W. Griffin - The Hostage

"And you think the people who grabbed his wife knew this story?"

"Hell, this is the age of satellite television. The average Argentine twenty-year-old knows more about American professional basketball than I do."

Certainly more than I do. I have never understood why people stay glued to a television screen watching outsized mature adults in baggy shorts try to throw a basketball through a hoop.

"There aren't very many African Americans in Argentina," Lowery said. "Even fewer who stand six-feet-eight and get their pictures on the TV and in La Nacion and Clarin when they're standing in for the ambassador, or explaining a change in visa policy. 'Who is that huge black guy? Looks like a basketball player. Why, that's Jack the Stack, that's who he is, the guy who got all those millions when the cerveza truck ran over him.'"

"That makes sense."

"'Let's snatch his wife'" Lowery concluded.

"Yeah," Castillo agreed.

"So far, not a word from the kidnappers," Lowery said.

"Is that unusual?"

"The Policia Federal tell me they usually call within hours just to tell the family not to contact the police, and make their first demands either then, or within twenty-fourhours. It's been-my God, it will be forty-eight hours at seven tonight."

"How good are the police?"

"The ones that aren't kidnappers themselves are very good."

"Really?"

"They fired the whole San Isidro police commissariat-like a precinct-a while back on suspicion of being involved in kidnappings there."

"Were they?"

"Probably," Lowery said.

He looked thoughtfully at Castillo for a moment.

"Have I made it clear that I like Jack Masterson? Personally and professionally?"

Castillo nodded.

"I'm worried about him, both personally and professionally," Lowery said.

"How so?"

"The policy of never dealing with terrorists or kidnappers makes a lot of sense intellectually," Lowery said. "But emotionally? My wife hasn't been kidnapped, and I don't have the money to pay any ransom."

"You think if they contact him, he'll pay?"

"I don't know. If he did, he might get his wife back, and he might not. These people have… Just a couple of months ago, after a rich Argentine businessman paid an enormous ransom… after the kidnappers sent him his son's amputated fingers…"

"Santini told me that story," Castillo interrupted.

"… they found the boy's body. They'd shot him in the head."

"Nice people," Castillo said.

"Who are entirely capable of doing the same thing to Betsy Masterson," Lowery went on. "Worst-case scenario, Jack doesn't get Betsy back, and it comes out that he paid a ransom. In violation of strict policy with which he is familiar. That'd mean he would have lost both his wife and his career in the State Department. Or he does get her back, and they find out he's paid the ransom, and that would end his career."

A price any reasonable man would be happy to pay, I think. Wives are more important than money or careers.

I wonder if Mel Gibson came to that conclusion?

"You do have somebody sitting on him?" Castillo asked.

"Excuse me?"

It's cop talk. The first time I heard it was in the Counterintelligence Bureau of the Philadelphia Police Department. Captain O'Brien ordered Sergeant Schneider to sit on Dick Miller and me until further orders. I was more than a little disappointed to realize he only meant that she was to be helpful, while not letting us out of her sight, and ensuring that we didn't do anything we should not be doing.

"Keeping him company," Castillo said.

"Interesting term," Lowery said. "No. I mean, I try to stay in contact with him. But I couldn't assign a guard to him, or anything like that. He has a driver, of course, one of those Argentine security people in civilian clothes. And armed. But he does what Jack tells him, not the other way around. But for one thing, Jack wouldn't permit being followed around by one of my guys, and for another, I don't have much of a staff."

Castillo grunted, then asked, "Is he coming into work?"

"Yes and no. He comes in, but then he leaves. I know that yesterday he took their kids to school and picked them up. And he called in this morning to say he was taking them to school again."

"There's adequate security at the school? He's not worried about something happening to the kids?"

"It's the Lincoln School," Lowery said. "It's an accredited K-through-twelve American school. Many non-American diplomats send their kids there, and a lot of Argentines. Not only does the school have its own security people-the same company we use at the embassy, as a matter of fact-but a lot of the parents station their own security people outside when school is in session. It's one of the safest places in town."

I don't know what I'm talking about, of course, but if my wife was kidnapped, and I knew their school was safe, I'd send them-or take them. Make their life, at least, as normal as possible. Take their minds off Mommy.

A very tall African American in a very well-tailored suit walked into Lowery's office without knocking, followed by a small, plump man with a pencil-line mustache in a rumpled suit.

That has to be Masterson. I wonder who the bureaucrat with him is?

Chief of Mission J. Winslow Masterson smiled absently at Castillo and Santini, and then looked at Kenneth Lowery.

"Anything, Ken?" he asked.

"Not a word, Jack," Lowery said.

"I just dropped the kids at school," Masterson said. "It looked to me like there were more Policia Federal there than usual."

"Could be, Jack," Lowery said.

Masterson looked at Santini.

"Good morning, Tony."

"Good morning, sir. Mr. Masterson, this is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo."

Masterson smiled and put out his hand.

"FBI? From Montevideo? I was just about to go looking for you."

"I'm with the Secret Service, Mr. Masterson," Castillo said. "Just passing through. I just now heard what's happened."

Masterson shook his head but said nothing for a moment. Then he said, "It's the not knowing that's getting to me. What do these bastards want? Why haven't we heard anything from them?"

You poor bastard.

"I was going to suggest, Jack-even before Mr. Castillo showed up-that Tony get together with those FBI people," Lowery said. "If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Castillo. Maybe you and Tony-"

"I think that's a very good idea," Masterson said. "What's that phrase they use in the advertising business? 'Brainstorm'? Where are they?"

"They're using the DEA office," Lowery said.

"We could use my office," Masterson said. "But it would probably be better if we went there."

Lowery stood up. He looked at Castillo. "I'll have my secretary bring your frequent visitor badge up there."

Castillo smiled at him and nodded.

"Excuse me," Masterson said. "Mr. Castillo… or do I call you 'Agent Castillo'?"

"Mister's fine, sir. Charley's better."

Masterson smiled at him.

"Okay, Charley. This is Alex Darby, our commercial attache. More important, my friend."

Darby offered Castillo his hand. There was curiosity in his eyes.

Is the friend-the-commercial-attache curious about the Secret Service being here? Or the CIA station chief?

"Hello, Mr. Castillo," Darby said.

"How do you do?" Charley replied.

Now there was the hint of a smile on Darby's thin lips.

What the hell does that mean? The Drug Enforcement Administration office-a large room with a dozen desks, and a large conference table, plus three smaller glass-walled offices-was on the third floor of the embassy.

The seven men seated around the conference table stood up when they saw Masterson come in.

Three of them are wearing shoulder holsters. Probably the DEA agents.

"Keep your seats," Masterson said with a wave and a smile.