Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

"Okay, then how did it come to your attention?"

"I ordered it. I'll explain when we meet. But watch your back today, Colonel. The workers are ex-Stasi and are very good at what they do."

There was a click and the line went dead.

Castillo looked at his godchildren. They were looking impatiently at him to continue the stories of fun and games with Communists in the good old days.

[THREE]

When Castillo had been growing up in das Haus im Wald, he lived in a small apartment--a bedroom, a bath, and a small living room--on the left of the Big Room on the third floor. It had been his Onkel Willi's as a boy. To the right had been "The Herr Oberst's Apartment," twice the size and with one more bedroom that had been converted into sort of a library with conference table.

Everyone still referred to it as The Herr Oberst's Apartment, but it was now where Castillo was housed. Enough of the Herr Oberst's furniture had been moved out to accommodate Karlchen's bed and childhood possessions. The furniture removed had gone into the smaller apartment, which was now referred to as "Onkel Billy's Apartment."

Castillo had wondered idly who had made the decision for the change, but had never been curious enough to ask.

He remembered that now--probably because of the soap opera and history lectures, he thought--as he led everyone into The Herr Oberst's Apartment.

The room assignment was to mark the pecking order.

Although occupied as a perk by our managing director and his family, the house in fact belongs to Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.

I am the majority stockholder thereof, and so have been given the larger apartment. And Billy, because he owns what stock I don't, has the smaller apartment.

But who made the assignment--Billy or Otto?

"I hated to run the boys off that way," Castillo said as he waved everybody into chairs around the conference table. "But I didn't think they should hear this."

"Who was on the phone, Ace?" Delchamps asked as he sat down and pushed toward Castillo an ashtray that had been made from a large boar's foot.

"The name Tom Barlow mean anything to anybody?" Castillo asked as he found, bit the end off, and then carefully lit a cigar.

When everyone had shrugged or shaken his head or said no--or various combinations thereof--Castillo continued: "This guy told the maid--probably in German--that he was from our embassy in Berlin and wanted to speak to Gossinger. When I got on the line, he asked me--in German, Berliner's accent--if I was Gossinger, and then, when I said I was, he switched to English--American, perfect, sounded midwestern--called me Colonel Castillo, said his name was Tom Barlow, and that he hated to call but thought I would be interested to learn that an attempt will be made on my life--and on Otto's and Billy's--during the Friedler funeral."

"My God!" Gorner said.

"I asked him how the embassy came into this information, and he said that the embassy didn't know. Then I asked him how he knew. And he said because he had ordered the hits, and that he would explain that when we met, and that I should be careful as the hitters are ex-Stasi and good at what they do."

"Why do I think we've just heard from the SVR?" Edgar Delchamps said. "I wonder what they're up to."

"You think this threat is credible?" Gorner asked. "That the SVR is involved?"

"I think it's credible enough for us to stay away from the funeral," Castillo said.

"Prefacing this by saying I'm going to Gunther Friedler's services," Billy Kocian said, "what I think they're up to, Edgar, is trying to frighten us, and I have no intention of giving them that satisfaction." He paused and looked at Castillo. "There will be police all over, Karl. The SVR is not stupid. They are not going to spray the mourners with submachine gun fire or detonate a bomb in Saint Elisabeth's."

"Uncle Billy has a point, Ace," Delchamps said.

"Karl, what I think we should do is contact the police," Gorner said, "the Bundeskriminalamt. . . ."

"Otto," Castillo said, "we're pressed for time. We don't have time to convince the local cops or the Bundeskriminalamt that there even is a threat. All we have is the telephone call to me. And I'm not about to tell the local cops, much less the Bundeskriminalamt, that this guy called Gossinger is really 'Colonel Castillo.' And unless I did, they would decide that all we have is a crank call from some lunatic."

"So what do you suggest?" Gorner replied.

"The first thing we do is circle the wagons."

"What?" Gorner asked.

"Set up our own defense perimeter," Castillo said. "Protect ourselves. Everybody's here but the FBI. Now, we don't know if these people know about Yung and Doherty, but we have to presume they do. So the first thing we do is get them out of the Europaischer Hof."