The Hunters (Presidential Agent 3)

He ran across the living room to the second guest room, put his hand on the doorknob, then pushed it open quickly and jumped inside, holding the Micro Uzi in both hands. There was just enough light to make out the bed.

He fumbled on the wall inside the door until he found the light switch and tripped it.

For a moment, the body on the bed didn’t move—Oh, shit, not another garroting! Not Otto!—and then Otto sat up.

“What the hell!” Görner grumbled. “What are you doing with that gun?”

“You better get up, Otto,” Castillo said. “There’s a problem.”

“A problem? What kind of a problem?”

“You’d better get up, Otto,” Castillo repeated, then went quickly through the living room to the door to the corridor.

There was a man down—one of the security people from the Tages Zeitung—sprawled on his back by the door to the stairway. His pistol was lying on the carpet.

Castillo ran to him, saw his bulged eyes and blue skin, then the blued-steel garrote around his neck.

He ran back into the apartment, found his Swiss Army knife in his suitcase, and ran back into the corridor.

He managed with great difficulty to trip the lever locking the garrote, but, when it was free, he decided that it had been an exercise in futility.

This guy is dead.

He looked down at the man’s face. There was no sign of life.

What the hell!

He pressed with all his weight on the man’s abdomen and felt the expulsion of air from the man’s lungs. But there was no sign of breathing.

Castillo inhaled deeply, then bent over the man, pinched his nostrils closed, and exhaled into his mouth.

There was no reaction.

Castillo pressed on the man’s abdomen again and sensed again an expulsion of air. And then there was a sucking sensation. A small, short suck. Then another, a little greater. And then, all at once, a large intake of air.

And a gasping groan.

I have absolutely no idea what to do now.

The man thrashed around, clawing at his throat.

“Just breathe, that’s all. Just lie there and breathe,” Castillo ordered.

It sounded as if the man was trying to say something.

Castillo sensed someone behind him and quickly reached for the Micro Uzi.

“I’ll call for the police and an ambulance,” Otto Görner said, softly.

“No police. No ambulance,” Castillo said. “Get Sándor Tor over here.”

Görner looked as if he was going to argue but then said, “My cellular?

?s next to my bed,” and went back into the apartment.

The security man tried to sit up.

Castillo pushed him back down.