W. Griffin - The Hostage

There was a chorus of "Good morning, sir."

"I thought maybe if we all put our heads together," Masterson said, "and brainstorm the situation, we might be able to make some sense out of it. Is that all right with everybody?"

Another chorus, this time of "Yes, sir."

The man at the head of the table, one of those wearing a shoulder holster, stood up, clearly offering Masterson his seat. Masterson took it.

"This gentleman is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo, of the Secret Service," Masterson said, gesturing at Castillo and then offering his hand to one of the other men. "I'm presuming you're one of the FBI agents from Montevideo?"

"Yes, sir," the man said. "Special Agent Dorman, sir. And this is Special Agent Yung."

Special Agent Yung was Oriental.

Not Korean, Castillo judged. Or Japanese. Most likely Chinese.

Yung looked at Castillo with far greater interest than Dorman did.

"I'm presuming you know Mr. Santini, our resident Secret Service agent?" Masterson asked. Both FBI agents nodded.

"Well, I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning," Masterson went on. "And two things, gentlemen: One is that you're the experts. I have no experience with this sort of thing. And second, this will only work if you say almost anything that comes to mind. Okay, let's start with what I sort of suspect may be the beginning. Does anyone think there's anything but unfortunate coincidencein the three automobile accidents-the third on my way to meet my wife-I've been involved in in the past month or five weeks?"

He looked at Yung. "Why don't we start with you, Mr. Yung?" Two hours and some minutes later, Masterson himself finally called off the brainstorming session. Everyone had really run out of ideas-wild and reasonable-thirty minutes before, but no one seemed to be willing to suggest they stop. Masterson was no better off than when they had started, and everyone felt sorry for him and a little guilty that they and he knew now exactly what they had known when they started: nothing.

As Masterson, Lowery, Santini, Darby, and Castillo were standing waiting for the elevator, and Castillo was wondering why they didn't just walk down the stairs, Darby broke the silence.

"I just had a thought," he announced, and looked at his wristwatch. "It's a couple of minutes to twelve. I thought maybe Mr. Castillo would be able to see something at the Kansas that the rest of us have missed. Would you be all right, Jack, if I took him out there for lunch? Maybe you could have lunch with Tony and Ken?"

Castillo saw that Masterson was as obviously surprised at the suggestion as he was. Masterson looked like he was going to object to at least parts of it, but finally- clutching at straws?- said, "Good idea, Alex."

"We can walk over to the Rio Alba," Tony Santini said. "And Ken can buy."

"I'll come back for you, Jack, in time to pick up the kids after school," Darby said. When the elevator stopped at the second floor, Darby touched Castillo's arm, as a signal they weren't getting off. The others did.

When they got off in the basement, Darby picked up a telephone, punched a button, and delivered a cryptic message/order: "I'm taking your car; don't take mine. I'll be back a little after two."

When they walked down the row of cars, and Darby pointed to a Volkswagen Golf and got behind the wheel, Castillo thought he understood. Darby didn't want an embassy car with a driver. The Golf had ordinary Argentine license plates. For some reason, Darby didn't want to be seen at the restaurant in an embassy car.

It wasn't until the security guard at the gate asked for Castillo's identification that Castillo realized Lowery's secretary still had them.

"Don't give me any trouble about this," Darby said, not pleasantly, in fluent Spanish. "All you have to know is that this gentleman is with me."

Reluctantly, the security guard passed them out of the embassy grounds.

"About half of them are really nice guys," Darby said. "The other half are like that. They love to show their authority."

"I had a little trouble getting into the embassy myself," Castillo said.

"So, from what you've seen so far, Castillo, how do you like Buenos Aires?"

Castillo was about to reply when he belatedly realized Darby had switched from English to Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian.

Darby saw the surprise on Castillo's face and laughed. "You really don't remember me, do you?" he asked, still in Pashtu.

Castillo shook his head.

"The last time I saw you was in Zaranj," Darby said. "There were several high-ranking Army officers who couldn't seem to make up their minds whether to court-martial you and send you home in chains, or give you a medal. Something about a stolen Blackhawk, I seem to recall."

"Well, so much for my cover," Castillo said, in Pashtu. "What were you doing in Zaranj?"

Zaranj was a city on the border of Iran and Afghanistan.

"I ran the agency there. Whatever happened to that black guy whose knee was really all fucked up?"

"If you mean, did he make it, yeah, he made it."

"Thanks to you. I was there when you brought the chopper back. He wouldn't have made it-probably none of them would-if you hadn't gone after them."

"He would have done the same thing for me," Castillo said. "As to what happened to him, truth being stranger than fiction, he was-at least for a while- station chief in Luanda, Angola."

"I thought it probably was you two," Darby said.

"Thought what was?"

"I hate to think how many man-hours and how much money I pissed away here looking for that stolen 727," Darby said. "Langley was hysterical when they couldn't find it. And then the search was called off without explanation. I was curious, so when I was in Langley a month ago, I asked. Strictly out of school, an old pal told me that some hotshot named Castillo had put his nose into agency affairs, and found it, and stole it back, said action seriously pissing off the DCI. I figured that had to be you, particularly after he also told me the DCI had tried to crucify the Luanda station chief, who just happened to be an ex-Special Forces officer with a bad knee from Afghanistan, for giving intel to said Castillo."

"I'm not too popular with the FBI, either," Castillo said.

"So now what I'm wondering is what the hell you're doing here, waving a Secret Service badge around."

"The badge is legitimate."

"I figured that. Santini would spot a phony right away. Or would have been told to ask no questions."

"I don't think I could talk you into asking no questions?"

"Not a chance."

"The President sent me down here to find out what's going on with Masterson's wife."

"The way you said that, it sounds as if the President himself said, 'Castillo, go to Buenos Aires'; that it didn't come down through channels."

"What the President said was, 'I want to know how and why that happened, and I don't want to wait until whoever's in charge down there has time to write a cover-his-ass report.'"

"He said that to you?"

Castillo nodded.

"Is that what you think I'm going to do, write a cover-my-ass report?"

"No. I think what you want to do is whatever it takes to get that poor bastard's wife back to him alive."

"Thank you," Darby said.

There was a long silence, and then Darby said, "What we're going to do now is have a nice lunch, during which I will make up my mind what I'm going to tell who about you and when."

"You'll tell me what you decide?"

"Yeah, I'll tell you."

"Thank you," Castillo said.

[ONE] Restaurant Kansas Avenida Libertador San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1315 22 July 2005 "How much of that sixty million did he actually get, do you think?" Castillo asked Darby.