W Griffin - Hunters

"I thought I had the President standing behind me," Castillo said.

"You do. But the President is a decent fellow. The ambassador, on the other hand, is well known as a follower of the Kennedy philosophy."

"Sir?"

"Don't get mad, get even," Naylor said. "He is not a man to be crossed. But on the other hand, I think he's a man of his word."

Castillo looked at his wristwatch.

"I've got to change out of my uniform and get out to Dulles," he said. "But before I do, I really would like another drink."

"After that, we both need one," Naylor said. "But there's one thing you have to do before that."

"Sir?"

Naylor took out his cellular telephone and punched an autodial number.

"Allan Naylor, Dona Alicia," he said a moment later. "I'm sitting here in the Army-Navy Club in Washington with Lieutenant Colonel Castillo and we thought we'd call and say hello.

There was a pause.

"Yes, ma'am, that's what I said."

He handed the cellular to Castillo.

"Your grandmother would like a word with you, Colonel." An hour and a half later, as Air France flight 9080 climbed to cruising altitude somewhere over Delaware, Herr Karl Gossinger, the Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung, accepted a second glass of champagne from the first-class cabin attendant-and suddenly startled her by bitterly exclaiming, "Oh, shit!"

It had just occurred to him that he had not only not gone to see Special Agent Elizabeth Schneider in her hospital bed but had not even called her to tell her why he couldn't. [TWO] Suite 222 InterContinental Paris 3 rue de Castiglione Paris, France 1230 5 August 2005 The bellman placed Castillo's suitcase on the nicely upholstered stand next to the dresser, graciously accepted his tip, and left, pulling the door to the suite quietly closed behind him. Castillo made a beeline for the toilette, voided his bladder, then sat down on one of the double beds. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number from memory.

"United States embassy," a woman's pleasant voice answered.

"Monsieur Delchamps, s'il vous plait."

The Paris CIA station chief answered on the second buzz: "Delchamps."

"My name is Gossinger, Mr. Delchamps. Perhaps you remember we met recently in the Crillon?"

Delchamps hesitated just perceptibly.

"Oh, yes. Mr. Gossinger, is it? I've been expecting your call. You're in the Crillon again?"

"The Continental. I was wondering if you were free for lunch."

"Yes, I am. How does a hamburger sound?"

"You're not suggesting McDonald's?"

"No. What you get in McDonald's is a frenchified hamburger. You can still get a real hamburger in Harry's New York Bar. It's right around the corner from the Continental. You want to meet me in the lobby? I can leave here right now."

"A real hamburger sounds fine. I'll be waiting. Thank you."

"Your wish is my command, Herr Gossinger," Delchamps said and hung up. Delchamps-a nondescript man in his late fifties wearing a some what rumpled suit-came around the corner from the rue de Rivoli ten minutes later.

He offered Castillo his hand.

"Nice to see you again, Mr. Gossinger. How may I be of service?"

"Why don't we wait until we get to Harry's?" Castillo replied.

"Whatever you wish, sir," Delchamps said.

Castillo eyed him a moment. My chain is being pulled. What's he up to?

"The Continental has an interesting history, Mr. Gossinger," Delchamps said as they started down rue de Castiglione toward the Ritz and the Place de l'Opera. "Are you interested?"

"Fascinated," Castillo said, smiling and playing along.

"There was once a monastery where it now stands," Delchamps said. "Louis XVI and his girlfriend-'Let them eat cake' Marie Antoinette-were staying there just before they were taken over to the Place de la Concorde and had their heads removed in the name of liberty."

"You don't say?"

"It's absolutely true."

"Thank you for sharing that with me."

"My pleasure, sir," Delchamps said. "But let me continue since you seem to find this of interest."

"Please do," Castillo said.

The conversation was momentarily interrupted by the sight of an incredibly beautiful, long-legged blonde coming out of the Hotel Ritz. She was surrounded by four muscular men who might as well have had SECURITY stamped on their large foreheads. She got into the rear seat of a Maybach, in the process revealing a good deal of thigh. One of the gorillas with her got in the front seat of the car, another trotted quickly to a Mercedes in front of it, and the other two trotted to an identical Mercedes behind it. The convoy rolled majestically away toward the rue de Rivoli.

"I regret being unable to identify that young woman for you, Mr. Gossinger, as I can see you are really interested," Delchamps said after they had passed the entrance to the Ritz. "But I'm sure she's someone famous."

"Either that or a high-class hooker," Castillo said.

"The two possibilities are not mutually exclusive," Delchamps said.

Castillo chuckled.

"But I was telling you about the Continental, wasn't I?" Delchamps asked and then went on without waiting for a reply. "And it was in the Continental-I seem to remember in 1880, but don't hold me to that-that what many regard as the advertising coup of all time took place."

"I've always been interested in advertising," Castillo said. "Tell me about that."

"Tourism was just beginning to blossom and become big business," Delchamps said. "The British, the Italians, the Germans, and of course the French were in hot competition for the Yankee tourist dollar. There was hardly a building on Manhattan Island without a billboard urging the Yankees to come to England, Italy, Germany, or France. There were so many of them that not one of them really caught people's attention. And the advertising was really expensive, which really bothered the French.

"The matter was given a great deal of thought, and, in studying the problem the French realized that the ideal advertisement would be something that incorporated novelty. Edison had just given us the lightbulb, you will recall, so the new advertisement had to include one of those. Yankees, the French knew, also liked amply bosomed females, so the advertisement would have to have one of those, too. How about an amply breasted woman holding an electric light over her head?"

Castillo laughed aloud.

"You sonofabitch, you had me going. The Statue of Liberty."

Delchamps smiled and nodded.

"And if we give it to the Yankees, the clever Frogs realized, call it a 'gift of friendship' or something, not only will the Yankees never take it down but-desperate as they are to have people like them-they'll put it someplace where it can't be missed. And if we give it to them, they'll pay to maintain it. If we play our cards right, we can probably even get them to pay for part-maybe most-of it."

"God, isn't history fascinating?" Castillo said.

"That meeting took place right in your hotel," Delchamps said. "And here we are on rue Danou, site of the legendary Harry's New York Bar. Would you be interested to learn that Ernest Hemingway used to hang around in Harry's?"

"Absolutely," Castillo said as Delchamps held open the door to the bar for him.

"Paris was known in those days as the intellectual center of the world. The truth is that before we sent Pershing over here to save their ass, they had emptied the French treasury and wiped out a generation of their male population in a standoff with the Krauts…"

He paused to direct Castillo, pointing to the stairway to the basement. When he had followed Castillo down the narrow, winding stairway and they had taken stools at the bar, he picked up where he had left off.

"And, presuming you had the Yankee dollar, it was one of the cheapest places to live. Not to mention that since most of the young Frogs had been killed in the trenches, there was no shortage of places for you to hide your salami."