The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"It looked like rain. I hoped it would, and they would go away."

"No such luck."

"You about ready?"

"At your disposal, sir," Masterson said, and started for the door.

Masterson was bumming a ride home with Darby, who lived near him in the suburb of San Isidro. His own embassy car had been in a fender bender-the second this month-and was in the shop.

"The boss back?" Darby asked, as they got on the elevator that would take them to the basement.

"He should be shortly; he took the Busquebus," Masterson replied.

"Maybe he was hoping it would rain, too," Darby said.

Masterson chuckled.

If the demonstrations outside the embassy did nothing else, they made getting into and out of the embassy grounds a royal pain in the ass. The demonstrators, sure that the TV cameras would follow them, rushed to surround embassy cars. Beyond thumping on the roofs and shaking their fists at those inside the car-they could see only the drivers clearly; the windows in the rear were heavily darkened-they didn't do much damage. But it took the Mounted Police some time to break their ranks so that the cars could pass, and there was always the risk of running over one of them. Or, more likely, that a demonstrator-who hadn't been touched-would suddenly start howling for the cameras, loudly complaining the gringo imperialists had run over his foot with malicious intent. That was an almost sure way to get on the evening news and in Clarin, Buenos Aires's tabloid newspaper.

The elevator took them to the basement, a dimly lit area against one wall of which was a line of cars. Most of them were the privately owned vehicles of secondary embassy personnel, not senior enough to have an official embassy car and driver, but ranking high enough to qualify for a parking slot in the basement. There was a reserved area on the curb outside the embassy grounds for the overflow.

Closest to the ramp leading up from the basement were parking spaces for the embassy's vehicles, the Jeep Wagoneers and such used for taxi service, and for the half dozen nearly identical "embassy cars." These were new, or nearly new, BMWs. They were either dark blue or black 5- and 7-series models, and they were all armored. They all carried diplomat license plates.

There were five of these vehicles lined up as Masterson and Darby crossed the basement. The big black 760Li reserved for the ambassador was there, and its spare, and Darby's car, and the consul general's, and Ken Lowery's. Lowery was the embassy's security officer. The military attache's car was gone-he had a tendency to go home early-and Masterson's was in the shop getting the right front fender replaced.

Darby's driver, who had been sitting on a folding chair at the foot of the ramp with the other drivers, got up when he saw them coming and had both rear doors open for them by the time they reached Darby's car.

One of the many reasons it wasn't much of a secret that Alex Darby was the CIA station chief was that he had a personal embassy car. None of the other attaches did.

All the drivers were employees of the private security service that guarded the embassy. They were all supposed to be retired policemen, which permitted them the right to carry a gun. It wasn't much of a secret, either, that all of them were really in the employ of Argentina's intelligence service, called SIDE, which was sort of an Argentine version of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the FBI combined.

"We'll be dropping Mr. Masterson at his house," Darby announced when they were in the car. "Go there first."

"Actually, Betsy's going to be waiting for me-is, in fact, probably already waiting for me-at the Kansas," Masterson said. "Drop me there, please."

The Kansas was a widely popular restaurant on Avenida Libertador in a classy section of Buenos Aires called San Isidro. Getting out of the embassy grounds was not simple. First, the security people checked the identity of the driver, and then the passengers, and then logged their Time Out on the appropriate form. Then, for reasons Masterson didn't pretend to understand, the car was searched, starting with the trunk and ending with the undercarriage being carefully examined using a large round mirror on a pole.

Only then was the car permitted to approach the gate. When that happened, three three-foot-in-diameter barriers were lowered into the pavement. By the time that happened, the lookout stationed at the gate by the demonstrators had time to summon the protestors, and one of the Mounted Police sergeants had time to summon reinforcements, two dozen of whom either ran up on foot or trotted up on horseback, to force the passage of the car through the demonstrators.

Then the double gates were opened, the car left the embassy grounds, and the demonstrators began to do their thing.

No real damage was done, but the thumping on the roof of the BMW was unnerving, and so were the hateful faces of some of the demonstrators. Only some. From what Masterson could see, most of the demonstrators just seemed to be having a good time.

In a minute or so, they were through the demonstrators and, finding a hole in the fast-moving traffic, headed for Avenida Libertador.

Alex Darby gestured in the general direction of the Residence-the ambassador's home, a huge stone mansion-which faced on Avenida Libertador about five hundred yards from the embassy.

Masterson looked and saw a pack of demonstrators running from the embassy to the residence.

"No wonder he's taking his time getting back on the Busquebus," Darby said. "If he'd been at the embassy, he'd have had to run the gauntlet twice, once to get out of the embassy, and again to get in the residence." A hundred yards past the residence, there was no sign whatever of the howling mob at the embassy. There was a large park on their right, with joggers and people walking dogs, and rows of elegant apartment buildings on their left until they came to the railroad bridge. On the far side of the bridge they had the Army's polo fields to their left, and the racetrack, the Hipodromo, on their right. There was nothing going on at the polo fields, but the horse fanciers were already lining up for the evening's races.

Then there were more rows of tall apartment buildings on both sides of the street.

They passed under an elevated highway, which meant they were passing from the City of Buenos Aires into the Province of Buenos Aires. The City of Buenos Aires, Masterson often thought, was like the District of Columbia, and the province a state, like Maryland or Virginia.

"It looks like traffic's not so bad," Alex said.

Masterson leaned forward to look out the windshield.