The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“In the future,” Görner said to the telephone, “you may admit Herr von und zu Gossinger to our parking lot at any time, even if his car doesn’t have an identification stick

er.”

“Jawohl, Herr Görner,” the guard said.

He handed the cellular back and hurried to the switch that would cause the barrier pole to rise.

Castillo bowed toward the window and then got in his car, a Mercedes-Benz 220, which Görner decided he had rented at an airport.

Görner had mixed feelings on seeing Castillo. On one hand, he was—and had been since Castillo’s birth—extremely fond of the boy born to the sister of his best friend. He had long ago realized that there was little difference between the paternal feelings he had for Karlchen—“Little Karl”—and those he felt for his own children.

If Erika von und zu Gossinger would have had him, either when it first became known that the seventeen-year-old girl was pregnant with the child of an American helicopter pilot she had known for only four days or, later, until the hour of her death twelve years later, he would have married her and happily given the child his name.

But Erika would not have him as her husband, although she had been perfectly willing for him to play Oncle Otto to the boy as he grew up.

And over the last three or four days, Görner had been genuinely concerned about Castillo’s safety—indeed, his life. Karlchen had called from the States and suggested Görner “might take a look at the Reuters and AP wires from Uruguay starting about now.”

Görner had done so, and the only interesting story—about the only story at all—from Uruguay had been a Reuters report that the Lebanese owner of a farm, a man named Jean-Paul Bertrand, and six other men, unidentified, had been found shot to death on Bertrand’s farm.

There had been no question at all in Görner’s mind that Bertrand was Jean-Paul Lorimer, for whom he knew Karlchen had been looking. Confirmation of that had come yesterday, with an Agence France-Presse wire story that Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, Chief, European Directorate of UN Inter-Agency Coordination in Paris, had been murdered during a robbery while vacationing in Uruguay.

He had not been surprised to learn that Lorimer was dead. He had been in Budapest with Karlchen when Billy Kocian had told both of them that he thought Lorimer was probably fish food in either the Danube or the Seine and he didn’t believe the robbery spin at all. Lorimer had been killed because he knew too much about the oil-for-food scandal.

But Uruguay? What was that all about?

He wondered how Karlchen had learned what had happened to Lorimer so quickly.

His thoughts were interrupted when Frau Gertrud Schröder put her head in the door and cheerfully announced, “Karlchen’s here. They just called from the lobby.”

“Warn my wife, lock up anything valuable, and pray,” Görner said.

“You’re as glad to see him as I am,” she said.

“Yes. Of course,” Görner agreed with a smile.

That’s only half true. I am glad to see him, but I don’t think I’m going to like what he tells me, or giving him what he asks for.

Castillo came to the door forty-five seconds later.

He hugged Frau Schröder and kissed her wetly on the forehead.

She beamed.

“Do I call you ‘colonel’?” Görner said.

“Not only do you call me colonel but you pop to attention, click your heels, and bow,” Castillo said as he went to Görner and hugged him. He would have kissed him on the forehead, too, had Görner not ducked. Then he added, “How did you hear about that?”

“You’re an oberst, Karlchen?” Frau Schröder asked.

“Oberstleutnant, Frau Schröder,” Castillo said.

Görner went behind his desk and sat down.

The old man was Oberstleutnant Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger at Stalingrad. The first time I met him, I was terrified of him. And now his grandson is one. In the American Army, of course. But an oberstleutnant. The old man would have been ecstatic.

“I’m so proud of you, Karlchen!” Frau Schröder said.

“Thank you,” Castillo said.