The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

Both men nodded.

"Jack Britton, who knows how to operate a Car 4, and I know is pretty good at running around in the dark, gets suited up. Tony, you want to go?"

"Absolutely."

"I would like to volunteer, sir," Corporal Lester Bradley said. "I have never fired the Car 4, but I shot Expert at Parris Island with the M-16, and with the Beretta, and in Iraq I was the designated marksman of my fire-team. I used a bolt-action 7.62? 51mm sniper's rifle for that, sir. Essentially a Remington Model 700 modified for Marine Corps use, sir."

"You were a sniper in Iraq?" Sergeant Kranz asked incredulously.

"We don't have snipers in the Corps, Sergeant. But the better shots are issued a sniper's rifle and are assigned as 'designated marksmen.'"

"We have a Remington, right?" Castillo asked.

"I do, sir," Kranz said.

"Well, Lester," Castillo said, "you're just the man I've been looking for. What you're going to do is take Sergeant Kranz's rifle, make yourself a suitably camouflaged firing/observation position… We have binoculars, too, right, Kranz?"

Kranz nodded. "And the night-vision goggles. The new ones, the really good ones."

"Make sure that Corporal Bradley knows how to use them," Castillo ordered. "He's going to guard the Ranger while we're at the house."

"Sir, since it's Sergeant Kranz's rifle," Bradley said, "maybe he'd prefer to guard the helicopter, and I could go on the assault team."

"In special operations, Bradley," Castillo said, very seriously, "we operate on the principle of the round peg in the round hole, not personal desire. Sergeant Kranz is not the best man to guard the chopper. You are."

"Aye, aye, sir," Bradley responded with not much enthusiasm.

"Ricardo, you want to go with us?" Castillo asked. "I realize you haven't had much training in things like this."

Please say no. If anything goes wrong, you'll be the first one to take a hit. And I really don't want to have to tell Abuela about that. That would be even worse than having to tell your father.

"Nothing like this, I suppose," the young DEA agent said. "But I have had training."

"The DEA school… is there such a thing?"

"Yeah, and that's tough. But what I meant was that when I was at A and M, in the Corps, I went through the Ranger Course at Benning and Hurlburt Field one summer. Don Fernando can tell you that's rough. Yeah. I really want to go. Don't worry about me."

"Okay. You're on."

He glanced at Fernando and saw that Fernando's eyes were on him. Castillo shrugged slightly. Fernando tipped his head slightly.

He's thinking exactly what I'm thinking.

It's one of those things. It has to be.

"That makes seven on your assault team, right?" Darby asked. "Plus Bradley at the helicopter. That's eight. You have enough black suits, weapons, night goggles, etcetera?"

"Where do you get eight?"

Darby ticked them off on his fingers: "Kranz, Kensington, Yung, Britton, Santini, Solez, Munz, and you." He held his hands up, with five fingers on his left hand and three on his right extended. "That's eight. When I took those bags from Fort Bragg out to the house, I counted equipment for six-shooters."

"That's the trouble with you agency people," Castillo said, with a smile. "You assemble a few facts and immediately draw the wrong conclusion. Or usually, conclusions, plural."

Darby rearranged his extended hands and gave him the finger. Twice.

"What Colonel Munz and you and I are going to do, Alex, is drive sedately up to the door of Shangri-La in a car."

"You're just going to drive up in a car? Where, question one, is the car coming from?"