The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"Let me offer a hypothetical situation," Pevsner said. "Let's suppose someone came to you in Texas and said,

'I want to borrow a horse. I have an errand to run.' And you said, 'But it's raining and if I loan you my horse, you will get soaking wet, and maybe even get your death of cold and die. Why don't you let me run your errand for you?' Wouldn't that make more sense?"

"Not if your idea of an errand is to send someone to the beauty parlor to put an Indian beauty mark on his forehead. I told Howard, in Paris, to tell you I want this sonofabitch alive."

"To do what?"

"I want to hear him sing. You know, like a canary. I want him to tell me not only who he thinks whacked Masterson and Markham, but everything else he knows about who got what and when and what for in the… you know what, Alex. A series of business transactions involving food, medical supplies, and oil."

Pevsner stared at him coldly for a long moment.

"And just to satisfy my curiosity, how would you go about making the canary sing?" Pevsner asked.

"You mean in case pulling his teeth with pliers didn't work?"

"Or the Chinese water torture."

"Well, first I would appeal to his sense of honesty and fair play. If that didn't work, then I would tell him I understood completely. And since I knew people were

worried about him not being in Paris, I was going to send him back there. And there would be nothing to worry about the trip either, because I was going to give him enough Gamma Hydroxybutane so that when he woke up he was going to be in the Place de la Concorde. Chained naked in a sexually suggestive pose to one of the statues around the Obelisk of Luxor wearing lipstick and earrings and with a rose stuck up his ass."

"Oh, Charley!" Pevsner laughed. "What a wonderful picture! Unfortunately, I can't permit it."

"I'm not asking you for permission, Alex. All I want to do is borrow your helicopter for a day or two."

"You're not listening to me, Charley. I said I can't permit it. I have too much to lose if the canary sings."

"And you're not listening to me, Alex. You tend to forget what I tell you."

"I really don't want this to become unpleasant, Charley. I really like you, and you know that. I would be very unhappy-"

"Let me tell you how things really are, Alex."

"Okay, my friend, tell me how things really are."

"Right now, the pressure is off you because I went to the President and got it taken off. As far as I know-I was about to say 'correct me if I'm wrong,' but I don't think you would-your only connection with Oil for Food was to move things around in your airplanes. You didn't buy ten dollars' worth of aspirin and sell it to the Iraqis for ten thousand, and then kick back half to Saddam. Or anything like that. Right so far?"

Pevsner nodded, just perceptibly. "I'm a businessman, Charley. If people want me to airlift something somewhere, I'll do it."

"I understand. The point is, right now we have an understanding. You don't break any American laws and we don't come looking for you. The problem is that you're about to break an American law."

"What law would that be?"

"Interfering with an official investigation; obstructing justice."

Pevsner smiled.

"You're not suggesting that I would actually be charged with something like that? Come on, Charley."

"Oh, you wouldn't be charged with anything. But the arrangement would be broken, and the President would be free to really start helping Interpol in their so-far not very successful attempts to put the cuffs on you."

"As much as it pains me to even think of something like this, have you thought of what might happen to you before you could tell anybody anything?"

"You mean, maybe getting my throat cut? Or getting a beauty mark?"

"Those things seem to happen, Charley, to people who threaten me or, more important, the happiness of my family."

"You don't think I just walked in here cold, do you? If I'm not back where I'm expected within an hour-and it's a ten-minute drive-or I don't make a telephone call and say the right things, Ambassador Silvio will request an immediate meeting with the foreign minister. He will tell him he has just learned that Aleksandr Pevsner, who Interpol is searching so hard for, is living in the Buena Vista Country Club."