The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

"Now, let me finish what I was saying: So you're an Austrian and looking for a sound investment for your now thoroughly washed ill-gotten gains. Where to put it? Eureka! I know. Real estate. I will build an upscale country club and sell expensive houses to rich people wanting to escape crowded Buenos Aires. All I need is a romantic name, with overtones of aristocratic class. So what will I call it? Mayerling! That's what I'll call it, Mayerling! Ain't nothing no more classic than Mayerling! I'll have everybody in Argentina who traces his ancestry back to the glorious days of Franz Josef and the Austro-Hungarian empire standing in line to throw money at me so they can say, 'I live in Mayerling.'"

"What the hell are you talking about? What the hell is Mayerling?"

"Alex, for someone in your line of work, your ignorance of history is shocking," Castillo said solemnly. "You don't know about Mayerling?"

"No, goddammit, I don't."

"Once upon a time-in 1889-one version has it, Crown Prince Rudolph, who would on the death of his father, Franz Josef, become king and emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was called in by Daddy and told to divest himself of his mistress.

"Crown Prince Rudolph was thirty-one. His mistress was a sixteen-year-old tootsie, the Baroness Maria Vet-sera. The relationship was embarrassing to the throne and had to be ended, Daddy said.

"Rudolph took Maria to his hunting lodge, which was called Mayerling, to break the bad news to her. After talking it over, they decided that since (a) Rudolph could not disobey his father the emperor and (b) that life was not worth living without each other, there was only one solution, and they took it. Rudolph popped Maria with his Steyr automatic and then popped himself in the temple.

"He was given a state funeral, and the entire Austro-Hungarian empire went into an official state of mourning. Maria's body was sent back to her village.

"The other version, according to Otto Goerner, who got it from my aunt Olga-she was actually my grandaunt-who was Hungarian and moved in high social circles, was that Franz Josef really didn't give a damn who Rudolph was diddling-ol' Franz Josef's own mistress lived with him in Schonbrunn palace-but was really annoyed when he found out that Rudy was in serious conversations with some Hungarians vis-a-vis what we now call regime change. Rudy wanted to be king and emperor now, not when the old guy finally kicked off.

"According to that version, Franz Josef had Rudolph popped while he was fooling around with Maria in his hunting lodge, which, if I didn't happen to mention this before, was called Mayerling.

"The result of Rudy's sudden demise at Mayerling was that his cousin, Franz Josef's nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, became heir to the throne. On 28 June 1914, in Sarajevo, a Serbian anarchist tossed a bomb into his car, mortally wounding poor Franz Ferdinand.

"Franz Josef simply couldn't put up with having his heir whacked, so he declared war on Serbia, and World War One was off and running. And it all started in Mayerling. I'm really surprised you didn't know this, Alex."

"Jesus, Charley, you're amazing," Darby said. "You're not really suggesting there's a connection with this country club and oil-for-food money?"

"Far be it from me to suggest anything to an old spook like you, Alex, but if I were in your shoes, I'd have a good close look at it. Truth is stranger than fiction. There's a reason they call your country club Mayerling. And you are looking for foreign-laundered money, right?"

"The trouble with you, you sonofabitch, is when you come off the wall like this, half the time you're right," Darby said.

"Actually, it's closer to seventy-five percent of the time," Castillo said. "Now tell me, do you think you can smuggle the stuff I had sent from Bragg past the Uziarmed guards at Mayerling?"

"No problem," Darby said.

"How about moving it out there while I talk to Yung? You said something about airplanes to Montevideo every hour on the hour?"

"Yeah, but if you don't want me to go with you-"

"I thought I'd take Jack. He's an ex-cop."

"You and Britton had better take Tony with you."

"Okay. Why?"

"Because he has a diplomatic passport and is accredited both here and in Uruguay. They're not going to search him for weapons."

Darby opened his briefcase and took out two Beretta 9mm semiautomatics, opened their actions, and handed them to Charley.

"Thanks, Alex," Castillo said.

"Buenos Aires cellulars work in Montevideo-and some other places over there," Darby said, and went back into his briefcase.

"I've got two cellulars," Tony Santini said. "And also a couple of Berettas."

"Spread them as far as they'll go," Castillo ordered. "And then, Alex, can you take care of those who need either a pistol or a phone or both?"

Darby nodded. "You're going to need wheels, too," he said. "But to get them for you, Ambassador Silvio will have to kno

w you're here."