The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  [FOUR]

  Lieutenant Colonel McElroy, the aide to the commander in chief, was standing at the foot of the steps to the passenger compartment of the Globemaster.

  “Sir,” he said, when he saw Castillo and the others coming, “the Masterson family is alone up there.”

  “My name is Castillo. Would you please go up and tell Mrs. Masterson I’d like a brief word with her?”

  “Sir, Mrs. Masterson asked that the family not be disturbed.”

  “Do it, Colonel,” Colonel Torine ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel McElroy said, and started up the stairs.

  Castillo looked down the cargo compartment of the Globemaster. Corporal Lester Bradley, now wearing his dress blue uniform, was standing almost at attention while talking to a Marine captain.

  Castillo walked to them.

  “You look very spiffy, Corporal,” Castillo said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Captain, what’s Corporal Bradley’s role in the ceremony?”

  “May I ask who you are, sir?”

  “My name is Castillo.”

  “Phrased another way, Captain,” Colonel Torine added, “he’s the man.”

  The captain looked at them curiously, and then replied to Torine: “Sir, immediately after the ceremony, when the sergeant’s remains are taken from the hangar, the corporal will meet up with the cask—”

  “Captain,” Castillo interrupted. “I told the gunny in Buenos Aires that Corporal Bradley will accompany Sergeant Markham’s remains all the way home. I’m sure he passed that on to Sergeant Markham’s buddies. I want that to happen. Make room for him in the ceremony.”

  “Sir, I’m not sure that will be poss—”

  “Do it, Captain,” Colonel Torine ordered flatly.

  The captain considered that just long enough for it to be perceptible, then said, “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Castillo said. “I’ll see you later, Bradley.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Castillo saw Mrs. Masterson coming down the stairway and hurried forward.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Castillo. My father is here, and the less he knows about the threats made, the better. He has a heart condition.”

  “I understand,” Castillo said. “Mrs. Masterson, this is Mr. D’Allessando. Have you ever heard of Delta Force?”

  “There was a terrible movie,” she said. “You mean there’s really something like that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, there is. The real Delta Force is made up of the best of Special Forces. They’re not much like what you see in the movies, but they are really professional. Mr. D’Allessando has been associated with Delta for a long time, and he’s brought twenty-four men here with him to make sure you and your family are all right.”

  “That’s very reassuring,” she said. “I’m really pleased to meet you, Mr. D’Allessando.”

  “I’m really sorry about your husband, ma’am,” he said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Castillo saw a very tall, very slim man in an elegant double-breasted dark suit coming down the stairs.

  My God, he looks just like Masterson! The only difference is the white hair and that absolutely immaculate pencil-line mustache.

  The man walked up to them and smiled.

  “Dad,” Betsy Masterson said, “this is Mr. Castillo and Mr. D’Allessando. Gentlemen, my father-in-law, Winslow Masterson.”

  “How do you do?” Masterson asked, offering his hand. “May I ask which of you is Mr. Castillo?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “I was actually about to go looking for you, sir, when it somewhat belatedly occurred to me that it was likely you were asking for a word with my daughter-in-law.”

  That accent is not what you expect to hear from a Mississippian, a farmer, or a black Mississippi farmer, or any combination thereof. What the hell is it?

  “May I be of some service, sir?” Castillo asked.

  “First, let me express my appreciation for everything you have done for my daughter-in-law—”

  “Sir, that’s absolutely unneces—”

  “Pray let me continue, sir.”

  “Pardon me, sir.”

  “And then let me inquire of you as a government official—I spoke with Colonel McElroy, who had absolutely no idea what I was talking about—why, in a situation like this, with all the resources of the government presumably at your disposal, you have been unable to make contact with Jean-Paul Lorimer?”

  Betsy Masterson and Castillo exchanged glances.

  “Sir . . .” Castillo began.

  “Mrs. Masterson’s father, Ambassador Lorimer, is quite upset, Mr. Castillo. And if I may say so, understandably so. He has a certain physical condition and should not be under stress.”

  “Dad—” Betsy Masterson said.

  “Please permit Mr. Castillo to answer the question, if he desires to do so.”

  “Sir, there are problems locating Mr. Lorimer. Mrs. Masterson is aware of them. . . .”

  “Indeed?” Masterson asked, and looked at his daughter-in-law.

  “I didn’t want to get into it with my father listening.”

  Masterson nodded.

  “I’d really like to explain much of this to you, sir,” Castillo said, “but this, I suggest, is neither the time nor the place to do so.”

  “He’s right, Dad,” Betsy Masterson offered.

  “Well, I need to know what’s going on as soon as possible,” Masterson said. “And at the plantation, your parents will be there, and it would be impossible to exclude them without . . .” He paused, visibly in thought, then nodded in obvious agreement with what he had thought of.

  “Mr. Castillo, it was of course my intention to ask you to stay with us at the plantation.”

  “I wouldn’t want to intrude, sir,” Castillo protested.

  Masterson dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

  “But is there some reason you have to go there immediately after this?” Masterson inquired, gesturing toward the activities in the hangar. “Would my daughter-in-law and the children and of course the Lorimers be safe, in your judgment, if you weren’t personally there for an hour or so?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure they would be. In addition to the state police you already have, Mr. D’Allessando and his men—”

  “You’re thinking of the Belle Visage,” Betsy Masterson said.

  “And what do you think of me thinking of the Belle Visage?” Masterson asked.

  “That’d do it, Dad,” she said. “No one would disturb you there.”

  “Then it’s settled. What we’ll do as the cortege heads for the plantation, Mr. Castillo, is go to the Belle Visage. We can have our little talk in private and then go out to the plantation. You can ride with me. How does that sound?”

  “Sir, I don’t know what the Belle Visage is.”

  “It’s a gambling hell on the coast. There’s a place there where we will not be disturbed.”

  “Whatever you say, sir. But there is one other problem. I have to establish contact with my cousin.”

  “Your cousin? May I inquire what that’s all about?”

  “Excuse me,” Torine said, “but I just heard the band play ‘Hail to the Chief.’”

  “Charley, I can handle things until you get to the . . . plantation,” Vic D’Allessando said, as they saw Lieutenant Colonel McElroy walking up to them. “Colonel, you want to come with me or go with Charley?”

  “Charley?” Torine asked, seeking guidance.

  “I’ll see you at the plantation,” Castillo said.

  “You stay here, my dear,” Winslow Masterson said. “I’ll go get the children and your parents.” He started for the stairs, then stopped and turned. “If you are seen with me, Mr. Castillo, there might be interest that at the moment neither of us wants. Can you get to the Belle Visage by yourself?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then, I’ll see you there
,” Winslow Masterson said, and started again for the stairs.

  Castillo looked at D’Allessando. “You have wheels, Vic?”

  “Not to spare, Charley.”

  “You have the Secret Service guy on your radio?”

  D’Allessando nodded.

  “Tell him that I need a Yukon here, right now, for I don’t know how long.”

  “You can do that?”

  “You can do that and we’ll see what happens.”

  D’Allessando tilted his head slightly.

  “You on, Ogilvie?” he said.

  Mrs. Masterson looked at him with great curiosity.

  “He’s got a radio under there,” Castillo explained.

  “Mr. Castillo wants a Yukon at the Globemaster right now,” D’Allessando said. There was a pause. “All he told me was to tell you he wants a Yukon here, now.”

  D’Allessando straightened up and announced, “On the way, Charley.”

  “Now tell them to find Fernando Lopez—he’s my cousin, he’s in the VIP section, and they know it—and bring him here.”

  D’Allessando bent his head again and repeated the order, and then said, “They’ll do it.”

  Betsy Masterson’s eyes met Castillo’s.

  “My father-in-law is just like Jack, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I was thinking the same thing.”

  “I guess it’s the genes,” she said.

  [FIVE]

  Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembó Province República Oriental del Uruguay 2355 25 July 2005

  Jean-Paul Bertrand watched the ceremonies taking place at Keesler Air Force Base on CNN.

  They are really making a show of it, he thought, with somewhat grudging admiration. And then he thought, That’s precisely what it is, a show. Jack gets himself shot, and they’re acting as if he were the secretary of state, and all he was was chief of mission in a third-rate embassy.

  The President arranged the show for his own agenda.

  Jean-Paul got to watch not only Betsy and the kids this time but his father and mother as well. There was a camera long shot of the family walking behind the casket as it was slowly marched off the airplane.

  Daddy looks fine, old but fine; not as one would expect of someone who nearly died of a heart attack. Mom must have her hands full with him. Jack’s father looks just like Jack. And so does the older boy. What the hell is his name? Do they call him “Junior” or “the Third”?

  The cameras were trained, too, on the reviewing stand as the family took their places beside the President. The President not only kissed Betsy but put his arms around her in a compassionate hug.

  If that’s not for the purpose of putting the ignorant masses who voted for him in a receptive state of mind for what he’s going to say, then what is it for?

  The secretary of state also embraced Betsy and kissed her, then did the same to Ambassador and Mrs. Lorimer and then the kids.

  Daddy at least had the dignity to look a little offended. God, how I loathe that arrogant little bitch! She’s nearly as bad as the President!

  “My fellow Americans,” the President began, and Jean-Paul Bertrand almost switched the television off then, but curiosity stayed his hand.

  “I come here tonight bearing two messages.

  “One is from you.

  “The American people offer their profound condolences to the families of J. Winslow Masterson and Sergeant Roger Markham, USMC, who gave their lives in the service of the United States.

  “The second message is from me,” the President went on. “It is to those who committed the cowardly murders of these two good men.

  “I say to you that this outrage will not go unpunished. I have ordered . . .”

  Jean-Paul Bertrand switched off the television.

  It would have been nice to see more of the family, but if the price to do that is looking at that man while he mouths such nonsense, it is simply too high.

  XIII

  [ONE]

  Penthouse C The Belle Vista Casino & Resort U.S. Highway 90 (“The Magic Mile”) Biloxi, Mississippi 2230 25 July 2005

  When the dark blue, nearly black, GMC Yukon XL pulled up in the brilliantly lit drive of the hotel, the driver’s door was opened by a doorman in what looked like the uniform of an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy.

  “Welcome to the Belle Vista Casino and Resort,” he announced. “How may I be of service?”

  “You can tell me where I can park this thing,” the driver said.

  “We have valet parking, sir.”

  “No,” the driver said, and showed the doorman his Secret Service credentials. “I keep control of the vehicle. And I need it close, in case it’s required in a hurry.”

  “Oh,” the doorman said. “Is one of you gentlemen Mr. Costello?”

  “My name is Castillo,” Charley said, from the backseat.

  “And you are Mr. Masterson’s guest, sir?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Welcome to the Belle Vista Casino and Resort, Mr. Castillo,” the doorman said and opened the rear door. “Mr. Threadgill, the manager on duty, will be here momentarily.”

  Castillo and Fernando Lopez got out of the Yukon.

  Fernando Lopez was an enormous man—six-foot-three, two hundred thirty pounds—with a full head of dark black hair and a swarthy complexion. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a crisp blue shirt with a white collar, a red-striped tie, and black ostrich-hide Western boots.

  “If you want to get a cup of coffee or something,” Castillo said to the driver, “I think this will probably take about an hour.”

  The Secret Service agent nodded but didn’t say anything.

  A tall, thin, elegantly dressed man in his late forties walked up to them.

  “Mr. Castillo?” he asked and, when Charley nodded, put out his hand. “Welcome to the Belle Vista Casino and Resort, Mr. Castillo. My name is Edward Threadgill, and I am the manager on duty. If you’ll follow me, please?”

  He led them through the lobby. In a lounge to one side, three enormous television screens showed Air Force One taxiing toward a runway.

  He stopped before an elevator, somewhat dramatically flashed a plastic card, and then demonstrated how the card operated the elevator door. He then presented the card to Castillo.

  “He’ll need one of those, too,” Castillo said.

  “Certainly,” Mr. Threadgill announced, produced anotherplastic card, and handed it to Fernando. “There you are, sir. And you are, sir?”

  “My name is Lopez,” Fernando said.

  “Welcome to the Belle Vista Casino and Resort, Mr. Lopez.”

  “Thank you.”

  Threadgill bowed them onto the elevator.

  The elevator ascended, then its doors opened on a large foyer. Threadgill led them to one of the four doors opening off it, ran the plastic card through another reading device, and then bowed them through the door.

  Penthouse C was a large, elegantly furnished suite of rooms. Threadgill threw a switch, and curtains swished open, revealing a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offering what in daylight would be a stunning view of the Gulf of Mexico, the sugar-white sandy beach, and the highway running along the coast. Now, a few lights twinkled out on the water and U.S. 90 was an intermittent stream of red lights going west, white lights going east.

  There was a basket of fruit on a coffee table, and beside it a cooler holding two bottles of champagne.

  “If you need anything, gentlemen,” Threadgill said, “there are buttons in every room which will summon the floor waiter. There is of course twenty-four/seven room service.”

  “Thank you very much,” Castillo said.

  “Is there anything else, or may I leave you?”

  “I can’t think of anything, thank you very much,” Castillo said.

  Fernando Lopez waited until the door closed after Threadgill, and then said, “Knowing you as I do, Gringo, I’m sure there is some very simple reason why we are here in a suite normally reserved for really heavily losing ba
ccarat players.”

  “Baccarat players?” Castillo asked.

  “Yeah, this place is world headquarters for people who want to drop a couple of hundred thousand playing baccarat. You didn’t know?”

  Castillo shook his head.

  “So what are we doing here?” Fernando asked.

  “Thank you for not asking in the truck,” Castillo said.

  “That’s the answer?”

  “Masterson’s father and I have to talk. We can’t do that at his place—which he calls the plantation—because the widow’s father has a bad ticker, and we don’t want to upset him. He sent me here.”

  “What do you have to talk about? Wait. I’ll rephrase that interrogatory: What the fuck is going on?”

  “So I don’t have to repeat everything twice, can you wait until he gets here? He should be here any minute, and I need a drink.”

  “Okay. I could use a little belt myself,” Fernando said.

  “What did that guy say about a floor-waiter button?”

  “There has to be a bar in here,” Fernando said.

  He walked to a panel mounted on the wall and started pushing buttons. One of them caused a section of the paneled wall to move, revealing a small but well-stocked bar.

  “Eureka, the gold!”

  They had just enough time to fix the drinks and touch glasses when Winslow Masterson walked into the suite.

  “I couldn’t get away as quickly as I had hoped,” he said. “But they were ready for you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo said. “I took the liberty of . . .”

  “You’re my guests,” Masterson shut him off with a gentle wave of his hand. “And a drink seems entirely appropriate at this time.”

  He went to the bar and poured himself a drink from the bottle of Famous Grouse that Fernando had used.

  “The economics of this place has always fascinated me,” Masterson said. “God only knows how much it costs them to maintain something like this, and since they are obviously not in the business of being a friend to man, there has to be a profit motive. It would therefore seem to follow that their hospitality is offered only to those who have—or are likely to lose—an enormous amount of money at the tables. Where do such people— and so many of them—come from?”