The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “I always wondered what happened to him after he left the game,” Castillo said.

  My thoughts were unkind. I wondered how long it would take him—like the winners of a lottery or heavyweight champions—to piss away all that money and wind up broke, reduced to greeting people in the lobby of some casino in Las Vegas.

  And he wound up a diplomat?

  Oh, you are a fine judge of character, Charley Castillo!

  “Jack could have, of course, bought an island in the Bahamas and spent the rest of his life fishing, but he’s not that kind of guy. He wanted to do something with his life, and he had an education.”

  “The foreign service seems a long way from a basketball court,” Castillo said.

  “Not if your wife is the daughter of an ambassador— and, for that matter, your brother-in-law a pretty highly placed guy in the United Nations. Jack had a degree— cum laude—in political science, so when he took the foreign service examination and passed it with flying colors, no one was really surprised.”

  “You don’t think of pro athletes having cum laude degrees in anything,” Castillo said.

  Do I believe that?

  No. I know better. There have been exceptions.

  But the accusation has been made, justifiably, that C. G. Castillo has a tendency toward political incorrectness.

  “Once Jack was in the foreign service, he started working his way up. Quickly working his way up. He’s good at what he does. After this tour, they’ll probably make him an ambassador.”

  “And you think the people who grabbed his wife knew this story?”

  “Hell, this is the age of satellite television. The average Argentine twenty-year-old knows more about American professional basketball than I do.”

  Certainly more than I do. I have never understood why people stay glued to a television screen watching outsized mature adults in baggy shorts try to throw a basketball through a hoop.

  “There aren’t very many African Americans in Argentina,” Lowery said. “Even fewer who stand six-feet-eight and get their pictures on the TV and in La Nación and Clarín when they’re standing in for the ambassador, or explaining a change in visa policy. ‘Who is that huge black guy? Looks like a basketball player. Why, that’s Jack the Stack, that’s who he is, the guy who got all those millions when the cerveza truck ran over him.’”

  “That makes sense.”

  “‘Let’s snatch his wife’” Lowery concluded.

  “Yeah,” Castillo agreed.

  “So far, not a word from the kidnappers,” Lowery said.

  “Is that unusual?”

  “The Policía Federal tell me they usually call within hours just to tell the family not to contact the police, and make their first demands either then, or within twenty-fourhours. It’s been—my God, it will be forty-eight hours at seven tonight.”

  “How good are the police?”

  “The ones that aren’t kidnappers themselves are very good.”

  “Really?”

  “They fired the whole San Isidro police commissariat—like a precinct—a while back on suspicion of being involved in kidnappings there.”

  “Were they?”

  “Probably,” Lowery said.

  He looked thoughtfully at Castillo for a moment.

  “Have I made it clear that I like Jack Masterson? Personally and professionally?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “I’m worried about him, both personally and professionally,” Lowery said.

  “How so?”

  “The policy of never dealing with terrorists or kidnappers makes a lot of sense intellectually,” Lowery said. “But emotionally? My wife hasn’t been kidnapped, and I don’t have the money to pay any ransom.”

  “You think if they contact him, he’ll pay?”

  “I don’t know. If he did, he might get his wife back, and he might not. These people have . . . Just a couple of months ago, after a rich Argentine businessman paid an enormous ransom . . . after the kidnappers sent him his son’s amputated fingers . . .”

  “Santini told me that story,” Castillo interrupted.

  “. . . they found the boy’s body. They’d shot him in the head.”

  “Nice people,” Castillo said.

  “Who are entirely capable of doing the same thing to Betsy Masterson,” Lowery went on. “Worst-case scenario, Jack doesn’t get Betsy back, and it comes out that he paid a ransom. In violation of strict policy with which he is familiar. That’d mean he would have lost both his wife and his career in the State Department. Or he does get her back, and they find out he’s paid the ransom, and that would end his career.”

  A price any reasonable man would be happy to pay, I think. Wives are more important than money or careers.

  I wonder if Mel Gibson came to that conclusion?

  “You do have somebody sitting on him?” Castillo asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  It’s cop talk. The first time I heard it was in the Counterintelligence Bureau of the Philadelphia Police Department. Captain O’Brien ordered Sergeant Schneider to sit on Dick Miller and me until further orders. I was more than a little disappointed to realize he only meant that she was to be helpful, while not letting us out of her sight, and ensuring that we didn’t do anything we should not be doing.

  “Keeping him company,” Castillo said.

  “Interesting term,” Lowery said. “No. I mean, I try to stay in contact with him. But I couldn’t assign a guard to him, or anything like that. He has a driver, of course, one of those Argentine security people in civilian clothes. And armed. But he does what Jack tells him, not the other way around. But for one thing, Jack wouldn’t permit being followed around by one of my guys, and for another, I don’t have much of a staff.”

  Castillo grunted, then asked, “Is he coming into work?”

  “Yes and no. He comes in, but then he leaves. I know that yesterday he took their kids to school and picked them up. And he called in this morning to say he was taking them to school again.”

  “There’s adequate security at the school? He’s not worried about something happening to the kids?”

  “It’s the Lincoln School,” Lowery said. “It’s an accredited K-through-twelve American school. Many non-American diplomats send their kids there, and a lot of Argentines. Not only does the school have its own security people—the same company we use at the embassy, as a matter of fact—but a lot of the parents station their own security people outside when school is in session. It’s one of the safest places in town.”

  I don’t know what I’m talking about, of course, but if my wife was kidnapped, and I knew their school was safe, I’d send them—or take them. Make their life, at least, as normal as possible. Take their minds off Mommy.

  A very tall African American in a very well-tailored suit walked into Lowery’s office without knocking, followed by a small, plump man with a pencil-line mustache in a rumpled suit.

  That has to be Masterson. I wonder who the bureaucrat with him is?

  Chief of Mission J. Winslow Masterson smiled absently at Castillo and Santini, and then looked at Kenneth Lowery.

  “Anything, Ken?” he asked.

  “Not a word, Jack,” Lowery said.

  “I just dropped the kids at school,” Masterson said. “It looked to me like there were more Policía Federal there than usual.”

  “Could be, Jack,” Lowery said.

  Masterson looked at Santini.

  “Good morning, Tony.”

  “Good morning, sir. Mr. Masterson, this is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo.”

  Masterson smiled and put out his hand.

  “FBI? From Montevideo? I was just about to go looking for you.”

  “I’m with the Secret Service, Mr. Masterson,” Castillo said. “Just passing through. I just now heard what’s happened.”

  Masterson shook his head but said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “It’s the not knowing that’s getting to me. What do these bastards want? Why haven�
��t we heard anything from them?”

  You poor bastard.

  “I was going to suggest, Jack—even before Mr. Castillo showed up—that Tony get together with those FBI people,” Lowery said. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Castillo. Maybe you and Tony—”

  “I think that’s a very good idea,” Masterson said. “What’s that phrase they use in the advertising business? ‘Brainstorm’? Where are they?”

  “They’re using the DEA office,” Lowery said.

  “We could use my office,” Masterson said. “But it would probably be better if we went there.”

  Lowery stood up. He looked at Castillo. “I’ll have my secretary bring your frequent visitor badge up there.”

  Castillo smiled at him and nodded.

  “Excuse me,” Masterson said. “Mr. Castillo . . . or do I call you ‘Agent Castillo’?”

  “Mister’s fine, sir. Charley’s better.”

  Masterson smiled at him.

  “Okay, Charley. This is Alex Darby, our commercial attaché. More important, my friend.”

  Darby offered Castillo his hand. There was curiosity in his eyes.

  Is the friend-the-commercial-attaché curious about the Secret Service being here? Or the CIA station chief?

  “Hello, Mr. Castillo,” Darby said.

  “How do you do?” Charley replied.

  Now there was the hint of a smile on Darby’s thin lips.

  What the hell does that mean?

  The Drug Enforcement Administration office—a large room with a dozen desks, and a large conference table, plus three smaller glass-walled offices—was on the third floor of the embassy.

  The seven men seated around the conference table stood up when they saw Masterson come in.

  Three of them are wearing shoulder holsters. Probably the DEA agents.

  “Keep your seats,” Masterson said with a wave and a smile.

  There was a chorus of “Good morning, sir.”

  “I thought maybe if we all put our heads together,” Masterson said, “and brainstorm the situation, we might be able to make some sense out of it. Is that all right with everybody?”

  Another chorus, this time of “Yes, sir.”

  The man at the head of the table, one of those wearing a shoulder holster, stood up, clearly offering Masterson his seat. Masterson took it.

  “This gentleman is Supervisory Special Agent Castillo, of the Secret Service,” Masterson said, gesturing at Castillo and then offering his hand to one of the other men. “I’m presuming you’re one of the FBI agents from Montevideo?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said. “Special Agent Dorman, sir. And this is Special Agent Yung.”

  Special Agent Yung was Oriental.

  Not Korean, Castillo judged. Or Japanese. Most likely Chinese.

  Yung looked at Castillo with far greater interest than Dorman did.

  “I’m presuming you know Mr. Santini, our resident Secret Service agent?” Masterson asked. Both FBI agents nodded.

  “Well, I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning,” Masterson went on. “And two things, gentlemen: One is that you’re the experts. I have no experience with this sort of thing. And second, this will only work if you say almost anything that comes to mind. Okay, let’s start with what I sort of suspect may be the beginning. Does anyone think there’s anything but unfortunate coincidencein the three automobile accidents—the third on my way to meet my wife—I’ve been involved in in the past month or five weeks?”

  He looked at Yung. “Why don’t we start with you, Mr. Yung?”

  Two hours and some minutes later, Masterson himself finally called off the brainstorming session. Everyone had really run out of ideas—wild and reasonable—thirty minutes before, but no one seemed to be willing to suggest they stop. Masterson was no better off than when they had started, and everyone felt sorry for him and a little guilty that they and he knew now exactly what they had known when they started: nothing.

  As Masterson, Lowery, Santini, Darby, and Castillo were standing waiting for the elevator, and Castillo was wondering why they didn’t just walk down the stairs, Darby broke the silence.

  “I just had a thought,” he announced, and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s a couple of minutes to twelve. I thought maybe Mr. Castillo would be able to see something at the Kansas that the rest of us have missed. Would you be all right, Jack, if I took him out there for lunch? Maybe you could have lunch with Tony and Ken?”

  Castillo saw that Masterson was as obviously surprised at the suggestion as he was. Masterson looked like he was going to object to at least parts of it, but finally— clutching at straws?— said, “Good idea, Alex.”

  “We can walk over to the Rio Alba,” Tony Santini said. “And Ken can buy.”

  “I’ll come back for you, Jack, in time to pick up the kids after school,” Darby said.

  When the elevator stopped at the second floor, Darby touched Castillo’s arm, as a signal they weren’t getting off. The others did.

  When they got off in the basement, Darby picked up a telephone, punched a button, and delivered a cryptic message/order: “I’m taking your car; don’t take mine. I’ll be back a little after two.”

  When they walked down the row of cars, and Darby pointed to a Volkswagen Golf and got behind the wheel, Castillo thought he understood. Darby didn’t want an embassy car with a driver. The Golf had ordinary Argentine license plates. For some reason, Darby didn’t want to be seen at the restaurant in an embassy car.

  It wasn’t until the security guard at the gate asked for Castillo’s identification that Castillo realized Lowery’s secretary still had them.

  “Don’t give me any trouble about this,” Darby said, not pleasantly, in fluent Spanish. “All you have to know is that this gentleman is with me.”

  Reluctantly, the security guard passed them out of the embassy grounds.

  “About half of them are really nice guys,” Darby said. “The other half are like that. They love to show their authority.”

  “I had a little trouble getting into the embassy myself,” Castillo said.

  “So, from what you’ve seen so far, Castillo, how do you like Buenos Aires?”

  Castillo was about to reply when he belatedly realized Darby had switched from English to Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian.

  Darby saw the surprise on Castillo’s face and laughed. “You really don’t remember me, do you?” he asked, still in Pashtu.

  Castillo shook his head.

  “The last time I saw you was in Zaranj,” Darby said. “There were several high-ranking Army officers who couldn’t seem to make up their minds whether to court-martial you and send you home in chains, or give you a medal. Something about a stolen Blackhawk, I seem to recall.”

  “Well, so much for my cover,” Castillo said, in Pashtu. “What were you doing in Zaranj?”

  Zaranj was a city on the border of Iran and Afghanistan.

  “I ran the agency there. Whatever happened to that black guy whose knee was really all fucked up?”

  “If you mean, did he make it, yeah, he made it.”

  “Thanks to you. I was there when you brought the chopper back. He wouldn’t have made it—probably none of them would—if you hadn’t gone after them.”

  “He would have done the same thing for me,” Castillo said. “As to what happened to him, truth being stranger than fiction, he was—at least for a while— station chief in Luanda, Angola.”

  “I thought it probably was you two,” Darby said.

  “Thought what was?”

  “I hate to think how many man-hours and how much money I pissed away here looking for that stolen 727,” Darby said. “Langley was hysterical when they couldn’t find it. And then the search was called off without explanation. I was curious, so when I was in Langley a month ago, I asked. Strictly out of school, an old pal told me that some hotshot named Castillo had put his nose into agency affairs, and found it, and stole it
back, said action seriously pissing off the DCI. I figured that had to be you, particularly after he also told me the DCI had tried to crucify the Luanda station chief, who just happened to be an ex-Special Forces officer with a bad knee from Afghanistan, for giving intel to said Castillo.”

  “I’m not too popular with the FBI, either,” Castillo said.

  “So now what I’m wondering is what the hell you’re doing here, waving a Secret Service badge around.”

  “The badge is legitimate.”

  “I figured that. Santini would spot a phony right away. Or would have been told to ask no questions.”

  “I don’t think I could talk you into asking no questions?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “The President sent me down here to find out what’s going on with Masterson’s wife.”

  “The way you said that, it sounds as if the President himself said, ‘Castillo, go to Buenos Aires’; that it didn’t come down through channels.”

  “What the President said was, ‘I want to know how and why that happened, and I don’t want to wait until whoever’s in charge down there has time to write a cover-his-ass report.’”

  “He said that to you?”

  Castillo nodded.

  “Is that what you think I’m going to do, write a cover-my-ass report?”

  “No. I think what you want to do is whatever it takes to get that poor bastard’s wife back to him alive.”

  “Thank you,” Darby said.

  There was a long silence, and then Darby said, “What we’re going to do now is have a nice lunch, during which I will make up my mind what I’m going to tell who about you and when.”

  “You’ll tell me what you decide?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thank you,” Castillo said.

  IV

  [ONE]

  Restaurant Kansas Avenida Libertador San Isidro Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1315 22 July 2005

  “How much of that sixty million did he actually get, do you think?” Castillo asked Darby.

  They were sitting at a table in the crowded bar of the Kansas, smoking cigars with their coffee.

  They had been sitting for several minutes without speaking, lost in their own thoughts, and the question came out of the blue. It took Darby a moment to come back from wherever he had been.