The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

Max sniffed it, then licked it.

Castillo scratched Max’s ears, close to the bandage. Max sat down again, pressing his massive head against Castillo’s leg, and licked his hand again.

“Max, you sonofabitch,” Kocian said. “You’re supposed to take his hand off, not lick it like a Kartnerstrasse whore!”

“He knows who his friends are,” Castillo said. “So who shot you, Eric? More important, who shot Max?”

“He wasn’t shot,” Kocian said. “One of the bastards clipped him with his pistol.”

“One of your readers, disgruntled with your pro-American editorials?”

“That from a shameless plagiarist?” Kocian asked.

“Am I never to be forgiven?” Castillo asked.

The reference was to Castillo’s habit—to lend authenticity to his alter ego, Karl W. von and zu Gossinger, Washington correspondent for the Tages Zeitung newspapers—of paraphrasing articles from The American Conservative magazine and sending them to Fulda to be published under his byline in the Tages Zeitung newspapers. Kocian had caught him at it.

“Not in this life,” Kocian said, looking incredulously at Castillo and Max, who was now on his back getting his chest scratched.

“Where did you come from, Max?” Castillo asked. “An illicit dalliance between a boar and a really horny dachshund?”

“That’s a Bouvier des Flandres,” Kocian said.

“‘Bouvier’ was Jacqueline Kennedy’s maiden name,” Castillo said.

“I don’t think so! Jesus Christ!” Kocian said.

“I could be wrong,” Castillo said.

“One Bouvier des Flandres bit Corporal Adolf Schickelgruber when he was in Flanders,” Kocian said.

“I told you, he’s a marvelous judge of character,” Castillo said. “What do you mean, one of them bit Hitler?”

“One of them bit Hitler in Flanders in the First World War,” Kocian repeated. “I’ve always wondered if that’s what really happened to Der Führer’s missing testicle. Anyway, Adolf was really annoyed. When the Germans took Belgium in 1940, one of the first things he did was order the breed wiped out.”

“Why do I believe that?” Castillo asked.

“Because I’m telling you,” Kocian said. “I’m not a plagiarist. I can be trusted.”

“Particularly when you’re telling me how you came to be in hospital,” Görner said. “Falling over the dog and down the stairs! Jesus, Eric!”

“It was the best I could think of at the time,” Kocian said, completely un-embarrassed, and then returned to the subject at hand. “I heard the story of the Bouvier taking a piece out of Adolf in Russia and, when I had the chance, I checked it out and I knew I had to have one. So I went to Belgium and bought one. That’s Max VI. Maxes I through V never betrayed me the way that one’s doing.”

“They didn’t know me,” Castillo said.

“So aside from corrupting my dog, what brings you to Budapest, Karlchen?”

“That’s Herr Oberstleutnant Karlchen,” Görner said.

“God, the Herr Oberst must be spinning in his grave!”

“If he is, it’s from pride,” Görner said, sharply.

Kocian considered that and nodded.

“I shouldn’t have said that. The Herr Oberst would have been proud of his grandson being Oberstleutnant, Karlchen.”

“Thank you,” Castillo said.