The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"Put Mr. Castillo through, please," Hall said. In the presidential apartment in the White House, the President looked across the table in the breakfast room at his wife, and Matt Hall's wife, and made a decision.

"Put that on the speakerphone, Matt," he ordered, "but don't tell him." "You there, Charley?"

"Yes, sir."

"We've been expecting to hear from you before this."

"Sir, there's not much to report that you probably haven't heard already."

"Well, take it from the top, Charley. You never know."

"Yes, sir. Joel's pal Tony Santini met me at the airport. Really good guy, sharp as a tack. Tony took me to the hotel, the Hyatt-which is now the Four Seasons, by the way. He told me what he knew, essentially that Mrs. Masterson was grabbed in the parking lot of a restaurant called Kansas in an upscale neighborhood called San Isidro. She was waiting for her husband, and when he didn't show went to her car and was grabbed.

"He said there had been no word from the kidnappers-this was at maybe seven this morning, and there still has been no word, as of now. Tony said the Argentines were keeping it out of the papers, so if I went there as Gossinger, they would (a) wonder how I heard about it, and (b) tell me zilch.

"So I went there as a Secret Service agent who just happened to be in town. Apparently that happens all the time. Tony introduced me to the embassy security guy, Lowery, nice guy, but a lightweight-"

"Why do you say that, Charley?" Hall interrupted.

"The way Tony Santini put it, most of his investigations have been of some diplomat fooling around with some other diplomat's wife. Nothing like this."

"Okay," Hall said.

"While I was in his office, Masterson came in. A really nice guy, and really upset. You know the story of his getting run over and-"

"Getting a fifty-million-dollar settlement? Yeah, I know it."

"The figure I heard was sixty million. Anyway, I was introduced to him as a Secret Service agent, and he asked me to go to a brainstorming session with all the players. The CIA station chief-more about him in a moment- the DEA people, and two FBI guys from Montevideo who are supposed to have some experience with kidnappings. One of them looked at me strangely. Then, and just now when I came in the commo room."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If I were paranoid, and I am, I would suspect that there's been a deniable bulletin from the J. Edgar Hoover Building telling everybody to keep an eye open for that sonofabitch Castillo."

"You really think that, Charley?"

"I can't prove it, but I got the same look from the CIA station chief, a guy named Darby-he's as sharp as a tack, too-and I know he knew who I was. Am."

"How do you know that?"

"After the brainstorming session-which came up with nothing-he offered to show me the restaurant, and when we got in his car, he told me the last time he'd seen me was in Zaranj, Afghanistan-he was station chief there-and that he'd put two and two together and concluded I was the guy involved in getting the 727 back."

"So is he going to tell the ambassador? Or anyone else?"

"For auld lang syne he said he would wait until tomorrow morning, but that he would have to tell him. About two hours ago, I told him to go ahead and tell him. I wanted to get on a secure line, rather than screw around with e-mails. So he knows. As I was coming into town, Darby relayed a very polite request from the ambassador that I come to his office at half past nine in the morning."

"What about the ambassador?"

"Both Santini and Darby think he's first class. Anyway, after having a very nice lunch in the Kansas which really made me feel guilty, I went nosing around by myself, and came up with zilch, except the possibility that the kidnappers are American. When I passed this on to Darby, he said the Argentine cops had already- 'delicately,' he said-offered this possibility. Outside this phone booth, the FBI-including Yung, the FBI guy I think has made me-is sending the names of all Americans who've come down here in the past thirty days to the NCIC."

"What about the local authorities?"

"From everything I've been able to pick up, they're really doing their best, and with the same result, zilch. So what everybody is doing is waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"And that's about it?"

"Yes, sir. I feel about as useless as teats on a boar hog. Jesus, I wish the President hadn't come up with the nutty idea that I'm Sherlock Holmes. I'd really like to help, and I'm in way over my head."

"Hold one, Charley."