The Hostage

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  “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 Göerner to serve as managing director. It provided for an annual salary and a percentage of the profits.

  “Guten morgen, Gertrud,” Otto Göerner 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 Schröeder 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 Schröeder announced.

  It was Frau Schröeder’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?” Göerner asked.

  “Since you’re not going to ask him, we’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,” Göerner 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,” Göerner said.

  [THREE]

  Flughafen Leipzig-Halle 1040 27 July 2005

  “My God!” Castillo greeted Göerner and Schröeder. “Who’s minding the store?”

  He kissed Frau Schröeder wetly on the forehead.

  “Ach, Karlchen!” she said.

  “Where’s your friends?” Göerner 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,” Göerner 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?” Göerner interrupted.

  “Probably not. We can have it in the car on the way to Bad Hersfeld,” Castillo said. He turned to Frau Schröeder. “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 Schröeder’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. Göerner, who has been trying to straighten me out since I was in diapers, and this is Frau Schröeder, 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 Schröeder 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,” Göerner said.

  “I think of him as the cross I have to bear as a righteous man,” Torine said.

  “Me, too,” Göerner said.

  [FOUR]

  Haus im Wald Near Bad Hersfeld Kreis Hersfeld-Rotenburg Hesse, Germany 1310 27 July 2005

  Frau Helena Göerner, 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.

  “Doña Alicia, Maria, and your adorable children are doing well, I trust, Fernando?”

  “Very well, thank you, Helena,” Fernando re
plied. “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 Göerner, 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?” Göerner 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,” Göerner 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 Göerner.”

  Helena had her temper under control and was charming.

  “You have a lovely home, Frau Göerner,” 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.

  “Karlchen, be careful!” Frau Gertrud ordered.

  “And just this side of the still-polluted soil there used to be a road on which members of the U.S. Army used to patrol. . . . This is really marvelous champagne, Helena! Might I have another?”

  “Yes, of course,” Helena said, and snapped her fingers impatiently at the maid, who hurried up with her tray.

  Castillo took an appreciative swallow and went on: “As I was saying, there was a road on which valiant Americans of the Eleventh and Fourteenth Armored Cavalry Regiments patrolled to keep the West Germans from escaping into East Germany.

  “One of those heroic young Americans was someone you both know. Second Lieutenant Allan Naylor came here just about straight from West Point, after pausing only long enough to take a bride and the basic officer’s course at Fort Knox—”

  “Naylor was here?” Torine asked. “Fascinating.”

  “As a second john, and later as a major,” Castillo confirmed. “And he learned, of course, the legend of the Haus im Wald.”

  “Karl!” Göerner warned. Castillo ignored him.

  “Would you like to hear the legend?” Castillo asked innocently.

  Torine was silent.

  “I would,” Kranz said.

  “Well, the legend was that in this house, which was known to the stalwart troopers of the Eleventh and Fourteenth as ‘the Castle,’ there lived a blond fair maiden princess who was ferociously guarded by her father, the king, also known as ‘the Old Man.’ He didn’t keep the fair maiden in chains or anything like that, but he did do his best to keep her away from the Americans, who, as any Frenchman and many Germans will happily tell you, are bent on destroying culture around the world.”

  “Don’t you think that’s enough?” Göerner asked.

  “I’m almost finished, Otto,” Castillo said.

  “I don’t think you’re being funny anymore, Karl,” Otto said.

  “Then don’t laugh,” Castillo said. “Well, one day, inevitably, I suppose, the inevitable happened. An American knight in shining armor rode up. Actually he was flying in the left seat of a Dog Model Huey. He set it down right there, on the cobblestones next to the stable.”

  He pointed.

  “He had several things going for him. He was an Army aviator, for one thing, and everybody knows they possess a certain pizzazz. Most important, he was a Texican.As Fernando will tell you, handsome young Texicans send out vibes that women simply cannot resist. And such was the case here.

  “He looked up at the mansion and saw the beautiful princess. She saw him. Their eyes locked. There was the sound of violins. The earth shook. Fireworks filled the sky. A choir of angels sang Ich liebe dich and other such tunes. And about nine months later they had a beautiful boy child who stands here before you.”

  “Oh, Karlchen!” Frau Gertrud said, emotionally.

  “Your father was an Army aviator?” Kranz asked. “Where is he now?”

  “He didn’t make it back from Vietnam,” Castillo said, evenly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Castillo said. “Lecture over. I hope you took notes, as there will be a written exam.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Helena said.

  “Is that a true story, Onkel Karl?” a very young voice inquired.

  It showed on Helena Göerner’s face that she had not been aware her chil
dren had been standing in the door and really didn’t like it that they had.

  “Ah, my favorite godchildren,” Castillo said. “Yeah, Willi, that’s a true story.”

  Castillo walked to the door and embraced, one at a time, two boys, one ten and the other twelve.

  The twelve-year-old asked, “What’s Vietnam?”

  “A terrible place a long way from here,” Castillo said. “Changing the subject, Seymour, what time is it in Washington?”

  “About half past six,” Kranz replied.

  “And how long is it going to take you to set up?”

  “That depends on where you want it.”

  “How about next to the stable? Where the knight in shining armor once touched down?”

  “Ten minutes. You planning to leave it there?”

  “Not for long,” Castillo said. “So why don’t we have lunch, then while I have a little talk with Otto, you have it up and running by oh-eight-hundred Washington time?”

  “Can do.”

  [FIVE]

  “A marvelous lunch, Helena. Thank you,” Castillo said.

  “I’m glad you liked it, Karl,” she said.

  Castillo motioned to one of the maids for more coffee. When she had poured it, he said, “Danke schön,” and turned to Göerner. “So tell us, Otto, what you heard at the fund-raiser in Marburg about the boys moving money to Argentina,” Castillo said.

  Göerner didn’t reply.

  “You said two things, Otto, that caught my attention. You said what caught your attention was they said something about, ‘Ha, ha, Der Führer was the first to come up with that idea. . . .’”

  Helena flashed him a cold look. “I don’t think the children should hear this,” she said.

  “Your call, of course, Helena,” Castillo said. “But when I was even younger than the boys, my grandfather, at this very table, told me all about the evils the National Socialist German Workers Party—more popularly known as the Nazis—had brought to our fair land. He thought it was important that I knew about it as early as possible.”

  Her face tightened and grew white.

  “You remember, Otto, don’t you?” Castillo went on. “The Old Man, sitting where you are now sitting; you and Onkel Willi and my mother sitting over there, and me sitting where Willi is. . . .”