The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"I can bunk with Kensington, Major," Kranz said. "Not a problem."

"Dibs on that bed," Fernando said, pointing through the door at the huge bed in the master bedroom from which Britton had just risen.

"Like hell; that's mine. I'm now the chief, and you're just a lousy airplane pilot, in any interpretation of that term you may wish to apply."

Fernando, shaking his head and smiling, gave him the finger.

Castillo walked to the telephone and picked up the handset and punched the FRONT DESK key on the base.

"I'm going to need one more room," he said. "And send up several large pots of coffee." He hung up and turned to Britton. "Did Tony Santini get you a cellular phone?"

Britton nodded. "Me and Kensington."

"With his number and Darby's on them?"

Britton nodded again.

"May I have it, please?" Castillo asked.

Britton went into the master bedroom.

"You're going to get Santini out of bed at this unholy hour?" Torine asked.

"Santini and Ricardo Solez and Alex Darby, and then as soon as one of them tells me how to get him on the phone, Special Agent Yung in Montevideo."

"I am awed by this very early morning display of energy," Torine said.

"Jake," Castillo said, very seriously, "if Jean-Paul Lorimer is here, and I have a gut feeling he is, I want to find him before anyone else does."

"Point taken," Torine replied. "I wasn't thinking. Sorry, Charley."

Britton, now wearing trousers but no shirt and still barefoot, came back into the room and handed Castillo a cellular telephone.

"Santini's on two," he announced. "And Darby on three."

"And Ricardo Solez?"

"After you left, he went back to drugs," Britton said. "I don't have a number for him."

"I've got his home number," Fernando said.

"Yeah, that's right, Don Fernando, you would have it," Castillo said, not very pleasantly. "Well, get on the phone, call him, tell him to call in to the embassy that he'll be late, and to come over here. And because you'll be on an unsecure cell, figure out some way without using my name to tell him not to tell anyone I'm back."

"Is that a secret?" Fernando asked.

"For the time being," Castillo said, and punched autodial button two on Britton's cellular. Then he said, "Shit!" and pushed the END button. He went to the minibar in one of the cabinets, took the ice trays from it, and in their place put the foil-wrapped Wiener schnitzel. Then he pushed the cellular's autodial button two again. Tony Santini arrived first.

"Looks like old home week," he said when he saw everybody. "Welcome back to Gaucholand. I guess you got something in Europe?"

"I'll have to remember to tell Tom McGuire to button his lip," Castillo said.

"Tom and I go back a long way, Charley. But while we're on the subject of what Tom told me, where do I go to enlist?"

"Excuse me?"

"I hadn't planned to make this pitch with anybody listening, but what the hell. I'll eventually go home, but they'll never assign me to the presidential protection detail again. Falling off a limo bumper is just about as bad as goosing the first lady. People aren't supposed to snicker when the motorcade rolls by. From what Tom told me about what you're going to be doing, that'll be at least as interesting. How about it?"

Do I have the authority to just say, "Yes, sure"?