The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “I must ask you two questions, my friend,” Pevsner said. “In a moment, you will understand why.”

  “Ask.”

  “What are you doing in Argentina? Why are you here?”

  This is one of those times when telling the truth and only the truth is the smart thing to do. Charley immediately answered, “The wife of the chief of mission at our embassy here has disappeared under circumstances which look like kidnapping. The President sent me down here to see what’s going on.”

  Castillo saw that his answer surprised Pevsner, but he didn’t pursue it directly.

  “Your being here has nothing to do with me?”

  Castillo shook his head.

  “Not a thing. I had no idea you—or Howard—were anywhere near Argentina.”

  Pevsner looked into Castillo’s eyes for a long moment.

  Alex, I don’t care how long you look for signs of me lying. You won’t find any. And if I have any luck at all, you won’t see signs indicating that I’m more than a little afraid of you.

  Pevsner finally squeezed Castillo’s arms in a friendly gesture and let him go.

  “Thank you for your honesty, my friend,” he said. “Now, why don’t we go in the house, have a glass of wine, and let me introduce you to my family?”

  “Your family?” Castillo blurted.

  “Yes. My family. My wife and children.”

  I’ll be goddamned! Well, that explains all the concern. But what the hell are they doing here?

  Castillo, after meeting Aleksandr Pevsner for the first time in Vienna, had reported to Secretary of Homeland Security Matt Hall that Pevsner had told him the missing 727 had been stolen by Somalian terrorists who intended to crash it into the Liberty Bell. Pevsner had said he would do whatever he could to help locate it because he was against Muslim terrorists for many reasons, the primary one being he was a family man who adored his wife and three children. He didn’t want them hurt by Muslim fanatics. Pevsner had then produced a photograph of him with what he said was his family: a very attractive blond wife and three blond children who looked straight from a Clairol advertisement. Castillo knew it sounded incredible, and that Hall was going to have a hard time believing any of it.

  He was not prepared, however, for the look of unabashed incredulity on Hall’s face—and on Joel Isaacson’s and Tom McGuire’s. Clearly, they not only believed zero, zilch, nada of what he was telling them, but were also—worse—now questioning his reputation as a hard-ass special operator for wasting his and their time relating it.

  “Charley, I’ve seen his dossier,” Isaacson said. “It’s this thick.” He held his hands eighteen inches apart. “There’s a lot in there about murder, extortion, bribery, smuggling, arms-dealing, you name it, but not one line about his being a devoted husband and loving daddy.”

  “I believed him,” Castillo had replied.

  “About what part?” Hall asked.

  “Most of it,” Charley said. “The family photograph looked too cozy not to have been staged.”

  “You actually think the airplane was stolen by Somalians? Who plan to crash it into the Liberty Bell? Because of what this international thug told you?” Hall asked, more sadly than angrily.

  “Sir, you told me that one of the major problems in intelligence is with people at my level telling their superiors what they think the superiors want to hear, instead of what they believe. What I told you just now is what I believe.”

  “That wasn’t me who told you that,” Hall said after a long pause. “That was the President.”

  “Charley, do you know how close you came to having this guy take you out?” Joel Isaacson asked.

  “Yeah, I do, Joel. He said he was glad he didn’t have to give me an ‘Indian beauty spot’—a small-caliber bullet in the forehead—and I believed that, too.”

  [FOUR]

  Pevsner led Castillo into the house, through a two-story entrance foyer to a sitting room. With the exception of what was probably an antique samovar sitting on a table, the furnishings of the sitting room gave it a British feeling. Two walls were lined with books and oil paintings, and there was a red-leather couch with matching armchairs.

  The windows offered a view of a large swimming pool under a curved plastic roof, something like a Quonset hut. Vapor rose from the pool.

  Well, they don’t have many heated swimming pools in Merry Old England, but this place still feels English.

  A middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform came into the sitting room from a side door as the three men entered.

  “Would you please ask Madam Pevsner if it is convenient for her and the children to join us?” Pevsner ordered in Russian.

  The woman, unsmiling, nodded but didn’t say anything. She left the sitting room by the door Pevsner, Kennedy, and Castillo had come in.

  “Howard, see if you can find someone in the kitchen who can bring wine, and so forth,” Pevsner ordered in English.

  “Red, right, Charley?” Kennedy asked. “A cabernet?”

  “Please,” Castillo said, as he walked to the samovar for a closer look. He had just decided that it was a bona fide antique Russian kettle when Pevsner said in Russian, “Ah, Anna, come and welcome Charley to our home!”

  Castillo turned and saw the wife and kiddies from the Clairol commercial walking into the room. They were all almost startlingly blond and fair-skinned. The mother looked to be in her late twenties, but Charley decided she had to be older than that to be the mother of the girl, who was thirteen or fourteen. There were two boys, one who Charley guessed was ten or so, and another about six. Everyone was wearing a thick white terry cloth robe.

  Madam Pevsner smiled and put out her hand to Castillo and said in Russian, “I’m happy to meet you. My husband has told me so much about you.”

  The maid was now in the room.

  “Olga, would you bring some wine?” Madam Pevsner ordered, and the maid walked to what was apparently the kitchen door.

  “Howard’s getting the wine,” Pevsner said in Russian, and then switched to English. “Greet our guest in English,” he said to the children. “Charley, this is Elena. Darling, this is Mr. Castillo.”

  Elena, shyly, almost blushing, curtsied and said, “How do you do, Mr. Castillo?” in a pronounced British accent.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Elena.”

  The ten-year-old was even more shy. The six-year-old was not. He walked past his brother, put out his hand, and announced, “I am Sergei and I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir.”

  “And I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “Aleksandr!” Pevsner said, propelling the ten-year-old into action.

  The ten-year-old, squirming, finally offered his hand and mumbled something unintelligible.

  Pevsner beamed proudly.

  “You’ll have to excuse the robes, Mr. Castillo,” Anna Pevsner said. “But my husband said he wasn’t sure if you could come, and the children like to have a swim when they come from school.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t want to interfere with that,” Castillo said.

  The six-year-old, Sergei, beamed at Castillo.

  “I really hate to leave them alone in the pool,” Anna said.

  “Howard can watch them for a few minutes, darling,” Pevsner said.

  Kennedy came into the room.

  “Howard, would you mind watching the children in the pool for a few minutes?”

  “Not at all.”

  Howard is being banished from the conversation I’m about to have with Pevsner and his wife. What’s going on?

  The older two children, trailed by Kennedy, went out of the sitting room. Sergei marched up to Castillo, shook his hand, and ran after them.

  “Nice kids, Alex,” Castillo said.

  “Thank you, Charley,” Pevsner said, and then, as a younger maid—this one looked Argentine—came in with a tray holding glasses, a bottle of wine, and a large chrome corkscrew, said, “Ah, finally, the wine!”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Anna
asked, gesturing at the red-leather couch and armchairs.

  Castillo sat in one of the armchairs. Anna sat on the couch, and Pevsner, after gesturing for the maid to put the tray on the coffee table, sat beside her and reached for the wine and corkscrew.

  “Local wine,” Pevsner said, “from a bodega near Mendoza, in the foothills of the Andes. Ever been to Mendoza, Charley?”

  “Uh-huh. We have some friends there.”

  Pevsner poured the wine into enormous crystal glasses, handed one first to his wife, then one to Charley. Then he tapped his glass against Charley’s.

  “Welcome to our home, Charley,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Charley took a sip, and expressed his appreciation with a smile.

  “Why do I think, Charley, that your curiosity is about to bubble over? ‘What in hell is Alex doing here?’”

  “Maybe you’re reading my mind again,” Castillo said.

  “What we’re doing, Charley, is hiding in the open,” Pevsner said. “Aleksandr Pevsner, a Hungarian whose estates were seized by the communists, got everything back when freedom came, and then, having enough of both Hungarian winters and oppressive governments, sold everything and came to the New World to start life again. He invested his money in land and vineyards. Including this one, as a matter of fact.” He tapped the wine bottle.

  “Very clever,” Castillo said.

  “There’s a tradition of that, you know, of people running from what’s going on in Europe to find peace in Argentina. There’s a bona fide grand duke of the Austro-Hungarian empire—actually, his grandson, but he has taken the title and is pleased when I call him ‘Your Grace’—in a little town called Maschwitz near here. He teases me that I have the same name as an infamous Russian scoundrel.”

  “Very clever,” Castillo repeated.

  “Think about it, Charley. Where could we live? In Russia? Russia is now not far from where it was before the 1917 revolution. Crime and corruption are rampant, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if communism—under another name, of course—came back. Anywhere in a Muslim country? I do business there, of course, but can you imagine Anna in an environment like that, not even allowed to drive a car? Living in constant fear that some Muslim fanatic will machine-gun her car because she’s obviously an infidel? And while this may surprise you, there are people in Prague and Vienna and Budapest and Bucharest who don’t like me.”

  “I’m shocked,” Castillo said.

  “There is corruption here, of course. And crime. The newspapers are full of stories of robbery and kidnapping. The result of that has been the development of what I call the country club culture. The upper classes live in places like this, and when they go to Buenos Aires, they frequently are accompanied by bodyguards—called ‘security’—which raises no eyebrows whatever.”

  “I saw the guy in the golf cart with the shotgun,” Castillo said.

  “I have a few of my own people, of course, but most of my security is Argentine. There is golf here. . . . Do you play, Charley?”

  Castillo shook his head.

  “And polo. I don’t play, but Aleksandr and Sergei are taking lessons, and Anna and Elena are taking courses in horse riding . . . what’s that called?”

  “Equestrianism,” Anna furnished.

  “. . . equestrianism at the stables here. And, of course, the schools are good. The better ones, like Saint Agnes in the Hills, are a British legacy.”

  “Your kids go to a school called ‘Saint Agnes in the Hills’?” Castillo asked, smiling.

  Pevsner smiled back. “Which has an Anglican priest for a headmaster. There being no Russian Orthodox church to speak of in Argentina, and since the Anglicans and the Russian Orthodox recognize each other’s priesthood and liturgy, Elena was last year confirmed into the Anglican church.”

  “Well, you seem to have everything under control, Alex,” Castillo said. “Good for you.”

  “I thought so, Charley, until Howard came here this morning and asked me, ‘Guess who got onto my elevator in the Four Seasons just now?’”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, I had no idea until today that either you or Howard had ever been near Argentina. And if you’re worried that I’m going to tell anyone we bumped into each other, don’t.”

  “You said something about a kidnapping?”

  “The wife of the chief of mission at the American embassy is missing under circumstances that suggest kidnapping,” Castillo said.

  “Kidnapping is common here,” Pevsner said. “Didn’t she have security?”

  “Why would anyone kidnap a diplomat’s wife?” Anna asked. “Does he have money?”

  “A lot of money,” Charley said.

  “I didn’t see anything in the paper,” Pevsner said, as he leaned forward to pour wine into Charley’s glass.

  “They’re trying to keep it quiet. They hope that maybe when the kidnappers find out she’s a diplomat’s wife, they’ll turn her loose.”

  “That’s not what they’re liable to do,” Pevsner said. “I can make a couple of calls for you, if you’d like.”

  “All contributions gratefully received,” Castillo said. “So far there’s been no contact. I really feel sorry for the husband. They have three kids, and they want to know when Mother’s coming home.”

  “Oh, God!” Anna said. “How awful!”

  “Yeah,” Castillo said.

  “Where did they take her?” Anna asked. “Not from their home?”

  “From the parking lot of the Kansas restaurant in San Isidro.”

  “Alex and I eat there often,” Anna said, then, a touch of horror in her voice: “Not right in front of her children?”

  Castillo shook his head. “She was waiting for her husband to pick her up after work. The kids were at home.”

  “And the President sent you down here to do what?” Pevsner asked.

  “Find out what happened and report to him.”

  “Speaking of the President, and before I make those calls, did you ever have a chance to mention to him that I was helpful in getting that airplane back for you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  The President’s diary for that weekend read, in part:

  Friday 17 June 2005 7:55 PM: Arrival at

  President’s Residence.

  Saturday 18 June 2005 through Sunday 19

  June 2005 8:25 PM:

  No official events or guests or visitors.

  Sunday 19 June 2005 8:25 PM: Departure for

  The White House.

  That was not exactly the truth. The President believed both that what he did in the privacy of his home was nobody’s business but his own, and furthermore, that he had the right to decree what was an official event and what was not.

  The diaries of the secretary of Homeland Security, the director of Central Intelligence, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the commander in chief of U.S. Central Command for the same period, however, all reported they had spent periods of from two to five hours on Saturday 18 June at a location variously described as the “Carolina White House”; the “Presidential Residence”; or “Hilton Head.”

  All but Secretary Hall of Homeland Security were sitting in upholstered white wicker armchairs drinking beer with the President when the first of the helicopters, a glistening blue twin-engine Air Force Huey, made its approach to the lawn between the house and the Atlantic Ocean and fluttered down.

  John Powell, the DCI, and Mark Schmidt, the director of the FBI, were in business suits, and General Allan Naylor, C-in-C Central Command, was in uniform. The Presidentwas wearing a white shirt with the cuffs turned up, a necktie pulled down, khaki trousers, and loafers.

  An Air Force colonel in a summer-weight uniform got out of the helicopter, reached back inside to pick up a small soft-sided suitcase, and then followed one of the Secret Service Presidential Detail agents to the awning-shaded verandah of the house.

  The President shook the hand of Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF, then hand
ed him a bottle of beer. Then they watched as another Huey—this one a single-engine Army helicopter painted a dull olive drab—made its approach over the sea and landed.

  A large man in a business suit and an Army officer, a major in a summer-weight uniform, got out and followed another Secret Service agent to the verandah.

  “Better late than never, right, Tom?” the President greeted Secretary Hall.

  “Mr. President, we’re ten minutes early,” Hall said.

  “How are you, Charley?” the President said to Major (Promotable) C. G. Castillo, Special Forces, USA, offering him his hand.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. President,” Castillo said.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” the President said. “Then you two can get out of those uniforms.”

  He turned to look at a door of the house. Three men were already coming onto the verandah. One held two blue leather-covered boxes about eight inches by three. The second held a Nikon digital camera, and the third a suit jacket.

  The President folded down his cuffs, buttoned them, buttoned his collar, pulled the necktie into place, and then put his arms into the suit jacket.

  “Do not get the khaki pants in the picture,” the President said to the photographer, then asked, “Where do you want us?”

  “Against the wall would be fine, Mr. President.”

  “You’re about to be decorated,” the President said. “You’ve heard I’ve had a problem with this?”

  “Yes, sir,” Torine and Castillo said, almost in chorus.

  “Well, let me tell the story again, for the benefit of Director Schmidt and Director Powell. There is no question in my mind that what these two officers did merits a higher decoration than the Distinguished Flying Cross. When they found that 727 that no one else seemed to be able to find, and then stole it back, they saved the lives of God only knows how many people, and prevented chaos and panic in Philadelphia and across the nation. Not quite as important, but nearly so, they sent a message to like-minded lunatics that the United States possesses military force and intelligence resources that can stop what we have to admit was a pretty clever plan.