The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“You look exhausted,” Silvio said.

“I am, and that’s dangerous. That’s why I’m grateful you could see me…”

“Secretary Cohen made it clear—if obliquely—that you are calling all the shots.”

“…because I need your advice.”

“Anything I can do to help, Charley.”

“I want to say this before we get started. I don’t want to drag you down with me if this whole thing blows up in my face…”

Silvio made a deprecating gesture.

“…which seems more likely every minute,” Castillo finished. “So I give you my word that I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I told you little—virtually nothing—about what’s happened and what I’m doing or trying to do.”

“I very much appreciate that, but why don’t we cross that bridge when we get to it? And why do you think it’s going to blow up in your face? Everyone else, including me, seems to have a good deal of confidence in you.”

“I’ve got too many balls in the air and I’m not that good a juggler,” Castillo said. “So what I’m going to do—with my word that I will deny having ever told you—is tell you what they are and ask for your suggestions.”

“Before we get into that, may I ask about Mr. Masterson and the children? Where are they? How are they?”

“They’re fine. They’re with Mr. Masterson’s family on their plantation in Mississippi. Until now, they’ve had some Delta Force shooters protecting them. Today, or maybe tomorrow, the shooters will be replaced by some retired Special Forces types who are pretty good. I think—and, God, I hope I’m right—that the threat to them has been drastically reduced by Lorimer’s death. They no longer need Mr. Masterson to point them to Lorimer.”

“That makes sense,” Silvio said. “And Special Agent Schneider? How is she?”

“She’s in a hospital in Philadelphia with her jaws wired shut. Almost certainly wondering why I haven’t been to see her as promised.”

Silvio shook his head sympathetically.

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” he said.

“I hope you’re right, sir,” Castillo said.

After a long moment, Silvio said, “Tell me what you think I should know, Charley, please.”

Castillo took a moment to organize his thoughts and then began, “Just before I came down here the first time to see what I could find out about Mr. Masterson’s kidnapping, I called Otto Görner, the general director of the Tages Zeitung newspapers in Germany, to tell him I was coming down here…”

He saw the question on Silvio’s face, stopped, then explained, “I have an alter ego as Karl Gossinger, the Washington correspondent of the Tages Zeitung newspapers. I decided the best way to come down here as the President’s fly on the wall was to come as Karl Gossinger.”

Castillo stopped again when he saw more unspoken questions on Silvio’s face.

“The Tages Zeitung newspapers are owned by Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. My mother’s maiden name was Gossinger.”

Silvio’s eyebrows rose but he didn’t respond directly. Instead, he asked, “And this man knows what you really do for a living?”

“Then, he suspected. Now he knows,” Castillo said. “Anyway, I asked him—primarily, so I would have an excuse for being here as Gossinger—if there was anything I should look into for him while I was here. He told me a rich man from Hamburg is planning to raise the Graf Spee from Montevideo harbor…”

Silvio’s eyebrows rose again and he said, “That’s the first I’ve heard of that.”

“And then, reluctantly, he told me that the newspapers were working on a story that some Germans were sending Iraqi oil-for-food money down here, to hide it, the way the Nazis did in World War Two. Then he said he was sorry that he’d brought the subject up, that people looking into it had been killed, and that I was to leave it alone.

“And then I came down here and things started happening and I forgot what Görner had said about oil-for-food money while I was getting the Mastersons out of Argentina. And then the President issued the Finding.

“I had absolutely no idea where to start looking for the people who murdered Masterson except that there very probably was a connection between Masterson and his brother-in-law, the missing UN diplomat, so I started there.”

Silvio nodded his understanding.

“So I went to Paris. A source told me that Lorimer was the bagman for the oil-for-food—”