The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

They came to a T in the road. Running another red light, the driver turned left, dodging between two enormous over-the-road tractor-trailers and then rapidly accelerating.

Castillo saw they were now on Avenida Presidente Castillo.

This is not a very elegant street to be named after a Castillo, El Presidente, or even one from San Antonio.

It was apparently the main route to the docks, and the roadway showed the effects of heavy-most probably grossly overloaded-trucks. The Alfa bottomed out every thirty seconds or so.

It was too noisy in the car to ask questions, and it would not have been wise to distract the driver's attention from the traffic.

Avenida Presidente Castillo took a bend to the left, then came to a stop sign, which the driver ignored, which almost saw them hit head-on by an enormous Scania tractor pulling a trailer with two containers on it.

Then another left, and another, and Castillo saw they were now on Avenida Tomas Edison. This was even rougher looking than Avenida Presidente Castillo. It was a two-lane road where the macadam had been mostly worn away from the cobblestones it had at one time covered. On their left were deserted warehouses, and on their right a decrepit port area, lined with rusting, derelict, and half-sunk riverboats.

And then there was a sea of flashing red-and-blue lights.

Four Policia Federal stood in the middle of the street, all of them with their hands up to stop them. Castillo saw a half dozen other cops taking barriers from the back of a truck.

The driver slammed on the brakes, slowing but not stopping.

Colonel Munz was now halfway out the rear window, waving his credentials and shouting, "SIDE! SIDE! SIDE!"

The policemen got out of the way; two of them saluted.

Fifty meters farther down the street an enormous- and enormously confident-Policia Federal sergeant held up his hand in casual arrogance to stop them.

The arrogance disappeared immediately when he recognized Munz.

"In there, mi coronel," he said, pointing to the shell of a deserted warehouse, the entire front of which was open, another thirty meters distant.

There were three police cars: one Policia Federal; a second from the Naval Prefecture, which has police power in the port; and a third from the Gendarmeria National. There were several unmarked cars, with flashing blue lights on their dashboards, and two ambulances, one from the German Hospital, the second from the Naval Prefecture.

Fifty yards past them, a huge tractor-trailer with a single,enormous container on it was stopped in the middle of the road, its stop and parking lights flashing.

When the driver slammed the brakes on and the Alfa Romeo screeched to a stop before the deserted warehouse, Castillo could see a taxicab parked nose-in against the rear wall of the building. There was a knot of seven or eight men, most of them in uniforms carrying the symbols of senior police officers, between the taxi and the front of the building.

Munz erupted from the backseat of the Alfa and marched purposefully toward them. Castillo and the driver got out and followed. The knot of police all turned to face him. Several of the senior police officers saluted.

"I sent word that nothing was to be touched until I got here," Munz announced. "I presume nothing has?"

"Mi coronel," a man in a navy uniform with the sleeve stripes of a commander said, "one of my men was first on the scene. Aside from reaching into the victim's pockets looking for identification, he touched nothing else."

"Looking into his pockets to see if he had any money is more like it," the driver of the Alfa Romeo said softly, behind his hand, to Castillo.

One of the senior police officers said something to Munz that Castillo couldn't hear.

Colonel Munz's eyebrows went up in surprise.

"Where is he?" Munz demanded.

The Navy officer indicated a man in a khaki uniform standing uncomfortably near the street.

"Get him over here," Munz ordered. He pointed to a spot on the ground.

The command to have the Naval Prefecture policemancome over worked i

ts way down the hierarchy of police officers, and finally one of them walked quickly toward the policeman.

Munz walked toward the taxi. Castillo started after him, and then the driver, and that started the police officers moving. Munz sensed this. He turned and held out his hand to stop them, then pointed at Castillo and the driver, signaling them they should-or were permitted to-go with him.