The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

“Just climb over the seat, Jim,” she ordered, and then a six-year-old appeared in the open door.

  Mrs. Masterson put her arm around his shoulders and led him toward the door in the cathedral wall.

  As she passed Castillo, she said: “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Betty and the Marine.”

  Castillo didn’t reply.

  The only difference between the Masterson kids and Pevsner’s kids is the color of their skin. Same sexes, same ages, same intelligent eyes.

  Wrong. There’s one more difference: Some sonofabitch shot the Masterson kids’ daddy.

  Castillo followed Mrs. Masterson and the six-year-old into the cathedral.

  The President of the Republic of Argentina, whose face Castillo recognized, was now sitting across the nave of the cathedral with another man and two women, who Castillo guessed were the foreign minister and the appropriate wives. Colonel Gellini stood behind the President.

  The organ, which had been playing softly, suddenly changed pitch and volume, and Castillo heard the scuffling of feet as people stood up.

  Thirty seconds later a crucifer appeared in the nave, carrying an enormous golden cross and leading a long procession of richly garbed clergy, in two parallel columns, which split to go around the flag-draped casket of the late J. Winslow Masterson.

  [TWO]

  Estancia Shangri-La Tacuarembó Province República Oriental del Uruguay 1045 25 July 2005

  Jean-Paul Bertrand had been sitting in his silk Sulka dressing robe before the wide, flat-screen Sony television in his bedroom since nine o’clock, watching the ceremonies marking the departure of J. Winslow Masterson from Argentina, first on Argentina’s Channel Nine, and then on BBC, CNN, and Deutsche Welle, and now on Channel Nine again.

  Jean-Paul Lorimer had acquired a Uruguayan immigration stamp on Jean-Paul Bertrand’s Lebanese passport indicating Bertrand had legally entered Uruguay on July fourth, and another document dated the next day attesting to his legal residence in that country as an immigrant.

  July fourth, of course, predated by nine days Jean-PaulLorimer’s having gone missing from his apartment in Paris. It was unlikely that any party attempting to find Lorimer would be interested in anyone crossing any border on a date prior to a date Lorimer was known to have been in Paris.

  He could, of course, have picked any date to be placed on the passport—the immigration stamp and the Certificate of Legal Residence had cost him ten thousand U.S. dollars in cash—but he had picked, as a fey notion, July fourth because it was now his, as well as the United States’, independence day.

  Once Jean-Paul Bertrand had the documents in his safe at Shangri-La, Jean-Paul Lorimer had ceased to exist, and Jean-Paul Bertrand could—after a suitable period, of course, of at least eighteen months, probably two years during which he would be very discreet—get on with his life.

  Bertrand had been a little surprised at the amount of attention Jack Masterson’s murder had caused around the world. He would not have thought the BBC or Deutsche Welle would have had nearly the interest in the murder of a relatively unimportant American diplomat that they showed. Jack had been the chief of mission, not the ambassador, and Buenos Aires was not really a major capital city of the world, although, in honesty, it had to be admitted that its restaurants did approach the level of those in Paris.

  He was not surprised by the attention being paid by Argentine and American television. Jack had been shot in Argentina, which explained the Argentine interest. In all the time Jean-Paul had been coming to Uruguay, and especiallysince satellite television had become available, he had seen, with mingled amusement and disgust, that Argentine television was even more devoted to mindless game shows and gore than American television, which was really saying something.

  The coverage of the murder—and today’s events—by American television seemed to be based more on Jack’s fame as the basketball player who had been paid sixty million dollars for getting himself run over by a beer truck than on his status as a diplomat. They had even sought out and placed the driver of the truck on the screen, asking his opinion of the murder of the man obviously destined for basketball greatness before the unfortunate accident.

  And of course his fellow players, both from Notre Dame and the Boston Celtics, had been asked for their opinions of what had happened to Jack the Stack and what effect it would have on basketball and the nation generally. Jean-Paul had always been amused and a little disgusted that a basketball team whose name proclaimed Celtic heritage had been willing to pay an obscene amount of money to an obvious descendant of the Tutsi tribes of Rwanda and Burundi for his skill in being able to put an inflated leather sphere through a hoop.

  From the comments of some of Jack’s former play-mates, Jean-Paul was forced to conclude that many of them had no idea where Argentina was or what Jack the Stack was doing there at the time of his demise. One of them, who had apparently heard that Jack was “chief of mission,” extrapolated this to conclude that Jack was a missionary bringing Christianity to the savage pagans of Argentina and expressed his happiness that Jack had found Jesus before going to meet his maker.

  Jean-Paul had also been surprised by the long lines of Argentines who had filed into the Catedral Metropolitana to pass by Jack’s casket. He wondered if it was idle curiosity, or had something to do with the funeral of Pope John Paul—also splendidly covered on television— or had been arranged by the Argentine government. He suspected it was a combination of all three factors.

  He had hoped to see more of Betsy and the children—they were, after all, his sister and niece and nephews, and God alone knew when, or if, he would see them again. He didn’t see them at all at the cathedral. There had been a shot from a helicopter of a convoy of vehicles racing on the autopista toward the Ezeiza airport that was described as the one carrying the Masterson family, but that might have been journalistic license, and anyway, nothing could be seen of the inside of the three large sport utility trucks in the convoy.

  There was a very quick glimpse of them at the airfield, obviously taken with a camera kept some distance from the huge U.S. Air Force transport onto which they were rushed, surrounded by perhaps a dozen, probably more, heavily armed U.S. soldiers.

  That whole scene offended, but did not surprise, Jean-Paul Bertrand. It was another manifestation of American arrogance. The thing to do diplomatically— using the term correctly—would be for the U.S. government to have sent a civilian airliner to transport Jack’s body and his family home, not a menacing military transport painted in camouflage colors that more than likely had landed in Iraq or Afghanistan—or some other place where the United States was flexing its military muscles in flagrant disregard of the wishes of the United Nations—within the past week. And if it was necessary to “provide security”—which in itself was insulting to Argentina—to do it with some discretion. Guards in civilian clothing, with their weapons concealed, would have been appropriate. Soldiers armed with machine guns were not.

  Jean-Paul corrected himself. Those aren’t soldiers. They’re something else: Air Force special operators wearing those funny hats with one side pinned up, like the Australians. They’re—what do they call them?—Air Commandos.

  That distinction is almost certainly lost on the Argentines.

  What they see is heavily armed norteamericanos and a North American warplane sitting on their soil as if they own it.

  Will the Americans ever learn?

  Probably, almost certainly not.

  I have seen this sort of thing countless times before.

  The only difference is this time I have no reason to be shamed and embarrassed by the arrogance of my fellow Americans, for I am now Jean-Paul Bertrand, Lebanese citizen, currently resident in Uruguay.

  Nothing much happened on the television screen for the next couple of minutes—replays of the activity at the cathedral, the convoy on the way to the airport, and the far too brief glimpse of his sister and niece and nephews being herded onto the Air Force transport—and Jean-Paulhad
just stood up, intending to go into his toilet, when another convoy racing down the autopista came onto the screen.

  This convoy, the announcer solemnly intoned, carried the last remains of J. Winslow Masterson, now the posthumous recipient of Argentina’s Grand Cross of the Great Liberator.

  Jean-Paul Bertrand sat back down and watched as the convoy approached the airfield and was waved through a heavily guarded gate and onto the tarmac before the terminal where the enormous transport waited for it.

  The soldiers—he corrected himself again—the machine gun-armed Air Commandos were out again protecting the airplane as if they expected Iraqi terrorists to attempt to seize it at any moment.

  Now more soldiers appeared. These were really soldiers, wearing their dress uniforms. Some of them lined up at the rear ramp of the airplane, and half a dozen of them went to the rear of one of the sport utility trucks, opened the door, and started to remove a flag-draped casket.

  When they had it out, they hoisted it onto their shoulders and started, at a stiff and incredibly slow pace, to carry it up the ramp and into the airplane.

  The Air Commandos gave the hand salute.

  Some other people got out of the trucks. Jean-Paul had no idea who they were. They went into the airplane. A minute or so later, four people, two men and two women, came back out. They were followed by eight or ten other people, some of them—including two Marines—in uniform. They all headed for the Yukons and got into them. The remaining soldiers and the Air Commandos went quickly up the ramp and into the airplane.

  The four people who had come out of it watched as the ramp of the airplane began to close, and then got in two of the trucks.

  The huge transport began to move.

  Jean-Paul Bertrand watched his television until it showed the airplane racing down the runway and lifting off.

  And then he went to the toilet.

  [THREE]

  Aeropuerto Internacional Ministro Pistarini de Ezeiza Buenos Aires, Argentina 1110 25 July 2005

  Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF, who was wearing a flight suit, had been standing on the tarmac beside the open ramp of the Globemaster III when the first convoy had arrived.

  He had saluted when Mrs. Masterson and her children, surrounded by the protection detail, approached the ramp.

  “My name is Torine, Mrs. Masterson. I’m your pilot. If you’ll follow me, please?”

  She smiled at him but said nothing.

  He led them down the cavernous cargo area of the aircraft, past the strapped-down, flag-covered casket of Sergeant Roger Markham, USMC. A Marine sergeant standing at the head of the casket softly called “Atenhut,” and he and a second Marine, who was standing at the foot of the casket, saluted.

  Torine led the Mastersons up a shallow flight of stairs to an area immediately behind the flight deck. Here there was seating for the backup flight crew: two rows of airline seats, eight in all, which often doubled, with the armrests removed, as beds.

  Torine installed the Mastersons in the front row, where the kids would be able to see the cockpit, pointed out the toilet, and offered them coffee or a Coke. There were no takers.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Torine said. “Just as soon as everybody’s aboard.”

  Mrs. Masterson nodded, made a thin smile, but again said nothing.

  Torine went back to the ramp, where the loadmaster, a gray-haired Air Force chief master sergeant, was waiting for him.

  “How we doing?” Torine asked.

  “There was an unexpected bonus,” the chief master sergeant said. “The caterers’ lunch and dinner came with wine.”

  “Which you, of course, declined with thanks, knowing that consumption of intoxicants aboard USAF aircraft is strictly forbidden.”

  The chief master sergeant chuckled. “Nice food,” he said. “Chicken and pasta for lunch, filet mignon and broiled salmon for dinner. And very cheap.”

  “And the headset?”

  The chief master sergeant held up a wireless headset.

  “Thank you,” Torine said.

  The chief master sergeant gestured toward the terminal. A second convoy of Yukons and security vehicles was approaching the Globemaster.

  C. G. Castillo got out of an embassy BMW and walked to the ramp. A Marine corporal went to the trunk of the BMW and took luggage from it, then followed Castillo to the ramp.

  “Put that inside, Corporal, and then find yourself a seat,” Castillo ordered, and then turned to Torine. “Good morning, sir.”

  “How is she, Charley?”

  “Her jaw is wired shut,” Castillo said. “But she was awake and reasonably comfortable when I left her.”

  Torine shook his head sympathetically, and then said, “I spoke with Colonel Newley a few minutes ago. He assured me that the Gulfstream has been placed in the ambulance configuration and is ready to go wheels-up on thirty minutes’ notice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Chief Master Sergeant Dotterman, this is Major Castillo.”

  Sergeant Dotterman saluted. “The colonel’s told me a good deal about you, sir.”

  He held out the wireless headset.

  “Intercom is up,” he said, indicating a switch. “Down is whatever radio the pilot is using.”

  Castillo examined the headset and then put it on.

  “Voice-activated,” Sergeant Dotterman said.

  Castillo blew into the small microphone and then nodded, signifying both that he understood and that the device was working.

  The flag-draped casket of J. Winslow Masterson, on the shoulders of the honor guard of the Old Guard, was now very slowly approaching the ramp.

  “I better go up front, Charley,” Torine said. “Dotterman will let me know when everybody’s onboard.”

  “Yes, sir,” Castillo and Dotterman said, almost in chorus.

  The honor guard pallbearers slow-marched up the ramp and into the airplane with the casket.

  Dotterman followed them inside to supervise its placement and tie-down. Castillo turned to watch and saw that Dotterman was placing it aft of Sergeant Markham’s casket, and decided that meant they were going to unload Masterson first.

  “How’s Special Agent Schneider?” Ambassador Silvio asked, startling Castillo.

  When he turned to look at him, he saw that Mrs. Silvio, Alex Darby, and another woman, probably Mrs. Darby, were also standing at the bottom of the ramp.

  “She was awake when I left the hospital. Her jaw is wired shut.”

  The ambassador introduced Mrs. Darby, then said, “My wife and Mrs. Darby, if you think it’s a good idea, will go to the hospital from here to let her know she’s not alone.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Thank you,” Castillo said, and then had a sudden thought. “Where’s Santini?”

  Darby pointed.

  Tony Santini, an M-16 rifle cradled in his arms like a hunter, was standing on the cab of an enormous yellow fire engine.

  When he saw Castillo looking, Santini waved.

  “Alex,” Castillo said, returning the wave, “tell him thanks and that I’ll be in touch, please.”

  “We’ll tell the Mastersons goodbye and then let you get out of here,” Ambassador Silvio said.

  Castillo nodded.

  As soon as they had moved into the fuselage, the Old Guard lieutenant walked—more accurately, marched— down the ramp to Castillo, came to attention, and saluted.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” Castillo said. “That was well done. At the cathedral and here.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the lieutenant replied and then handed Castillo a handful of ribbon and a gold medal.

  “Mr. Masterson’s Grand Cross of the Great Liberator, sir. I took the liberty of removing it from the colors.”

  “Good thinking, Lieutenant. Thank you. No presentation box, I gather?”

  “None that I saw, sir.”

  Castillo looked around to make sure no one was watching, then put the medal in his trousers pocket.

  “I’ll see
that Mrs. Masterson gets this. Thank you.”

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, saluted again, did a crisp about-face movement, and marched back up the ramp.

  Castillo watched as he went. The difference between me and that natty young officer—when I was out of Hudson High as long as he’s been out—was that I had already fallen under the mentorship—General Naylor called it “the corrupting influence”—of General Bruce J. McNab, and had already acquired at least some of his contempt for the spit-and-polish Army and a devout belief in the Scotty McNab Definition of an Officer’s Duty: Get the job done and take care of your men, and if the rules get in the way, screw the rules.

  Ambassador Silvio, Alex Darby, and their wives came back through the fuselage.

  Darby wordlessly offered his hand, and then, after the wives had done the same, started to help the high-heeled women down the ramp. Ambassador Silvio put out his hand.

  “I expect we’ll be seeing more of one another?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure we will,” Castillo said, and then remembered something. “I won’t be needing this anymore, sir. Thank you.”

  He took the 9mm Beretta from the small of his back, cleared its action, and handed it to the ambassador, who matter-of-factly stuck it in his waistband.

  “Muchas gracias, mi amigo,” Silvio said. “And I don’t mean only for the pistol.”

  Then he touched Castillo’s shoulder and walked quickly down the ramp. The moment he had cleared it, the Air Commandos who had been on perimeter guard came trotting up to it. The moment the last of them had cleared the door, there was the whine of an electric motor and the ramp started to retract.

  Castillo saw Chief Master Sergeant Dotterman with his hand on the ramp control, and then a moment later heard his voice on the headset.

  “All aboard and closing the door, Colonel.”

  “Roger that,” Torine’s voice came over the headset. “Starting Number Three.”

  Five seconds after that, Dotterman reported. “All closed, Colonel.”

  “Roger that. Starting Number Two.”