The Hostage pa-2

by W. E. B Griffin

  "What about my investigation, my files? I'd really like to stay here."

  "This is not open for debate, Yung," Castillo said. "You're going with us. Your cover as just one more FBI agent will be blown with the ambassador the moment he hears what happened. So this afternoon, pack a bag with enough clothes for a couple of days and give it to Fernando. A small bag."

  "What the hell happens to my files?"

  "You are tenacious, aren't you?" Castillo said sharply. "But that is, in fact, a good question. Mr. Howell, this afternoon-when you go with him to his apartment-Mr. Yung is going to give you some files, which, as of this moment, are classified Top Secret-Presidential. You will find someplace to keep them until I decide how to get them to the States. Maybe in the hands of a diplomatic courier."

  "And what happens to my files in the States?"

  "Whatever the President decides to do with them."

  "Which means they disappear down the black hole of diplomacy?"

  "I just changed my mind," Castillo said. "Colonel Torine, will you go with Howell and Yung to Yung's apartment and take possession of Yung's files? That way, we can take them home with us."

  Torine gave him a thumbs-up signal.

  Castillo nodded. "The subject is closed, Yung. You understand?"

  Yung exhaled in resigned disgust.

  "Okay," Castillo said. "Now to the assault team. Those two"-he pointed to Kranz and Kensington- "have some very rudimentary skills in that area. So they'll be on it. But that means they won't be on the radios. You can set them up, can't you, so all someone has to do is turn them on and talk?"

  "No problem, sir," Sergeant Kensington said.

  "One goes with us. That leaves the question of where to set up the other one. Here? Can you just aim the antenna out the window, the way you did in the Four Seasons?"

  "I think so, sir. I'll have to try it."

  "Okay, but if Miller, or anyone else in the States, tries to talk to you, it fails, right? I don't want anybody trying to micromanage this operation."

  "Got it, sir," Kensington said.

  "How big is the antenna?" Howell asked.

  "A little larger than a satellite TV antenna," Kensington answered. "Eighteen, twenty inches in diameter."

  "There's a backyard at my house," Howell said. "Fenced in. Would that work?"

  "Where's your house?" Castillo asked.

  "In Carrasco, not far from Yung's apartment."

  "Okay, you are now our base station radio operator. Kensington will go with you, set it up, and show you how it works."

  Both men nodded.

  "Jack Britton, who knows how to operate a Car 4, and I know is pretty good at running around in the dark, gets suited up. Tony, you want to go?"

  "Absolutely."

  "I would like to volunteer, sir," Corporal Lester Bradley said. "I have never fired the Car 4, but I shot Expert at Parris Island with the M-16, and with the Beretta, and in Iraq I was the designated marksman of my fire-team. I used a bolt-action 7.62? 51mm sniper's rifle for that, sir. Essentially a Remington Model 700 modified for Marine Corps use, sir."

  "You were a sniper in Iraq?" Sergeant Kranz asked incredulously.

  "We don't have snipers in the Corps, Sergeant. But the better shots are issued a sniper's rifle and are assigned as 'designated marksmen.'"

  "We have a Remington, right?" Castillo asked.

  "I do, sir," Kranz said.

  "Well, Lester," Castillo said, "you're just the man I've been looking for. What you're going to do is take Sergeant Kranz's rifle, make yourself a suitably camouflaged firing/observation position… We have binoculars, too, right, Kranz?"

  Kranz nodded. "And the night-vision goggles. The new ones, the really good ones."

  "Make sure that Corporal Bradley knows how to use them," Castillo ordered. "He's going to guard the Ranger while we're at the house."

  "Sir, since it's Sergeant Kranz's rifle," Bradley said, "maybe he'd prefer to guard the helicopter, and I could go on the assault team."

  "In special operations, Bradley," Castillo said, very seriously, "we operate on the principle of the round peg in the round hole, not personal desire. Sergeant Kranz is not the best man to guard the chopper. You are."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Bradley responded with not much enthusiasm.

  "Ricardo, you want to go with us?" Castillo asked. "I realize you haven't had much training in things like this."

  Please say no. If anything goes wrong, you'll be the first one to take a hit. And I really don't want to have to tell Abuela about that. That would be even worse than having to tell your father.

  "Nothing like this, I suppose," the young DEA agent said. "But I have had training."

  "The DEA school… is there such a thing?"

  "Yeah, and that's tough. But what I meant was that when I was at A and M, in the Corps, I went through the Ranger Course at Benning and Hurlburt Field one summer. Don Fernando can tell you that's rough. Yeah. I really want to go. Don't worry about me."

  "Okay. You're on."

  He glanced at Fernando and saw that Fernando's eyes were on him. Castillo shrugged slightly. Fernando tipped his head slightly.

  He's thinking exactly what I'm thinking.

  It's one of those things. It has to be.

  "That makes seven on your assault team, right?" Darby asked. "Plus Bradley at the helicopter. That's eight. You have enough black suits, weapons, night goggles, etcetera?"

  "Where do you get eight?"

  Darby ticked them off on his fingers: "Kranz, Kensington, Yung, Britton, Santini, Solez, Munz, and you." He held his hands up, with five fingers on his left hand and three on his right extended. "That's eight. When I took those bags from Fort Bragg out to the house, I counted equipment for six-shooters."

  "That's the trouble with you agency people," Castillo said, with a smile. "You assemble a few facts and immediately draw the wrong conclusion. Or usually, conclusions, plural."

  Darby rearranged his extended hands and gave him the finger. Twice.

  "What Colonel Munz and you and I are going to do, Alex, is drive sedately up to the door of Shangri-La in a car."

  "You're just going to drive up in a car? Where, question one, is the car coming from?"

  "Howell will rent it for us this afternoon from Hertz at the airport. He will use his credit card, thus keeping your name off the books."

  "I have a car that you can use, Mr. Castillo," Howell said. "A five-year-old, powder blue Peugeot."

  "Better yet," Castillo said, "things are going so well, I'm waiting for that famous other shoe to drop. Would your car be the sort of car used by Uruguayan bureaucrats on official business, Mr. Howell?"

  Howell nodded. "That's why I bought what I did, actually."

  "Alex, you will drive Mr. Howell's five-year-old, powder blue Peugeot to Tacuarembo early tomorrow afternoon; there's no sense you being there any sooner than, say, half past five or six…"

  "And when I get there, then what?"

  "Go to the Hotel Carlos Gardel. If it doesn't have a bar, it has to have a place you can have a cup of coffee. Munz and I will meet you there, say, at eight or eight-thirty. We will be wearing suits and trying to look as much as possible like Uruguayan bureaucrats. Don't recognize us. Finish your coffee and leave. Go to the car. We'll find it. It's powder blue, right? That should make it easy to find."

  "And then?"

  "We drive out to Shangri-La, quickly flash our badges to whoever answers the door. Eventually, we will get to Mr. Bertrand, who will be informed that there seems to be some irregularity with his passport, and might we have a look at it?

  "If this goes as I hope it will, Lorimer will open his safe-saving Yung the difficulty of blowing it open-to get either his Lebanese passport or money to bribe us with, probably both. Once the safe is open, Munz will put handcuffs on him, and I will begin to explain to him what happens next, and the wisdom of his cooperating. Once we get that far, you, who will have been waiting patiently outside, will drive the powder blue car ba
ck to Montevideo.

  "Anybody around, seeing the car leaving, will presume we're in it," Castillo went on. "As soon as they see you leave, while Britton, Yung, and Solez are cutting the telephone line and/or any cables leading to any transmitter antennas, Kranz and Kensington will come into the house, put plastic cuffs on anybody in the house, and make sure there's nobody lurking around who can cause trouble. They will then go outside to make sure there are no visitors, or that we're warned if there are. Ricardo, Britton, and Yung, who should be in the house by then, will herd everyone we've cuffed into a bedroom, where they will be attached to the furniture with more plastic cuffs.

  "When that's been done, leaving Ricardo to watch those cuffed, Britton and Yung will start to search the house for anything interesting that Lorimer didn't choose to put in the safe.

  "That's in Munz's area of expertise, too, so he'll help with that. I'll sit on Lorimer.

  "Just before dawn, we take Lorimer out of the house and head for the helicopter. By the time we get there, there will be enough light to take off. The way I figure it, we'll have anywhere from a half hour to an hour before those cuffed manage to get loose, or someone comes in to make breakfast, or whatever, and discover Jean-Paul has been kidnapped by-this is important- Spanish-speaking people, two of whom look like cops/businessmen/bureaucrats and the rest like those people one sees in thriller movies. Those balaclava masks really scare people."

  Darby thought the scenario over carefully.

  "You don't need permission to speak, you know, Alex," Castillo said after a very long thirty seconds.

  "Jesus, Charley," Darby said, smiling, "this might just work."

  "And nobody gets hurt," Castillo said. "I want everybody to keep that in mind. This is not an assault. The only man at Lorimer's estancia who deserves to die is Lorimer, and unfortunately I need the sonofabitch alive. The primary purpose of the black suits and the balaclava masks and all the weapons is to scare everybody into behaving while we're there. And the masks will make everybody hard to describe to the local gendarmes when they finally show up and start asking questions."

  "At what time do you want me to chauffeur you and Munz out there?" Darby asked.

  "Probably about nine o'clock. At that time, there probably won't be more than two or three servants in the house. Plus, maybe, his tootsie. Anyway, Kranz and Kensington will have kept an eye on the place for at least an hour before we get there, and if it doesn't look right, one or the other of them will wave us off at the driveway.

  "If that happens, we may wait until later. Midnight, for example, and forget the bureaucratic business, just drive up in the Yukon, bust in, grab Lorimer, bust open the safe, and get the hell out of there. We can hide in the field where the chopper is. Or maybe just get in the chopper and go."

  "I think the first scenario will work," Darby said.

  "Jesus, I hope so," Castillo said. "Okay, we'll get to the rest of the tape. Make notes of what we're missing, and I'll try to get what I missed this afternoon."

  He pushed a button on the control and the videotape began to play. "This is where we followed the road Bradley's going to use into Tacuarembo. I didn't see anything extraordinary about it, but take a real good look, Bradley." "Okay. Here we are over the field again. I didn't see one, but there has to be a road, a path, into it. Look for it, Bradley. Don't just drive over the field. We can't afford to have the Yukon stuck in the middle of the field when the sun comes up. I'm glad I thought of that. If Bradley gets the Yukon stuck, he will be shot, and his carcass left in the Yukon, which will be then torched by Ricardo. Ricardo, make sure that Kranz gives you a couple of thermite grenades and shows you how to use them before you drive up there. One for the engine compartment, the other on one of the barrels of fuel."

  "I've seen a thermite grenade before," Solez said. "Okay, here we are. I'm about to make the low-level pass over the main house at Shangri-La." "Jesus, there's somebody in the interior courtyard."

  He stopped the tape.

  "Gentlemen, there is Mr. Jean-Paul Bertrand, aka Lorimer. Apparently having a wake-me-up cup of coffee in his garden." [THREE] Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembo Province Republica Oriental del Uruguay 2110 31 July 2005 Jean-Paul Bertrand was not only dining alone, but he had prepared the meal himself.

  There were several reasons. For one, he was bored. For another, his cook's idea of a gourmet meal was to throw something-usually beef, sometimes pork, and less often chicken-on the wood-fired parrilla grill, char it, and then serve it with either mashed potatoes or what they called here papas fritas, and a sliced tomato salad. Wrapping a potato in aluminum foil and baking it apparently overtaxed her culinary skills.

  There were some marvelous chefs in Uruguay, but not in Tacuarembo. And, of course, he had to stay in Tacuarembo for the time being. Jean-Paul had come to believe that the northern Italian kitchen-which is what the good restaurants in Montevideo and Punta del Este served-was, in fact, as hard as this was to accept, actually a bit superior to that of the French.

  Tonight, with Anna-Maria, the cook, watching-and, he dared hope, perhaps learning-he had prepared Chateaubriand. First, after putting on a chef's apron, he had gotten a knife really sharp and then trimmed all the fat and sinew from a lomo. A lomo was the entire tenderloin of beef. A tenderloin that would cost forty-or more-euros in Paris was available here as a lomo for the equivalent of nine or ten. And it was magnificent beef. Then he first cut a ten-inch section from it and set it aside.

  The remainder of the tenderloin he carefully cut into bite-sized pieces. Tomorrow, or the day after, he would make boeuf bourguignonne with the remaining meat.

  He rubbed the ten-inch length of tenderloin with a garlic clove, salt, and pepper, and set it aside while he prepared the vegetables. The green beans were marvelous as is, but the carrots were the size of his wrist and he had to slice them into finger-sized pieces before he could use them. He put the steamer on so that he could steam the beans, the potatoes, a half dozen stalks of celery, and a dozen large white mushrooms.

  He told Anna-Maria to open a bottle of the cabernet sauvignon. Just open it. Not decant it. And leave it here in the kitchen for the time being.

  Then he sliced another dozen and a half white mushrooms very thin, vertically, and then sauteed them in a pan until they were about half cooked. Then he added a tablespoon of flour and stirred it into the mushrooms until it was no longer visible. Next came a cup of the very good local merlot. With the gas as low as it would go, he stirred patiently until the sauce formed. Only then did he add a touch of garlic and basil and salt and pepper.

  He went to the parrilla outside the kitchen and carefully arranged the coals under the grill, testing to see if he had the proper heat with his hand. When he was satisfied, he laid the tenderloin on the hot steel grid.

  When he went back in the kitchen, the cabernet sauvignon was on the table, with a glass. He poured and took an appreciative sip.

  Maria came into the kitchen from the outside. Jean-Paul could tell from the young face of his current companion in the bed that she was afraid he was angry with her. He had told her he wanted to read while dining, and she should find something to eat by herself. The truth was, not only did her manners leave a good deal to be desired, but setting a fine meal before her made him think of the phrase, "Casting pearls before swine." If it wasn't charred black on the outside and raw inside, Maria eyed it with great suspicion and only ate whatever it was to please him.

  Maria and Anna-Maria watched as he examined the mushroom mixture, and then added a half cup more of the merlot, and loaded the vegetables into the steamer. He had then gone back to the parrilla and turned the tenderloin.

  Then he went back into the kitchen, had another sip of the cabernet, and told Anna-Maria to set the table for one, with the candles in the candelabra lit. Then he told Maria to go to his bedroom and to bring his reading glasses and the book with the red jacket that was on the bedside table, and put both on the dining room table.

  Then he went back to the parr
illa again, turned the tenderloin again-it was browning nicely-and went back into the kitchen. The sauce was now almost of the right consistency-the merlot had been reduced just enough-so he turned off the gas under it.

  Then he tested the vegetables in the steamer with a fork, and with the same result. Another five minutes and everything would be done at just about the same time. He looked at his watch, then sipped the cabernet until the five minutes had passed.

  Then he took a meat thermometer from a drawer and went to the parrilla. He turned the tenderloin again, then inserted the meat thermometer into it. The dial showed 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

  He then removed the tenderloin from the grill to a plate and took it back in the kitchen. There he rolled it onto a large oblong platter, and then placed the first plate over it.

  He tested the mushroom sauce one last time, added a touch of salt, and then closed the lid again.

  Then he went to the steamer and carefully removed half of the vegetables, arranging them neatly to one side of the platter.

  He ran the knife against the steel again until it felt right, then took the tenderloin and put it on a cutting board. He sliced the entire piece into pinkie-finger-thick slices, and then skillfully lifted them all at once and laid them in the center of the platter.

  He used the knife blade to carefully push the vegetables already on the platter against the tenderloin. Then he arranged the vegetables remaining in the steamer against the other side of the tenderloin. When that was done, he placed the knife blade on the tenderloin and pushed, so that the slices were displaced and lying on one another.

  Then he went to the mushroom sauce pan, picked it up, and dribbled an inch-wide path of sauce on top of the slices.

  "Anna-Maria," he announced. "This is called a Chateaubriand."

  "Si, senor."

  "Put this sauce in a sauce bowl," he said. "And then serve the Chateaubriand. I will take the wine and glass with me."

  "Si, senor."

  "Do you want me to come sit with you?" Maria asked.

  "No, dear. Thank you just the same. Why don't you have a bath? I'll be in shortly."