The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)
"Yeah. Actually, it wasn't too bad." He grinned. "Betty was a laugh when they finally put us on the range. She had kept her mouth shut and her face straight when they were explaining how to squeeze the trigger and telling her not to let the recoil throw her, after a while she'd get used to it, but I could tell she didn't like being patronized.
"Anyway, there we are on the pistol range, two lowly candidates and the instructor. I'm standing behind her. So she gets the 'open fire' order, and her Glock sounds like an Uzi.
"'This was timed fire, Candidate Schneider. One aimed shot at a time.'
"'That's what I did, sir,' Schneider says, all sweet and feminine. 'I aimed each time, sir.'
"'Well,' the instructor adds, 'as you will see, you'll never hit anything firing that rapidly. Roll back number seven.'
"So they rolled the target back to us and she'd put all fourteen rounds into the bad guy's face.
"The instructor didn't like being duped but couldn't let it go. 'It would seem, Candidate Schneider, that you have had some previous marksmanship experience. If you're trying to make me look foolish or whatever, it won't work.'"
Castillo chuckled.
The door chimes went off. It was the lady from the valet service with Castillo's suit.
"There's a room-service menu in the drawer of that desk," Castillo said, and pointed. "When Roger gets up here, find out what he wants, and then order for everybody. I'm going to get dressed." [TWO] Special Agent Schneider sat across the breakfast table from Major Castillo, which position precluded Major Castillo from surreptitiously holding her hand-or perhaps touching her knee-beneath the table, but did not, he soon learned, prohibit Special Agent Schneider from rubbing the ball of her foot against his calf.
They were almost finished eating when the chimes sounded again.
Roger Markham rushed to the door, and Castillo was wondering what the hell it could be now when he heard a familiar voice: "You're American, right? Maybe a Marine?"
"Yes, sir," Markham replied.
"Go back in there, throw Major Castillo and whoever's with him out of bed, and tell him Colonel Jake Torine, USAF, wishes a moment of his valuable time."
Castillo, laughing, started to get out of his chair. As he did, he saw from Special Agent Schneider's face that she failed to see what was amusing.
Colonel Torine, a tall, somewhat bony man in a sports jacket and slacks, marched into the sitting room and saw the people at the table in the dining alcove.
"Oops!" he said. "Sorry, Charley. I didn't know you had people in here."
"Good morning, sir," Castillo said. "I should have contacted you last night."
"No. It's the other way around. I should have reported to you when we got in last night. Those were my orders, from General Allan Naylor himself. But it was late, and raining like hell, and I figured I'd wait until morning. The defense attache told me where I could find you."
"Great!" Castillo began.
Torine silenced him with an upraised palm and went on: "Then I got here, and the hotel had never heard of you. So I stood there in the lobby for a couple of minutes, wondering why the attache had sent me to the wrong hotel, and then I decided that there are two Four Seasons hotels, and I was in the wrong one, so I went back to the desk and asked the guy where the other one was."
Castillo laughed.
"At that point, I remembered your alter ego, asked for Herr Gossinger, and here I am."
Castillo saw from their faces that Betty had some idea what was going on, and Jack Britton and Roger Markham none at all.
"Guys, I sometimes use the name Gossinger when I'm working," he explained. "That's how I'm registered here."
Britton, who had worked deep undercover for years as Ali Abid Ar-Raziq, nodded his understanding. Roger Markham's face registered what could have been awe.
My God, he's a real intel operator with a phony ID and all!
"Colonel," Castillo said, "remember when the Philadelphia cops turned up the intel that the guy who owned our 727 had sold another one to Costa Rica?"
"Oh, yeah."
"There they are," Charley said.