming," Goerner said. [THREE] Flughafen Leipzig-Halle 1040 27 July 2005 "My God!" Castillo greeted Goerner and Schroeder. "Who's minding the store?"

He kissed Frau Schroeder wetly on the forehead.

"Ach, Karlchen!" she said.

"Where's your friends?" Goerner asked.

"Going through immigration. We Germans can't be too careful about what Americans we let into the country, you know."

"I don't think that's very funny, Karl," Goerner said.

"Neither do I," Castillo said. "But the facts are that as a good German, I got waved through, and my friends are being very carefully examined by the authorities."

"Just who are your friends?"

"One is an Air Force colonel and the other is a Special Forces sergeant."

"I won't ask you what they're doing here because I don't think you would tell me the truth, and even if you did, I don't think I would want to know."

"I'll tell you. We are looking into the oil-for-food scandal."

"We already have people on that story."

"And I want to talk to them, especially the guy who covered the murder of M'sieu Douchon in Vienna. And I want to hear more about what the Alte Marburgers were saying about sanctuary-"

"I don't think we should have this conversation here, Karl, do you?" Goerner interrupted.

"Probably not. We can have it in the car on the way to Bad Hersfeld," Castillo said. He turned to Frau Schroeder. "I don't think you want to be involved in this, Tante Gertrud."

She put both hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes.

"I wish to God you weren't involved in this, Karlchen," she said. "But since you are, don't you dare try to exclude me."

Fernando Lopez walked up. He wrapped an arm around Frau Schroeder's shoulders, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "Still taking care of ol' Whatsisname, are you, Frau Gertrud?"

"Somebody has to," she said. "Your grandmother is well, I hope?"

"Very well, thank you. If she knew I was going to make this grand tour of Europe, I'm sure she would have sent her love."

"How are you, Fernando?" Otto asked.

"I don't know, Otto," Fernando said. "I have the uncomfortable feeling that I have just become a file in some vast, Teutonically thorough database of suspicious people."

Neither Otto nor Gertrud responded.

Colonel Torine and Sergeant Kranz-who was towing an enormous hard-sided suitcase behind him-walked up to them a moment later.

"Everything okay, Seymour?" Castillo asked.

"Yes, sir. The authorities, who tried hard, failed to find any explosives or controlled substances in my luggage."

"Seymour, this is Mr. Goerner, who has been trying to straighten me out since I was in diapers, and this is Frau Schroeder, who keeps him on the straight and narrow."

"How do you do?" Kranz said.

"Herr Gossinger tells me you're in the Army, Herr Kranz?" Frau Schroeder asked, dubiously.

Kranz looked at Castillo, who nodded, before replying.

"Not exactly, ma'am," Kranz said in German. "I'm Special Forces."

"You mean," she asked, "with the beret, the green beret?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kranz said, "with the beret."

"How very interesting," she said. "And you speak German."

"Yes, ma'am. Most of us speak a couple of languages."

"And this is Colonel Jake Torine, of the Air Force," Castillo said.

"If you're responsible for keeping Karl-Charley-on the straight and narrow, Colonel, you have my profound sympathy," Goerner said.

"I think of him as the cross I have to bear as a righteous man," Torine said.

"Me, too," Goerner said. [FOUR] Haus im Wald Near Bad Hersfeld Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg Hesse, Germany 1310 27 July 2005 Frau Helena Goerner, a svelte blonde who was a Bavarian but who didn't look as if she would be comfortable in an embroidered dirndl and with her hair braided into pigtails, had lunch waiting for them when they arrived at Haus im Wald.

"Welcome home, Karl," she said in English, offering him her cheek to kiss as if he were a very distant relative entitled to the privilege. Then she did the same to Fernando.

"Dona Alicia, Maria, and your adorable children are doing well, I trust, Fernando?"

"Very well, thank you, Helena," Fernando replied. "And your rug rats? How and where are they?"

Castillo and Otto chuckled.

"Our children are here, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for them to have luncheon with us."

"Helena, you have to remember that your rug rats are my godchildren," Castillo said. "Bring 'em on!"

"Absolutely," Fernando chimed in. "The more rug rats, the better."

Frau Goerner, forcing a smile, turned to a maid wearing a crisp white cap and apron.

"Ilse, will you bring the children to the dining room, please?" she said, adding to everyone else, "I'll join you there."

She walked out of the foyer.

"Do you two have to do your best to destroy my happy marriage?" Otto asked. He didn't seem to be really annoyed with them.

"The both of you should be ashamed of yourselves," Frau Gertrud said, but she didn't seem very annoyed, either.

"I somehow got the feeling our hostess does not like my godchildren referred to as her rug rats," Castillo said to Torine and Kranz. "I will introduce…"

"You sensed that, did you?" Goerner asked, sarcastically.

"… you two to her when she gets her Bavarian temperunder control." He pointed to a door. "That's the elevator. The athletically inclined can use the stairs."

"When he was about nine or ten," Otto said, "Karl used to go to the stables, collect the cats-five, six, more-and load them on the elevator. His grandfather, who wouldn't let Karlchen use the elevator, and who hated cats, would summon the elevator, and when the door opened they'd all rush out into his bedroom. You could hear the Old Man in Fulda."

"He was a wicked little boy," Frau Gertrud said, smiling fondly. "Who looked like an angel."

"Is that a 'what the hell is this?' look on your face, Jake?" Castillo asked Torine, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "I was born in this house. I lived here until I was twelve." Castillo saw the look on Kranz's face, and went on: "Long story, Seymour. I'll brief you later. Let's go up to the dining room and have a beer. In a manner of speaking, I make it myself."

"If Helena offers champagne, Karl," Goerner said firmly, "you will drink it."

"Jawohl," Castillo said, smiling. He clicked his heels, and waved everybody onto the elevator. It was a tight fit, but they all managed to get on. The dining room was an enormous room on the third floor. One wall was covered with a huge, heavy curtain. Castillo walked to it, found a switch, and tripped it. The curtains opened, revealing floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows offering a vista of gently rolling farmlands.

"Nice view," Torine said.

"Come here," Castillo said, "and Professor Castillo will offer a lecture on fairly recent military history."

Another maid in crisp white cap and apron appeared with a tray holding champagne stems. Castillo, Torine, and Kranz were taking glasses from the tray when Helena appeared.

"Ah, our hostess," Castillo said. "You'll have to forgive my bad manners, Helena. This is Colonel Jacob Torine of the U.S. Air Force, and Mr. Kranz of AFC Electronics of Las Vegas, Nevada, who is going to demonstrate the satellite telephone I'm going to recommend to Otto that he buy for the Tages Zeitung's correspondents. Gentlemen, our hostess, Frau Helena Goerner."

Helena had her temper under control and was charming.

"You have a lovely home, Frau Goerner," Torine said. "The view is spectacular."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?"

"I was about to deliver a little lecture about the land, Helena. May I go on?"

"Of course," she said, with a hint of a smile and a visible lack of enthusiasm.

"If you will look halfway across that glorious field of corn," Castillo said, pointing, "you will see a strip perhaps seventy-five meters wide where the growth isn't nearly as luxurious as the rest."

"Yeah," Torine said, curiously, having spotted what Castillo had pointed out.

"At one time, as difficult as it might be to believe in this time of peace and love for our fellow man, that strip was sewn with mines, about half of them Bouncing Bet-ties. They were placed there by the East German authorities-"

"That was the East German-West German border?" Torine interrupted.

"Yes, it was. May I continue?"

"Of course. Excuse me."

"The mines were placed there by the East Germans to keep the West Germans from rushing over there to take advantage of the manifold benefits of communism," Castillo went on.

"Karlchen, be careful!" Frau Gertrud ordered.

"And just this side of the still-polluted soil there used to be a road on which members of the U.S. Army used to patrol… This is really marvelous champagne, Helena! Might I have another?"

"Yes, of course," Helena said, and snapped her fingers impatiently at the maid, who hurried up with her tray.

Castillo took an appreciative swallow and went on: "As I was saying, there was a road on which valiant Americans of the Eleventh and Fourteenth Armored Cavalry Regiments patrolled to keep the West Germans from escaping into East Germany.

"One of those heroic young Americans was someone you both know. Second Lieutenant Allan Naylor came here just about straight from West Point, after pausing only long enough to take a bride and the basic officer's course at Fort Knox-"

"Naylor was here?" Torine asked. "Fascinating."

"As a second john, and later as a major," Castillo confirmed. "And he learned, of course, the legend of the Haus im Wald."

"Karl!" Goerner warned. Castillo ignored him.

"Would you like to hear the legend?" Castillo asked innocently.

Torine was silent.

"I would," Kranz said.

"Well, the legend was that in this house, which was known to the stalwart troopers of the Eleventh and Fourteenth as 'the Castle,' there lived a blond fair maiden princess who was ferociously guarded by her father, the king, also known as 'the Old Man.' He didn't keep the fair maiden in chains or anything like that, but he did do his best to keep her away from the Americans, who, as any Frenchman and many Germans will happily tell you, are bent on destroying culture around the world."

"Don't you think that's enough?" Goerner asked.

"I'm almost finished, Otto," Castillo said.

"I don't think you're being funny anymore, Karl," Otto said.

"Then don't laugh," Castillo said. "Well, one day, inevitably, I suppose, the inevitable happened. An American knight in shining armor rode up. Actually he was flying in the left seat of a Dog Model Huey. He set it down right there, on the cobblestones next to the stable."

He pointed.

"He had several things going for him. He was an Army aviator, for one thing, and everybody knows they possess a certain pizzazz. Most important, he was a Texican.As Fernando will tell you, handsome young Texicans send out vibes that women simply cannot resist. And such was the case here.

"He looked up at the mansion and saw the beautiful princess. She saw him. Their eyes locked. There was the sound of violins. The earth shook. Fireworks filled the sky. A choir of angels sang Ich liebe dich and other such tunes. And about nine months later they had a beautiful boy child who stands here before you."

"Oh, Karlchen!" Frau Gertrud said, emotionally.

"Your father was an Army aviator?" Kranz asked. "Where is he now?"

"He didn't make it back from Vietnam," Castillo said, evenly.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me, too," Castillo said. "Lecture over. I hope you took notes, as there will be a written exam."

"Why don't we sit down?" Helena said.

"Is that a true story, Onkel Karl?" a very young voice inquired.

It showed on Helena Goerner's face that she had not been aware her children had been standing in the door and really didn't like it that they had.

"Ah, my favorite godchildren," Castillo said. "Yeah, Willi, that's a true story."

Castillo walked to the door and embraced, one at a time, two boys, one ten and the other twelve.

The twelve-year-old asked, "What's Vietnam?"

"A terrible place a long way from here," Castillo said. "Changing the subject, Seymour, what time is it in Washington?"

"About half past six," Kranz replied.

"And how long is it going to take you to set up?"

"That depends on where you want it."

"How about next to the stable? Where the knight in shining armor once touched down?"

"Ten minutes. You planning to leave it there?"

"Not for long," Castillo said. "So why don't we have lunch, then while I have a little talk with Otto, you have it up and running by oh-eight-hundred Washington time?"

"Can do." [FIVE] "A marvelous lunch, Helena. Thank you," Castillo said.

"I'm glad you liked it, Karl," she said.

Castillo motioned to one of the maids for more coffee. When she had poured it, he said, "Danke schon," and turned to Goerner. "So tell us, Otto, what you heard at the fund-raiser in Marburg about the boys moving money to Argentina," Castillo said.

Goerner didn't reply.

"You said two things, Otto, that caught my attention. You said what caught your attention was they said something about, 'Ha, ha, Der Fuhrer was the first to come up with that idea…'"

Helena flashed him a cold look. "I don't think the children should hear this," she said.

"Your call, of course, Helena," Castillo said. "But when I was even younger than the boys, my grandfather, at this very table, told me all about the evils the National Socialist German Workers Party-more popularly known as the Nazis-had brought to our fair land. He thought it was important that I knew about it as early as possible."

Her face tightened and grew white.

"You remember, Otto, don't you?" Castillo went on. "The Old Man, sitting where you are now sitting; you and Onkel Willi and my mother sitting over there, and me sitting where Willi is…"

"I remember, Karl," Goerner said.

Helena stood up and threw her napkin on the table.

"Come on, boys," she said.

"You don't have to stay, Liebchen," Otto said. "But the boys will."

She locked eyes with him, and then walked out of the room.

Goerner looked at Castillo.

"Your mother used to say, you know, that the one thing you really inherited from the Old Man was his complete lack of tact," he said.

Castillo nodded, and then said, "You said you thought the money they were moving was from Oil for Food."

Goerner nodded.

"Let me tell you where I'm coming from, Karl," he said. "When you were being a smart-ass before, with 'the legend of the castle,' it started me thinking. You were right. Your grandfather didn't like Americans, and if the Old Man were alive today, he probably would like them even less. But then I realized that if he were still here, and knew what's going on, and an American intelligence officer-not you, not his grandson, any American intelligenceofficer he thought he could trust-came to him and asked about this, he would have told him everything he knew.

"And you're right, Karl, I am sitting in the Old Man's chair. And in this chair, I have always tried to do what the Old Man would do. You understand me? That's why we're talking about what we never said out loud before, what you really are; that's why I'm going to tell you what I know, and that's why I wanted the boys to hear this. The Old Man was right about that, too. You're never too young to learn what a lousy world we're living in."

"I understand, Otto," Castillo said.

"Some of this I know myself," Goerner began, "but most of it comes from Eric Kocian-"

"Who?"

"He's the editor of the Budapester Neue Zeitung," Goerner said. He looked at Torine. "That's one of ours, which is to say, one of Charley's. Charley did tell you, didn't he, that he's the owner of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.? That's the holding company for everything."

"No, he didn't," Torine said. He looked at Castillo and added, "It probably just slipped his mind."

"Okay, Eric is an old man. Well into his seventies. He's half Hungarian and half Viennese. He was an eighteen-year-old Gefreite-corporal-in the Old Man's regiment in Stalingrad. They were really seriously wounded, which turned out to be a good thing for them. They were evacuated on the same plane; they didn't wind up in Siberia for a decade or so after the surrender at Stalingrad.

"After the war, Eric came here-Vienna was nothing but rubble; what was left of his family had been killed the day the Americans tried to bomb the Hauptbahnhof and missed and destroyed Saint Stephen's Cathedral-and he really didn't have anyplace else to go. The Old Man put him to work on the farm, and then on the Tages Zeitung when he could start that up again. And then when the Old Man got the Wiener Tages Zeitung up and running, Eric went to Vienna. He was managing editor, about to retire, when we got the Budapester Zeitung presses back from the communists. Eric came to me when he heard I was thinking of selling the plant, and asked that he be allowed to try to get the Zeitung up and running again.

"I didn't think that would work, but I knew the Old Man wouldn't have told him no, so I agreed. We renamed it the Budapester Neue Zeitung and he started it up. It worked. It's the largest German-language newspaper in Hungary, and is actually a competitor of the Wiener Tages Zeitung in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Eastern Austria."

"He's the guy who did the story on the Lebanese, what's his name, Douchon, who was murdered in Vienna?" Castillo asked.

"The first story was written by one of our men on the Wiener Tages Zeitung. When Eric saw it on our wire, he had serious doubts about it. So he went to Vienna himself, where of course he knew everybody, especially the senior police, and they told him that it wasn't a…" Goerner stopped and looked uncomfortably at his sons for a moment and then went on: "… a case of one more Middle Eastern homosexual being murdered by his blond Viennese boyfriend, as our man had hinted, but most likely by people who wanted to shut Douchon's mouth so that he wouldn't be talking about Oil for Food.

"Eric had already been looking into the oil-for-food story, and it fit what he'd dug up himself. So he came to me-came here; he didn't trust the telephone-and told me about it, and said he really wanted to go into it.

"I told him he was liable to get himself killed, and he responded, 'At my age, what a good way to go out, on a big story.' So I told him no, I'd assign people to the story, and then he said, 'Okay, then I retire. I'm going to do this story.'"

"Did he retire?"

"Of course not," Goerner said.

"I want to talk to him. Tomorrow."

"I'll have to go with you," Goerner said. "Like most people around here, Kocian thinks you're squandering the Old Man's money while pretending to be our Washington correspondent. He actually pointed out to me the striking similarities between a story we published under your byline and a piece that appeared in the American Conservative magazine. I forget what it was, but you certainly didn't spend a lot of time paraphrasing that story."

"I'll try to be more careful in the future," Castillo said.

Goerner nodded.

"Your original question, Karl, was about money being hidden, or washed, in South America, especially Argentina."

"Yes, it was."

"I've always been fascinated with that, and so was your grandfather. The Nazis didn't think it up. They weren't that clever. It actually started after the First World War and the Versailles Convention. The French and the English, you will recall, got German East Africa as reparations. As well as just about everything that could be taken out of Germany proper."

Goerner paused, then asked, "This is going to be a rather long lecture. You sure you want me to go on?"

"I don't know about Charley," Torine said, "but yes, please."

"Go on, Otto, please," Castillo said.

"As bad as the Geneva Convention was-and I'm one of those people who think it made Hitler's coming to power and thus World War Two inevitable-it did not confiscate outright the holdings of individual Germans, or Hungarians, or anyone else, in what had been German East Africa. It simply changed the colonial government from German to French and English; people still owned their farms and businesses and whatever.

"Then the French and English levied taxes on the farms, businesses, etcetera, which they had every legal right to do. The problem was that the taxes had to be paid now in French francs and English pounds. The German mark was worthless. There was no way a German landholder could come up with enough francs or pounds to pay his taxes. The properties were then confiscated for nonpayment of taxes and sold at auction in francs or pounds to the highest bidders, most of whom happened to be Frenchmen and Englishmen."

"Dirty pool," Torine said.

"Of questionable morality, perhaps, but perfectly legal," Goerner went on. "The only people who did not lose their property were a lucky few-including some of your Hungarian kin, Karl-who for one reason or another had gold on deposit in South Africa. The South Africans hated the English and the French, and closed their eyes when the gold that Germans held in their banks was transferred to either some friendly South African or Swiss bank.

"Then, when the tax auctions were held, lo and behold, some of the bidders were Swiss and South African, who were able to buy francs and pounds at very favorable rates with their gold, and be in a position to outbid the French and the English who had come to the auctions looking for a real bargain.

"That's how your Nagyneni Olga, Karl-"

"Excuse me?" Torine interrupted.

"My Hungarian aunt Olga," Castillo furnished. "She lived with us here, until I was what, Otto, about seven or eight?"

"You were eight when Olga died," Goerner said. "Anyway, because they had gold in South Africa, Olga and her husband, who was then still alive, managed to not only hang on to their former German East African property, but to buy at auction the Gossinger holdings, which otherwise would have gone to some undeserving Frenchman or Englishman.

"After World War Two, the communists in Hungary, of course, confiscated everything she owned there, but when the Old Man finally got her out of Hungary, she still held title to the African properties. She left it to the Old Man when she died. He held it until he decided that Kenya was not really going to become the African paradise the new black leaders said it was going to be after independence."

"I never heard any of this before," Castillo confessed.

"All you had to do was ask, Karl," Goerner said. "The importance about all of this is that people learned the lesson. They understood that it was prudent to have hard currency out of whatever country they lived in. This proved a boon to the Swiss banking industry, who instituted the numbered account and really strict banking secrecy laws.

"The trick was to get the money out of your country without letting your government know. This generally required that you have a friend in the country where you wanted to hide your nest egg. For many Germans, a place where you could find German friends-in some cases, relatives-was in Argentina. In the thirties, people are prone to forget, Argentina had the largest gold reserves in the world."

"Were we involved in this?" Castillo asked.

"Yes, we were," Goerner said. "What your great-grandfather, and then your grandfather, did was begin to buy our newsprint from Argentina."

"I don't follow that," Castillo confessed.

"Newspapers consume vast quantities of newsprint," Goerner said. "Therefore no one was surprised when Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., began to buy newsprint from Argentina, where it was cheaper than newsprint from Denmark or Norway, and even cheaper than newsprint from the United States and Canada. And the government didn't understand at first just how cheap it was."

"I don't understand that, either," Castillo said.

"Let's say newsprint from Denmark was so much a ton, say fifty dollars. Use that for the purposes of illustration; I have no idea what it was back then. And forty dollars a ton from the United States or Canada. And thirty from Argentina. Without raising any interest at all, the Dresdenerbank would transfer, say, three thousand dollars to the Bank of Argentina in payment for one hundred tons of newsprint. Bill rendered and paid. End of transaction. But actually, the newsprint cost twenty-five hundred. Which meant, for every one-hundred-ton transaction, there was five hundred dollars left over that could be quietly squirreled away in a bank account."

"We did this?" Castillo asked, incredulously.

"We did it. Mercedes-Benz did it. MAN diesel did it. Seimens did it. And I can't think of a brewery of any size, including ours, that didn't do it." He paused. "Where did you think the money came from for the economic miracle that saw Germany rise, phoenix-like, from the rubble we were in 1945?"

"I thought it was the Marshall Plan," Torine said. "And hard work on the part of Germany."

"All of the above, Colonel," Goerner said. "The Marshall Plan kept us fed and out of the hands of the Soviet Union. And repatriated nest eggs permitted us to have the raw material we Germans needed to go to work."

"Are we still doing this?" Castillo asked.

"Your grandfather thought Juan D. Peron was as dangerousas Hitler. We moved our nest egg from Argentina before you were born."

"So why are these good old boys from Marburg sending oil-for-food money there?"

"I'm about to get to that, but that's a two-part story, and one that will take some time. And I heard you tell Mr. Kranz that you wanted to demonstrate your miraculous telephone."

"Yeah, I have to get on the horn."

"We can get into this later," Goerner said. [SIX] "I lied, Otto," Castillo said. They were standing in the shade of the eaves of the stable, leaning on the wall, watching as Kranz set up the radio. A small circular dish pointed at the heavens. There was a control panel that resembled a small laptop computer to which had been added several rows of colored LEDs.

Helena had disappeared with the boys. Castillo wondered if she was protecting them from their godfather or whether Otto had subtly signaled her to take them away from something they probably would be better off not seeing.

"Why am I not surprised?" Otto asked.

"You can't really buy one of these. AFC makes some great stuff for the civilian market, but these aren't available."

"What's so fancy about this one?" Otto asked.

"All green, sir," Kranz said.

"Encrypted voice, right?" Castillo asked.

Kranz handed him a telephone handset, a small black one that looked like it belonged hanging on a Reduced to $79.90 fax machine at Radio Shack.

"Encrypted voice all green, sir."

"I'm not going to need cans?" Castillo asked.

"With the signal I've got, I can put it on the speakerphone."

"Do it," Castillo ordered, and handed him the handset.

"Encrypted speakerphone green, sir," Kranz announced a moment later.

"Dick?" Castillo asked conversationally.

Castillo's voice was then converted to digital electronic pulses, encrypted, reduced to a message lasting just a few milliseconds, transmitted to satellite 22,300 miles above the earth, relayed to another satellite, and then relayed to the dish sitting on the roof at the Nebraska Avenue Complex. There, the "burst" was expanded, decrypted, and fed to the handset Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., was holding to his ear.

A just-perceptible delayed moment later, Miller's voice-having gone through the same series of events- came over the loudspeaker next to the stable near Bad Hersfeld: "Hey, Charley!"

"Where the hell have you been? We've been calling you for hours."

"You went up twelve seconds ago," Miller said.

"Anybody there with you?"

"Secretary Hall, Agnes, and Tom."

"Have you got signal strength for speakerphone?"

A moment later, another male voice said, "Encrypted speakerphone green," and a moment after that came the voice of Secretary of Homeland Security Hall. "How's that, Charley?"

"Loud and clear, sir."

"Tell me what you've got, Charley, and then I'll give you the good news," Hall said.

"Lorimer was a bagman in the oil-for-food thing," Castillo said. "A whole lot of people want him dead, both for what he knows and for skimming a lot of money-maybe sixteen million U.S.-from the players."

"You're saying he's dead?"

"The CIA guy in Paris thinks he is. I'm not at all sure. I'm going looking for him."

"Where?"

"There's a man in Budapest I want to talk to. He may have some ideas."

"Where are you?"

"In Bad Hersfeld. We're going to Budapest first thing in the morning."

"I knew you weren't in Paris," Hall said. "Ambassador Montvale told me. That's the good news."

"What?"

"He said he had some information for you, and wondered where you were. I told him."

"What's the information?"

"He seemed a little reluctant to share that with me," Hall said dryly. "And I thought it would probably be easier for him to give it to you-perhaps you would share it with me-than for me to go to the President."

"When is he going to share it with me?" Castillo asked. His eyes met Torine's. Torine disgustedly threw up his hands in a "what now?" gesture.

"When he called to tell me you were not at the Crillon, he asked me to put him in touch with you whenever you checked in. I told him I would. You want to talk to him?"

"What choice do I have?"

"Not much, Charley. But it's your call."

"How do I do that?"

"We're wired into the White House net. Just say the word."

"I wish you could eavesdrop, sir."

"If you don't tell me to get off the speakerphone…"

"Thank you."

Miller's voice went into the heavens and back: "Bring the White House switchboard into the loop." "Switchboard."

"C. G. Castillo for Ambassador Montvale. I will need a secure line."

"One moment, please." "Director Montvale's office."

"I have Mr. C. G. Castillo on a secure line for Director Montvale."

"One moment, please." "Charles Montvale here. Is that you, Major?"

"Yes, sir. Good morning, sir."

"This line is secure, right?"

"So I have been informed, sir."

"I have made inquiries vis-a-vis the FBI agent Yung, in Montevideo, Major."

"Thank you, sir."

"An interesting situation, Major. The attorney general tells me that Yung has been seconded to the State Department on a mission with the highest possible security clearance. What he's doing is so secret, I am informed, that neither the director of the FBI nor the attorney general knows what he is doing."

"That's very interesting, sir."

"And there is more, Major. When I asked the director of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, he told me that he was unable to discuss Agent Yung's activities with me without the specific permission of the secretary of state."

"Even more interesting, sir."

"Apparently Secretary Cohen neglected to inform the appropriate people of the President's finding."

"Have you had the opportunity to discuss this with Secretary Cohen, sir?"

"This is where this situation becomes really interesting, Major. Yes, I have. She says that she has no knowledge whatever of Agent Yung beyond what she heard in our conversation aboard Air Force One. She assures me, however, that as soon as she gets to Singapore, she will take the appropriate steps to get to the root of the matter."

"She's on her way to Singapore, sir?"

"Apparently. And she did not choose to share with me her reasons for not making use of the communications system aboard her aircraft."

"Sometimes it doesn't work, sir."

"I suppose that's true. In any event, Major, I regret not being able to be of greater service."

"I understand the problem, sir. Thank you for your effort."

"This will, I am sure, be resolved shortly. When it is, Major, I will get back to you. As you might imagine, my own curiosity is now aroused."

"Thank you, sir."

There was a very clear click, and Castillo realized he was no longer speaking with the director of national intelligence.

And then Secretary Hall's voice came back from space.

"Charley, I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I suggest we wait until we see what Montvale can get out of Natalie."

"Yes, sir."

"Let me know what you find out in Budapest."

"Yes, sir, I will."

"Anything else we can do for you?"

"Dick, you still there?"

"Yes, sir, Chief."

"Will you send some flowers to the hospital for me, please?"

"That's a done deed, Chief," Agnes Forbison said. "She should have them by now."

"Thank you very much, Agnes."

"I like her, too, Charley."

"Is that about it?" Miller asked. "Break it down, Mr. Secretary?"

"Break it down," Hall ordered. As he watched Kranz close the laptop, Goerner asked, "Who are you sending flowers to, Karl?"

"One of my agents was shot in Buenos Aires," Castillo said.

"That's bullshit, Otto," Fernando said. "One of his agents was shot, but it's anything but the professionally platonic relationship he's trying to foist off on you."

"You sonofabitch!" Castillo said.

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," Fernando responded. "Her name is Betty Schneider, Otto, and the two of them are like lovesick teenagers."

"Wunderbar!" Otto said.