“Carlos!”
“One pup I’m keeping for a friend of mine in Argentina,” Castillo went on. “That leaves two. One of which Delchamps says he wants.”
“Of course he does! Didn’t you see him on his knees with the puppies yesterday?”
“And Billy says he wants one to keep Mädchen company. So that’s it. Once we get Billy back to Budapest, no more airborne Noah’s ark.”
“And you keep Max?” Doña Alicia asked.
“It will be Max and me alone against the cold cruel world.”
“Billy doesn’t want him? Or he’s just saying that to be nice to you?”
“I don’t know, Abuela,” Castillo said. “I asked him. He said he doesn’t think Mädchen will betray him the way Max has.”
“He doesn’t mean that,” Doña Alicia said.
“Yeah, I know. But he’s already named the pup Max, making that his Max the Tenth or Twelfth.” Castillo looked at Agnes and changed the subject. “Are you going to put my grandma on her plane?”
“After we have a nice lunch in the Old Ebbitt Grill, I will,” Agnes said. “What do I do about the apartment in the Mayflower?”
“When does the lease run out?”
“The end of next month; you have to give them ten days’ notice.”
“Well, let’s see what happens toward the end of next month,” Castillo said. Then he saw Jake Torine and Dick Sparkman walking across the hangar floor toward them. “Well, here come the airplane drivers. I guess it’s time to go.”
[THREE]
Above Antwerp, Belgium
2045 26 December 2005
Jake Torine said, “You’ve got it, Dick,” then removed his headset, unstrapped himself, and went into the passenger compartment.
It was crowded. The travel kennel was in the aisle at the rear. Mädchen was lying in the aisle in front of it, keeping an eye on Max, who was lying in the aisle just inside the passenger compartment—and attached to Jack Davidson by a strong leash. Max was having trouble understanding not only that the honeymoon was over, but that the mother of their offspring had decided that he was a bad influence on their progeny and didn’t want him anywhere near them.
There were two couches, one on each side of the aisle. Billy Kocian—in a red silk dressing gown—was sprawled regally on one of them, reading, and Jack Doherty was on the other, snoring softly with his mouth open. David W. Yung was in the right forward-facing seat and typing on the computer in his lap. Edgar Delchamps was sitting, asleep, in the forward-facing seat nearest the stair door. Sándor Tor, also asleep, sat in the rear-facing chair across from Delchamps.
Across the aisle, Davidson, with Max attached to him, was sitting in the rear-facing seat across from Castillo, who was on the telephone. When Castillo saw Torine, he held up a finger to signal Jake to wait.
“I don’t think there’ll be a problem with our ambassador,” Castillo said. “But this will make sure there’s no problem with the other one.” He paused to listen, then said, “Thank you very much, ma’am.”
This strongly suggested to Torine that Castillo was talking to Secretary of State Natalie Cohen.
“Yes, ma’am, I will,” Castillo said. “Thank you again, Madam Secretary.” And then he said: “Break it down, please, White House,” and put the handset in its cradle on the bulkhead.
“What was that all about?”
“The secretary of State is about to telephone our evil leprechaun in Montevideo—”
“I thought Duffy was our evil leprechaun.”
“Comandante Liam Duffy is our evil leprechaun in Argentina. I was referring to our evil leprechaun in Uruguay, one Ambassador Michael A. McGrory.”
“Oh. Thank you for the clarification. And what is the secretary going to say to the ambassador?”
“That she is dispatching a Secret Service agent by the name of Britton—recently a member of the Vice President’s Protection Detail—to ensure the safety of Ambassador Lorimer, and that he is to be given what support he asks for and not to be assigned other duties.”
“Did you happen to mention the circumstances under which Britton left the protection detail?”
“Yeah. I don’t try to con her. She’s (a) too nice and (b) too smart. I told her just about everything except his rudeness to the SACs. And then I asked her what she thought about sending him to check on the ambassador’s security arrangements, and she thought that was a splendid idea.”
“You knew she would. She really likes the old guy. You don’t consider that conning her?”
“No, I don’t.”
Torine shook his head.
“You noticed that thanks to a lovely tailwind we didn’t have to land for fuel?” Torine asked.
Castillo nodded.
“We’re about two hundred miles—half an hour—from Flughafen Frankfurt am Main,” Torine went on.“There was an in-flight advisory just now; we are to be met by unidentified government authorities.”
Castillo raised his eyebrows, then looked at Davidson. “Jack, make sure to remind me to remind everybody my name is Gossinger.”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”
“Just ‘herr,’ Jack. My grandfather was the oberst. I’m the ne’er-do-well heir to the fruit of his hard labor.”
“I knew that,” Davidson said.
Ground Control directed the Gulfstream to a tarmac and collection of buildings away from the main terminal. Castillo thought—but wasn’t sure—that it was probably what was left of what had been Rhine-Main USAF Base.
A number of vehicles—Castillo recognized both Otto Görner’s company Mercedes-Benz S600 and his personal Jaguar XJ—were waiting for them. Görner was out of his Jaguar and headed for the airplane before the stair door swung open.
When Görner came up the stairs, Max growled.
“Get your goddamned animal under control, Billy!” Görner almost shouted.
“That’s Karlchen’s goddamned animal, Otto,” Kocian replied. “Talk to him.”
Görner looked around the cabin, then at Castillo.
“I thought you were coming alone,” he said unpleasantly, the translation of which was I told you not to bring anybody from the CIA with you.
“Obviously, you were wrong,” Kocian said, then nodded in the direction of the crowd outside his window. “Who are all these people, Otto?”
“Some are from the Bundeskriminalamt, some are our security people, and some are the press.”
“The press?” Castillo asked incredulously.
“The Tages Zeitung is going to offer a reward—fifty thousand euros—for information leading to the arrest of the people who killed Günther Friedler,” Görner said evenly. “And that announcement will be made by you, Herr von und zu Gossinger, as chairman of the executive committee, just as soon as you get off this airplane.”
He handed Castillo a sheet of paper.
“I took the liberty of preparing a few words for you to say when you make the announcement,” Görner said.
Jack Davidson saw the look in Castillo’s eyes.
“Easy, Charley,” Davidson said softly in Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian. “Be cool. Count to two thousand five hundred eleven. By threes. In Russian. Slowly.”
Görner looked at Davidson, clearly annoyed that he didn’t understand what had been said.
Castillo met Davidson’s eyes. He nodded and smiled just perceptibly. He was aware that he was furious, and had already ordered himself to put his mouth on total shutdown.
He glanced at Görner and thought: Since I don’t think you want me set up to be killed, Otto, what the fuck were you thinking?