The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"Karl, I'm sorry!" Munz said.

Castillo started for the car. Munz tried to stop him. Castillo evaded him. Three other men rushed to stop him.

Munz ordered the men to let Castillo pass.

The front passenger window was gone.

Castillo stuck his head in.

Sergeant Roger Markham, USMC, was lying across the front seats. His head looked as if it had exploded.

Castillo couldn't see in the backseat, so he pulled open the rear door.

Where the hell is Betty?

There was a lot of blood on the leather upholstery.

Castillo ran to Colonel Munz.

"Where is she?"

"I sent her by ambulance to the racetrack," Munz said. "A helicopter will take her to the German Hospital."

"How bad?" Castillo asked.

"Multiple gunshot wounds. At least one to the face."

"What the hell happened?"

"First scenario, fragmentary witness reports," Munz said, professionally. "The car was making the circle. At that point it stopped. For some reason, the driver-"

"His name was Roger. He was twenty years old," Castillo blurted.

"Roger lowered the window. Then he apparently saw what was happening…"

"Which was?"

"A Madsen submachine gun," Munz said. "It's still in the window. Roger didn't get it closed in time, but the window closed. The Madsen's still there…" He pointed.

Castillo looked. A Madsen's barrel was pinned between the driver's-side window and the window frame.

"They go all the way up automatically," Castillo said.

"And he put the car in reverse and tried to get away. Which is why the car is where it is."

Jesus H. Christ!

"So the villain held on to the tri

gger as long as he could," Munz said. "And then ran away."

"Did you catch him?"

Munz shook his head, and then made a gesture. One of his men walked up with a resealable plastic bag. Munz took it and then extended it to Castillo.

It held a Glock semiautomatic pistol. The inside of the bag was heavily smeared with blood that had come off the pistol.

"Your agent got one shot off," Munz said.