The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"There was an elaborate system set up to do that," Kocian said. "What's your American name, Karl? 'Charles'?"

"Carlos," Castillo said. "That's Spanish for Karl and Charles."

"Yes, of course. Well, you're going to love this, Carlos."

"Love what?"

"When this business began to grow, and it became inconvenient to pass money through banks, laundering it, etcetera, Saddam began looking around for a paymaster. He needed someone, preferably an official of some sort, ideally a diplomat, who traveled around the area, and whose baggage would not be subject to search. The only people who did that routinely were members of the UN. So they started looking around the UN people they already had on the payroll, and they weren't very impressed. Finally they found their man in Paris, working for the UN. He was a UN bureaucrat, not a bona fide diplomat. He worked for-"

"The European Directorate of InterAgency Coordination, something like that?" Castillo interrupted.

"He was the chief of the European Directorate of InterAgency Coordination," Kocian said, looking at him strangely. "Which entitled him to a UN diplomatic passport. The passport-which, in addition to getting you through customs and immigration without getting your bags searched, exempts you from both local taxes and taxes in your homeland-is a prize passed out to deserving middle-level UN bureaucrats."

"What does the European Directorate of InterAgency Coordination do, Herr Kocian?" Castillo asked. "I've always wondered."

"I don't really know," Kocian said. "From what I have seen of the UN, probably nothing useful. But this fellow had for ten, fifteen years been running all over Europe and the Near East and the United States, doing his interagency coordination, whatever that might be.

"He had other things going for him. He wasn't married, so there would be no wife boasting about what her husband was doing; and he wasn't homosexual, so there would be no boyfriend doing the same. And he wasn't very well paid. Even tax exempt, and taking into consideration his travel and representation allowances, his salary wasn't very much.

"But most important, he was not only American, which would keep the Americans off his scent, but he was an anti-American American. Possibly because he was black. Maybe not. But his being black was something else that would keep the Americans from looking too closely at him."

"And his name is Jean-Paul Lorimer," Castillo said. "And I want to know where he is."

"Just to satisfy an old man's curiosity, Karl, how long have you Americans known about Lorimer?"

"Not long. Where is he, Herr Kocian?"

"Possibly out there," Kocian said, gesturing toward the stained-glass windows lining two walls of the baths.

"You mean in Budapest?"

"I meant in the Danube," Kocian said. "Or possibly in the Seine."

"What makes you so sure he's dead?"

"Or possibly in a cell somewhere, where they are asking him for names, so there will be fewer witnesses around. But if I had to bet, I'd bet on one of the two rivers."

"What was his connection with Henri Douchon?"

"Ah, now I know why you came to see me. Otto told you about him."

"That's part of it. What about Douchon?"

"He was one of Lorimer's assistant paymasters," Kocian said. "He handled Lebanon, Egypt, Cyprus, and Turkey… maybe some other places, but that's all I've been able to confirm."

"Who killed him?"

"If I had to bet, I'd say either the French or the Egyptians. Possibly the Germans, or maybe even the Turks. I just don't know, but I'd bet on the French or the Egyptians."

"And you think the same people killed Lorimer?"

"The list of people who wanted to silence Lorimer includes all of the above, plus Russians, Syrians, Iranians… It's a long list, Herr Gossinger."

"You don't think Lorimer would be in hiding somewhere?" Castillo asked.

"I think he might have tried to hide, after he saw what they had done to M'sieu Douchon."

"And you're sure he knew about that?"