The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “What finally happened was that the shipment was passed through customs. Then the FBI brought in the New York City cops, told them what we knew, and the New York cops put some heavy surveillance on the Senegalese mission, and they finally caught one of their diplomats . . . he was number two, right, Frank?”

  “Number three. Deputy chief of mission,” O’Brien corrected him.

  “. . . in the midst of a five-kilo sale to a guy in the Plaza Hotel. All they could do was charge the buyer with conspiracy to traffic. They couldn’t even hold the Senegalese. He had diplomatic immunity. The State Department wouldn’t even ask for the UN to send him home. They said they couldn’t because they ‘had knowledge of the legally highly questionable manner in which the alleged facts triggering the investigation had been conducted.’

  “This really pissed off the New York cops, so wherever, wherever the Senegalese diplomat went for the next couple of months he had at least two cops sitting on him. And then one day, he had enough, went out to Kennedy, and got on an airplane and went home.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Fernando exploded.

  “So when you find this guy you’re looking for, Charley, maybe you better keep the drug angle in mind,” Kramer said.

  “I will,” Castillo said.

  “How do you rate the threat against Sergeant . . . sorry, Special Agent Schneider?” Kramer asked.

  “I don’t think these bastards were after her; they were either after me or anybody—like a Secret Service agent— to make their point to Mrs. Masterson. So I don’t think there’s much of a threat here. Having said—”

  “You sonofabitch!” Lieutenant Schneider interrupted. “You really don’t—”

  “Out!” Chief Kramer exploded. “Out of here, Schneider! Right goddamn now!”

  “Let him stay until I finish,” Castillo said evenly.

  Kramer raised an eyebrow, stared at Schneider, then sighed and nodded.

  “Having said that,” Castillo went on, “I’m going to keep Secret Service protection on her until I get the bastards that shot her. The agents are pretty good at protecting people.”

  “So are we,” Chief Kramer said. “And as far as you’re concerned, Schneider, when you come to visit your sister and you see detectives from Dignitary Protection sitting on her beside the Secret Service, instead of Highway, you think long and hard about why I decided to do that. Now get out of here. Wait by the elevator. I’m not through with you.”

  “How about keeping him in here while I go say goodbye to her?” Castillo asked. “I really have to get out of here right now.”

  Kramer nodded. “Sit there, Lieutenant Schneider,” he ordered, pointing to a vinyl-upholstered couch. “And if you get off that couch before I tell you you can, I’ll have you up on charges.”

  Kramer waited until Lieutenant Schneider angrily threw himself onto the couch and then put out his hand to Castillo.

  “Let me know what I can do to help.”

  “Thanks, Fritz,” Castillo said, and walked out of the waiting room.

  Special Agent Jack Britton was standing by Betty’s door.

  “I only heard you were coming here forty-five minutes ago, Charley. I called Miller and—”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Jack,” Castillo said. “I’m headed for Paris and what I’d like you—”

  “Miller told me,” Britton interrupted. “Everything. Thanks for keeping me on this.”

  “I need you, Jack.”

  “I’m on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Buenos Aires at eleven something tonight.”

  “Go to the Four Seasons, and then get in touch with Tony Santini.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Castillo pushed open the door to Betty’s room. Her mother and father were standing on either side of the bed. Her father gave him another icy look, and when he did, her mother looked over her shoulder and saw Castillo.

  “Charley’s here, honey,” her mother said. “Dad and I will be right outside.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Schneider,” Castillo said softly. He offered his hand. “We haven’t been formally introduced, and I’m very sorry it had to be under such conditions.”

  Betty’s mother took his hand in both of hers, made a soft smile, then turned for the door.

  Her father shook his head, walked wordlessly to the door, and held it open for his wife, then followed her through it.

  Castillo went to the bed and took Betty’s hand.

  With great difficulty, Betty asked, “The Mastersons? Okay?”

  “They’ve got twenty-four Delta shooters and half of the Mississippi state police sitting on them.”

  “Delta?”

  “Special Forces guys.”

  She was surprised to hear that and asked with her eyes for an explanation.

  “Long story, baby. Not important. But the Mastersons are safe. The key to this is her brother. Right after we landed in Mississippi, she told me the bad guys really want her brother. She doesn’t know where he is. So I’m on my way to Paris to find him. He should know who these bastards are.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Find him, you mean? I’m going to try hard.”

  “Just go to Paris?”

  Jesus Christ, I have to go through the classified business, even with her!

  “Baby, this is Top Secret-Presidential, which means you can’t tell anybody, even your family.”

  Especially your goddamn brother.

  She nodded, but her eyes asked for an explanation.

  “The President, in what they call a finding, set up a covert unit to find the people who did this. He gave it to me, together with all the authority I need to do whatever has to be done.”

  Her eyebrows showed that she was impressed.

  “I’ll make sure they keep you up to speed on what’s happening. But you have to keep it to yourself.”

  “Will they tell me?”

  “Special Agent Schneider, you are now assigned to the Office of Organizational Analysis, which is the cover for this,” Castillo said. “I’m the chief. You’ll be told.”

  “I wish I could go with you.”

  Jesus, she’s not thinking of us holding hands as we take the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Or sitting in the Deux Magots on the Left Bank. She wants to go as a cop.

  “Me, too.”

  “Be careful, Charley.”

  “Wiener schnitzel, baby. I have to go.”

  He bent over, kissed her very gently on the lips, and looked into her eyes for a long moment.

  Then she shrugged, squeezed his hand, and motioned with her head toward the door.

  As he and Fernando got on the elevator, he heard the Latin Secret Service agent talk to her lapel microphone.

  “Don Juan coming down.”

  [FIVE]

  Hôtel de Crillon 10 Place de la Concorde Paris, France 0525 27 July 2005

  Paris was just starting to wake up when they landed. There had been little traffic on the way in from Le Bourget, and the Place de la Concorde had been nearly empty of vehicles and pedestrians.

  “I think the best thing to do is grab some sack time,” Castillo announced as they registered. “What about leaving a call for half past ten?”

  “Good idea,” Torine said.

  Castillo knew the problem was going to be jet lag. Their body clocks thought it was midnight, not half past five in the morning.

  They weren’t really tired, or even particularly sleepy, despite the time they had been up and the distances they had traveled since getting up almost twenty-four hours before at the Masterson plantation in Mississippi. For one thing, that had been only eighteen hours ago in real time. Paris time was six hours ahead of Mississippi.

  For another, they’d shared the piloting between them, from Philadelphia to Gander, Newfoundland, and then to Shannon, Ireland, and finally Le Bourget. The “off-duty” pilot—a role each had played—had nothing to do but doze, and the Lear’s seats in the main cabin, which folded back to near horizontal, had mad
e dozing easy. It was as if they’d gotten up early and taken several naps before midnight.

  The temptation was to take a quick shower, grab a quick breakfast, and then rouse the Paris CIA station chief from his bed and get to work finding Jean-Paul Lorimer. The smart thing to do was to take a quick shower and go to bed, sleeping as long as possible. When sleep proved impossible, with a little bit of luck, the body clock might be fooled, and it would be something like getting up fresh and ready to do a full day’s work.

  Castillo tipped the bellman and then looked around his suite. The heavy curtain across the windows of his bedroom was permitting a crack of light. He went to it and impulsively pushed it aside far enough to look out. He had a view of the Place de la Concorde and the bridge across the River Seine.

  Then he pulled the curtain closed, took fresh linen from his bag, and started to undress. He was down to his Jockey shorts when the telephone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Five minutes, in front of the hotel,” Howard Kennedy said. “I’m in a black Mercedes.”

  “I expected no less of you,” Castillo replied, even though halfway through the sentence he realized Kennedy had hung up.

  Ten minutes later—having decided that his need for a shave and a shower was more important than jumping to obey Kennedy’s curt orders—Castillo walked across the empty lobby and out onto the Place de la Concorde.

  There was no Mercedes in sight.

  Not to worry. Kennedy might be pissed, but he wants to see me, and badly. He’s not about to drive off, never to return.

  Castillo turned right and walked toward the U.S. embassy. He had just reached the fence, where he was able to see the American flag flying in the courtyard, when he heard the squeal of tires.

  He turned and saw a black Mercedes S600 sedan in front of the Crillon. The headlights flashed. Castillo walked—purposely slowly—back to it.

  The front passenger window was down, but the door remained closed. Castillo leaned down, put his hands on the opening, and looked inside.

  “Hello, handsome,” he said to Kennedy, who was sitting behind the wheel. “Looking for a little action?”

  “Goddamn you, Charley, get in the fucking car!”

  Castillo opened the door and got in. Kennedy, with another squeal of tires, took off and then turned right onto the Champs-Elysées.

  “Where are we going, Howard?”

  “Unless you know someplace we can talk without being overheard, we’re just going to drive around.”

  “You think my room in the Crillon is bugged?”

  “I don’t know for sure that it’s not.”

  “Why all the concern?”

  “How much do you know about Lorimer?”

  “A little more than I knew when I first talked to you,” Castillo replied. “There are people looking for him. They killed Masterson to make the point that they are willing to kill to find him.”

  “And do you know who these people are?”

  “No. That’s why I’m hunting Lorimer.”

  “Would it surprise you that some Russians are doing the same?”

  “Nothing would surprise me.”

  “Or some Germans?”

  “Same answer.”

  “Or some French? Or some former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime? Or, for that matter, some people from Houston, Texas?”

  “Get to the point, please, Howard. I’m not good at riddles.”

  “Your friend Lorimer was a bagman—maybe the head bagman—for that noble program called Oil for Food. Which means that he knows who got paid off. That’s enough for any of the aforementioned people to take the appropriate steps to make him dead.”

  “Give me a minute to think that over.”

  A traffic cop stepped into the street and with a shrill burst from his whistle and an arrogant wave of his stiff arm stopped traffic. Kennedy, with a heavy foot, brought the Mercedes to a stop at the crosswalk. As Castillo watched the trickle of early-morning commuters making their way to cafés and then to work, he considered how Kennedy might—or might not—be trying to play him.

  “In addition to his knowing too much, Charley, there are those who think he skimmed the payoff money. To the tune of some—depending on who you talk to— twelve to sixteen million dollars.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Yeah, Jesus. And one more little item. This gets uncomfortably close to Alex.”

  “How Alex?”

  “How do you think you move that kind of money around? By wire transfer? By UPS?”

  “You tell me.”

  “One hundred thousand U.S. dollars fresh from the mint comes in a neatly wrapped plastic package about so big,” Kennedy said, taking his hands off the wheel to demonstrate the size. He could have been mimicking a stubby shoe box.

  The traffic cop blew another burst of his whistle and waved traffic forward.

  “And Alex moves freight, right?” Castillo said. “No questions asked?”

  “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”

  “So why are you telling me what you did?”

  “Alex thinks you’re a lot smarter than I do,” Kennedy said. “He thinks it’s possible you’ll find this sonofabitch before anybody else does, and that you’ll share that information with him.”

  “Tell Alex, sorry, no. I want this sonofabitch alive, not with a beauty mark in the center of his forehead.”

  “Why? So he can tell you who’s after him?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You really are a virgin, aren’t you? These people are untouchable. Believe me.”

  “The answer is no, Howard. Tell Alex that.”

  “I told him that’s what you would probably decide,” Kennedy said.

  They were now almost to the Arc de Triomphe de L’etoile. Kennedy made an abrupt left turn onto Rue Pierre Charron and stopped.

  “Get out, Charley. Conversation over.”

  Without another word, Castillo got out of the car. Kennedy drove quickly off.

  Castillo walked back to the Champs-Elysées, and then down it, toward the Crillon.

  XV

  [ONE]

  Suite 301 Hôtel de Crillon 10 Place de la Concorde Paris, France 0730 27 July 2005

  There was a knock at the door, and Castillo, still chewing on a piece of toast, stood up from the breakfast table and went to open the door.

  A nondescript man in his late fifties—maybe a little older—was standing there in a somewhat rumpled suit.

  “Mr. Castillo?”

  “Right. You’re Mr. Delchamps?”

  The man nodded.

  “Come on in. Would you like some breakfast?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Maybe some coffee?”

  Delchamps shook his head, and looked at Fernando and Torine.

  “I wasn’t told about anybody else,” Delchamps said.

  “This is Colonel Torine and Mr. Lopez,” Castillo said. “And this is Mr. Edgar Delchamps, the CIA station chief.”

  “Not only wasn’t I told about anyone else, but, Mr. Castillo, as you may or may not know, the identity of the CIA station chief, whoever that might be, is classified.”

  “Not a problem, Mr. Delchamps. Both the colonel and Mr. Lopez have the necessary clearances.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Someone from the office of the director of national intelligence was supposed to have given you a heads-up about what we’re doing here.”

  “Someone did. But only your name was mentioned.”

  “It looks to me that there is some sort of a communications problem,” Castillo said. “Before we go any further with this, why don’t we go next door to the embassy, get on a secure line to the director of national intelligence, and clear this up?”

  “It’s half past one in the morning in Washington,” Delchamps said.

  “I know. But I don’t have time to waste playing the classified game with you, Mr. Delchamps.”

  “Maybe later,” Delchamps said. “I was t
old you were interested in a man named Jean-Paul Lorimer. What do you want to know about him?”

  “Everything you know about him.”

  “The phrase used was ‘tell him anything you think you should,’” Delchamps said.

  “Then there is a communications problem between Ambassador Montvale and whoever you spoke with,” Castillo said. “What he was supposed to tell you was to tell me whatever I wanted to know, and what I want to know is everything.”

  “It was Montvale who called me,” Delchamps said.

  “And the phraseology he used was you were to tell me what ‘you think you should’?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “In that case, Mr. Delchamps, when we go next door and get on the secure phone, we’re going to talk to the President, and you are going to tell him what Ambassador Montvale told you.”

  Delchamps didn’t reply.

  “For what it’s worth, Mr. Delchamps,” Colonel Torine said, “I was with Mr. Castillo—on Air Force One—when the President told Ambassador Montvale that Mr. Castillo was to have anything he asked for.”

  “Why should I believe that?” Delchamps asked.

  “No reason,” Torine said. “Except it’s the truth.”

  Delchamps considered that for a moment, then said, “Fuck it.”

  “Excuse me?” Castillo said.

  “I said ‘fuck it.’ Don’t tell me you never heard that phrase before. Montvale said you’re really an Army officer. A major.”

  “Guilty.”

  “Who was given more authority than he clearly will be able to handle, and won’t have it long.”

  “That sonofabitch!” Torine exploded.

  “Yeah,” Delchamps said.

  “You’re going to have to go to the President, Charley,” Torine said.

  “Before you do that, let me tell you where I’m coming from,” Delchamps said. “And we’ll see how this plays out.”

  “Go ahead,” Castillo said.

  “I’ve been in this business a long time,” Delchamps said. “Long enough to be able to retire tomorrow, if I want to. I have been around long enough to see a lot of hard work blown—and, for that matter, people killed— because some hotshot with political power and a personal agenda stuck his nose in what was being developed and blew it. I’ve been working on this scum Lorimer for a long time, years. And it hasn’t been easy.”