The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “Yeah. That mean something?”

  “It might,” Castillo said.

  “And I had just decided, Oh, shit, he’s got me, when another 7.62 round went off. Down he went. Two shots from the kid. Both in the head. The little sonofabitch can shoot. He saved my ass. And yours, too. The first one he popped was the guy who stuck his Madsen into the office window. Bradley told me he waited until he was sure what he was up to before he popped him.”

  “He was supposed to be guarding the goddamn chopper!” Castillo said.

  “And aren’t you glad, Major, that he didn’t understand that order?” Kensington said. “And then things got a little exciting. There were six of them in all. Five at the house, and the one who garroted Kranz. Kranz managed to get his boot knife into him. When we found Kranz, that one died trying to escape.”

  “That wasn’t smart, Kensington.”

  “Yeah, I know. But Seymour and I went way back, and I didn’t think.”

  “I am starting to feel a little strange,” Munz said.

  “Let me help you lie down,” Kensington said.

  Kensington gently lifted Munz’s eyelid and shined a small flashlight into it.

  “Okay, he’s out. He’ll probably be out for thirty minutes. But he’s a big sonofabitch, and I have no idea what his threshold of pain is, so he may start to wake up when I’m working on him. I want you to be prepared to hold him down—lie on top of him, whatever’s necessary—if he starts to move. Okay?”

  “Got it,” Castillo said.

  “And now, before I lay out my surgical instruments, you may help me scrub.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Kensington handed him an aerosol can.

  “Spray this crap all over my hands. It’s advertised as better than a good scrub with surgical soap. It fucks up your hands, but what the hell?”

  Castillo sprayed a foaming, pale orange substance over Kensington’s hands from the aerosol can, and then watched as Kensington pulled on rubber gloves.

  Then Kensington came up with a thin black plastic envelope. He tore it open. Inside was a small set of surgeon’s tools.

  “No offense, Major,” Kensington said, “but if you feel yourself getting a little woozy when I start to cut, for Christ’s sake, sit down on the floor and put your head between your knees. The last thing we need is you cracking your head open on the table. You have to get us the fuck out of here.”

  “No identification whatever,” Special Agent David William Yung of the FBI reported to Castillo forty minutes later. “No labels in the clothing, and I’m almost sure they’re manufactured locally, or at least available here, so there’s nothing there. I fingerprinted the bodies, and took enough blood to do a good DNA. But a DNA is good only when you have something to compare it to. Sorry. They came in cars from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the airport office. We can run those credit cards, but if these people are as professional as it looks, that’ll be a dead end, too. Sorry.”

  “That’s what Kensington said. They’re pros. So what did we expect?”

  “Four Caucasian, two black. I took pictures, of course, but . . .”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “That’s the bad news. The good news is an address book from the safe, and these.” He wagged a dozen sheets of what looked like stock certificates.

  “What are those?”

  “These are the certificates of loan. Fifteen point seven million U.S. dollars’ worth. Of course, since Lorimer didn’t sign them, they can’t be cashed, but it proves he has all the money in the banks. Maybe some bank officers can be talked into telling us what they know about Lorimer’s activities.”

  “On the other hand, once they learn he’s dead, they’ll deny their existence, and they’re fifteen point seven million ahead.”

  “Yeah,” Yung agreed.

  Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC, came into the kitchen.

  “Sergeant Kensington said he’s ready to mount up anytime you give the word, sir. The colonel is on his feet.”

  “Bradley, I owe you. You saved my tail and Colonel Munz’s.”

  “Just doing my job, sir.”

  “Tell Sergeant Kensington to get the show on the road, Bradley.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  [FIVE]

  The Oval Office The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 1825 1 August 2005

  The President of the United States was behind his desk. Across the room, Ambassador Charles W. Montvale was sitting next to Secretary of State Natalie Cohen on one of two facing couches. Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Hall was on the other couch.

  Major C. G. Castillo, who was in civilian clothing, was nonetheless standing before the President’s desk at a position close to “At Ease.”

  Or, Secretary Hall thought, like a kid standing in front of the headmaster’s desk, waiting for the ax to fall.

  For the past ten minutes, Castillo had been delivering his report of what had happened since he had last seen the President in Biloxi, when the President had issued his Presidential Finding aboard Air Force One.

  “And so we landed at MacDill, Mr. President,” Castillo concluded, “where we turned over Sergeant Kranz’s remains to Central Command, and then we came here, arriving at oh-nine-thirty. I took everyone involved to my apartment and told them nothing was to be said to anyone about anything until I had made my report, and that they were to remain there until I got back to them.”

  “Colonel Torine, too?” the President of the United States asked. “And your cousin, too? How did they respond to your placing them in what amounts to house arrest?”

  “Colonel Torine knows how things are done, sir. I didn’t order him. . . . And Fernando, my cousin, understands the situation, sir.”

  “And that’s about it, Castillo?” the President asked.

  “Yes, sir. Except to say, Mr. President, how deeply I regret the loss of Sergeant Kranz, and how deeply I regret having failed in the mission you assigned.”

  The President did not immediately respond. He looked into Castillo’s eyes a moment as he considered that statement, then said, “How do you figure that you have failed, Castillo?”

  “Well, sir, the bottom line is that I am no closer to finding the people who murdered Mr. Masterson and Sergeant Markham than I was before I went looking for Mr. Lorimer. Mr. Lorimer is now dead, and we’ll never know what he might have told us if I hadn’t botched his . . .”

  “Repatriation?” the President offered.

  “Yes, sir. And Sergeant Kranz is dead. I failed you, sir.”

  “Charles,” the President said, “what about the long-term damage resulting from Major Castillo’s failure? Just off the top of your head?”

  “Mr. President, I don’t see it as a failure,” Secretary Hall spoke up.

  “The director of national intelligence has the floor, Mr. Secretary. Pray let him continue,” the President said, coldly.

  “Actually, Mr. President, neither do I,” Montvale said. “Actually, when I have a moment to think about it, quite the opposite.”

  “You heard him,” the President pursued. “This man Lorimer is dead. We have no proof that Natalie can take to the UN that he was involved in the oil-for-food scandal or anything else. And Castillo himself admits that he’s no closer to finding out who killed Masterson and the sergeant than he ever was. Isn’t that failure?”

  “Mr. President, if I may,” Montvale said cautiously. “Let me point out what I think the major—and that small, valiant band of men he had with him—has accomplished.”

  “What would that be?”

  “If we accept the premise that Mr. Lorimer was involved in something sordid, and the proof of that, I submit, is that he sequestered some sixteen million dollars . . .”

  Montvale looked to Castillo for help.

  “Fifteen point seven, sir,” Castillo offered.

  “. . . Close enough for Washington. Some sixteen million U.S. dollars in Uruguay, and that parties unknown tracked him down to Uruguay and mur
dered him to keep him from talking. After they abducted Mrs. Masterson and later murdered her husband.”

  “So what, Charles?” the President demanded.

  “I don’t seem to be expressing myself very well, Mr. President,” Montvale said. “Let me put it this way. These people, whoever they are, now know we’re onto them. They have no idea what the major may have learned before he went to South America; they have no idea how much Lorimer may have told him before they were able to murder him. If they hoped to obtain the contents of Lorimer’s safe, they failed. And they don’t know what it did or did not contain, so they will presume the worst, and that it is now in our possession. Or, possibly worse, in the possession of parties unknown. They sent their assassins in to murder Lorimer, and what we, what the major and his band, gave them was six dead assassins and an empty safe. And now that we know we’re onto them, God only knows how soon it will be before someone comes to us . . .”

  “And rats on the rats, you mean?” the President asked.

  “Yes, sir, that’s precisely what I mean. And I’m not talking only about identifying the Masterson murderers— I think it very likely that the major has already ‘rendered them harmless’—but the people who ordered the murders. The masterminds of the oil-for-food scandal, those who have profited from it. Sir, in my judgment, the major has not failed. He has rendered the country a great service, and is to be commended.”

  “You ever hear, Charles, that great minds run on similar paths? I had just about come to the same conclusion. But one question, Charles: What should we do with the sixteen million dollars? Tell the UN it’s there and let them worry about getting it back?”

  “Actually, sir, I had an off-the-top-of-my-head thought about that money. According to the major, all it takes is Lorimer’s signature on those documents, whateverthey’re called, that the major brought back from the hideaway to have that money transferred anywhere.”

  “But Lorimer’s dead,” the President said.

  “They have some very talented people over in Langley, if the President takes my meaning.”

  “You mean, forge a dead man’s signature and steal the money? For what purpose?”

  “Mr. President, I admit that when I first learned what you were asking the major to do, I was something less than enthusiastic. But I was wrong, and I admit it. A small unit like the major’s can obviously be very valuable in this new world war. And if sixteen million dollars were available to it, sixteen million untraceable dollars . . .”

  “I take your point, Charles,” the President said. “But I’m going to ask you to stop thinking off the top of your head.”

  “Sir?”

  “The next thing you’re likely to suggest is that Charley—and that’s his name, Charles, not ‘the major’— move the Office of Organizational Analysis into the office of the director of national intelligence. And that’s not going to happen. Charley works for me, period, not open for comment.”

  Secretary Hall had a sudden coughing spasm. His face grew red.

  Ambassador Montvale did not seem to suspect that Secretary Hall might be concealing a hearty laugh.

  “Natalie, do you have anything to say before I send Charley out of here to take, with my profound thanks, a couple of weeks off? After he lets everybody in his apartment go, of course.”

  “I was thinking about Ambassador Lorimer, sir. He’s ill, and it will devastate him to learn what his son has been up to.”

  “Jesus, I hadn’t thought about that,” the President said. “Charley, what about it?”

  “Sir, Mr. Lorimer is missing in Paris,” Charley said. “The man who died in Shangri-La was Jean-Paul Bertrand, a Lebanese. I don’t think anyone will be anxious to reveal who Bertrand really was. And I don’t think we have to, or should.”

  “What about his sister?” Natalie Cohen asked. “Should she be told?”

  “I think so, yes,” Charley said. “I haven’t thought this through, but I have been thinking that the one thing I could tell Mrs. Masterson that would put her mind at rest about the threats to her children would be that I knew her brother was dead, and with his death, these bastards . . . excuse me . . . had no more interest in her or her children.”

  “And if she asks how you know, under what circumstances?” the President asked.

  “That’s what I haven’t thought through, sir.”

  “You don’t want to tell her what a despicable sonofabitch he was, is that it?”

  “I suspect she knows, sir. But it’s classified Top Secret-Presidential.”

  “Would anyone have objections to my authorizing Charley to deal with the Masterson family in any way he deems best, including the divulgence of classified material?”

  “Splendid idea, Mr. President,” Ambassador Montvale said.

  “Do it soon, Charley. Please,” Natalie Cohen said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The President stood up and came around the desk and offered Castillo his hand.

  “Thank you, Charley. Good job. Go home and get some rest. And then think where you can discreetly hide sixteen million dollars until you need it.”

  [SIX]

  Room 527 Fifth Floor, Silverstein Pavilion Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania 3400 Spruce Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2135 1 August 2005

  “Hey, baby! I’m home.”

  “Oh, Charley!”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Look at me. My face looks like somebody attacked me with a baseball bat.”

  “You look beautiful. Can I kiss you?”

  “You’re sure you want to?”

  “I’m sure I want to.”

  Five minutes later, they stopped.

  She smiled at him.

  “What I was afraid you were going to do was come back from Europe, and walk in here and start that stupid Wiener schnitzel nonsense again. I like it better when you just say you love me.”

  “Oh, shit. I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?”

  He went into his briefcase and came out with an aluminum foil-wrapped package.

  “What’s that?”

  “Wiener schnitzel, the real thing. Except that this comes from Budapest, not Vienna. You get the best Hungarian gulyás in Vienna, but the best Wiener schnitzel comes from Budapest. Understand?”

  She didn’t reply. She simply took his hand and held it against her cheek. He saw that she was crying, but he knew it wasn’t because she was unhappy.

  AFTERWORD

  One of the characters in this book was a Special Forces medic.

  The Special Forces Association tries hard to keep up with former Green Berets. Sadly, this includes regularly publishing brief notices of their passing, giving their name, rank, where they served, as what, the highest medal (if any) for valor they were awarded, and the cause and date of their death. One such will appear for a Special Forces medic who died as I was finishing this book. It will read something like this:

  WALTON, John. Sergeant. Vietnam. Medic. Silver Star. While piloting experimental aircraft. 27 June 2005.

  In the case of Sergeant Walton, other obituaries published in newspapers around the world—often on the front page—were much longer, and made reference to the fact that he earned the Silver Star—the nation’s third-highest award for valor—by saving the lives of fellow soldiers under fire.

  And reported that the Wal-Mart executive, and son of the founder of Wal-Mart, died the eleventh-richest man in the world, with a fortune of $18.2 billion.

  W.E.B. Griffin is the author of the bestselling Brotherhood of War, Corps, Badge of Honor, Men at War, Honor Bound, and Presidential Agent series. He has been invested into the orders of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association and St. An-drew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association; is a life member of the U.S. Special Operations Association; and is a member of Gaston-Lee Post 5660 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, China Post #1 in Exile of the American Legion, and the Police Chiefs Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, South New Jersey, and Delaware. He has been name
d an honorary life member of the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association, the U.S. Army Special Forces Association, the U.S. Marine Corps Raider Association, and the USMC Combat Correspondents Association. Visit his website at www.webgriffin.com.

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