Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

  Billy and I own all of it.

  Including this house.

  I guess I should have gone into that when I was delivering the soap opera scenario in the car on the way here. The explanation would have helped to avoid the unease the others are feeling.

  But I didn't, and it's too late now with Otto here.

  There is, of course, a silver lining for me in the black cloud of Billy's embarrassingly bad manners. He gave me what I so far hadn't worked up the courage to ask him for: "The Tages Zeitung newspapers will do whatever we can toward that objective. Starting with doubling that reward to a hundred thousand euros. And--if I have to say this--by providing our Karlchen-the-intelligence-officer and his friends with whatever we have in the files that might help them to find these bastards."

  Kocian drained his glass of Slivovitz and looked around for Sandor Tor, who was nowhere in sight--probably taking Billy's luggage to his room, Castillo decided--and then, muttering, headed for the bar, which was actually an enormous antique sideboard, obviously intending to get a refill.

  Castillo got up and followed him.

  "Easy on the sauce, Billy," Castillo said softly.

  Kocian raised one bushy, snow-white eyebrow.

  "What did you say?"

  "I said go easy on the Slivovitz."

  "You don't dare tell me what to do, Karlchen!"

  "I don't like her any more than you do, Billy, but we don't need to humiliate her, or Otto, and make everybody else uncomfortable. Including Hermann and Willi."

  "Go fuck yourself, Karlchen!"

  Castillo shrugged.

  "Suit yourself," he said. "I know better than to argue with an old drunk wallowing in self-pity."

  "Self-pity? You arrogant little ..."

  By then Castillo was halfway back to his chair.

  That was not one of my smartest moves, Charley thought as he went.

  Why the hell did I do that?

  Not as a considered move.

  I guess the Boy Scout in me suddenly bubbled up and escaped.

  Well, I certainly managed to make things worse than they were.

  Helena reappeared several minutes later.

  "It'll be just a few more minutes, Billy," she said.

  Castillo looked at Kocian, who he found was already glaring at him.

  Kocian drained his second glass of Slivovitz.

  "Helena," Kocian said, "it has been pointed out to me that my behavior toward you and your family tonight has been shameful."

  "I don't know what you mean, Billy," she said.

  "Pray let me finish." He waited until she nodded, then went on: "I can only hope you can find it in your heart to forgive an old drunk wallowing in self-pity over the loss of a man who was like a son to him."

  "Billy, you've not said nor done anything to apologize to me for."

  "Otto," Kocian announced, "your wife is a lousy liar. One with a kind and gracious heart. She's much too good for you."

  Helena went to Kocian and kissed him.

  Kocian looked at Castillo.

  "In case you're curious, Karlchen, that was my heart speaking, not the Slivovitz."

  Castillo felt his throat tighten and his eyes start to water. He quickly got out of his chair.

  "Did you drink all the Slivovitz, Onkel Billy? Or can I have one?"

  "I think," Otto Gorner said, "that we should get into the arrangements for tomorrow."

  [TWO]

  Das Haus im Wald

  Near Bad Hersfeld

  Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg

  Hesse, Germany

  0830 27 December 2005

  The drapes over the plateglass windows had been opened, and everyone at the breakfast table could see what Castillo was describing in what he called Lesson Seven, Modern European History 202.

  "You see that thing that looks sort of like a control tower? In the middle of the field?"

  "There was an airstrip, Charley?" Jack Davidson asked.

  "No. And don't interrupt teacher again unless you raise your hand and ask permission first."

  Hermann and Willi, sitting on the floor playing with the puppies, giggled.

  Castillo turned to them. "And laughing at your godfather also is verboten!"

  They giggled again.

  "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Castillo went on, "was that that thing that looks sort of like a control tower was sort of the command post for half a dozen other, simpler control towers, three on each side. There were telephones in the smaller ones, and the larger one had telephones and radios connected to the next level of command--"

  Davidson raised his hand.

  "Yes, Jackie, you may go tend to your personal problem," Castillo said. "But don't forget--as you usually do--to wash your hands when you're finished."

  Hermann and Willi giggled again.

  "Why is it still there?" Davidson asked. "Too expensive to knock down?"

  "Otto and I decided to leave it up, 'Lest we forget,' " Kocian said. "It did cost a small fortune to take down the other towers and, of course, the fence itself."

  "Thank you, Professor Doktor Kocian," Castillo said. "Turning to the fence. You see, about three hundred meters this side of the tower, a road--or what's left of one?"

  Everybody looked.

  "The road is a few meters from what was the actual border. The fence was a hundred meters inside East Germany. They reserved the right--and used it--to shoot onto their land this side of the fence. They also tried to mine it, but were frustrated in that endeavor by good old American ingenuity."

  "You want to--" Captain Sparkman began, then abruptly stopped, raised his hand, and said, "Sorry."

  "You're going to have to learn like Jackie here to take care of that sort of thing before coming to class, Sparky."

  That got the expected reaction from Hermann and Willi. Even Otto smiled.

  "American ingenuity?" Sparkman pursued.

  "As my heroes, the stalwart troops of the Fourteenth Armored Cavalry, made their rounds down the road, they could of course see their East German counterparts laying the mines. And they of course could not protest. But once the field was in, and grass sown over the mines so that those terrible West Germans fleeing the horrors of capitalism for the Communist heaven would not see the mines and blow themselves--"

  "Onkel Karl is being sarcastic, boys," Otto said. "The fence was built to keep East Germans from escaping to the West."

  "Onkel Karl, you said, 'my heroes'?" Willi asked, his right arm raised.

  "When I was your age, Willi, what I wanted to be when I grew up was a member of the Black Horse regiment, riding up and down the border in a jeep or an armored car or even better"--he met Otto's eyes, then Billy Kocian's--"in a helicopter, protecting the West Germans from their evil cousins on the other side of the fence. I could not tell my grandfather or my mother or anybody this, however, because, for reasons I didn't understand, they didn't like Americans very much."

  "Why?" Willi asked.

  Otto and Kocian both shook their heads.

  "Getting back to the minefields," Castillo said. "Once the minefields were in--Bouncing Betties; really nasty mines--"

  "Bouncing Betties?" Hermann asked.

  "You didn't raise your hand, but I will forgive you this once. When someone steps on a Bouncing Betty, it goes off, then jumps out of the ground about a meter, then explodes again. This sends the shrapnel into people's bodies from their knees up. Very nasty."

  The boys' faces showed they understood.

  "Trying this one more time," Castillo went on, "after the minefields were in and the Volkspolizei and the border guards and the Army of the German Democratic Republic were congratulating themselves, a trooper of the Fourteenth reintroduced one of the oldest artillery weapons known, the catapult."

  Willi's hand shot back up.

  "The what?"

  "I will demonstrate." Castillo reached for the sugar bowl, took out an oblong lump of sugar, and put it on the handle of a spoon. "What do you think would
happen if I banged my fist against the other end of the spoon?"

  "They get the idea, Karl," Otto said. "You don't have to--"

  BAM!

  The lump of sugar flew in a high arc across the table and crashed against the plateglass window.

  Hermann's and Willi's eyes widened.

  "That is a catapult," Castillo said. "So what the troopers of the Black Horse did was build a great big one, big enough to throw four cobblestones wired together. They mounted it on a jeep and practiced with it until they got pretty good. And then they waited for a really dark night and sneaked the catapult close to the minefield--and started firing cobblestones. Eventually, one landed on a Bouncing Betty. It went off. There is a phenomenon known as sympathetic explosion, which means that one explosion sets off another. Bouncing Betties went off all over the minefield.

  "The troopers got back in their jeep and took off. The Communists decided that they'd caught a whole bunch of dirty capitalists trying to sneak into their Communist paradise. Floodlights came on. Sirens screamed. Soldiers rushed to the area. All they found was a bunch of exploded Betties and some cobblestones."

  Hermann and Willi were obviously enthralled with the story.

  Castillo was pleased.

  "After that happened a couple of times," he went on, "they started placing their mines on the other side of the fence. That was out of range of the catapult--"

  "Excuse me, Herr Gossinger," a maid said as she entered the room and extended a portable telephone to Castillo. "It's the American embassy in Berlin. They say it's important."

  "Thank you," Castillo said, and reached for the telephone.

  "Hello?"

  "Have I Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger?" a male voice asked in German.

  Sounds like a Berliner, Castillo thought. Some local hire who will connect me with some Foggy Bottom bureaucrat too important to make his own calls.

  "Ja."

  "My name is Tom Barlow, Colonel Castillo," the caller said, now in faultless American English. "Sorry to bother you so early in the day, but the circumstances make it necessary."

  Okay, the American guy speaks perfect German. So what? So do I. So do Edgar and Jack.

  But he called me "Colonel Castillo"?

  "What circumstances are those, Mr. Barlow?" Castillo asked, switching to English.

  "I thought that you would be interested to know that an attempt will be made on your life today during the services for Herr Friedler. Actually, on yours and those of Herr Gorner and Herr Kocian."

  "You're right. I find that fascinating. Are you going to tell me how this came to the attention of the embassy?"

  "Oh, the embassy doesn't know anything about it."

  "Okay, then how did it come to your attention?"

  "I ordered it. I'll explain when we meet. But watch your back today, Colonel. The workers are ex-Stasi and are very good at what they do."

  There was a click and the line went dead.

  Castillo looked at his godchildren. They were looking impatiently at him to continue the stories of fun and games with Communists in the good old days.

  [THREE]

  When Castillo had been growing up in das Haus im Wald, he lived in a small apartment--a bedroom, a bath, and a small living room--on the left of the Big Room on the third floor. It had been his Onkel Willi's as a boy. To the right had been "The Herr Oberst's Apartment," twice the size and with one more bedroom that had been converted into sort of a library with conference table.

  Everyone still referred to it as The Herr Oberst's Apartment, but it was now where Castillo was housed. Enough of the Herr Oberst's furniture had been moved out to accommodate Karlchen's bed and childhood possessions. The furniture removed had gone into the smaller apartment, which was now referred to as "Onkel Billy's Apartment."

  Castillo had wondered idly who had made the decision for the change, but had never been curious enough to ask.

  He remembered that now--probably because of the soap opera and history lectures, he thought--as he led everyone into The Herr Oberst's Apartment.

  The room assignment was to mark the pecking order.

  Although occupied as a perk by our managing director and his family, the house in fact belongs to Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

  I am the majority stockholder thereof, and so have been given the larger apartment. And Billy, because he owns what stock I don't, has the smaller apartment.

  But who made the assignment--Billy or Otto?

  "I hated to run the boys off that way," Castillo said as he waved everybody into chairs around the conference table. "But I didn't think they should hear this."

  "Who was on the phone, Ace?" Delchamps asked as he sat down and pushed toward Castillo an ashtray that had been made from a large boar's foot.

  "The name Tom Barlow mean anything to anybody?" Castillo asked as he found, bit the end off, and then carefully lit a cigar.

  When everyone had shrugged or shaken his head or said no--or various combinations thereof--Castillo continued: "This guy told the maid--probably in German--that he was from our embassy in Berlin and wanted to speak to Gossinger. When I got on the line, he asked me--in German, Berliner's accent--if I was Gossinger, and then, when I said I was, he switched to English--American, perfect, sounded midwestern--called me Colonel Castillo, said his name was Tom Barlow, and that he hated to call but thought I would be interested to learn that an attempt will be made on my life--and on Otto's and Billy's--during the Friedler funeral."

  "My God!" Gorner said.

  "I asked him how the embassy came into this information, and he said that the embassy didn't know. Then I asked him how he knew. And he said because he had ordered the hits, and that he would explain that when we met, and that I should be careful as the hitters are ex-Stasi and good at what they do."

  "Why do I think we've just heard from the SVR?" Edgar Delchamps said. "I wonder what they're up to."

  "You think this threat is credible?" Gorner asked. "That the SVR is involved?"

  "I think it's credible enough for us to stay away from the funeral," Castillo said.

  "Prefacing this by saying I'm going to Gunther Friedler's services," Billy Kocian said, "what I think they're up to, Edgar, is trying to frighten us, and I have no intention of giving them that satisfaction." He paused and looked at Castillo. "There will be police all over, Karl. The SVR is not stupid. They are not going to spray the mourners with submachine gun fire or detonate a bomb in Saint Elisabeth's."

  "Uncle Billy has a point, Ace," Delchamps said.

  "Karl, what I think we should do is contact the police," Gorner said, "the Bundeskriminalamt. . . ."

  "Otto," Castillo said, "we're pressed for time. We don't have time to convince the local cops or the Bundeskriminalamt that there even is a threat. All we have is the telephone call to me. And I'm not about to tell the local cops, much less the Bundeskriminalamt, that this guy called Gossinger is really 'Colonel Castillo.' And unless I did, they would decide that all we have is a crank call from some lunatic."

  "So what do you suggest?" Gorner replied.

  "The first thing we do is circle the wagons."

  "What?" Gorner asked.

  "Set up our own defense perimeter," Castillo said. "Protect ourselves. Everybody's here but the FBI. Now, we don't know if these people know about Yung and Doherty, but we have to presume they do. So the first thing we do is get them out of the Europaischer Hof."

  "Get them out to where?" Kocian asked.

  "Someplace in the open," Castillo said. "Where we can meet them and where we can see people approaching." He paused and then went on: "I think Billy's right. We should not let these bastards think they've scared us. Which means we will go to Saint Elisabeth's. You game for that, Otto?"

  "Of course," Gorner said firmly after hesitating just long enough to make Castillo suspect he really didn't think that was such a good idea.

  "The boys and Helena?" Kocian asked.

  "Surrounded by our security people," Castillo
said. "Not sitting with us. We have reserved seats?"

  "Of course," Gorner said. "But I can change the arrangements for them."

  "Okay. Now, what we need is a place in the open not too far from Saint Elisabeth's where we can meet. Suggestions?"

  No one had any suggestions.

  Finally, Castillo had one: "Otto, you know the place, the walk, just below the castle? That's open, not far from the church. . . ."

  Gorner nodded.

  "That'd do it," he said.

  "How quick can we get our security people over to the Europaischer Hof to take Yung and Doherty there?" Castillo asked. "They're armed, right?"

  "Yes, of course they're armed," Gorner said. "And I can call the supervisor."

  He reached for the telephone on the table and began to punch numbers from memory.

  "That raises the question of weapons for us," Castillo said. He looked around the table and asked, "Weapons?"

  Everybody shook his head.

  "This is Otto Gorner," Gorner said into the telephone. "Who's in charge?"

  "It would take a couple of hours to get the weapons from the Gulfstream," Jake Torine said. "Presuming we could smuggle them off the airfield."

  "So that's out," Castillo said. "Damn!"

  "Hunting weapons here, Charley?" Davidson asked. "Rifles, shotguns, anything?"

  "There's a cut-down single-shot Winchester .22 rifle in the wardrobe. Or there was the last time I looked. I didn't see any cartridges." Castillo paused in deep thought, listened as Gorner finished his call, then said: "We have to get weapons from someplace. Otto, does the security service or whatever you call it have some sort of arsenal we can get into?"

  Gorner didn't answer directly. Instead, he reported, "The supervisor will move four men from the church to the Europaischer Hof, and take your men to the Philipps Castle. Which means there will be that many fewer to protect the Friedlers."

  "The bad guys are not after the Friedler family," Castillo said. "They're after you and Billy. And me. Now, get back on the phone and call whoever you have in the Bundeskriminalamt and tell them you have learned of a credible threat to you and Billy and the Friedlers--no details--and to act accordingly. Let them deal with the local cops."