The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Spetsnaz?” Castillo said. “If this was anywhere in Europe, I’d say maybe, even probably. But here? I just don’t know. We’ll take the garrote and whatever else Yung comes up with and see if we can learn something.”

When they got to the dining room, Kensington held up Munz while Castillo moved to a sideboard the Chateaubriand, a sauce pitcher, a bread tray, and a bottle of Uruguayan Merlot. Then he sat him down on the table.

“You going to need me—or Bradley—here?” Castillo asked.

“No, sir.”

“Come on, Bradley. We’ll find something to wrap Sergeant Kranz in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz, a Delta Force communicator, who at five feet four and one hundred thirty pounds hadn’t been much over the height and weight minimums for the Army, was lying facedown where he had died.

A light-skinned African American wearing black Delta Force coveralls sat beside him, holding a Car-4 version of the M-16 rifle between his knees. Despite the uniform, Jack Britton was not a soldier but a special agent of the United States Secret Service.

“Anything, Jack?” Castillo asked.

Britton shook his head.

“It’s like a tomb out there,” he said. And then, “Is that what they call an unfortunate choice of words?”

He scrambled to his feet.

“Let’s get Seymour on the chopper,” Castillo said, as he squatted beside the corpse.

The garrote which had taken Sergeant Kranz’s life was still around his neck. Castillo tried to loosen it. It took some effort, but finally he got it off and then examined it carefully.

It was very much like the nylon, self-locking wire-and-cable binding devices enthusiastically adopted by the police as “plastic handcuffs.” But this device was blued stainless steel and it had handles. Once it was looped over a victim’s head and then tightened around the neck, there was no way the victim could get it off.

Castillo put the garrote in his suit jacket pocket.

“Okay, spread the sheets on the ground,” Castillo ordered. “You have the tape, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Corporal Bradley responded.

He laid the sheets, stripped from Jean-Paul Lorimer’s bed, on the ground. Castillo and Britton rolled Sergeant Kranz onto them. One of his eyes was open. Castillo gently closed it.

“Sorry, Seymour,” he said.

They rolled Kranz in the sheets and then trussed the package with black duct tape.

Then he squatted beside the body.

“Help me get him on my shoulder,” Castillo ordered.

“I’ll help you carry him,” Britton said.

“You and Bradley get him on my shoulder,” Castillo repeated. “I’ll carry him. He was my friend.”

“Yes, sir.”

Castillo grunted with the exertion of rising to his feet with Kranz on his shoulder, and, for a moment, he was afraid he was losing his balance and bitterly said, “Oh, shit!”

Bradley put his hands on Castillo’s hips and steadied him.

Castillo nodded his thanks and then started walking heavily toward where the helicopter was hidden, carrying the body of SFC Seymour Kranz over his shoulder.

[THREE]