The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  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 sautéed 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 parrilla 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 Châteaubriand.”

  “Sí, señor.”

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

  “Sí, señor.”

  “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.”

  He picked up the bottle of cabernet sauvignon and his glass and went into the dining room and sat down at the table.

  Anna-Maria came in with the platter.

  “I will need some bread, please. The hard-crusted rolls. And butter. And, of course, salt and pepper. And don’t forget the sauce.”

  When Anna-Maria had delivered everything, he checked to see that everything he needed was present.

  “Thank you, Anna-Maria,” he said. “You may go. I do not wish to be disturbed.”

  “Sí, señor,” Anna-Maria said, and left the dining room.

  Three minutes later, she was back.

  Jean-Paul was annoyed. He had told her he did not wish to be disturbed, and he had had just barely time enough to move a couple of slices of the beef—and it looked and smelled marvelous—to his plate, and here she was, back.

  “I told you, Anna-Maria, that I didn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  “Excuse me, señor. But there are two men here . . . officials.”

  “Officials? What kind of officials?”

  “Officials, señor. From the government. They have badges.”

  What the hell?

  “And they wish to see you, señor.”

  Jean-Paul rose angrily from the table, threw his napkin on it, and marched to the front door.

  Two men were standing there.

  “May I help you, gentlemen?”

  “Are you Señor Jean-Paul Bertrand?”

  “Yes, I am. And who are you?”

  “I am Assistant Chief Inspector Muller of the Immigration Service,” the larger of the two said. “And this is Inspector O’Fallon.”

  He held out his credentials.

  “We are very sorry to trouble you, señor,” Chief Inspector Muller said. “And at this hour of the night. And we do apologize, sir.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have your passport, Señor Bertrand?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “You’re sure, señor?”

  “Yes, of course I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

  “Señor Bertrand, as you may know, our immigration records are now computerized.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “This afternoon, Señor Bertrand, according to the computer, you attempted to enter Uruguay on a Varig flight from Río de Janeiro.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  “The computer also says that you entered Uruguay some time ago, and have never left.”

  “That’s true.”

  “What we suspect, Señor Bertrand, is that the other Señor Bertrand, who is being held in custody, is not really who he says he is. That his passport is either a forgery, or that he has somehow come into possession of your passport.”

  Assistant Chief Inspector Muller gave Jean-Paul Bertrand time to think this over, and then went on. “One or the other is true, Señor Bertrand. And the question can be simply answered. If you have your passport, then the other is a forgery. And the other Señor Bertrand will be dealt with accordingly. On the other hand, if your passport has somehow been . . . misplaced . . . It happens, señor. If it has been misplaced into the hands of the other Señor Bertrand, then he will be dealt with accordingly. I cannot believe that a gentleman of your reputation and standing would loan his passport—”

  “I certainly would not!” Jean-Paul proclaimed righteously. “My passport is—or should be—in my safe. I’ll get it for you.”

&
nbsp; “Thank you very much, señor.”

  “May I offer you a cup of coffee, something to drink, while I get it?”

  “No, thank you, señor,” Inspector O’Fallon said. “We’re on duty.”

  “I’ll be right with you,” Jean-Paul Bertrand said. “My safe is in my office, in the rear of the house.”

  “Thank you, señor,” Assistant Chief Inspector Muller said.

  “The sitting room is in here,” Jean Paul said. “If you’ll wait there? Are you sure I cannot offer you anything?”

  “Thank you just the same, señor,” Muller said.

  The safe was bolted both to an interior wall and to the floor. Jean-Paul had learned that when he was looking for something in it, it was much easier just to sit on the floor than to bend over and try to look inside. He had done so now.

  He had a hell of a time finding the damned passport, but finally did.

  A forged passport, I understand. But one with my name on it? What’s that all about?

  Oh, of course. In case someone checks, there is a valid passport in the name of Jean-Paul Bertrand.

  Oh, God, is this incident going to be in the newspapers?

  He heard a sound, and looked over his shoulder.

  The younger one, Inspector O’Fallon, was standing behind him.

  What the hell is he doing in here?

  “Inspector O’Fallon, isn’t it?” Jean-Paul asked.

  “No, not really,” Castillo said, in English.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know how it is, Lorimer. Sometimes people use other names. Will you hand me the passport and stand up, please?”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Castillo snatched the passport from Lorimer’s hand as he stepped over him and pushed the safe door open more widely.

  Jean-Paul scurried backward on the floor and ran into a set of legs.

  Then he felt himself being hauled to his feet.

  “Put your hands behind you, please,” the man who had said he was Assistant Chief Inspector Muller ordered.

  Jean-Paul did as he was told.

  He looked around his office.

  Muller was doing something with his wrists.

  Jean-Paul took a closer look at the face of the man who had said he was Inspector O’Fallon but had just now called him Lorimer, in American English.

  But then something else caught his eye.

  There was a face at the window, and it looked as if whoever stood there was trying to break the window with something.

  The last thing Jean-Paul Lorimer, Ph.D., saw in this world, before two 9mm bullets struck him in the mouth and forehead, was the breaking glass of the window and an orange flash.

  Castillo reacted to the sound of the breaking glass and the burst of submachine fire instinctively. He dropped to the ground, scurried behind the desk, and reached for the Beretta he was carrying in the small of his back.

  What the fuck?

  This desk is going to be about as much protection against a 9mm as a Kleenex.

  There was the sound of more firing outside. He recognized the characteristic chatter of a Car 4. More than one Car 4. And then the sharper crack of a 7.62.

  Didn’t I hear a 7.62 just before the goddamn submachine gun went off?

  He saw a cord running across the floor to the desk.

  If they can’t see you, they can’t shoot you.

  Unless they spray the room with a submachine gun.

  What the hell!

  He jerked on the cord and a lamp on Lorimer’s desk crashed to the floor. But didn’t go out.

  Sonofabitch!

  There was the sound of another 7.62mm round going off, and of voices shouting something unintelligible, and then several more bursts from Car 4s.

  Castillo reeled in the lamp, finally found the switch, and turned it off. The room was now dark.

  Castillo got to his knees, then took a running dive from behind the desk toward the corner. No one shot at him. He found the wall with his hands and pushed himself into the corner. He waited for a moment to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. To turn the lamp off, he had had to find the switch, which was a push device in the bulb socket, which meant that he’d had the light from a clear-glass sixty-watt bulb right in his eyes.

  Finally, he could make out the outline of the windows, and raised the Beretta in both hands to aim at it.

  “Alfredo?” he called.

  “I’m hit,” Munz called back. “I don’t know how bad. I have Lorimer’s brains all over me.”

  There was another burst of Car 4 fire, this one farther away.

  And then Sergeant Kensington’s voice. “Anybody alive in there?”

  “Only the good guys,” Castillo called back.

  There was the sound of a door being kicked open. And then a hand holding a flashlight appeared in the door and the light swept the room.

  Then Kensington came into the room with Corporal Lester Bradley on his heels, sniper rifle at the ready.

  “Get that goddamn light out of my eyes,” Castillo ordered. “There’s a lamp on the floor behind the desk.”

  Kensington found the light and turned it on, and then walked to where Castillo was getting to his feet. He waited until Castillo was fully up, then said, “These cocksuckers, whoever the fuck they were, got past Kranz. Can you believe that?”

  “Is he all right?”

  “They garroted him, Major,” Kensington said.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Castillo walked to the desk again, looked at the exploded head of Jean-Paul Lorimer, and then at the blood oozing from the chest of El Coronel Alfredo Munz, and said, “Oh, shit!” again.

  [FOUR]

  Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembó Province República Oriental del Uruguay 2225 31 July 2005

  “You’re going to be all right, Colonel,” Sergeant Robert Kensington said to Munz, who rested just about where he had fallen behind Lorimer’s desk. “There’s some muscle damage that’s going to take some time to heal, and you’re going to hurt like hell for a long time every time you move—for that matter, breathe. I can take the bullet out now, if you’d like.”

  “I think I’ll wait until I get to a hospital,” Munz said.

  “Your call, Alfredo,” Castillo said. “But how are you going to explain the wound? And if Kensington says he can get it out, he can.”

  “No offense, but that looks to me like a job for a surgeon.”

  “Kensington has removed more bullets and other projectiles than most surgeons,” Castillo said. “Before he decided he’d rather shoot people than treat them for social disease, he was an A-Team medic. Which meant . . . what’s that line, Kensington?”

  “That I was ‘qualified to perform any medical procedure other than opening the cranial cavity,’” Kensington quoted. “I can numb that, give you a happy pill, and clean it up and get the bullet out. It would be better for you than waiting—the sooner you clean up a wound like that, the better—and that’d keep you from answering questions at a hospital. But what are you going to tell your wife?”

  “Lie, Alfredo,” Castillo said. “Tell her you were shot by a jealous husband.”

  “What she’s going to think is that I was cleaning my pistol and it went off, and I’m embarrassed,” Munz said. “But I’d rather deal with that than answer official questions. How long will I be out?”

  “You won’t be out long, but you’ll be in la-la land for a couple of hours.”

  “Okay, do it,” Munz said.

  “Well, let’s get you to your feet and onto something flat where there’s some light,” Kensington said. He looked at Castillo, and between them they got Munz to his feet.

  “There’s a big table in the dining room that ought to work,” Kensington said. “It looks like everybody got here just in time for dinner. There’s a plate of good-looking roast beef on it. And a bottle of wine.”

  “Okay on the beef,” Castillo said. “Nix on the wine. We have to figure out what to do next and get out of
here.”

  “Major, who the fuck are these bad guys?” Kensington asked.

  “I really don’t know. Yung is searching the bodies to see what he can find out. I don’t even know what happened.”

  “Well, they’re pros, whoever they are. Maybe Russians? Krantz was no amateur, and they got him. With a fucking garrote. That means they had to (a) spot him, and (b) sneak up on him. A lot of people have tried that on Seymour and never got away with it.”

  “Spetsnaz?” Castillo said. “If this were anywhere in Europe, I’d say maybe, even probably. But here? I just don’t know. We’ll take the garrote and whatever else Yung comes up with and see if we can learn something.”

  When they got to the dining room, Kensington held Munz up while Castillo moved the Châteaubriand, the sauce pitcher, the bread tray, and the wine to a sideboard. Then he sat him down on the table.

  “Tell me, physician,” Munz said. “What would the effect of wine be on this happy pill you’re about to give me?”

  Kensington went to the sideboard and picked it up. “Cabernet sauvignon,” he said. “There is a strong body of medical opinion which suggests this is indicated in a procedure of this nature. You want a glass?”

  “Yes, please,” Munz said.

  Kensington poured wine in the glass and handed it to Munz.

  “Take these with it,” he said, putting two white gel capsules on the table. “And when you start to feel a little woozy—it usually takes about a minute—just lie down. I’m a little surprised you’re not in pain.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?” Munz asked as he tossed the capsules into his mouth and then picked up the wineglass.

  “You won’t be out for long,” Kensington said.

  “What happened out there, physician?” Munz asked.

  “The first thing I knew that anything was wrong was when I heard the Remington go off. And God forgive me, what I thought then was that the goddamn kid was playing with the rifle and it went off. So I ran around the side of the building to chew him a new asshole. And that’s when I saw the two guys. One of them was on the ground and the other was pointing a Madsen at me—”

  “A Madsen?” Castillo asked.