The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"What are your immediate plans? For the next forty-fiv

e minutes or an hour?"

"I don't have any, sir. I thought I might go have a look at the Masterson house."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"No, sir."

"Neither have I, and it's now after three. Fortunately, right around the corner from here is a restaurant-the Rio Alba-that serves what I believe are the finest steaks in the world. Why don't we go have one while we wait to hear from your friend in the Secret Service?"

"I think that's a splendid idea, sir."

VII

[ONE] The Four Seasons Hotel Cerrito 1433 Buenos Aires, Argentina 2105 23 July 2005 The Marine guard-who Castillo had learned was Staff Sergeant Roger Markham, twenty years old, of Des Moines, Iowa, who had been a seventeen-year-old fresh from Parris Island when he had been on the Marine March to Baghdad before being assigned to the Marine Embassy Guard battalion-pulled the embassy BMW 545i to a smooth stop in front of the Four Seasons and started to open his door.

Castillo caught his arm.

"If you try to rush around and open my door, Roger, I swear to God you'll regret it."

Markham looked at him sheepishly.

"It's now a little after nine," Castillo said. "The plane's due at eleven-thirty, give or take, which means we should leave here around eleven. What are your plans for those two hours?"

"Wait."

"Here?"

"Right here."

"Can you leave the car here?"

"Dip plates. I can leave it anywhere."

"What you are going to do, Roger, is park it. The driveway is right there." Castillo pointed to the entrance of the hotel's basement garage. "And then you're going to come to my room, where we will try to get a little shut-eye."

"Whatever you say, s-"

"There you go again," Castillo said. "What do they do to you at Parris Island, give you fifty push-ups every time you to forget to say 'sir'?"

"Fifty, sometimes a hundred. Sorry."

"Not really a problem, but try, huh?"

Markham nodded.

"Go park the car," Castillo said, and got out.

As he walked through the lobby Castillo remembered that he had not gotten rooms for Betty Schneider and Jack Britton.

That proved to be more of a problem than he anticipated.

The house was nearly full, the assistant manager on duty told him. After ten minutes of consulting the computer, it was decided that Herr Gossinger would move from his suite-1550-into 1500. Fifteen hundred was far grander than Castillo needed, and consequently far more expensive.

He toyed with the idea of putting Betty into 1500, but decided against it.

She would almost certainly decide that I was plying her with luxurious accommodation as part of my wicked and devious plan to get into her pants.