The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

I have been a father about a week, and I'm still not familiar with the price…or the rules.

He heard a cry, a strange one, of a bird and looked around to find the bird. He didn't see the bird, but as he looked up he saw a legend carved into the marble above the massive doors.

"I'll be a sonofabitch," he said, and read it aloud: "House in the Woods."

"That's what Schmidt called it," Pevsner said.

"It's what our family calls the house in Germany, Haus im Wald," Castillo said.

"Where you grew up?"

Castillo nodded.

"Don't tell me it looks like Carinhall."

"No, it looks like a factory," Castillo said. "Or maybe a funeral home."

"Bad memories?"

"Quite the contrary. Good memories, except when my grandfather and uncle killed themselves on the autobahn, and then my mother developed pancreatic cancer a couple of months later. Haus im Wald was-is-ugly, but it's comfortable. And interesting. From the dining room window, I could look out and see the Volkspolitzei-and every once in a while, a real Russian soldier-running up and down the far side of the fence that cut across our property, and the stalwart troops of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment running up and down on our side of the fence. I decided right off that I would rather be an American."

"You didn't know you were an Ameri

can?" Pevsner asked, confused.

"Not until I was twelve. I had a number of surprises in my twelfth year."

"But your son doesn't live there? You said something about his living with his mother."

"I didn't know I had a son until last week, Alek."

Castillo met Munz's eyes.

There's more than idle curiosity in those eyes.

Jesus, did he make the connection with the pictures? Does he know?

He can't know, but he damned sure suspects.

After a perceptible pause, Pevsner said, "And you'd rather not talk about it?"

"I didn't know I had a son until one of my men gave me the picture I showed you last night. The boy doesn't know about me, about our connection."

"A youthful indiscretion, friend Charley?"

"That's what they call a massive understatement," Castillo said. "His mother-five days before she married a West Point classmate of mine-had so much to drink that what began as a deep-seated feeling of revulsion toward me was converted to irresistible lust."

"But she must know…"

"I don't know if she does or not. I'm sure her husband doesn't, and I'm certain Randy, the boy, doesn't. The problem is her father does, I'm sure. He flew with my father in the Vietnam War-was flying with my father when he was killed. Randy looks just like my father."

"He has your eyes," Pevsner said. "The photo was clear."

Castillo nodded. "Worse, I'm sure my grandmother knows. For the same reason. The eyes. She took one look at my eyes in a picture-and I was then a twelve-year-old, blue-eyed, blond-headed Aryan-and announced that I was my father's son. Subsequently confirmed by science, of course, but she knew when she saw my eyes."

"Karl," Munz said. "This is none of my business…"

"But?"