Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

Kocian came back into the kitchen ten minutes later, which told Castillo that he had subjected Otto Gorner to a thorough interrogation, which in turn meant Kocian knew all the sordid details of his friend's death. But there was nothing on his face to suggest anything unpleasant.

He's one tough old bastard, Castillo thought admiringly.

Dona Alicia was more perceptive.

"Not bad news, I hope, Billy?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so. A dear friend has passed on unexpectedly."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Dona Alicia said. "And at Christmastime!"

"I'll have to go to the funeral, of course," Kocian said, and looked at Castillo. "How much of an inconvenience for you would it be, Karlchen, if we went to Germany very soon--say, tomorrow--rather than after New Year's?"

"That can be arranged, I'm sure," Castillo said, adding mentally, because I know, and you know I know, just how quickly the Hungarian charm would vanish if I even looked like I was going to suggest it would be "inconvenient."

"You're very kind, Karlchen. You get that from your mother." Kocian paused. "I refuse to let my personal loss cast a pall on everybody else's Christmas. So while you're making the necessary arrangements, I will open an absolutely superb bottle of wine from a vineyard that was once the property of the Esterhazys."

[THREE]

Colonel Jacob D. Torine, United States Air Force, answered his cellular telephone on the third buzz.

"Torine."

"Merry Christmas, Jake. How would you like to go to Germany?"

"That would depend on when," Torine replied, and belatedly added, "And Merry Christmas to you, too, Charley."

"Early tomorrow morning. Something's come up."

"You want me to get on a secure line?"

"I'll explain when I see you."

"This is going to cost me two hundred dollars," Torine said.

"Excuse me?"

"At dinner, I said something to the effect that it was nice, for a change, to be home for the holidays, to which my bride replied, 'I've got a hundred dollars that says you won't be here through New Year's Day,' to which I replied, 'Oh, I think I will be,' to which she replied, 'Double down if the phone rings before we're finished with dinner.'"

"I'm sorry, Jake. If it's a real problem, I can get Miller to come down from Philly."

"Thank you just the same, but I don't want to have to explain to your boss why I wasn't driving--and you and Gimpy were--when you got lost, ran out of gas, and put the bird down in the North Atlantic, never to be seen again. I'll be at Signature at half past seven. That will mean I will have to tear Sparkman, weeping piteously, from the bosom of his beloved, but that can't be helped."

"I thought you said he wasn't married?"

"He's not. What's that got to do with anything, Don Juan?"

Castillo caught the crack, smiled, but ignored it. He instead replied, "Do it, Jake. It's important we get to Rhine-Main."

"I have told you and told you, Colonel, that Rhine-Main is only a memory of our youth. I'll have Sparkman file a flight plan to Flughafen Frankfurt am Main."

"I'm really sorry to have to do this to you, Jake."

"Yeah," Torine said, and broke the connection.

Captain Richard M. Sparkman, USAF, was the most recent addition to OOA. After five years flying an AC-130H Spectre gunship in the Air Force Special Operations Command, he had been reassigned to the Presidential Airlift Group, 89th Airlift Wing, based at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

His superiors--the ones in the Pentagon, not those at Hurlburt Field, home of the AF Special Operations Command--had decided that it was time to rescue him from those regulation-busting special operations savages and bring him back to the real Air Force. He was, after all, an Air Force Academy graduate, and stars were in his future.