Castillo said, “Thank you,” instead of what started to come to his lips: “I know. This is not my first visit to ‘Karinhall.’”
The man moved on hands and knees to the forward compartment and dropped into it. Castillo both heard and felt the chunk as the man engaged the transmission and the propeller began to spin.
Thirty seconds later, the engine revved and Castillo sensed the speedboat going up on the step. Ten seconds after that, he got a face full of spray. Max went down on the floorboards next to the puppy. Castillo sought what refuge he could behind the windshield.
The speedboat slowed and almost stopped as suddenly as it had accelerated twenty minutes before.
Castillo raised his head above the windshield and saw in the faint light that they were very close to a pier. He grabbed the puppy from the floorboard by the loose skin above its neck and stood up on the leather seat.
The man driving the boat skillfully put the stern against the pier and held it there long enough for Castillo to jump out of the boat. The moment Max leapt onto the pier, the engine revved and the boat headed back out on the lake.
Castillo had just enough time to change his grip on the squealing puppy when floodlights came on, blinding him.
It took perhaps twenty seconds for his eyes to adjust enough for him to see down the pier.
Twenty yards away a man came warily, in a half-crouch, down the pier toward him. He held an Uzi. Max was halfway between them; his hair bristled, and he was growling deeply.
The man cocked the Uzi.
“If you shoot the dog,” Castillo called in Spanish, “you will die!”
He repeated the same threat in Russian and then a third time in Hungarian.
“Lower the gun!” a voice from farther away called, loudly and authoritatively, in Hungarian.
Castillo could now see the second man, who also had an Uzi.
“Hey, János,” Castillo called in Hungarian to Aleksandr Pevsner’s bodyguard. “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
And then, as János kept advancing toward them, Castillo ordered in Hungarian, “No, Max! Sit!”
Max sat, but Castillo could hear him growling still.
János looked around the pier.
“You are alone?” János asked, then without waiting for a reply: “You didn’t bring the redheaded woman?”
“Do you see her, János?”
“He does not expect you,” János said, then corrected himself: “He did not expect to see you.”
“Well, he knows as well as I do that life is full of surprises,” Castillo said.
János gestured for him to walk down the pier. Halfway to the shore, the floodlights died and were replaced with small lights illuminating the pier and a path beyond.
“You are well now, Colonel?” János asked softly.
“It hurts me a little to sit down,” Castillo said honestly. “The leg’s okay.”
“My woman says I now have a zipper,” János said, and drew a line from his waist up his side to his armpit.” He was quiet a moment, then added, “I never say, ‘Thank you, Colonel’—so, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, János.”
A Jeep Wrangler, so new it looked right off a showroom floor, was at the end of the pier. It had a driver waiting behind the wheel.
Max jumped in the front seat and sat there.
“In the back, Max,” Castillo ordered.
Max reluctantly complied after the order had been repeated three times.
“He bite me if I get in back?” János asked.
“Probably,” Castillo said, and somewhat awkwardly got in the back.
[FIVE]
Aleksandr Pevsner, a tall, dark-haired man, wearing linen trousers and jacket and a yellow polo shirt, was waiting for them under a huge chandelier in the foyer of the enormous house.
“You’ve lost a lot of weight, Hermann,” Castillo greeted him in German. “And some hair, too. Been on a diet here in ‘Karinhall,’ have you? Nothing but knockwurst und sauerkraut?”
Pevsner smiled as if he really didn’t want to.
“Frankly, there are times when one wishes never to see dear friends again,” Pevsner replied in Russian. “This is one of them.”
“I love you too, Aleksandr,” Castillo said. “But I hope you aren’t going to kiss me.”
“Never fear. Where’s the redhead?”
“What redhead?”
“The one you flew here in that little airplane.”
“A gentleman never discusses his love life. Didn’t your mother teach you that?” He held up the puppy and gestured at Max. “Besides, I’ve come to trust only canines.”
Pevsner ignored that. “How is your . . . wound?”
“My leg is coming along just fine. My ass, not so good. Thank you for asking.”
“You are absolutely impossible!”
“Does that mean you’re not going to offer me a drink?”
“Now that I see you don’t have some floozy with you, I would be honored if you would have a glass of champagne with Anna and me.” Pevsner gestured toward the open door of the library.
“Where’s the statue?” Castillo said, looking around the foyer. “I would have thought it would be at the foot of the stairs.”
“What statue?” Pevsner asked automatically, and then his face showed that he understood he was about to have his chain pulled.
“Of Lenin,” Castillo said. “To prove you didn’t buy this place because of your admiration for the late Reichsforst-und-Jägermeister.”
He threw Pevsner a stiff-armed Nazi salute.
“Charley, you’re not teasing him already?” a tall, svelte blonde asked in Russian as they walked into the library.
“Teasing him?” Castillo replied as he walked to her and kissed her cheek. “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and has a house made from the same plans as Hermann Goering’s hunting lodge . . .”
“We didn’t realize that until we bought the place, and you know it,” she said, laughing. Her attention went to Castillo’s arms. “What are you doing with that puppy?”
“Trying to get rid of it,” Castillo said. “You don’t happen to know of some kind and gentle young lady of thirteen or so who would take it off my hands, do you?”
“You’re serious? You brought that for Elena? What is it?”
Castillo gestured at Max.
“A little version of him. By way of Marburg, Germany, and Vienna,” Castillo said, looking at Pevsner as he spoke, and not being surprised when he saw that Pevsner’s eyes had turned to ice.
“Let me see it,” Anna said, taking the puppy from Castillo, then holding it up and rubbing noses with it. “Charley, he’s precious! Elena will be crazy with him. Thank you so much!”
“The small horse is the father?” Pevsner asked, indicating Max. “It will grow to be the same?”
“Yes, indeed.”
Anna picked up a telephone, waited a moment, and then said, “Will you ask the children to join us in the library, please?” She hung up and turned to Castillo. “Alek said you might be bringing someone with you and . . .”
“I know,” Castillo said. “Your husband always thinks the worst of me.”
“If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck . . .” Pevsner said.
Castillo laughed.
A maid rolled a bar service into the room.
“What can we offer you, Charley?”
“I’m feeling Russian. Is that vodka I see?”
“How do you want it?” Pevsner asked.
“In a glass would be nice,” Castillo said straight-faced.
Anna laughed.
“I meant, from the freezer, or with ice, or room temperature,” Pevsner said, shaking his head.
“From the freezer, please,” Castillo said.
Pevsner wagged a rather imperious finger at the maid and told her in Spanish to bring a bottle from the freezer.