Delchamps nodded at Fernando and Torine and walked out of the room.
When the door had closed, Fernando said, "So Lorimer's dead. So now what, Gringo?"
"We don't know that he's dead," Castillo said. "From what Delchamps said, if Lorimer was grabbed, it was around the twelfth of this month. They didn't even abduct Mrs. Masterson until the twentieth, or blow Masterson away until the morning of the twenty-third. That's several days. I think they would have heard, in that time, if somebody had blown Lorimer away."
"Okay," Fernando said. "Same question. What now?"
"Go get Sergeant Kranz out of bed," Castillo said. "Tell him to get packed."
Sergeant First Class Seymour Kranz, a Delta/Gray Fox communicator, had been one of the two communicators they'd picked up-together with their satellite communications equipment-at Fort Bragg. Colonel Torine had told Kranz he had been chosen to go with them to Europe, rather than the other communicator, who had set up at the Nebraska Avenue Complex, because Torine devoutly believed that when flying across an ocean every pound counted. Kranz was barely over the Army's height and weight minimums. The real reason was that Kranz had been with Torine and Castillo when they were searching for the stolen 727 and proved that you don't have to be six feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds to be a first-rate special operator.
"Where are we going?" Torine asked.
"We're going to see my uncle Otto," Castillo said, and walked to the couch and sat down and picked up the telephone on the coffee table in front of it. [TWO] Executive Offices Die Fulda Tages Zeitung Fulda, Hesse, Germany 0805 27 July 2005 Frau Gertrud Schroeder was a stocky-but by no means fat, or even chubby-sixty-year-old Hessian who wore her gray hair done up in a bun. She had been employed by the Tages Zeitung since she was twenty, and had always worked for the same man, Otto Goerner.
Otto Goerner had joined the firm shortly after he graduated from Philipps University in Marburg an der Lahn, in part because he was Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's best friend. Wilhelm was the son and heir apparent to Herman Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, the managing director and just about sole stockholder in Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
When Gertrud joined the Gossinger firm, it had been a medium-sized corporation, not nearly as large as it had been before World War II, or was now. The firm's prewar holdings in Hungary and what had become East Germany-timber, farms, newspapers, breweries, and other businesses-had been confiscated by the communist East German and Hungarian governments.
By 1981, Otto Goerner had risen in the corporate hierarchy to become Herman Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's-the Old Man's-assistant. The title did not reflect his true importance. He was the de facto number two man. But clearly stating this would have been awkward. Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger was supposed to be number two in the family firm.
It had been Gertrud's very privately held opinion at the time that the issue would be resolved when Otto married Frau Erika von und zu Gossinger. Frau Erika had never married; she was called "frau" out of respect for the family's sensitivities. As a very young girl, Erika had made a mistake, with an American aviator of all people, the result of which was a boy, Christened Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. At the time, no one knew where the father was. Gertrud knew the Old Man could have found him if he wanted to, and concluded the Old Man had decided that no father at all was better, for the time being, than an American who might get his hands on Gossinger money.
The time being, in Gertrud's judgment, meant until the Old Man could arrange a marriage between his daughter and his assistant. He-everyone-knew that Otto Goerner was extraordinarily fond of Frau Erika and Little Karlchen, and that the Old Man thought Goerner would be both a good husband to Erika and a good father to his only grandson, whom he adored.
And once they were married, of course, it would be entirely appropriate for Otto Goerner, now a member of the family, to hold any position within the family firm.
The issue was resolved that year-but not in the way Gertrud hoped-when a tire blew on Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger's Mercedes as he and his father were on their way home from Kassel. The police estimated the car was traveling in excess of 220 kilometers per hour when it crashed through the guardrails of a bridge on the A7 Autobahn and fell ninety meters into the ravine below.
That meant that Frau Erika became just about the sole stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. What shares she did not now own were in a trust fund the Old Man had set up for Karlchen, who was then twelve. As expected, Otto Goerner became the managing director of the firm. Frau Gertrud believed it was now simply a matter of waiting for an appropriate period of time of mourning-say, six months-to pass before Frau Erika married Otto.
That didn't happen, either. Frau Erika was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. She turned to the U.S. Army to find Little Karlchen's father. He was located in the National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, under a tombstone on which was carved a representation of the Medal of Honor.
His family was located, too, and to Frau Gertrud it seemed that the Gossinger empire was about to pass into the hands of a Texas family of Mexican extraction, and that Poor Little Karlchen was about to be moved from the family mansion-Haus im Wald-in Bad Hersfeld to an adobe shack on the Texas desert, where his newly found grandfather would doze in the sun with his sombrero over his eyes as flies buzzed around him.
That didn't happen, either. Less than twenty-four hours after she learned that her son had left a love child behind him in Germany, Dona Alicia Castillo was at the door of the House in Woods, where she told Frau Erika she had come to take care of her and the boy. She was shortly followed by Don Fernando Castillo, her husband, Little Karlchen's grandfather, and President and chief executive officer of Castillo Enterprises, Inc. When Gertrud turned to Standard amp; Poor's to see exactly what that was, she learned that Castillo Enterprises, Inc., was a privately held corporation with estimated assets worth approximately 2.3 times those of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
Two weeks before Frau Erika died, Don Fernando Castillo took Little Karlchen, now renamed Carlos Guillermo Castillo, to Texas, and left "for the time being, until I can get a handle on what's what" Otto Goerner as managing director of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
"For the time being" lasted until C. G. Castillo came into his inheritance at twenty-one-shortly before he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. One of his first official acts in his role as sole stockholder of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., was to negotiate a lifelong contract with Otto Goerner to serve as managing director. It provided for an annual salary and a percentage of the profits. "Guten morgen, Gertrud," Otto Goerner said as he walked into his office. He was a tall, heavyset, ruddy-faced man who many people thought was a Bavarian.
"Karlchen just called," Frau Schroeder said.
"Why didn't you tell him to call me in the car?"
"He's coming here. Him and Fernando and two others."
"He say why?"
"He said he wants to show you-at the Haus im Wald-a new satellite phone he says you'll probably want to buy for all our foreign correspondents."
"Gott!"
"We got a charge for him and three others for last night at the Crillon," Frau Schroeder announced.
It was Frau Schroeder's custom, as her first or second order of business, to daily check the charges Karl W. Gossinger had made against his Tages Zeitung American Express card. It let the both of them know where he was.
"The one in Paris?"
She nodded. "And he still has rooms-maybe just one-in the Four Seasons in Buenos Aires."
"I wonder what our Karlchen is up to?"
"You could ask him."
"We've been over this before, Gertrud. If I ask him something, I'm likely to get an answer that I really don't want to hear."
Gertrud didn't reply.
"A new satellite phone? What the hell is that all about?" Goerner asked.
"Since you're not going to ask him, w
e'll probably never know," she said.
"Did he say when he's-when they are coming?"
"Today."
"He say what flight they'll be on? And can I make it to Rhine-Main in time to meet it?"
"He said they have Fernando's airplane, and are going to Leipzig-Halle."
"They flew across the Atlantic in that little jet?"
"Is that one of those questions you really don't want the answer to?"
"Another one is 'why Leipzig?' The last I heard, Frankfurt is much closer to Paris."
"We never know what our Karlchen is up to, do we?"
"Really up to," Goerner said. "As opposed to what he says he is. So when do they get to Leipzig?"
"He said it would probably take them an hour and a half to get out of Paris, and that it's a little more than an hour's flight to Leipzig-Halle. That was ten minutes ago, so they should arrive between ten-thirty and eleven."
"If I leave right now, and drive very dangerously, I might be able to meet them."
"Can you get them all in your car?" she asked.
"Probably not," he said. "If they have much luggage, no. We'll just have to rent a car at the airport."
"Or I could drive over there in my car."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"The last time he was in here, I had maybe two whole minutes alone with him."
"Don't let me forget to call my wife and tell her they're coming," Goerner said. [THREE] Flughafen Leipzig-Halle 1040 27 July 2005 "My God!" Castillo greeted Goerner and Schroeder. "Who's minding the store?"
He kissed Frau Schroeder wetly on the forehead.
"Ach, Karlchen!" she said.
"Where's your friends?" Goerner asked.
"Going through immigration. We Germans can't be too careful about what Americans we let into the country, you know."
"I don't think that's very funny, Karl," Goerner said.
"Neither do I," Castillo said. "But the facts are that as a good German, I got waved through, and my friends are being very carefully examined by the authorities."
"Just who are your friends?"
"One is an Air Force colonel and the other is a Special Forces sergeant."
"I won't ask you what they're doing here because I don't think you would tell me the truth, and even if you did, I don't think I would want to know."
"I'll tell you. We are looking into the oil-for-food scandal."
"We already have people on that story."
"And I want to talk to them, especially the guy who covered the murder of M'sieu Douchon in Vienna. And I want to hear more about what the Alte Marburgers were saying about sanctuary-"
"I don't think we should have this conversation here, Karl, do you?" Goerner interrupted.
"Probably not. We can have it in the car on the way to Bad Hersfeld," Castillo said. He turned to Frau Schroeder. "I don't think you want to be involved in this, Tante Gertrud."
She put both hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes.
"I wish to God you weren't involved in this, Karlchen," she said. "But since you are, don't you dare try to exclude me."
Fernando Lopez walked up. He wrapped an arm around Frau Schroeder's shoulders, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "Still taking care of ol' Whatsisname, are you, Frau Gertrud?"
"Somebody has to," she said. "Your grandmother is well, I hope?"
"Very well, thank you. If she knew I was going to make this grand tour of Europe, I'm sure she would have sent her love."
"How are you, Fernando?" Otto asked.
"I don't know, Otto," Fernando said. "I have the uncomfortable feeling that I have just become a file in some vast, Teutonically thorough database of suspicious people."
Neither Otto nor Gertrud responded.
Colonel Torine and Sergeant Kranz-who was towing an enormous hard-sided suitcase behind him-walked up to them a moment later.
"Everything okay, Seymour?" Castillo asked.
"Yes, sir. The authorities, who tried hard, failed to find any explosives or controlled substances in my luggage."
"Seymour, this is Mr. Goerner, who has been trying to straighten me out since I was in diapers, and this is Frau Schroeder, who keeps him on the straight and narrow."
"How do you do?" Kranz said.
"Herr Gossinger tells me you're in the Army, Herr Kranz?" Frau Schroeder asked, dubiously.
Kranz looked at Castillo, who nodded, before replying.
"Not exactly, ma'am," Kranz said in German. "I'm Special Forces."
"You mean," she asked, "with the beret, the green beret?"
"Yes, ma'am," Kranz said, "with the beret."
"How very interesting," she said. "And you speak German."
"Yes, ma'am. Most of us speak a couple of languages."
"And this is Colonel Jake Torine, of the Air Force," Castillo said.
"If you're responsible for keeping Karl-Charley-on the straight and narrow, Colonel, you have my profound sympathy," Goerner said.
"I think of him as the cross I have to bear as a righteous man," Torine said.
"Me, too," Goerner said. [FOUR] Haus im Wald Near Bad Hersfeld Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg Hesse, Germany 1310 27 July 2005 Frau Helena Goerner, a svelte blonde who was a Bavarian but who didn't look as if she would be comfortable in an embroidered dirndl and with her hair braided into pigtails, had lunch waiting for them when they arrived at Haus im Wald.
"Welcome home, Karl," she said in English, offering him her cheek to kiss as if he were a very distant relative entitled to the privilege. Then she did the same to Fernando.
"Dona Alicia, Maria, and your adorable children are doing well, I trust, Fernando?"
"Very well, thank you, Helena," Fernando replied. "And your rug rats? How and where are they?"
Castillo and Otto chuckled.
"Our children are here, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for them to have luncheon with us."
"Helena, you have to remember that your rug rats are my godchildren," Castillo said. "Bring 'em on!"
"Absolutely," Fernando chimed in. "The more rug rats, the better."
Frau Goerner, forcing a smile, turned to a maid wearing a crisp white cap and apron.
"Ilse, will you bring the children to the dining room, please?" she said, adding to everyone else, "I'll join you there."
She walked out of the foyer.
"Do you two have to do your best to destroy my happy marriage?" Otto asked. He didn't seem to be really annoyed with them.
"The both of you should be ashamed of yourselves," Frau Gertrud said, but she didn't seem very annoyed, either.
"I somehow got the feeling our hostess does not like my godchildren referred to as her rug rats," Castillo said to Torine and Kranz. "I will introduce…"
"You sensed that, did you?" Goerner asked, sarcastically.
"… you two to her when she gets her Bavarian temperunder control." He pointed to a door. "That's the elevator. The athletically inclined can use the stairs."
"When he was about nine or ten," Otto said, "Karl used to go to the stables, collect the cats-five, six, more-and load them on the elevator. His grandfather, who wouldn't let Karlchen use the elevator, and who hated cats, would summon the elevator, and when the door opened they'd all rush out into his bedroom. You could hear the Old Man in Fulda."
"He was a wicked little boy," Frau Gertrud said, smiling fondly. "Who looked like an angel."
"Is that a 'what the hell is this?' look on your face, Jake?" Castillo asked Torine, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "I was born in this house. I lived here until I was twelve." Castillo saw the look on Kranz's face, and went on: "Long story, Seymour. I'll brief you later. Let's go up to the dining room and have a beer. In a manner of speaking, I make it myself."
"If Helena offers champagne, Karl," Goerner said firmly, "you will drink it."
"Jawohl," Castillo said, smiling. He clicked his heels, and waved everybody onto the elevator. It was a tight fit, but they all managed to get on. The dining room
was an enormous room on the third floor. One wall was covered with a huge, heavy curtain. Castillo walked to it, found a switch, and tripped it. The curtains opened, revealing floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows offering a vista of gently rolling farmlands.
"Nice view," Torine said.
"Come here," Castillo said, "and Professor Castillo will offer a lecture on fairly recent military history."
Another maid in crisp white cap and apron appeared with a tray holding champagne stems. Castillo, Torine, and Kranz were taking glasses from the tray when Helena appeared.
"Ah, our hostess," Castillo said. "You'll have to forgive my bad manners, Helena. This is Colonel Jacob Torine of the U.S. Air Force, and Mr. Kranz of AFC Electronics of Las Vegas, Nevada, who is going to demonstrate the satellite telephone I'm going to recommend to Otto that he buy for the Tages Zeitung's correspondents. Gentlemen, our hostess, Frau Helena Goerner."
Helena had her temper under control and was charming.
"You have a lovely home, Frau Goerner," Torine said. "The view is spectacular."
"Yes, it is, isn't it?"
"I was about to deliver a little lecture about the land, Helena. May I go on?"
"Of course," she said, with a hint of a smile and a visible lack of enthusiasm.
"If you will look halfway across that glorious field of corn," Castillo said, pointing, "you will see a strip perhaps seventy-five meters wide where the growth isn't nearly as luxurious as the rest."
"Yeah," Torine said, curiously, having spotted what Castillo had pointed out.
"At one time, as difficult as it might be to believe in this time of peace and love for our fellow man, that strip was sewn with mines, about half of them Bouncing Bet-ties. They were placed there by the East German authorities-"
"That was the East German-West German border?" Torine interrupted.
"Yes, it was. May I continue?"
"Of course. Excuse me."
"The mines were placed there by the East Germans to keep the West Germans from rushing over there to take advantage of the manifold benefits of communism," Castillo went on.
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