The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

“His only friend in the world was the colonel. So he made his way back to Germany and Fulda. The presses of the Fulda Tages Zeitung were in the basement of what had been the building. Eric arrived there a day or so after the colonel had been given permission by the Americans to resume publishing. They had found his name on a list the SS had of people they were going to execute for being anti-Nazi and defeatist and he was thus the man they were looking for to run a German newspaper.

“The problem was the presses were at the bottom of a huge pile of rubble that had been the Fulda Tages Zeitung building. Eric Kocian began his journalistic career making one whole Mergenthaler Linotype machine from parts salvaged from the dozen under the rubble.

“A year later, when the Wiener Tages Zeitung got permission from the Americans to resume publishing, Eric was named editor in chief primarily because he had already been cleared by the de-Nazification courts and also because their Linotype machines had to be rescued from the rubble of the Wiener Tages Zeitung building. It was understood that Eric was to be publisher and editor in chief only and that older, wiser, bonafide professional journalists would really run things.

“When the colonel went to Vienna for the ceremonies marking the first edition, he found that Eric had fired the older, wiser, etcetera people, hired his own, and was sitting at the editor in chief’s desk himself.”

“That sounds like him,” Tor said, chuckling.

“Well, he kept the job and now he’s the oldest employee of Gossinger, G.m.b.H. Further, I learned that when the colonel and his brother were killed it was Eric who went to the colonel’s daughter and got her to give me the job of running the business. So I think I owe him.”

“I understand.”

“I realize you don’t owe him a thing—”

Tor held up his hand.

“When my wife was dying, he held my hand, and, later, he got me off the bottle,” Tor said. “Okay, until I can get somebody he can live with, and vice versa—but only until then, understand—I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Somebody Eric Kocian could live with had never appeared. And Tor learned some what to his surprise that he actually had time to both serve as director of security for the Tages Zeitung and keep an eye on the old man.

The job now was more than keeping Kocian from behind the wheel of his Mercedes. A year before, Kocian had begun investigating Hungarian/ Czech/German involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. It personally outraged him.

And when those who had been engaged in it learned of Kocian’s interest in them, they were enraged. There had been a number of threats by e-mail, postal mail, and telephone. Eric Kocian grandly dismissed them.

“Only a fool would kill a journalist,” he said. “The slime of the world need darkness. Killing a journalist would turn a spotlight into their holes and they know it.”

Sándor Tor didn’t believe this for a minute, but he knew that arguing with the old man would be futile. Instead, he had gone to Otto Görner with his fears.

Tor had said, “I think we had better have someone keeping an eye on him around the clock.”

“Do it,” Görner had replied.

“That’s going to be expensive, Úr Görner. I’m talking about at least one man—probably two—in addition to myself, plus cars, around the clock.”

“The cost be damned, Tor. And, for God’s sake, don’t let the old man know he’s being protected. Otherwise, we’ll have to find him to protect him.”

I’m pleased to meet you,” Castillo said, in Hungarian, as he offered his hand. “And you should consider that Úr Görner is even more fond of Billy Kocian than I know you are and is therefore even more upset than you or I about what’s happened.”

“Before God, no one is more sorry than me,” Sándor Tor said. “I love that old man.”

Now I know I like you.

[TWO]

Room 24

Telki Private Hospital

2089 Telki Kórház Fasor 1

Budapest, Hungary

1730 6 August 2005

There was a heavyset man in his fifties sitting in a heavy well-worn captain’s chair in the corridor beside the closed door to room 24. He watched as Görner and Castillo walked down the corridor, and then, when it became clear that Castillo was going to knock at the door, announced, “No visitors.”

That’s a cop, Castillo thought, or my name really is Ignatz Glutz.