The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

If I thought that would work, I'd rent the whole goddamn floor.

Vacating 1550 made it available to someone else, and somehow that freed up 1510 and 1518, both very nice single rooms with views of Avenida 9 Julio and the port. Both were equipped with two queen-sized beds. Castillo asked the assistant manager which was farthest from 1500 and was told 1518.

"Put Senorita Schneider in fifteen-eighteen, please."

"Would you like to have a bottle of champagne and some flowers-roses, perhaps?-waiting for the young lady, Senor Gossinger?"

"I don't think that would be a very good idea, thank you."

As far as the young lady is concerned, our relationship is-and will remain-professional and platonic. There wasn't much that had to be moved from 1550 to 1500, and there were two bellmen and Sergeant Markham to help him, but it was after nine-thirty before the process was completed.

"I am now going to drink one of these," Castillo said, holding up two bottles of Quilmes beer from the in-room bar, "and then make a valiant attempt to catch a few winks." He extended a bottle to Markham, and added, "I suggest you do the same."

"I'm not sure I should be drinking," Markham said.

"Trust me, Roger, you should drink that beer." With Sergeant Markham stretched out on the couch in the sitting room of suite 1500, Castillo lay down on the super-king-sized bed in the bedroom. The first thing that came to mind were mental images, not all of which could honestly be deemed lewd and obscene, of Special Agent Schneider.

He finally chased them away with images of Jack the Stack Masterson in the taxicab.

Jesus, was that only this morning? When his cellular telephone buzzed, he was dreaming. In his dream, Sergeant Schneider was being much, much more affectionate than she had ever been in his waking hours.

He looked at his watch. He had been asleep for fifteen minutes.

"Castillo."

"I really hope I either woke you up or interrupted something really indecent," Major H. Richard Miller's very familiar voice announced.

You have no idea, you sonofabitch!

How did he get this number?

"How's the knee?"

"How do you think it is? After every sonofabitch and his brother has been digging around in it for a month with the very latest in shiny sharp instruments of torture?"

"What's up, Dick?"

"We can't find this Lorimer guy in Paris, and God knows I've tried. You are going to have one hell of a phone bill, old pal."

"You sound as if you're not calling from your Walter Reed bed of pain."

"Actually, having accepted your kind invitation to share your pad," Miller said, "I'm lying on your couch in the Mayflower as we speak. In the morning they will roll me into your office at the Nebraska complex, where I will lie on your couch there."

"What about Lorimer?"

"Well, we finally got an address for him, seven Rue Monsieur, and a phone number. No answer on the phone. Isaacson called some Secret Service guy he knows in Paris. The guy went there. The concierge said she had no idea where Lorimer was, but that he was often gone for a week or two. His car is in the garage. Isaacson said that he's going to ask Secretary Hall to ask Secretary Cohen to lean on the UN to find out where he is. And Isaacson said for me to call you and bring you up to speed."

"Thanks, Dick. Are you sure you're all right to work?"

"I'm fine. I presume the love of your life has not yet arrived?"

"Screw you. And if you're referring to Betty Schneider, the ETA is twenty-three-thirty local."

"An hour difference between here and there, huh?"

"It's almost ten here."

"As a friendly word of advice I'm almost positive you will ignore, try to think with your upper brain for a change, before you do something stupid with that woman."