The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"Some of this I know myself," Goerner began, "but most of it comes from Eric Kocian-"

"Who?"

"He's the editor of the Budapester Neue Zeitung," Goerner said. He looked at Torine. "That's one of ours, which is to say, one of Charley's. Charley did tell you, didn't he, that he's the owner of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.? That's the holding company for everything."

"No, he didn't," Torine said. He looked at Castillo and added, "It probably just slipped his mind."

"Okay, Eric is an old man. Well into his seventies. He's half Hungarian and half Viennese. He was an eighteen-year-old Gefreite-corporal-in the Old Man's regiment in Stalingrad. They were really seriously wounded, which turned out to be a good thing for them. They were evacuated on the same plane; they didn't wind up in Siberia for a decade or so after the surrender at Stalingrad.

"After the war, Eric came here-Vienna was nothing but rubble; what was left of his family had been killed the day the Americans tried to bomb the Hauptba

hnhof and missed and destroyed Saint Stephen's Cathedral-and he really didn't have anyplace else to go. The Old Man put him to work on the farm, and then on the Tages Zeitung when he could start that up again. And then when the Old Man got the Wiener Tages Zeitung up and running, Eric went to Vienna. He was managing editor, about to retire, when we got the Budapester Zeitung presses back from the communists. Eric came to me when he heard I was thinking of selling the plant, and asked that he be allowed to try to get the Zeitung up and running again.

"I didn't think that would work, but I knew the Old Man wouldn't have told him no, so I agreed. We renamed it the Budapester Neue Zeitung and he started it up. It worked. It's the largest German-language newspaper in Hungary, and is actually a competitor of the Wiener Tages Zeitung in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Eastern Austria."

"He's the guy who did the story on the Lebanese, what's his name, Douchon, who was murdered in Vienna?" Castillo asked.

"The first story was written by one of our men on the Wiener Tages Zeitung. When Eric saw it on our wire, he had serious doubts about it. So he went to Vienna himself, where of course he knew everybody, especially the senior police, and they told him that it wasn't a…" Goerner stopped and looked uncomfortably at his sons for a moment and then went on: "… a case of one more Middle Eastern homosexual being murdered by his blond Viennese boyfriend, as our man had hinted, but most likely by people who wanted to shut Douchon's mouth so that he wouldn't be talking about Oil for Food.

"Eric had already been looking into the oil-for-food story, and it fit what he'd dug up himself. So he came to me-came here; he didn't trust the telephone-and told me about it, and said he really wanted to go into it.

"I told him he was liable to get himself killed, and he responded, 'At my age, what a good way to go out, on a big story.' So I told him no, I'd assign people to the story, and then he said, 'Okay, then I retire. I'm going to do this story.'"

"Did he retire?"

"Of course not," Goerner said.

"I want to talk to him. Tomorrow."

"I'll have to go with you," Goerner said. "Like most people around here, Kocian thinks you're squandering the Old Man's money while pretending to be our Washington correspondent. He actually pointed out to me the striking similarities between a story we published under your byline and a piece that appeared in the American Conservative magazine. I forget what it was, but you certainly didn't spend a lot of time paraphrasing that story."

"I'll try to be more careful in the future," Castillo said.

Goerner nodded.

"Your original question, Karl, was about money being hidden, or washed, in South America, especially Argentina."

"Yes, it was."

"I've always been fascinated with that, and so was your grandfather. The Nazis didn't think it up. They weren't that clever. It actually started after the First World War and the Versailles Convention. The French and the English, you will recall, got German East Africa as reparations. As well as just about everything that could be taken out of Germany proper."

Goerner paused, then asked, "This is going to be a rather long lecture. You sure you want me to go on?"

"I don't know about Charley," Torine said, "but yes, please."

"Go on, Otto, please," Castillo said.

"As bad as the Geneva Convention was-and I'm one of those people who think it made Hitler's coming to power and thus World War Two inevitable-it did not confiscate outright the holdings of individual Germans, or Hungarians, or anyone else, in what had been German East Africa. It simply changed the colonial government from German to French and English; people still owned their farms and businesses and whatever.

"Then the French and English levied taxes on the farms, businesses, etcetera, which they had every legal right to do. The problem was that the taxes had to be paid now in French francs and English pounds. The German mark was worthless. There was no way a German landholder could come up with enough francs or pounds to pay his taxes. The properties were then confiscated for nonpayment of taxes and sold at auction in francs or pounds to the highest bidders, most of whom happened to be Frenchmen and Englishmen."

"Dirty pool," Torine said.

"Of questionable morality, perhaps, but perfectly legal," Goerner went on. "The only people who did not lose their property were a lucky few-including some of your Hungarian kin, Karl-who for one reason or another had gold on deposit in South Africa. The South Africans hated the English and the French, and closed their eyes when the gold that Germans held in their banks was transferred to either some friendly South African or Swiss bank.

"Then, when the tax auctions were held, lo and behold, some of the bidders were Swiss and South African, who were able to buy francs and pounds at very favorable rates with their gold, and be in a position to outbid the French and the English who had come to the auctions looking for a real bargain.

"That's how your Nagyneni Olga, Karl-"