The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

Miller snorted.

“Why am I not surprised?” Castillo asked.

“And he requests an audience with you, boss, as soon as you can fit him in.”

“Can I stall him for today? I’m going to Europe—Paris, Fulda, and Budapest, and maybe Vienna—tomorrow. Maybe by the time I get back, I’ll have thought of some clever way to send him back to Montvale.”

“I can stall him,” she said. “But not indefinitely. How long will you be gone?”

“Just a couple of days. I’d go right now, but I have to talk to Hall. He sent for me, but he won’t be back until late this afternoon.” He paused. “The silver lining in that black cloud is that maybe I can talk to him about this Mr. Ellsworth.”

“Charley,” Agnes said, hesitantly, and then went on: “Charley, you’re going to have to understand that you don’t work for Matt Hall any longer.”

“If Matt Hall says he wants to see me, he will see me standing there at attention.”

“That’s your choice. But you don’t have to. And the black lining in that silver cloud is that it wouldn’t really be fair of you to ask Hall to fight your battles with Montvale. Since he no longer has authority over you, he has no responsibility for you.”

“She’s right, Charley,” Miller said. “Like I said, get used to being a hotshot, hotshot.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Castillo said.

“And you’re going to have to get used to, as of yesterday, playing that role,” Agnes said. “That’s the reason for the fancy office and the Secret Service Yukon. Those are D.C. status symbols, Charley. Middle-level bureaucrats get a parking space with their name on it. One step up from that is getting to ride around town in a government car, but not back and forth to work. One up from that is having a Yukon bu

t your people drive it, not the Secret Service. At the top of the heap is a Secret Service Yukon at your beck and call. That’s why Tom McGuire set that up. He knows how the game is played and you better learn quick.”

Castillo shook his head, then asked, “Where is Tom?”

There was no time for a reply. There was a tinkling sound and a red light on the red telephone began to flash.

“That one you answer yourself,” Agnes said.

Castillo walked over to the huge desk and picked up the telephone.

“Castillo.”

“Natalie Cohen, Charley.”

“Good morning, Madam Secretary.”

“I just got off the phone with Ambassador Lorimer,” she said. “I called Mr. Masterson first and told him that Mr. Lorimer had been found, and the circumstances, and asked how a call from me would be received.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“He told me that someone from our embassy in Montevideo had called the ambassador—as next of kin—and told him what had happened.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” Castillo said.

“There’s a procedure in cases like this and it kicked in when Mr. Lorimer was identified,” she said. “And they had no way of knowing, of course, that he had a heart condition, or, indeed, that he is a retired ambassador.”

“How did he take it?”

“Well. And he and Mr. Masterson both expressed their appreciation for your offer to look after Mr. Lorimer’s affairs in Uruguay and France. That was a nice thing for you to do, Charley.”

“The truth is, I wanted a legal reason to get into his apartment in Paris and the Uruguay estancia to see what I could find. And maybe keep quiet some questions being asked about Lorimer’s bank accounts in Uruguay.”

She took that without breaking stride.

“And how did that go?”