The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“Stay there,” he said. “Help is on the way.”

[FOUR]

Danubius Hotel Gellért

Szent Gellért tér 1

Budapest, Hungary

0150 7 August 2005

“What did you shoot them with?” Sándor Tor asked.

He was squatting beside the second intruder, who was sitting against the doorframe.

Castillo said, “A .22 pistol.”

“You are either a fool or have a lot of faith in your marksmanship,” Tor said. “Where is it?”

“On the dresser in my bedroom,” Castillo said and pointed.

Tor walked to the bedroom. Castillo followed him. Tor picked up the pistol.

“Okay,” he said. “A silenced .22 pistol.”

“Suppressed,” Castillo corrected him without thinking.

“Very few newspaper publishers know the difference, much less how to use one of these…certainly not as well as you did.”

“If you’re waiting for me to respond to that, don’t hold your breath,” Castillo said.

Another burly, middle-aged Hungarian came into the bedroom. He carried a ten-liter red plastic gas can. Castillo saw that he was wearing rubber gloves.

“There’s two more of these in the stairwell,” the burly Hungarian announced.

Tor nodded.

“Does that suggest anything to you, Úr Gossinger?” Tor asked.

“Plan C,” Castillo said. “If they couldn’t snatch Úr Kocian—Plan A—or something went wrong and they had to kill him—Plan B—then they were going to torch the place in the hope that it would destroy Úr Kocian’s files.”

“You think they thought Úr Kocian was here?”

“Otherwise, they would have gone to the Telki Private Hospital. I think they were watching this place and saw the lights in the apartment and decided he was here. Maybe they saw Max on the balcony. When he didn’t take his usual midnight stroll, they decided to come after him.”

“Certainly they knew he was in the Telki Private Hospital,” Tor argued. “Why would they think he was here?”

“But they didn’t know how badly he was hurt. It made more sense for them to come here in case he was here than to try a snatch at the hospital where he might not be.”

Tor looked at Castillo carefully for a long moment, then turned to the man holding the gas can.

“Rákosi, leave us alone for a minute, please,” he said. “See if you can find anything in their pockets. See if we can tie them to a car anywhere around here.”

“I saw an Uzi in the sitting room?” Rákosi questioned.

Tor looked at Castillo, who, after a moment’s hesitation, nodded.

Tor waved his hand at Rákosi, ordering him out of the room. Then he walked to the door and closed it.