The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“János,” Pevsner ordered in Hungarian, “settle my friend’s bill, then drive his car to the house.”

“You are too generous, Alek.”

As the Mercedes approached the redbrick, red-tile-roofed guardhouse at the entrance to the Buena Vista Country Club, the yellow-and-black-striped barrier pole across the road went up. They rolled past the two uniformed guards standing outside the guardhouse. Castillo saw two more inside, standing before a rack of what looked like Ithaca pump riot shotguns.

The Mercedes rolled slowly—neat signs proclaimed a 30-kph speed limit and speed bumps reinforced it—down a curving road, past long rows of upscale houses set on well-manicured half-hectare lots. They passed several polo fields lined with large houses, then the clubhouse of a well-maintained golf course. There were thirty or so cars in the parking lot.

They came next to an area of larger houses on much larger lots, most of them ringed with shrubbery tall enough so that only the upper floors of the houses were visible. Castillo saw that the shrubbery also concealed fences.

“This is really a very nice place, Alek,” Castillo said.

“And it never snows,” Pevsner said.

The car slowed, then turned right through a still-opening sliding steel door the same shade of green as the double rows of closely planted pines cropped at about twelve feet. There was a fence of the same height between the rows.

Inside, Castillo saw Pevsner’s Bell Ranger helicopter parked, its rotors tied down, on what looked like a putting green. A man in white coveralls was polishing the Plexiglas.

Then the house, an English-looking near mansion of red brick with casement windows, came into view. Another burly man in a suit was standing outside waiting for them.

“Come on in,” Pevsner said, opening the door before the burly man could reach it. “I’m looking forward to my kleines Frühstück. All I had before I took Aleksandr and Sergei into Buenos Aires was a cup of tea.”

He waited until Castillo had slid across the seat and gotten out and then went on: “They were late—again—getting to Saint Agnes’s, which meant they missed the bus to Buenos Aires, which meant that I had to take them.”

“What are they going to do in Buenos Aires?”

“Tour the Colon Opera House. You know, backstage. Did you know, Charley, the Colon is larger than the Vienna Opera House?”

“And Paris’s, too,” Castillo said. “The design criteria was make it larger than both. That, of course, was when Argentina had money.”

“You know something about everything, don’t you?” Pevsner said as he led Castillo up a shallow flight of stairs and into the house.

A middle-aged maid was waiting in the foyer, her hands folded on her small, crisply starched white apron.

Pevsner said, in Russian, “Be so good as to ask madam if she is free to join Mr.”

He hesitated and looked at Castillo.

“Castillo,” Charley furnished.

“…Castillo and I in the breakfast room.”

When the maid bobbed her head, Pevsner switched to Hungarian and added, “I hope that since Herr Gossinger is not here, that means Señor Castillo is not working.”

“You’re out of luck,” Castillo said. “And actually, Alek, I know everything about everything. Like you.”

A glass-topped table in the French-windowed breakfast room was set with linen and silver for two. Pevsner waved Charley into one of the chairs and a moment later a maid—a different one, this one young and, Castillo suspected, Argentine—came in, pulled a third chair to the table, and set a third place.

“Bring tea for me, please,” Pevsner ordered, “and coffee for Señor Castillo.”

She had just finished when János appeared in the door, dangling the keys to the Cherokee delicately in sausagelike fingers.

Castillo put his hand out for them, then said, “I would ask János to bring in your present, but it’s not for the house and he’d only have to carry it out again.”

“Where should it go?”

“Who maintains the avionics in your Ranger?” Castillo asked.

When he saw the confusion on Pevsner’s face, he added: “What I’ve done is get you some decent avionics for your helicopter.”