Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

The castle walk was as he had remembered it, and he thought it had probably looked just about the same when his grandfather had begun his first year at the university. Or his great-grandfather.

Castillo remembered sitting here with his mother, eating a wurstchen, and then, when his mother wasn't watching, throwing the sandwich over the edge and watching it fall. It was a long way down. Twice, he had managed to hit a streetcar. He had never been caught.

"Karlchen," Muller called softly, looking across the car and down the road.

Castillo looked over his shoulder.

A black Volkswagen Golf was coming up the road. The windows were darkened, and on its roof were multiple antennae neither available from nor installed by the manufacturer. It wasn't the car that had taken Davidson and Delchamps to the church, but Muller obviously recognized it as a security car--he hadn't bothered to move off the Jaguar, even when the Golf pulled in the parking space beside it--and Castillo was not surprised when Davidson and Delchamps got out.

Delchamps held a large, somewhat battered briefcase in his hand, and Castillo decided that was where he was carrying the P-38 he'd taken from the hand grenade box in the attic.

Castillo swung his legs off the wall and stood up. Max sat up, too.

"A very interesting development, Ace," Delchamps said.

Castillo raised his eyebrow but didn't say anything. Then he noticed that Delchamps was wearing gloves, some sort of surgeon's gloves but thicker.

Delchamps went into the briefcase and came out with what at first looked to Castillo like a small unmarked package of Kleenex, the sort found on hotel bathroom shelves and which some petty thieves, including one C. G. Castillo, often took with them when checking out.

Delchamps went into the package and pulled from it another pair of the gloves. He handed them to Castillo.

"Rubber gloves, Ace. Never leave home without them."

Castillo pulled them on.

Delchamps went back into his briefcase and took out a business-size envelope.

"Eagle Eye here spotted this in your prayer book," he said.

"What?"

Davidson said, "Your seats--yours, Billy's, and Otto's--were in the second row, right side. There were prayer books, hymnals, whatever, in a rack on the back of the front row of seats--"

"Pew," Castillo corrected him without thinking.

"Okay. Pew. A printed program was stuck in each prayer book. I saw this peeking out of the program in the center prayer book."

"And you opened it?" Castillo asked. "You ever hear of ricin?"

"Edgar opened it," Davidson said. "And yeah, Charley, I've heard of ricin."

"I stole those gloves from the lab at Langley," Delchamps said. "They're supposed to be ricin-proof. And a lot of other things proof. When the lab guy showed them to me, he said they cost thirty bucks a pair."

"Well, if we start soiling our shorts then dropping like flies, we'll know he wasn't telling the truth, won't we?" Castillo said and reached for the envelope.

"I don't think they want you dead, Ace. If they did, they would have just put whatever on the prayer books." Delchamps pulled, then released the wrist of his left glove; it made a snap. "But 'Caution' is my middle name."

He went into the briefcase again and came out with three red-bound books.

"Billy and Otto don't get no prayer books," he said. "They'll just have to wing it."

Castillo examined the envelope. It was addressed--by a computer printer, he saw; no way to identify which one--to "Herr Karl v. und z. Gossinger."

The envelope had been slit open at the top with a knife.

Castillo reached inside and saw what looked like calling cards. He took them out. There were four, held together with a paper clip. They were printed, again by a computer printer. One read "Budapest"; the second, "Vienna"; and the third, "Berlin."

An "X" had been drawn across "Berlin" by what looked like a felt-tip permanent marker. The fourth card had "Tom Barlow" printed on it.