The Hostage

II

[ONE] Office of the Secretary Department of Homeland Security Nebraska Avenue Complex Washington, D.C. 0840 21 July 2005 In the federal government, the secretary is not that person who answers the telephone, takes dictation, makes appointments, and brings the boss coffee. In Washington, the secretary is someone as high in the bureaucracy as one can rise without being elected President, and is therefore the boss.

In Washington, therefore, those individuals who answer the secretary's telephone, bring the coffee, make appointments, et cetera, have titles like "executive assistant."

The Honorable Matthew Hall, secretary of Homeland Security, had three executive assistants.

The first of these was Mrs. Mary-Ellen Kensington, who was fifty, gray-haired, and slim. She was a GS-15, the highest grade in the career Civil Service. She maintained Hall's small and unpretentious suite of offices in the Old Executive Office Building, near the White House. Secretary Hall and the President were close friends, which meant that the President liked to have him around more than he did some other members of his cabinet. When Hall was in Washington he could usually be found in his OEOB office, so that he was readily available to the President.

The second was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, who was forty-nine, gray-haired, and getting just a little chubby. She was also a GS-15. She reigned over the secretary's office staff in his formal office, a suite of well-furnished rooms in the Nebraska Avenue Complex, which is just off Ward Circle in the northwest of the District of Columbia. The complex had once belonged to the Navy, but it had been turned over in 2004 by an act of Congress to the Department of Homeland Security when that agency had been formed after 9/11.

When the red telephone on the coffee table in the secretary's private office in the complex buzzed, and a red light on it flashed-signaling an incoming call from either the President himself, but more than likely from one of the other members of the President's cabinet; or the directors of either the FBI or the CIA; or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; or the commander-in-chief of Central Command-Mrs. Forbison was in the process of pouring a cup of coffee for the secretary's third executive assistant, C. G. Castillo.

Castillo, who was thirty-six, a shade over six feet tall, and weighed 190 pounds, was lying on the secretary's not-quite-long-enough-for-him red leather couch with his stockinged feet hanging over the end of it.

Castillo looked at the red telephone, saw that Agnes was holding the coffeepot, and reached for the telephone.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"Charley," the caller said, "I was hoping to speak to your boss."

Castillo sat up abruptly, spilling a stack of papers onto the floor.

"Mr. President, the secretary's en route from Chicago. He should be landing at Andrews in about an hour."

"Aha! The infallible White House switchboard apparently is not so infallible. I can't wait to tell them. Nice to talk to you, Charley."

"Thank you, sir."

The line went dead. Charley, as he put the phone back in its cradle, exchanged I wonder what that was all about? looks with Agnes.

The phone buzzed again.

"Secretary Hall's line. Castillo speaking."

"What I was going to ask your boss, Charley, is if there is some good reason you can't go to Buenos Aires right now."

Buenos Aires? What the hell is going on in Argentina?

"Sir, I'm sure the secretary would tell you that I'm at your disposal."

"Well, I'll ask him anyway. But you might want to start packing. I've just been told the wife of our deputy chief of mission was kidnapped early last night. I want to know how and why that happened, and I want to know now, and I don't want to wait until whoever's in charge down there has time to write a cover-his-ass report. Getting the picture?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

After a moment, Charley realized the President had hung up.

Agnes waited for a report.

"He wants me to go to Buenos Aires," Charley replied, obviously thinking that over. "It seems somebody kidnapped the deputy chief of mission's wife. He wants me to find out about it. He's apparently laboring under the misconception that I'm some kind of a detective."

"You're not bad at finding missing airplanes, Sherlock."

"Jesus, Agnes, that's a big embassy. They probably have ten FBI agents, plus CIA spooks, plus Drug Enforcement guys… not to mention the State Department's own security people."

"But the President doesn't know any of them, Charley. And he knows you. Trusts you," Agnes said, and then added, "But to buttress your argument, there's also a heavy hitter Secret Service guy in Buenos Aires. Name of Tony Santini. He's an old pal of Joel's. The reason I know is that once a month or so he sends Joel twenty, twenty-five pounds of filet mignon steaks on the courier plane. They're in a box marked TISSUE SAMPLES."

"Maybe I can tell the boss that, and get Joel's pal to find out what happened. I really don't want to go down there."

What I really want to do is go to Glynco, Georgia- wherever the hell that is-and see how ex-Sergeant Betty Schneider is doing in Secret Service school.

"I understand, Mr. President," the secretary of Homeland Security said into the red phone. "Consider Charley gone." He laid the telephone back in the cradle and turned to Castillo.

Matthew Hall was a large man-his Secret Service code name was "Big Boy"-with a full head of hair. While he usually presented the image of a dignified senior government officer with the means to employ a good tailor, right now he looked a little rumpled.

His necktie was pulled down, and his collar button open. His suit needed pressing, and his beard was starting to show.

His appearance was temporary. As soon as the Citation had landed at Andrews Air Force Base, he had come to the Nebraska Complex to check on what was going on before going home. An hour from now, he would be freshly shaven, in a crisply starched white shirt and a freshly pressed suit.

"No go, Charley," Hall said. "He doesn't want it to get out that he's taking a personal interest."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir, what about Tony Santini?" Joel Isaacson asked. "He could probably be helpful as hell to Charley. You want me to give him a heads-up?"

Hall had told the President that Isaacson-a tall, slim, forty-year-old very senior Secret Service agent who was head of Hall's security detail and had once been number two on the presidential detail-had said he had a good friend in Buenos Aires, a Secret Service agent who could probably report on the kidnapping more quickly than Castillo possibly could. The President had been unimpressed.

"Santini?" Hall asked. "That's your friend's name?"

Isaacson nodded. "He and I-and Tom-go way, way back. Tony's down there working funny money."

Secret Service agent Tom McGuire, a large, red-haired Irishman, had also come from the presidential detail to protect Hall.

"You trust him to keep his mouth shut?"

Isaacson raised his hands in a gesture suggesting "dumb question."

"Sorry, Joel," Hall said. "Okay, give him a heads-up. And find out how Charley can quietly get in touch with him."

"If I'm to do this quietly, sir," Charley asked, "can I go as Gossinger?"

Hall considered that a moment, too, before replying.

"Your call, Charley." Secretary Hall had decided about six months earlier- political correctness be damned-that he needed a male assistant, preferably unmarried. He was constantly on the move all over the country and sometimes outside it. He almost always flew on a Cessna Citation X. The airplane belonged to the Secret Service, which had been transferred from the Treasury Department to Homeland Security after 9/11.

Hall almost always traveled with Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire. They often left for where they were goingin the wee hours of the morning, and/or came back to Washington at the same ungodly hour.

Both Mrs. Kensington and Mrs. Forbison were married and not thrilled with the idea of flying on half an hour's notice to, say, Spokane, Washington, at half past five in the morning with no hint of when they'd be coming back to feed their husbands or play with their grandchildren.

Moving down the staff structure, Hall had taken maybe a dozen female administrative types with him on thirty or more trips, women with job titles like "senior administrative assistant." While all had been initially thrilled with the prospect of personally working for the secretary, none of them had kept at it for long.

Primarily, the ones who weren't married had boyfriends, and they all had grown accustomed to the federal government's eight-to-five, Monday-to-Friday workweek, and its generous day-off recognition of holidays. Hall worked a seven-day week, with an exception for, say, Christmas.

Moreover, having some female in the confines of the Citation X cabin posed problems. For one thing, Matt Hall believed with entertainer Ed McMahon that alcohol-especially good scotch-was God's payment for hard work. With a female in the cabin, that meant he had to drink alone, and he didn't like that.

Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire couldn't drink with him if a senior administrative assistant-or someone of that ilk-was on the plane. Both were fully prepared to lay down their lives for the secretary, both as a professional duty and because they had come to deeply admire Hall. But as a practical matter, once the local security detail had loaded them on the Citation and they'd gotten off the ground and were on their way home, having a belt-or two-with the secretary in no way reduced-in their judgment and the secretary's-the protection they were sworn to provide.

But what they could not afford was Miss Whateverhername rushing home to her boyfriend's pillow to regale him with tales of the secretary and his security detail sucking scotch all the way across the country while they exchanged politically incorrect and often ribald jokes.

When General Allan Naylor, the Central Command commander-in-chief, had been a captain in Vietnam, Matt Hall had been one of his sergeants. They had remained friends as Naylor had risen in the Army hierarchy and Hall had become first a congressman and then governor of North Carolina and then secretary of Homeland Security.

Their relationship was now professional as well. Central Command, de facto if not de jure, was the most important operational headquarters in the Defense Department. It controlled Special Operations, among many other things. The President had made it clear that whatever the secretary of Homeland Security wanted from Central Command he was to have, and if that violated procedure or regulations, either change the procedures or regulations, or work around them.

Hall and Naylor talked at least once a day on a secure communications link-sometimes a half dozen times a day when world events dictated-and they met as often as that worked out. At a mixed business and social meeting, over drinks in the bar of the Army-Navy Club in Washington, Hall had confided in Naylor his problem traveling with females, and almost jokingly asked if Naylor happened to know of some young officer-male and unmarried-he could borrow as an assistant.

"Aside from carrying your suitcase and answering your phone, what else would he have to do?"

"It would help if he could type, and had decent table manners."

"Anything else?"

"Seriously?" Hall asked, and Naylor nodded.

"Handle his booze, know how to keep his mouth shut," Hall furnished. "And since this is a wish list, maybe speak a foreign language or two. Especially Spanish."

"How about one who speaks Spanish like a Spaniard?"

"You've got somebody?"

Naylor nodded. "Just back from Afghanistan. He's on the five-percent list for lieutenant colonel. They've been wondering where to assign him."

"How come you know a lowly major?"

"I've known this fellow a long time. West Pointer. Green Beret. About as bright as they come."

"And I can have him?"

Naylor nodded.

"Why?"

"Maybe because I like you, and maybe because I think he'd learn something working for you. If he doesn't work out, you can send him back." Major Carlos Guillermo Castillo, Special Forces, had shown up at the Nebraska Complex three days later. In uniform, which displayed an impressive row of decorations and I-Was-There ribbons, plus a Combat Infantry Badge and a set of Senior Army Aviator wings. The latter surprised Hall, as Naylor hadn't mentioned that Castillo was a pilot.

He was also surprised at his appearance. He didn't look Latin. He was blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and Hall suspected his light brown hair had once been blond.

Hall, who had a CIB of his own, liked what he saw.

"Major, would it offend you if I called you 'Carlos'?"

"Not at all, sir. But I'd prefer 'Charley,' sir."

"'Charley' it is. And-so people don't start asking 'who's that Army officer working for Hall?'-I'd like you to wear civvies. A suit, or a sports coat with a shirt and tie. Is that going to pose a problem?"

"No, sir."

Hall had stopped himself just in time from saying, "Don't go out and spend a lot of money on civvies; this may not work out."

Instead, he asked, "You're going to try to get in the BOQ at Fort Myer?"

"Sir, I'm on per diem, and I've spent more than my fair share of time in BOQs. I thought I'd look for a hotel, or an apartment."

"Up to you," Hall had said, "but-frankly, this may not work out for either of us-I wouldn't sign a lease on an apartment right away."

"Yes, sir. A hotel."

"If such a thing exists, try to find a reasonably priced hotel near the White House-you might try the Hotel Washington. I spend most of my time in the OEOB, which means you will, too."

"Yes, sir."

Hall had risen and put out his hand.

"Welcome aboard, Charley. You come recommended by General Naylor, and with that in mind, and from what I've seen, I think you're going to fit in very well around here. Get yourself settled-take your time, do it right- and when you're finished, come to work."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." When Hall went to his OEOB office at nine the next morning, Castillo was there, waiting for him. In a gray suit, black wingtip shoes, a crisp white button-down shirt, and a red-striped necktie, none of which, Hall knew, had come off the racks at Sears, Roebuck.

Good, he looks like a typical bureaucrat, Hall thought, and then changed that assessment. No. Like a successful Capitol Hill lobbyist or lawyer.

Castillo said he'd found a hotel not far from the White House and the OEOB.

"One you can afford?" Hall asked, with a smile.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then, if you're ready to go to work, I'll have Mrs. Kensington show you how we throw away the taxpayers' money."

Three days later, when Hall was dictating to Mary-Ellen, Castillo appeared at the door and said he had a little problem.

"What's that?"

"I need some kind of a title, sir. I got the feeling you didn't want the military connection, so I don't say 'Major. ' When somebody asks me what I do here, I've been saying, 'I work in Secretary Hall's office.' "

"That makes you sound like a clerk," Mary-Ellen said. "Nobody will pay any attention to you."

Hall smiled at her. He had noticed that Mary-Ellen had liked Charley from the first day.

"Okay, Mary-Ellen, what do you suggest?"

"Executive assistant," Executive Assistant Kensington replied immediately. "That has a certain je ne sais quoi in the upper echelons of the Washington bureaucracy."

"But he's not an executive assistant," Hall had protested.

"He is if you say so, boss. And who's to know?"

"By the power invested in me by myself," Hall said, "you are decreed to be my executive assistant. Go forth and do good work."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Castillo replied to Hall. He turned to Mary-Ellen and added, "Et merci mille fois, madame."

Hall had picked up on that.

"You speak French, do you, Charley?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any other languages?"

"Yes, sir."

Hall made a come-on gesture.

Charley hesitated, and Hall added, "Modesty does not befit an executive assistant. Which ones?"

"Russian, sir. And Hungarian. German. Some Arabic. Several others."

"Jesus Christ!"

"Languages come easy to me, sir."

"They don't to me," Hall confessed. "You have plans for the evening, Charley?"

"No, sir."

"You have a dinner jacket?"

"Yes, sir."

"Your bluff is called. We are going to a reception at the Hungarian embassy. Whenever I ask the ambassador a question he doesn't want to answer, he forgets how to speak English. Getting the picture?"

"Yes, sir."

"How'd you learn to speak Hungarian?"

"When I was a kid, sir, my mother's aunt, who was Hungarian, lived with us. She taught me."

"Nice for you. Okay, Charley, I'll have Joel pick you up on his way here to get me. Where are you living?"

"I can meet you here, sir."

"Joel will pick you up. Where did you find a hotel?"

"I'm in the Mayflower, sir."

"The Mayflower?" Hall asked. "Isn't that kind of expensive on a major's pay, including per diem?"

"Yes, sir, it is."

"Joel will pick you up just before seven," Hall said, deciding it best not now to pursue the question of affordable housing with Castillo. "Wait for him on the street."

"Yes, sir."

The moment Castillo had closed the door, Hall reached for the red phone on his desk and pressed the button that would connect him over a secure line with the commander-in-chief, Central Command.

"Hey, Matt," Naylor said, answering almost immediately. "What's up?"

"I just found out my newly appointed executive assistant, Major Castillo, has taken a room in the Mayflower. How's he going to pay for that?"

"Would you be satisfied with 'no problem'?"

"No."

"Well, Charley told me that he'd taken a small apartment in the Mayflower," Naylor said. "The bill will probably be paid by Castillo Enterprises of San Antonio. Or maybe by the Tages Zeitung."

"The what?"

"It's a newspaper-actually a chain of newspapers- Charley owns in Germany."

"You didn't tell me much about this guy, did you, Allan?"

"You didn't ask. All you wanted was somebody who would carry your suitcase and who spoke Spanish. That's what I gave you."

"What's your connection with Charley, Allan? Other than the usual relationship between a four-star general and one of his five thousand majors?"

"Elaine thinks of him-and I do, too, truth to tell-as the third son. We've known him since he was a twelve-year-old orphan."

"You didn't mention that, either."

"You didn't ask, Matt," Naylor said. "What do you want to do with him? Send him back?"

"No," Hall had said. "Presuming there is no further deep dark secret you're leaving for me to discover, I think he's going to be pretty useful around here." Major/Executive Assistant Castillo did, in fact, and quickly, prove himself useful to the secretary of Homeland Security. And he fit in. Both Mary-Ellen Kensington and Agnes Forbison were clearly taken with him. Hall kindly ascribed this to maternal instincts, but he confided to his wife that he suspected both had amorous fantasies about Castillo.

"He's one of those guys women are drawn to like moths to a candle."

"I hate men to whom women are drawn like moths to a candle," Janice Hall had said.

The day Janice came to the office and met Castillo, she suggested to her husband that they have him to dinner.

"He's probably lonely living in a hotel," Janice said, "and would really appreciate a home-cooked meal."

"I thought you hated men to whom women were drawn like moths to a candle."

"That's not his fault, and he's obviously a nice guy. Ask him."

Castillo also got along from the start with Joel Isaacson and Tom McGuire. Hall had worried a little about that; Secret Service guys aren't impressed with most anyone. But Joel and Tom-both excellent judges of character-seemed to sense that Special Forces Major C. G. Castillo wasn't most anyone. Isaacson had even gone to Hall and suggested that Castillo be given credentials as a Secret Service agent.

"He could get through airport security that way. And carry a gun. I'll handle the credentials guys at Secret Service, if you like." What really moved Castillo from being sort of a male secretary cum interpreter in whose presence it was possible to imbibe intoxicants and relate ribald stories to being a heavy hitter in Hall's office was a fey notion of the President of the United States.

In May 2005, an old Boeing 727 that had been sitting at the airport at Luanda, Angola, waiting for parts for more than a year, suddenly took off without permission and disappeared. No one really thought it had been stolen by terrorists and was going to be flown into some American landmark in a repeat of 9/11-that had quickly become regarded as a ridiculous notion at the highest levels; for one thing, the aged bird didn't have the range to fly to the United States-but no agency in what the President described as "our enormous and enormously expensive intelligence community" seemed to be able to learn what had happened to it.

The President was annoyed. At a private dinner- really private, just the President, the first lady, and Secretary and Mrs. Hall-the President said that he had been talking to Natalie Cohen-then his national security advisor, and now the secretary of state-and they had come up with an idea.

Hall understood that "they had come up with an idea" meant it was the President's idea. If it had been Natalie's, the President would have said so. What had probably happened was that he had proposed the idea, she had first argued against it, but then had given in to the President's logic, and the idea had become "their" idea. If she hadn't given in, and he had decided to go ahead anyhow, he would have claimed the idea as his own.

"You're the only department without an in-house intelligence operation," the President had said. "So this will work. Natalie will send everybody in the intelligence community a memo saying that since this stolen airliner poses a potential threat to the homeland, you are to be furnished, immediately, all the intelligence they've developed about this missing airplane.

"That will give us who knew what and when they knew it. Then, very quietly, we send somebody-just one man-to go over the scene quietly, very quietly, and see if he can find out why the CIA, for instance, knew something on Tuesday that the DIA didn't find out until Thursday. Or why the FBI didn't find out at all. You with me?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. President."

"The question is: Who can we send to do this without setting off a turf war?" After meeting Major Carlos G. Castillo, the President decided he was just the man to very quietly, without setting off a turf war, find out which intelligence agencies were running with the ball; or had fumbled the ball; or had just sat on it, waiting for another agency to do the work.

Castillo went to Luanda, Angola, where the whole thing had started, and immediately ignited a turf war that had very nearly cost Secretary Hall his job.

He not only learned that the missing 727 had been stolen by Somalian terrorists, who planned to crash it into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, but with the help of Aleksandr Pevsner, an infamous Russian arms dealer, located the airplane no one else could find, and then with the help of the ultrasecret Gray Fox unit of Delta Force, stole the missing airplane back from the terrorists. With Castillo flying as copilot, Air Commando Colonel Jake Torine had flown the airplane from Costa Rica to Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

When the President had authorized the Gray Fox mission he had done so fully prepared to pay the price of an outraged Costa Rica-for that matter, the outraged membership of the United Nations-for launching a military operation without warning on a peaceful country that didn't even have an army.

With his imagination seeing the world's television screens lit up with CNN's-and Deutsche Welle's, and the BBC's, and everybody else's-report of the shocking, unilateral American incursion of poor little Costa Rica, with pictures of the flaming hulk of the airplane surrounded by dead Costa Ricans, the President was understandably delighted to hear that the only loss in Costa Rica was a fuel truck.

True to its professionalism, Gray Fox had left behind no bodies-American or Costa Rican-and no 727 gloriously in flames, and no traceable evidence that could place them ever at the scene.

Dissuaded by General Naylor from awarding Torine and Castillo medals for valor-which would have necessarily entailed detailing the valor-the President settled for awarding them Distinguished Flying Crosses "for superb airmanship in extremely difficult circumstances." It was Colonel Torine's thirteenth DFC and Castillo's third.

The President also had them down to the Carolina White House for a weekend. There was a downside to this happy ending, of course. The director of Central Intelligence and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were unhappy with the secretary of Homeland Security and his goddamn executive assistant for a number of reasons.

The DCI was of course smarting because Castillo had found the missing airplane before the agency could. And because Castillo had been able to talk the CIA station chief in Angola out of CIA intelligence files.

The director of the FBI was smarting because after the special agent in charge of the bureau's Philadelphia office had reported to him his belief that the missing airplane almost certainly had been "stolen" by its owners, a small-time aircraft leasing company on the edge of bankruptcy, so they could collect the insurance, and he had reported this to the President, Castillo had gone to Philadelphia and learned that the airplane had indeed not only been stolen, but stolen by Somalian terrorists whose names-as possible terrorists-had been provided to the FBI by the Philadelphia police some time before. The FBI had told the cops that the Somalians were okay, just some African airline pilots in the United States for training.

And because when an FBI inspector had been sent to Major/Executive Assistant Castillo to tell him he was confident that whenever Castillo heard from Alex Pevsner or his assistant, a former FBI agent named Howard Kennedy, again, Castillo would immediately notify the FBI, Castillo had told him not to hold his breath.

But since it had to be admitted by both the FBI and the CIA that they had not, in fact, furnished to the secretary of Homeland Security all the material they had been directed to furnish by then National Security Advisor Natalie Cohen, the directors vowed this would never happen again.

From this moment on, Homeland Security would get copies of every bit of intelligence generated that had, even remotely, to do with Homeland Security.

And if it kept that goddamn Castillo up all night reading it, and if he went blind reading it, so much the better. When the red telephone on the coffee table buzzed, Charley Castillo was working his way through that day's intelligence-everything that had come in since five the previous afternoon-graciously furnished by the FBI and the CIA. He had been at this task since half past six.

The secretary hadn't made up his mind how to deal with the wealth of intelligence-most of it useless-that they were getting from the FBI and the CIA every day, but he and Charley and Joel and Tom were agreed that it had to be read.

Joel Isaacson said-only half jokingly-that both directors were entirely capable of sending over hard intel that a nuclear device in a container was about to arrive in Baltimore harbor, sandwiched between intel about two suspicious-looking Moroccan grandmothers, and an overheard and unsubstantiated rumor that the bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was a crossdresser, and that therefore it had to be read.

What would seem to be the obvious solution to the problem-Hall calling the directors of the CIA and FBI and saying, "Okay, enough is enough, stop sending the garbage"-almost certainly wouldn't work. It was possible-maybe even more than likely-that the directors, with straight faces, would tell the secretary they had no idea what he was talking about. And that would mean Hall would have to go to the President. He didn't want to do that; he was trying to spread oil on the troubled waters, not onto the smoldering fire.

One possible solution-which Agnes thought the most likely-was to bring into the office two Secret Service agents-in-training now going through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, just as soon as they were, as Joel put it, "credentialed."

Both were experienced police officers, recruited at the suggestion of Secretary Hall from the Philadelphia Police Department as a result of his and Castillo's experience with them looking for the 727. One had been a sergeant in the intelligence unit, and the other a detective in the counterterrorism division, who had worked for years undercover infiltrating Muslim communities considered potentially dangerous. Both would be able to sort through the stacks of intel reports knowing what to look for, and what was garbage.

But this would mean they would be working directly for the secretary, instead of just-Hall's original idea- becoming Secret Service agents with far more experience and knowledge than the usual rookies, and being assigned to a field office somewhere.

Agnes knew that Hall was reluctant to have his own in-house intelligence unit, but she thought sooner or later-probably sooner, since while Charley was sifting through the garbage he was not available to him; he had not gone with Hall to Chicago last night because he had to read the overnight files-he was going to have to face the facts.

The secretary of Homeland Security picked up the red handset and punched one of the buttons on the base.

"Natalie Cohen."

"Good morning, Mademoiselle Secretary," Hall said.

"Goddammit, Matt, you know I don't think that's funny," the secretary of state said.

"It makes more sense than a female lawyer calling herself 'Esquire,'" Hall went on, undaunted. "I learned in school that 'madam' is a married lady and an unmarried one a 'mademoiselle'-"

"Is there something on your sophomoric mind, Matt? Or are you just seeing what happens when you push the buttons on your red phone?"

"The President, Mizz Secretary…"

She chuckled. "Better. Not good. But better."

"… is sending Charley to Buenos Aires. I guess you can figure out why."

There was a perceptible pause before the secretary of state replied.

"To find out who knew what, and when they knew it," she said, just a little bitterly. Those had been the President's instructions to Castillo when the President had sent him off to learn what he could about the missing airliner. "I should have seen this coming, I suppose."

"I tried to talk him out of it. You want to try?"

"(A) I don't think he wants me to know that he's sending Charley down there, and (b) I think the reason he didn't tell me was because he knew I would argue against it, and (c) if I happened to mention this to him, he'd know I heard it from you, and we both would be on the bad-guy list."

"It wasn't my idea, Nat."

"I know," she said. "Actually, now that I've had thirty whole seconds to think about it, I'm not nearly as livid as I was. Maybe Charley will come up with something the ambassador down there would rather that I didn't hear. You will…"

"Give you what he gets? Absolutely."

"Thanks for the heads-up, Matt."

"Do you know something about the ambassador that Charley should?"

"I never met him. I talked to him last night on the telephone, and I was favorably impressed. And everything I hear about him is that he's first-rate. He's a Cuban. You might tell Charley that, so he'll expect a Cuban temper if the ambassador finds out he's snooping around down there."

"I'll do it."

"Tell Charley to be careful. We don't need a war with Argentina," the secretary of state said, and hung up before Hall could reply. [TWO] Room 404 The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 1120 21 July 2005 Room 404-which was actually what the hotel called an "executive suite" and consisted of a living room, a large bedroom, a small dining room, and a second bedroom, which held a desk and could be used as an office-was registered to Karl W. Gossinger on a long-term basis. The bill for the suite was sent once every two weeks by fax to the Tages Zeitung in Fulda, Germany, and payment was made, usually the next day, by wire transfer to the hotel's account in the Riggs National Bank.

When he took the room, Herr Gossinger told the hotel he would need two outside telephone lines. One of these would be listed under his name and that of the Tages Zeitung. The second, which would not be listed, would be a fax line. He also told the hotel that Mr. C. G. Castillo, whom he described as an American associate, would be staying in the suite whenever he was in town, and the hotel should be prepared to take telephone calls, accept packages, and so forth for Mr. Castillo. Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger had been born out of wedlock in Bad Hersfeld, Germany, to an eighteen-year-old German girl and a nineteen-year-old American warrant officer helicopter pilot. The Huey pilot had gone to Vietnam shortly after their three-day-and-two-night affair.

When Jorge Castillo never wrote as he had promised, Erika von und zu Gossinger tried to put him out of her mind, and when the baby was born, she christened him Karl Wilhelm, after her father and brother.

Frau Erika-she never married; "Frau" was honorific- turned to the U.S. Army for help in finding the father of her only child only after she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Karl was twelve at the time. His grandfather and uncle, the only known relatives, had been killed in an autobahn accident some months before. Frau Erika reasoned that any family would be better for Karl than leaving him an orphan in Germany. Even an orphan with vast family wealth.

Largely through the efforts of then-Major Allan Naylor of the 11th Armored Cavalry, which was stationed on the East German border near Fulda, WOJG Jorge Alejandro Castillo of San Antonio, Texas, was located. He was interred in San Antonio's National Cemetery. A representation of the Medal of Honor was chiseled into his tombstone. He had died a hero in Vietnam, apparently without ever suspecting that when he had sown his seed it had been fertile.

Once it was realized they were dealing with the love child of an officer whose courage had seen him posthumously awarded the nation's highest recognition of valor, the Army shifted into high gear to make sure that everything possible would be done for the boy.

Major Naylor was rushed to San Antonio to first find and then as gently as possible inform the late WOJG Castillo's family about the boy.

A pragmatist, Naylor had considered several unpleasant possibilities. One was that Mr. Castillo's parents might not be overjoyed to learn that their son had left an illegitimate child in Germany, at least until they heard of his coming inheritance. That would put a new-and possibly unpleasant-light on the subject.

Senior Army lawyers were looking into setting up a trust for the benefit of the boy-and only the boy.

His concern proved to be without basis in fact. General Amory T. Stevens, the Fort Sam Houston commander,who had been Major Naylor's father's roommate at West Point, and was Naylor's godfather, quickly told him that he knew the late Mr. Castillo's parents.

"They are Fernando and Alicia Castillo," Stevens said. "Well known in Texas society as Don Fernando and Dona Alicia. The Don and Dona business isn't only because they own much of downtown San Antonio; plus large chunks of land outside the city; plus, among others, a large ranch near Midland, under which is the Permian basin, but because of something of far more importance to Texans.

"Dona Alicia is the great-, great-, whatever grand-daughter of a fellow named Manuel Martinez. Don Fernando is similarly directly descended from a fellow named Guillermo de Castillo. Manuel and Guillermo both fell in noble battle beside Jim Bowie, William Travis, and Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

"What I'm saying, Allan, is that if this boy in Germany needed help, Don Fernando would quickly cut a check for whatever it would cost. What I'm not sure about is whether he-or, especially, Dona Alicia-is going to be willing to take the love child of their son and a German-probably Protestant-gringo into the family. The Castillos can give lessons in snobbery to the Queen of England."

Twenty-two hours after the late WOJG Castillo's mother was informed, very delicately, that she had an illegitimate grandson, Dona Alicia was at the door of the von und zu Gossinger mansion in Bad Hersfeld. Don Fernando arrived nine hours later.

Two weeks after that, the United States Consulate in Frankfurt am Main issued a passport to Carlos Guillermo Castillo. Don Fernando was not without influence in Washington. The same day-Frau Erika, then in hospital, having decided she didn't want her son's last memory of her to be of a pain-racked terminally ill woman in a drug-induced stupor-Carlos boarded a Pan American Airlines 747 for the United States. Frau Erika died five days later.

On her death, as far as the government of the Federal Republic of Germany was concerned, American citizen with a new name or not, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, native-born son, had become the last of the von und zu Gossinger line.

At twenty-one, just before C. G. Castillo graduated from West Point, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger came into his German inheritance, which included the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain, two breweries, vast-for Germany-farmlands, and other assets.

A second identity, as Herr Karl Gossinger, foreign correspondent of the Tages Zeitung, had proved very useful to Major C. G. Castillo, U.S. Army Special Forces, in the past, and it probably would again in Argentina. In his suite at the Mayflower, C. G. Castillo was nearly finished with packing his luggage. He had carefully packed his small, guaranteed-to-fit-in-any-airplane-overhead-bin suitcase-on-wheels with enough winter clothing to last three or four days. When it was midsummer in Washington, it was midwinter in Buenos Aires. He didn't think he'd be down there longer than that.

All that remained was to pack his briefcase, which also came with wheels and was large enough for his laptop computer. This was somewhat more difficult as it required carefully separating a section of the padding from the frame. Inside was a ten-by-thirteen-inch plastic folder. There was a sticky surface to keep things from sliding around, and the folder material itself was designed to confuse X-ray machines. Castillo carefully arranged his American passport; his U.S. Army identification card; C. G. Castillo's Gold American Express and Gold Visa credit cards; his Texas driver's license; and credentials identifying him as a supervisory special agent of the U.S. Secret Service on the sticky surface, closed the folder, and then replaced the padding.

He then went into the small dining area, and from a small refrigerator concealed in a credenza, took out a bottle of Dos Equis beer, popped the top, took a healthy swallow from the neck, burped, and then went into the living room, where he sat down in a red leather recliner-his, not the hotel's-shifted his weight so that it opened, and reached for the telephone.

He punched in a number from memory, took another sip of the Dos Equis, and then lay back in the chair as he waited for the call to be completed.

The general director of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., who was also the editor-in-chief of one of its holdings, the Tages Zeitung newspapers, answered his private line twenty seconds later.

"Goerner."

"Wie geht's, Otto?" Castillo said.

"Ach, der verlorene Sohn."

"Well, you may think of me as the prodigal son," Castillo said, switching to English, "but I like to think of myself as one of your more distinguished foreign correspondents."

"Distinguished, I don't know. But I'll go with most expensive."

Castillo thought of Otto Goerner as his oldest friend, and he certainly was that. Otto had been at Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn with Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, Karl's uncle, and had been with the Tages Zeitung since their graduation. He had been around der Haus im Wald in Bad Hersfeld, as Uncle Otto, as far back as Castillo could remember. He remembered, too, the very early morning when Otto had brought the news of her father's and brother's death to his mother.

And how, when his mother had told him they had located his father's family and he would probably- "after"-be going to them in the United States, he had thrown a hysterical fit, demanding that he be allowed- "after"-to live with Uncle Otto.

And how, at the airport in Frankfurt, tears had run unashamedly down Otto's cheeks when he'd seen him off to the States. And how he had been a friend ever since. "How's ol' Whatsername and the kids?"

"Ol' Whatsername and your godchildren are doing very well, thank you for asking. To what do I owe the honor?"

"I'm off to Buenos Aires on a story, and I thought I'd see if there was anything else you wanted me to do down there."

"Can't think of anything, Karl," Otto said.

Goerner didn't ask what story Castillo would be pursuing in Argentina.

He's the opposite of a fool, Charley thought for the hundredth time, and without any question knows what I do for a living. But he never asks and I never tell him. All he does is give me what I ask for.

"I won't be gone long," Charley said. "Probably less-"

"Yeah, come to think of it, Karl, I do," Goerner interrupted.

"Okay, shoot." Karl Gossinger, the Tages Zeitung's Washington-based foreign correspondent, usually had a bylined story in the paper once a week. These were generally paraphrased- stolen-from the American Conservative magazine. There was a dual purpose. First, if someone checked on Gossinger, there was his picture, beside his latest story from Washington. And if they looked closer, the mast-head said the Tages Zeitung was founded by Hermann von und zu Gossinger in 1817. Using material from the American Conservative, moreover, gave Charley Castillo a chance to put before German readers what some Americans-including Charley-thought about the Germans turning their backs on America when the United States asked for their help in the Iraq war.

Editing only for grammar, Otto printed whatever Charley sent him without comment. Charley didn't know, or ask, whether this was because Otto agreed the Germans had behaved badly, or because the bottom line was that Charley owned the newspapers. "The Graf Spee," Goerner said.

Charley knew the story of the Graf Spee: The German pocket battleship, named after a World War I German hero, was scuttled just outside the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939, to keep her from being sunk by three British cruisers waiting for her to come out. Her crew went to Buenos Aires. Her captain, Hans von Langsdorff, put on his dress uniform, laid her battle ensign on the floor of his hotel room, positioned himself so that his body would fall on it, and shot himself in the temple. He was buried in Buenos Aires.

The crew was interned in Argentina. When the war was over, many of her crew declined repatriation. And many of those who did return to the fatherland took one look at the destroyed remnants of the Thousand Year Reich and went back to Argentina as quickly as they could.

"What about the Graf Spee?" Charley asked.

"A fellow named Bardo-a young and very rich financier from Hamburg-has raised the money to salvage her and turn her into a museum in Montevideo. I could use a human-interest piece on the survivors, if any-they'd all be in their eighties. And most of them would be in Argentina."

Finding the survivors-if any-shouldn't be hard. And neither would taking some pictures and writing a feature story. And it would give journalist Gossinger a credible excuse to be in Argentina.

"I'll have a shot at it," Charley said. "Anything else?"

Goerner hesitated before replying.

"Karl, I'm a little reluctant to get into this…"

"Into what?"

"I went over to Marburg an der Lahn a couple of weeks ago. They were doing a fund-raiser for the library at the university. All Alte Marburgers were invited. I overheard parts of a conversation between some of the big shots. What caught my attention was a line, something about 'Der Fuhrer was the first to come up with that idea. Ha, ha!'"

"You've lost me."

"You remember that during World War Two, Hitler-the top Nazi-sent a lot of money to Argentina to buy themselves a sanctuary when they lost the war?"

"Uh-huh."

"These guys were talking about moving money to Argentina."

"To buy sanctuary? Sanctuary from what? You're talking about drug money?"

"What I'm thinking about is Iraqi oil-for-food money bribes that may have wound up in the pockets of these guys."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, Jesus. Anyway, I've got people looking into it here, and the idea I had-probably not a good one-was that maybe you would hear something in Argentina."

"I'll keep my ears open," Charley said.

"Just that, Karl," Goerner said seriously. "If you hear something, anything, pass it to me. But stop there. You understand me?"

That's as close as he's ever come to saying, "You and I know you're not really a journalist."

"I take your point."

"I also have people looking into the mysterious deaths of people who knew about these oil-for-food bribes."

"I take your point, Otto."

"Aside from that, have a good steak and a bottle of wine for me, and don't try to spread your pollen on more than ten or twelve of those lovely Argentine senoritas."

"Didn't I tell you? I have taken a vow of chastity. Celibacy is supposed to increase your mental powers."

"Ach, Gott, Karlchen," Goerner laughed. "Keep in touch."

"Kiss my godchildren, and say hello to Ol' Whatsername."

"My regards to Fernando and your grandmother. Auf wiedersehen!"

The line went dead.

Castillo hung up, shifted his weight in the chair so the back came up, and then got out of it. He finished the bottle of Dos Equis as he looked around the apartment to see if he had forgotten anything, and then put on the jacket to his seersucker suit.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

I am probably going to freeze my ass off in Buenos Aires until I can get to the Hyatt, but on the other hand, I won't have to go through Reagan and Miami International wearing a woolen sports coat. [THREE] Miami International Airport Miami, Florida 1850 21 July 2005 As Castillo stood before the luggage carousel waiting for his suitcase, he had very unkind thoughts about Delta Airlines, on whose flight 431 he had just arrived.

When he boarded the airplane at Ronald Reagan Washington National, he had had the suitcase in hand. All of the overhead luggage bins in the first-class section were full. The first-class section itself had not been anywhere near full-probably because Delta's DCA-MIA first-class fare bordered on the rapacious-which suggested, ergo sum, that the luggage in the first-class bins had been placed there by people traveling economy class as they passed through the first-class section en route to the rear of the aircraft.

"I'm afraid you'll have to check that," the stewardess told him.

"Why do I suspect that all the luggage in the bins does not belong to first-class passengers?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to check that," the stewardess repeated.

"I don't suppose that since I thought I would have space in the first-class bins, and find that I don't, you could put this in with the coats and jackets? I really hate to check it."

"I'm afraid you'll have to check it," the stewardess said firmly.

It would also seem to logically follow, Castillo thought, watching the luggage carousel rotate at MIA, that since my suitcase was loaded, if not last, then close to last, it would be unloaded first. That obviously is not the case.

The suitcase finally showed up. Castillo pulled out the handle and dragged it from luggage recovery. Surprising him not at all, the map in the entrance foyer showed him that Aerolineas Argentinas was at the other end of the airport, almost in Key West. It was a long walk through the crowded airport, which reminded him of his cousin Fernando Lopez's appraisal of Miami International: "It is the United States' token third world airport."

That reminded him, Jesus Christ, I almost forgot! that he would have to call Fernando and/or Abuela, their grandmother, and tell them he would not be able to come home for the weekend, even if Fernando flew up to pick him up.

He finally reached the Aerolineas Argentinas counter. There was a long line of people in the first-class line, all of whom seemed to have extra, overweight, or oversize luggage. There were far more such people than there were seats in the first-class compartment of either a 747 or a 767, which suggested that they were economy-class passengers who had taken advantage of there being no one in the first-class line.

Twenty minutes later, he reached the head of the line and was given permission to approach the counter by the clerk, who beckoned to him with her index finger like the Queen of Spain summoning a footman.

He laid a passport issued by the German Federal Republic and an American Express corporate credit card issued to the Tages Zeitung on the counter.

"My name is Gossinger," he said. "I have an electronic ticket, I believe." Getting through airport security was-if possible-more harassing than usual. Castillo was randomly selected for close examination. Not only did the security people make him take his shoes off, but their pawing through his luggage effectively nullified his careful packing. And he was concerned about the detailed examination of his briefcase cum laptop carrier that was to come.

They made him turn the laptop on to prove that it indeed was not an explosive device, but they didn't show much interest in the briefcase itself. That was a relief. Herr Gossinger did not want to have to explain what he was doing with C. G. Castillo's passport and Secret Service credentials.

Finally they were through with him, and he went to the Club of the Americas, the first- and business-class lounge that served Aerolineas Argentinas and other South American airlines that did not have their own lounges.

He fixed himself a double scotch on the rocks, then found a secluded corner and sat down. He took his cellular telephone from his pocket and punched an autodial key.

"Hello?"

"And how is my favorite girl?"

"Your favorite girl is wondering if you're calling to tell me you're not coming home for the weekend."

"Abuela, I'm in the airport in Miami, waiting to get on a plane for Buenos Aires."

"Well, I'll give you this. Your excuses are out of the ordinary. Darling, I was so looking forward-"

"Abuela, this wasn't my idea."

"What are you going to do in Argentina? Am I allowed to ask?"

No, you're not.

"I should be back within the week."

"Buenos Aires?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's winter down there now. You did think to pack warm clothing?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"If it's convenient, Carlos, I'm almost out of brandy. You know the kind."

"I'll get you a case."

"I think you're limited to six liters."

"I'll find out."

"Be careful. I talked to Jeanine Winters just this morning, and she said kidnapping is now the cottage industry down there."

Jeanine Winters was a very old friend of Dona Alicia. The Winters family, Texans, had been operating an enormous cattle operation in Entre Rios province and a vineyard in Mendoza Province for generations.

Jesus, has she heard about this diplomat's wife? Did Mrs. Winters hear about it already, and tell her?

"Abuela, nobody's going to kidnap me."

"Just be careful, Carlos, is all I'm saying."

"Si, Abuela."

"I'll say a prayer for you."

"Thank you."

"Vaya con Dios, mi amor," Dona Alicia said, and hung up.