The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"In a way I'm looking forward to this," Goerner said, smiling. "What is that line, 'What happens when the irresistible force meets the unmovable object'? I think we are about to see."

"Are you going to explain that? Or keep talking in riddles with a smug smile on your face?"

"Eric has the habit at this time of day of visiting the baths," Goerner said. "He

suggested that we could talk there. The alternative is to meet him for lunch at the Karpatia at half past one. That's on Ferenciek tere, in the-"

"I know where it is," Castillo cut him off. "Jesus Christ!" Wrapped in thick white terry cloth robes, their feet in slippers, and their genitals contained in small-and, Castillo was convinced, transparent-when-wet-cotton swimming pouches, Castillo, Goerner, Fernando, Torine, and Kranz entered the thermal baths of the hotel.

"Fancy," Sergeant Kranz said. "Looks like something from ancient Rome."

"It was intended to look like ancient Rome," Goerner said. "They say there has been a thermal bath here for centuries."

"Where's Kocian?" Castillo asked.

"About halfway down the pool," Goerner said. "See the man with the float?"

There were perhaps fifteen people in the water, their individual conversations unintelligible as the hard acoustics of water and tile created a sort of deep-toned white noise. Halfway down the steaming pool, in water reaching almost to his neck, a head covered with luxuriant silver hair was almost hidden behind a floating table. On the table were a metal pitcher, an ashtray, several newspapers and magazines, two books, and a cellular telephone.

The man was looking at them without expression, his jaws clamped around a large, black cigar.

"What do we do, just jump in and swim up to him?" Castillo asked.

"It would be more polite if you slowly lowered yourself into the water and waded to him," Otto said. "This is a bath, Karl, not a swimming pool."

Goerner tossed his robe on a marble bench, slid out of his slippers, and went slowly into the pool by a flight of underwater stairs.

I never thought I would be a prude, Castillo thought, but the only word to describe Otto with his privates in that tiny jockstrap is "obscene."

When Otto reached the bottom of the stairs, he was in water just over his waist.

Well, at least his crotch and far-from-athletic buttocks are now concealed from public view.

Castillo shook his head, quickly tossed his robe on a marble bench, and very quickly went down the stairs into the water and then waded across the pool after Goerner.

Fernando, Torine, and Kranz took off their robes, looked at each other, shook their heads, and then, as if someone had barked "Ready! Run! Dive!" took running dives into the water.

The bushy white eyebrows on Eric Kocian's ruddy, jowly face rose in amazement at this display of bad manners.

"Good morning, Eric," Goerner said, when he'd waded close.

"Gruss Gott, Otto," Kocian replied in a thick Viennese accent.

"This is Karl Gossinger, Eric," Goerner said. "Do you remember him?"

"The distinguished Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung? That Karl Gossinger?"

"Guten morgen, Herr Kocian," Charley said.

"I was fond of your mother and your grandfather," Kocian said. "I never thought much of your uncle Willi. You look a lot like Willi."

"Thank you for sharing that with me," Castillo said in German and then switched to Viennese gutter dialect. "Can we cut the bullshit, Herr Kocian? I don't have time to play games with you."

"I'm crushed," Kocian said. "I know you have time to play games with Otto and our readers."

"Excuse me?"

A hand came out of the water and a pointing finger dripped water on one of the magazines. It was The American Conservative.