"In the future," Gorner said to the telephone, "you may admit Herr von und zu Gossinger to our parking lot at any time, even if his car doesn't have an identification sticker."
"Jawohl, Herr Gorner," the guard said.
He handed the cellular back and hurried to the switch that would cause the barrier pole to rise.
Castillo bowed toward the window and then got in his car, a Mercedes-Benz 220, which Gorner decided he had rented at an airport.
Gorner had mixed feelings on seeing Castillo. On one hand, he was-and had been since Castillo's birth-extremely fond of the boy born to the sister of his best friend. He had long ago realized that there was little difference between the paternal feelings he had for Karlchen-"Little Karl"-and those he felt for his own children.
If Erika von und zu Gossinger would have had him, either when it first became known that the seventeen-year-old girl was pregnant with the child of an American helicopter pilot she had known for only four days or, later, until the hour of her death twelve years later, he would have married her and happily given the child his name.
But Erika would not have him as her husband, although she had been perfectly willing for him to play Oncle Otto to the boy as he grew up.
And over the last three or four days, Gorner had been genuinely concerned about Castillo's safety-indeed, his life. Karlchen had called from the States and suggested Gorner "might take a look at the Reuters and AP wires from Uruguay starting about now."
Gorner had done so, and the only interesting story-about the only story at all-from Uruguay had been a Reuters report that the Lebanese owner of a farm, a man named Jean-Paul Bertrand, and six other men, unidentified, had been found shot to death on Bertrand's farm.
There had been no question at all in Gorner's mind that Bertrand was Jean-Paul Lorimer, for whom he knew Karlchen had been looking. Confirmation of that had come yesterday, with an Agence France-Presse wire story that Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer, Chief, European Directorate of UN Inter-Agency Coordination in Paris, had been murdered during a robbery while vacationing in Uruguay.
He had not been surprised to learn that Lorimer was dead. He had been in Budapest with Karlchen when Billy Kocian had told both of them that he thought Lorimer was probably fish food in either the Danube or the Seine and he didn't believe the robbery spin at all. Lorimer had been killed because he knew too much about the oil-for-food scandal.
But Uruguay? What was that all about?
He wondered how Karlchen had learned what had happened to Lorimer so quickly.
His thoughts were interrupted when Frau Gertrud Schroder put her head in the door and cheerfully announced, "Karlchen's here. They just called from the lobby."
"Warn my wife, lock up anything valuable, and pray," Gorner said.
"You're as glad to see him as I am," she said.
"Yes. Of course," Gorner agreed with a smile.
That's only half true. I am glad to see him, but I don't think I'm going to like what he tells me, or giving him what he asks for.
Castillo came to the door forty-five seconds later.
He hugged Frau Schroder and kissed her wetly on the forehead.
She beamed.
"Do I call you 'colonel'?" Gorner said.
"Not only do you call me colonel but you pop to attention, click your heels, and bow," Castillo said as he went to Gorner and hugged him. He would have kissed him on the forehead, too, had Gorner not ducked. Then he added, "How did you hear about that?"
"You're an oberst, Karlchen?" Frau Schroder asked.
"Oberstleutnant, Frau Schroder," Castillo said.
Gorner went behind his desk and sat down.
The old man was Oberstleutnant Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger at Stalingrad. The first time I met him, I was terrified of him. And now his grandson is one. In the American Army, of course. But an oberstleutnant. The old man would have been ecstatic.
"I'm so proud of you, Karlchen!" Frau Schroder said.
"Thank you," Castillo said.
He looked at Gorner and asked again, "How did you hear about that?"
"The American embassy called. A man who said he was the assistant consul general said he had reason to believe Lieutenant Colonel Castillo would be coming here and, if you did, would I be good enough to ask you to call?"
"We have a name and a number?"
Gorner nodded, lifted the leather cover of a lined tablet on his desk, and then flipped through several pages. By the time Frau Schroder had walked to the desk, he had found what he was looking for and had his finger on it.
She punched in numbers on one of the three telephones on Gorner's desk.
A moment later, she said in almost accentless English, "I have Colonel Castillo for you, Mr. Almsbury. Will you hold, please?"
She handed the handset to Castillo.
He spoke into it:
"My name is Castillo, Mr. Almsbury. I'm returning your call.
"My father's name was Jorge Alejandro Castillo.
"Who's it from?
"The sender is classified?
"Well, how do I get to see this message?
"And if I can't come to Berlin, then what?
"Well, then, I guess I just won't get to see it.
"Yes, I'll take your assurance that the sender is a very important person. But I still can't come to Berlin and I won't be here long enough for you to come deliver the message.
"I'd rather not share that with you, Mr. Almsbury. What I suggest you do is send a message to the sender that you couldn't get the message to me and that if the message is important that they try to send it to me through my office.
"Yes, I'm sure they know how to get in contact with my office.
"Yeah, I'm sure that this is the way I wish to handle this. Thank you very much, Mr. Almsbury. Good-bye."
He hung up.
"That sonofabitch," he said, shaking his head.
"I don't suppose you're going to tell us what that was all about, Karl?" Gorner asked.
Castillo looked between them and then said, "A couple of years ago-maybe longer-somebody said-maybe wrote a book-saying, 'The medium is the message.'"
"I don't understand," Gorner confessed.
"For the first time, I understand what that means," Castillo said.
"You're talking in tongues, Karl."
"Mr. Almsbury, who is more than likely the CIA station chief in Berlin, has a message for me. For a number of reasons, I think that message is from Ambassador Charles Montvale. You know who he is?"
Gorner nodded.
Frau Schroder said, "Your new chief of intelligence?"
"Close," Castillo replied. "He's the new director of National Intelligence."
"You work for him? Can I ask that?" Gorner said.
"You can ask. No, I don't work for him. He wishes that I did. The President told him no, I told him no, but Montvale doesn't like no for an answer-"
"Karl," Gorner interrupted and then stopped.
Castillo smiled at him. "I read minds, you know. What you were about to ask is, 'Why are you telling us this?' And/or, 'Aren't you liable to get in trouble talking so freely to us?' Am I close?"
Gorner shook his head in disbelief and then nodded in resignation.
"I'm telling you because I think you should know certain things, and because both of you are on my short list"-he held up his left hand with the fingers spread widely and his right hand with three fingers held upward-"of people I trust absolutely. And, no, I won't get in trouble. The President gave me the authority to tell anyone anything I want to tell them."
Gorner met his eyes for a moment and thought: He means that. He's telling the truth. But I now understand there is a third reason. Karlchen has just put both Onkle Otto and Tante Gertrud in his pocket. And I think he knows that. My God, he's so much like the old man!
"And the final reason I'm going to tell you about what I'm doing is because I'm going to need your help and I want you to understand why I need that help; why you're doing what I'm going to ask you to do."