The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

There was a perceptible pause before the secretary of state replied.

"To find out who knew what, and when they knew it," she said, just a little bitterly. Those had been the President's instructions to Castillo when the President had sent him off to learn what he could about the missing airliner. "I should have seen this coming, I suppose."

"I tried to talk him out of it. You want to try?"

"(A) I don't think he wants me to know that he's sending Charley down there, and (b) I think the reason he didn't tell me was because he knew I would argue against it, and (c) if I happened to mention this to him, he'd know I heard it from you, and we both would be on the bad-guy list."

"It wasn't my idea, Nat."

"I know," she said. "Actually, now that I've had thirty whole seconds to think about it, I'm not nearly as livid as I was. Maybe Charley will come up with something the ambassador down there would rather that I didn't hear. You will…"

"Give you what he gets? Absolutely."

"Thanks for the heads-up, Matt."

"Do you know something about the ambassador that Charley should?"

"I never met him. I talked to him last night on the telephone, and I was favorably impressed. And everything I hear about him is that he's first-rate. He's a Cuban. You might tell Charley that, so he'll expect a Cuban temper if the ambassador finds out he's snooping around down there."

"I'll do it."

"Tell Charley to be careful. We don't need a war with Argentina," the secretary of state said, and hung up before Hall could reply. [TWO] Room 404 The Mayflower Hotel 1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 1120 21 July 2005 Room 404-which was actually what the hotel called an "executive suite" and consisted of a living room, a large bedroom, a small dining room, and a second bedroom, which held a desk and could be used as an office-was registered to Karl W. Gossinger on a long-term basis. The bill for the suite was sent once every two weeks by fax to the Tages Zeitung in Fulda, Germany, and payment was made, usually the next day, by wire transfer to the hotel's account in the Riggs National Bank.

When he took the room, Herr Gossinger told the hotel he would need two outside telephone lines. One of these would be listed under his name and that of the Tages Zeitung. The second, which would not be listed, would be a fax line. He also told the hotel that Mr. C. G. Castillo, whom he described as an American associate, would be staying in the suite whenever he was in town, and the hotel should be prepared to take telephone calls, accept packages, and so forth for Mr. Castillo. Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger had been born out of wedlock in Bad Hersfeld, Germany, to an eighteen-year-old German girl and a nineteen-year-old American warrant officer helicopter pilot. The Huey pilot had gone to Vietnam shortly after their three-day-and-two-night affair.

When Jorge Castillo never wrote as he had promised, Erika von und zu Gossinger tried to put him out of her mind, and when the baby was born, she christened him Karl Wilhelm, after her father and brother.

Frau Erika-she never married; "Frau" was honorific- turned to the U.S. Army for help in finding the father of her only child only after she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Karl was twelve at the time. His grandfather and uncle, the only known relatives, had been killed in an autobahn accident some months before. Frau Erika reasoned that any family would be better for Karl than leaving him an orphan in Germany. Even an orphan with vast family wealth.

Largely through the efforts of then-Major Allan Naylor of the 11th Armored Cavalry, which was stationed on the East German border near Fulda, WOJG Jorge Alejandro Castillo of San Antonio, Texas, was located. He was interred in San Antonio's National Cemetery. A representation of the Medal of Honor was chiseled into his tombstone. He had died a hero in Vietnam, apparently without ever suspecting that when he had sown his seed it had been fertile.

Once it was realized they were dealing with the love child of an officer whose courage had seen him posthumously awarded the nation's highest recognition of valor, the Army shifted into high gear to make sure that everything possible would be done for the boy.

Major Naylor was rushed to San Antonio to first find and then as gently as possible inform the late WOJG Castillo's family about the boy.

A pragmatist, Naylor had considered several unpleasant possibilities. One was that Mr. Castillo's parents might not be overjoyed to learn that their son had left an illegitimate child in Germany, at least until they heard of his coming inheritance. That would put a new-and possibly unpleasant-light on the subject.

Senior Army lawyers were looking into setting up a trust for the benefit of the boy-and only the boy.

His concern proved to be without basis in fact. General Amory T. Stevens, the Fort Sam Houston commander,who had been Major Naylor's father's roommate at West Point, and was Naylor's godfather, quickly told him that he knew the late Mr. Castillo's parents.

"They are Fernando and Alicia Castillo," Stevens said. "Well known in Texas society as Don Fernando and Dona Alicia. The Don and Dona business isn't only because they own much of downtown San Antonio; plus large chunks of land outside the city; plus, among others, a large ranch near Midland, under which is the Permian basin, but because of something of far more importance to Texans.

"Dona Alicia is the great-, great-, whatever grand-daughter of a fellow named Manuel Martinez. Don Fernando is similarly directly descended from a fellow named Guillermo de Castillo. Manuel and Guillermo both fell in noble battle beside Jim Bowie, William Travis, and Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

"What I'm saying, Allan, is that if this boy in Germany needed help, Don Fernando would quickly cut a check for whatever it would cost. What I'm not sure about is whether he-or, especially, Dona Alicia-is going to be willing to take the love child of their son and a German-probably Protestant-gringo into the family. The Castillos can give lessons in snobbery to the Queen of England."

Twenty-two hours after the late WOJG Castillo's mother was informed, very delicately, that she had an illegitimate grandson, Dona Alicia was at the door of the von und zu Gossinger mansion in Bad Hersfeld. Don Fernando arrived nine hours later.

Two weeks after that, the United States Consulate in Frankfurt

am Main issued a passport to Carlos Guillermo Castillo. Don Fernando was not without influence in Washington. The same day-Frau Erika, then in hospital, having decided she didn't want her son's last memory of her to be of a pain-racked terminally ill woman in a drug-induced stupor-Carlos boarded a Pan American Airlines 747 for the United States. Frau Erika died five days later.

On her death, as far as the government of the Federal Republic of Germany was concerned, American citizen with a new name or not, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, native-born son, had become the last of the von und zu Gossinger line.

At twenty-one, just before C. G. Castillo graduated from West Point, Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger came into his German inheritance, which included the Tages Zeitung newspaper chain, two breweries, vast-for Germany-farmlands, and other assets.

A second identity, as Herr Karl Gossinger, foreign correspondent of the Tages Zeitung, had proved very useful to Major C. G. Castillo, U.S. Army Special Forces, in the past, and it probably would again in Argentina. In his suite at the Mayflower, C. G. Castillo was nearly finished with packing his luggage. He had carefully packed his small, guaranteed-to-fit-in-any-airplane-overhead-bin suitcase-on-wheels with enough winter clothing to last three or four days. When it was midsummer in Washington, it was midwinter in Buenos Aires. He didn't think he'd be down there longer than that.